Blood Tide

by Claire McGowan

  Stay on a small, damp boat for hours, with no water or shelter? Still, it was better than the alternative, of being burned to death and running for their lives from one crazy person to the next. There might be a house close to shore, somewhere with food and water, which they desperately needed. If the islanders were all in the community centre, perhaps they could find somewhere to hide out till dawn. She nodded. ‘Maybe we can go around to the north, where it’s more sheltered. Does it still work?’

  Guy was fiddling with the outboard motor, pulling and pushing at things. ‘Think so.’

  ‘You know boats?’

  ‘A bit. We had one when I was younger, on the Norfolk Broads.’ A reminder of how little she really knew about Guy. She knew nothing of his family, his childhood. Nothing of what he’d been doing for two years. And yet she was the mother of his child.

  He pulled something, and the thrum of a motor was the most beautiful sound Paula had heard in a long time.

  The journey around the island was relatively calm at first. Waves slopped over the side of the boat, spraying Paula with freezing water, and the wind howled past her ears, and she still wasn’t sure they wouldn’t capsize, but Guy seemed to know what he was doing, guiding the small boat along the craggy cliffs of the island. She felt herself relax, just a fraction. ‘So what do you think? Who are we going to pin this on?’ Rory, maybe? Seamas? Rainbow? Not Mary. Mary was dead now. She swallowed hard. ‘And where’s Fiona? Why have we still not found Fiona Watts?’

  Guy said nothing for a short while, his large hands guiding the motor. ‘I hate to say it, but it seems likely she’s dead. Don’t you think?’

  Paula thought of the list. Fiona had known something was wrong on the island. But what had she done about it? ‘The Andrea Sharkey case . . . Fiona was unpopular here, Rory said, because she might have missed the post-natal psychosis. Maybe after that other case in London – if she lost her job and home over that – maybe she was reluctant to intervene again. So Andrea tried to kill her baby. And maybe – if everyone here is so paranoid, maybe they blamed Fiona for what’s happening here, everyone being poisoned, and maybe . . .’

  ‘They killed her?’ Guy finished. ‘It’s possible. Or could be Dara was lying, and the company had something to do with it. Maybe they’d kill to cover up what they did here.’ They puttered along for a while, thinking of that possibility. Where would you even hide a body on an island this small? Would Fiona surface somewhere, months or even years from now, caught in the Gulf Stream, perhaps, or tangled in the anchor of a ship?

  They had now rounded the north side of the island, where Fiona and Matt’s lighthouse stood, white against the dark. The bulb at the top in darkness. That would have to be fixed, once the storm had passed. But not everything that was shattered could be put back together.

  ‘What’s that?’ Guy was suddenly alert, rigid. Again, she saw the beat cop he’d been before years of desk jobs and paperwork. The instincts that didn’t die.

  In the cove they had just entered, sitting silent in the dark water, was a large white yacht. About four or five times the size of the little boat they were in. ‘Is it empty?’ Paula could see no lights, nothing to indicate people were there. Guy piloted them closer.

  He called: ‘Hello? Is anyone there?’

  No answer, but a purr of engine as the boat started up and began to move. For a moment she was relieved. Someone to help them, maybe. Rescue. ‘Someone’s there!’

  Stupid. The boat covered the water between them quickly, and Paula saw Guy’s face change from relief to a sudden stab of worry. ‘They’re very clo—’

  The ramming took her by surprise, and she almost fell in. ‘Christ! What are they . . .’

  Guy was gripping the sides of the boat. ‘They’re trying to knock us over.’

  Another shudder. The hull of the boat loomed over them. Still, no one could be seen. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Same reason as all of this! How good a swimmer are you, Paula?’

  ‘I’m OK, I guess, but wh—’

  ‘Take a breath! Now!’

  ‘Wh—’

  She understood why a moment later, when the final assault from the hull sent her flying, the boat flipping – she had a moment to feel Guy thrown against her, and to grab for him, and miss – and then the shock of the cold, and sudden blackness with a vague drowned light above, and the water was closing over her head. The last thing she saw as she went under was the name painted on the boat, in letters red as blood: Caoimhe’s Dream. Seamas Fairlinn’s boat.

  Fiona

  I was in my surgery when I found out about the symptoms. I’d been spending more and more time there, afraid of what I’d get at home. I liked how small it was, how I could lock the door, and the sound of the sea lapping nearby in the harbour. If something happened, at least I’d have a chance of getting to a boat. Not that I had many patients – people were afraid of me, after what happened to Andrea. They’d stopped coming, scared I’d report them, maybe, or that I’d make them worse. That’s why things were covered up for so long, I believe.

  The webpage was open in front of me.

  Symptoms of lead poisoning include: nausea, headaches, tiredness and lethargy.

  Matt throwing up his dinner, Matt turning down a walk, Matt refusing to touch me in bed because he was too tired. I can’t be bothered, Fi.

  Muscle pains. Flu-like fever.

  I feel like crap, Fi. I can’t do anything today. You go climbing by yourself.

  Impotence. Male infertility.

  The fact we’d barely had sex since we got here. The fact it had actually been worse than it was in London.

  Miscarriage. Stillbirth. Birth defects.

  That was the point where I stood up from my desk, holding a hand over my abdomen. Thrills of fear were shooting down into my fingers. Miscarriage. Stillbirth.

  Not now. Not after everything I’d done. I’d been so careful, but had anything got in? Water from washing the dishes? From the shower? I had to start using bottled water for my teeth, like when we went overseas.

  Had Matt been right, all this time, when I thought he was going crazy? Was there really something wrong on the island, and Niamh, and Andrea, and Jimmy – and yes, Matt, my Matt – sucked down with it? But maybe I was wrong. It was so far-fetched, so mad. Maybe there was something in Matt’s brain, some vessel that had burst, some tumour growing, or something from childhood, lurking there for decades. I remembered he’d had a medical before he came to start this job. Via his GP surgery, which happened to be the one I’d worked in before Anika and everything that happened.

  My fingers flexed over the keys. We had online log-ins to the patient records. What were the chances, in that harried, busy surgery, where the Christmas decorations were still up in February, that they’d remembered to delete my account?

  What if I could get into Matt’s medical records?

  Before Matt, I never realised how you can fall in love with someone’s body. I don’t mean just admire their abs or white teeth or cool haircut. I’d had that before, of course. I’d even had falling in love with what someone did, how nice their flat was, or the fact they’d read all the books on the Booker shortlist and had opinions on them. But with Matt it was different. I still reach for him all the time in bed, blindly, like a baby does. Wishing I could press my face into his back, cup my hands over his scapulae. Stroke his soft earlobes and bristly chin and breathe him in. He was my regulator, I suppose, in very many ways. Until he malfunctioned.

  Oh, Matt. I can’t explain how it was, how I began to miss you so horribly it felt it would break my ribs, and all the while you were beside me in the bed. Your smell was still there, in every pore of your skin, and your back was the same landscape I palmed my face to at night. Your breathing was the same, even and calm, but you no longer were. And then of course you started sleeping on the sofa, and
then at the boatshed, and then you weren’t sleeping at all, and your blue eyes grew red and sunken.

  I was trying to save you. I know that. I hope you know it too. I’d do it again, despite everything that happened. Because there is only one thing I can’t bear, and that’s not even being able to try.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Arms were pulling her from the water. She could hear voices, the sounds blurred. A woman. A man. Maybe two men. ‘. . . shit, I lost him . . .’

  ‘. . . Where did he . . .’

  ‘Bollocks, I think he went under.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Boys, please. Language.’

  She felt something rise up in her throat, and she turned her head to the side – everything hurt – and retched up saltwater onto the white plastic surface she was lying on. A boat. Deck of a boat. They’d dragged her on. And the boat must belong to . . .

  ‘Easy, easy.’ Someone was holding her wrists as she tried to get up. ‘You’ve swallowed about half a gallon of the Atlantic; you’re not going anywhere.’

  Paula opened her eyes, which stung with salt, and tried to make sense of where she was. The deck of the bigger boat, yes. Darkness except for one dim light overhead. But it was enough to show her the faces of the three people who’d rammed them, although the light did not help her make sense of it. What were those three doing together? Her brain couldn’t take it in. Then another thought hooked into her, pulling her flesh like cold steel. ‘Where’s Guy?’ Her voice was croaky.

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Rory shortly. He was one of the three, his red hair flattened and damp, his clothes sodden. ‘Gone under.’

  Paula strained up, trying to see over the side, and was held down again by the strong hands. She blinked at Rainbow, who was the second person. ‘What are you doing here?’ Where was Guy?

  ‘Same thing as us,’ said Seamas Fairlinn, who was the third. ‘Trying to keep the peace.’

  She spat out more water before speaking again. ‘People are dying.’

  He tutted. ‘Ah now, Doctor, that just isn’t true. Mary O’Neill, that’s entirely of her own doing. Poor woman.’

  ‘At the plant – we saw . . .’

  Rainbow shook her head, her long grey hair lifting in the breeze. There was a scabbed-over cut above her eyebrow. ‘Things got out of hand, that’s all. The workers are locked up for their own safety. Nothing strange about that.’

  ‘Matt. Matt Andrews is dead.’

  Seamas said: ‘Drowned, most likely. Poor fella. Who knows what even happened to him – fell off the top of that lighthouse somehow. Fell, or jumped, or who knows. Poor lad wasn’t in his right mind.’

  Paula didn’t believe any of that, but how could she prove it? ‘And someone burned his body. You.’ She glared at Rory. ‘You did it.’ It made sense – that fire had started with alcohol, not petrol. And Rory nowhere to be seen.

  He ignored her. He was peering into the water, still speaking to Seamas. ‘I didn’t see him go down. He could be round the hull somewhere.’

  ‘Then look, for Christ’s sake,’ Seamas said with irritation. Rory leaned over, shining the torch. That was it, Paula’s brain said. Guy would be hiding somewhere, ready to get her out of this, it would all be fine. He would be fine.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she got out. ‘I don’t understand. Why did you even call the police over in the first place?’

  ‘You were supposed to go back to the mainland and let us find them ourselves,’ said Seamas irritably. ‘You weren’t meant to stay, not during the worst bloody weather in thirty years.’

  ‘You killed them? Why?’

  ‘We didn’t kill them,’ said Rainbow, also sounding irritated. ‘Are you not listening? We’d no more idea where they were than you did. We just didn’t want you asking questions. The problem had been dealt with. There was no need to involve the authorities.’

  ‘Problem? You mean your company that’s leaking toxins into your water supply?’

  ‘It’s been fixed, like I said.’

  ‘It won’t be fixed for years! I don’t understand. People are getting sick. Don’t you think they deserve compensation, even?’

  She snorted. ‘Is that all you think people need? Money? Dr Maguire, I came to this island for a haven, and I found it. Seamas’s people, they’ve been living out here for a thousand years. We aren’t giving it up, not without a fight. Sure, we messed up with the chemical spill, but we’ve done our best to clean it up. How was I meant to know Matt was right? He sounded like a crazy person.’

  ‘That company’s keeping the island alive,’ Seamas said. ‘The children, they’d have left long ago otherwise. It’s jobs. It’s lives. It’s everything. My daughter, she’d still be alive if the plant was here then. It means my boy can stay. It means we’ll survive, for another generation. One mistake is all they made. They’d have fixed it, had Andrews not gone off like a madman, involving the press. Least your woman O’Neill destroyed the evidence. It was all there for you, nice and neat. Their bodies would wash up, sooner or later, and it’d all be clear. The glass, the blood in the house – well, we could explain that away. Glass broke in the storm. Blood – maybe she cut herself. But no, you had to come round interfering. Outsiders.’ He spat the word.

  ‘Bodies?’ Paula was thinking hard, but her mind felt like sludge. Where was Guy? ‘You mean Fiona’s dead too? You killed her?’

  ‘For the love of Pete. We didn’t kill her! We haven’t killed anyone.’ Rainbow shook her head, like a teacher when you hadn’t done your homework. ‘We told you the truth. Rory found the lighthouse locked up that morning, so he went to get Seamas and Colm, and they broke the door in. No one there, just the bulb all smashed. Both of them gone. Matt must have been in the sea already. She fell in too, I guess. I don’t know what happened, but we didn’t need you here poking your neb in.’

  Paula glared at them. ‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

  Rory looked up sharply. ‘Pregnant?’

  Seamas narrowed his eyes at Paula. ‘And how would you know a thing like that?’

  ‘I spoke to her doctor on the mainland. So I hope for your sakes you’re not lying, that you haven’t hurt her.’

  Silence. Rory had turned even paler than usual. Seamas had the wheel, and Rainbow was kneeling over Paula, so that her grey hair almost touched the wet deck. She stood up heavily, and went to Seamas. ‘She knows a lot,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I know,’ he muttered. ‘Let me think. We have to deal with this.’ Paula felt panic rise like floodwater. Where was Fiona, then, if they didn’t have her? And what would they do to Paula herself now they’d caught her? They’d pulled her from the sea, that had to count for something. And where the hell was Guy?

  Rory had come back up, making a scraping noise on the hull. ‘Eh . . . no sign of him. But I found this, floating in the water.’

  He held his hand out, something in it. Green plastic. A hotel key, with the number 2 on it, the ink smudging in the seawater that saturated it.

  Paula struggled out of Rainbow’s strong, capable hands, and ran to the side. ‘Guy. Guy!’ Her voice echoed over the water. It sounded like there was nothing out there at all. The water was ink, no swirls or bubbles to show anyone had gone into it. He’d be . . . he could swim . . . he . . .

  She turned, wordless, to Rory. He was looking oddly sympathetic, his hair flat and damp. ‘Look, I’m sorry. We have to go now.’

  ‘What? No! We can’t leave, he’s still down there, he’s . . .’

  ‘Stop it, Dr Maguire.’ Seamas Fairlinn was starting the engine. ‘It’ll be light soon enough. We need to get this all cleaned up before the rest of your people arrive. We don’t have a lot of time.’

  ‘What do you mean, cleaned up?’ Stupidly, she thought he meant the blood. The blood and the fire and the stains of this long, terrible night
. His hand closed on her arm, solid as a steel bar.

  ‘It was your own fault. You should have gone back. You don’t belong here. Neither did Matt or Fiona.’ He opened the door of a small dark cabin, and propelled Paula through it. ‘That’s what no one understands. You can’t just move to a place like this. You have to earn it. Earn it the hard way.’ The door slammed behind her. ‘You see, whatever you do, however hard you try, you’ll always be an outsider here.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  There were bones under her feet. White, crunching. Only this time it wasn’t going away, it wasn’t a nightmare but reality, sharp and clear. The night air was chill, but the storm had calmed now. Paula hardly dared to look down at what she was walking on. It couldn’t be bones. Think, Maguire. Maybe fish or animals or something or . . .

  Coral. Of course. The famous coral beach on the island’s south side, near the marina where they’d moored the boat. Last stop before an ocean of dark, cold water, and then America. She was walking over their skeletons, dried out and bleached, sharp as knives on her shoeless feet, Rory pushing her on from time to time, gentle but insistent, as she stumbled. She remembered it – that last summer. Her not even thirteen. Tall, skinny, pale. Legs white as bone. Plunging into the water, cold as it was. A fearless girl, right on the edge of things. Breasts just starting to swell under her conservative one-piece swimsuit. Hair plaited, slick with water down her back. Looking up at it waving like seaweed as she ploughed the depths of the cold sea. It was hard to explain why she’d done it – some crazy impulse, to push herself as far out and as deep down as she could. Feeling the ocean turn colder with every stroke, gripping you. Almost loving, in its way.

  Paula. Paula. Her mother, shouting from the shore. A slim figure in a green print dress. Always so beautiful. Her own red hair flying around her in the wind. Holding up a threadbare beach towel. Don’t go out so far. Come in, pet, come in. For a moment, which she still remembered almost twenty years later, she’d been tempted to go on. A mermaid, not a girl, among the white fish and the fronds of seaweed. Then she’d turned back, swimming for shore in long, strong strokes. Even from that far away she could feel her mother’s relief. The comfort of it, knowing someone was waiting for you on the shore, with a towel and a warm hug and the promise of salty chips later. It was worth it, the icy grip of the ocean, for how good you felt when it ended. How alive you were, now death had touched you all over.