The Malice of Waves

by Mark Douglas-Home

  Again he paused.

  ‘I can promise you – you won’t always feel like this. You will be happy again.’

  He hoped he wasn’t saying the wrong things. ‘Hannah, would you like me to switch off my torch – would you rather be in the dark? Promise me you won’t hurt yourself when it’s off.’

  Still silence and Cal said, ‘I’ll take that as a promise.’

  Now he couldn’t see her. A low, weak light came from the cave’s entrance. It made shadows inside like grey ghosts. Cal listened for Hannah moving but all he heard were drips falling and the lapping water which was starting to flow into the chamber. For the moment his concern was Hannah – the water level would take time to become critical. He wondered what she was thinking, what she was doing. Was she cutting herself? He imagined the drips might be blood, not water. He wanted to turn on the torch. Instead, he said, ‘Hannah, say something so I know you’re all right.’

  He heard her move. She coughed to clear her throat.

  ‘You don’t understand. It was me … I killed Max.’

  27

  A thin column of smoke rose above Priest’s Island. Lower down, against the russets and pale yellows of the land, it appeared greyish. Higher up, contrasting with the black clouds approaching from the south-west, it seemed cleaned and cotton-wool white.

  ‘Look.’ Helen nudged Catriona as they leaned against the front wall of the Deep Blue. ‘That must be Chloe starting her fire.’

  Catriona glanced up briefly before settling back and turning towards Helen, deliberately averting her eyes. She put her cigarette in her mouth.

  Helen said, ‘You don’t like Chloe, do you?’

  ‘What’s to like?’

  ‘You don’t even feel sorry for her?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘I’m not saying you should.’ Helen gave Catriona a quick reassuring smile. ‘I’m asking because I’m interested that you don’t, because I trust your instincts about people, because I don’t either. I’m wondering why that is, why we don’t feel sympathy for her, considering what she’s gone through.’ She watched the column of smoke. ‘I wonder if it’s her or if it’s us.’

  ‘It’s her,’ Catriona replied immediately.

  ‘Because of what she did, coming into the tea room like that, saying what she said?’ Helen glanced back at Catriona. ‘Why do you think she did that?’

  ‘Make everyone feel sorry for her, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s the funny thing,’ Helen said. ‘It didn’t, though, did it?’ She paused to consider the answer to her own question. ‘It should have done, but it didn’t. I wonder why that is.’

  ‘Because,’ Catriona said under her breath, ‘she’s a bitch.’ She glanced at Helen guiltily.

  ‘That’s it,’ Helen laughed. ‘You’re right. Queen Bitch.’ Then, on reflection, focusing again on the smoke, ‘But why would she want us to think that? We were sorry for her because Joss had been killed – at least I was – but not after that performance in the tea room. What impelled her? It’s odd, that’s all.’

  Helen watched the fire smoke and cloud creeping over the sky, darkening the late afternoon. ‘If it was your sister who was missing,’ she said, ‘is that what you’d do? Light a fire …’

  ‘Dunno.’ Nor did Catriona care, her tone implied.

  Helen carried on regardless, tantalized by the mystery of Chloe’s behaviour. ‘What’s a fire got to do with Hannah being missing? If she’s alive she would have seen the helicopters or the boats searching for her. If she wanted to be found, she would have shown herself to them. If she’s injured or dead, the fire isn’t going to help her at all. She’s hardly going to swim towards it. In fact, that’s exactly what she shouldn’t do since the tide’s coming back in and the currents will be strong. No. That’s not Chloe’s purpose in lighting a fire. She’s showing off, just like she was in the tea room. Chloe wants the township’s attention.’

  ‘I told you,’ Catriona said, ‘bitch.’

  Helen nodded and, in a quieter voice, said, ‘No, not like the tea room. Not like the tea room at all.’

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘I said Chloe is showing off, like in the tea room. But, on reflection, that’s not what she’s doing. In the tea room she wanted everyone to look at her. Tonight everyone will be looking at the flames.’

  Catriona shrugged. ‘So?’

  Hannah’s voice was weak and trembling, as if it was travelling into the chamber from a darker place where there was not even a ghostly light.

  Although a short distance separated them, Cal felt Hannah was slipping from him. ‘Hannah,’ he said. ‘Listen to me. You were eleven years old when Max disappeared.’ He was careful not to say died or killed. ‘You were a child.’

  ‘I killed him.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact and flat. There was no trace of recrimination or regret.

  ‘Tell me what happened. Was it an accident?’

  Hannah said nothing.

  ‘If it was an accident, there’ll be an investigation, but you’ll come through it, everything will be all right in the end – you’ll rebuild your life, go to university, have an interesting job, travel, marry if that’s what you want to do, have children. You’ll be like everyone else.’

  Silence.

  Cal said, ‘Isn’t that what Joss would have wanted – for you to get on with your life and leave the past behind?’

  Silence.

  ‘Did Joss know how Max died?’ Cal asked.

  Another clearing of the throat: ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hannah, will you make me a promise? If you tell me about Max you won’t cut yourself, will you? Promise you won’t hurt yourself.’

  ‘Tell my father,’ she said after a while.

  A cold chill came over Cal. Suddenly he knew what she planned to do. She wanted him to tell Wheeler because she would be dead. ‘I’ll go with you to see him,’ Cal said. ‘We’ll be together. If you like, I’ll do the talking, but he won’t believe me if you’re not with me.’

  Silence.

  ‘Hannah, are you all right? Listen to me, you can do this. We can do this. I’ll be with you. I’m not going anywhere.’

  Her quietness unnerved him. Was she cutting herself? When Hannah started talking again Cal wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or alarmed. Was this her suicide note?

  ‘I was so happy when Max brought me here …’ She spoke so softly Cal could hardly hear her. ‘I thought I was being grown-up.’

  Again Cal registered the lack of emotion, as though she had already lost feeling and all that remained to be spent was her blood. He had to keep her talking, even though he felt the sea water rising towards his knees.

  ‘Was that when you asked if you could spend the night with Max on the island?’

  She let out a brittle laugh and became animated. ‘I was so excited when my father said I could go. I should have known Max was lying when he said he’d look after me. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be straightforward.’

  Now softer again, as though she was talking to herself: ‘Nothing with Max ever was.’

  Another laugh.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘After we were dropped at the jetty, Max said we had to hurry. He wanted to share a big secret with me and I had to promise not to tell anyone. I agreed. Why wouldn’t I? It was an adventure, sleeping out, being with Max on the island.’

  Then, a pause: ‘This cave is where he brought me.’

  Another: ‘This is where it started.’

  ‘What happened, Hannah? Tell me.’

  ‘Max said he’d only let me into the cave if I promised to do something afterwards. He didn’t say what, except that it was a rule of his, a test that everyone had to pass before they were allowed to stay a night on the island. I had to give my word.’

  Her voice wavered at the memory.

  ‘If I didn’t, he said he’d take me back across the island; he’d leave me on the jetty to be collected; he wouldn’t let me see inside this cave or let me spend the night
in his tent. If I refused, it would prove I wasn’t grown-up enough.’

  A longer gap.

  ‘I promised and Max showed me in here. He said hermit priests had used this place as a hide-away hundreds of years ago and that a storm had covered the entrance, which was why its existence had been forgotten. Another storm had recently cleared away the rocks. I wanted him to tell me more – how did he know about the priests and the storms; how had he found the entrance? But Max said we had to hurry. The tide would be coming back in. We mustn’t delay, and anyway, I had to keep my side of the bargain. I had to pass the test before he would let me spend the night in his tent.’

  ‘What did he make you do?’

  ‘He took me to the sea cliff …’ She hesitated, the memory too hard.

  ‘Why?’ Cal prompted.

  ‘He wanted to see how frightened he could make me. That was how Max was – he was always nasty. Why did I think he would be any different?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He made me climb down a big crack in the cliff. It was just wide enough for us because we were small. He went first. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want Max to think I was scared. I followed him to a ledge where there was a big nest – Max said it was a raven’s nest. A rope was hanging from the top of the cliff and swinging just out of reach. Max caught it with a boathook.’

  A long sigh: ‘He swung out over the sea and on the way back he opened his legs and tried to grab me. He said he would drop me into the sea if I didn’t get on the swing with him.

  ‘Tell my father that,’ Hannah said, suddenly loud, angry. ‘Tell him Max was mean like that. Tell him he didn’t know Max, and the Max he remembers is made up.’

  Once more softly: ‘He never had a son like that.’

  Cal said, ‘I’ll only tell him if you’re with me.’

  ‘No,’ Hannah said, now firmly. ‘You’ll tell him because you’ll have to. There’ll be no one else who can.’

  She was right, of course. For a moment Cal began to wish he hadn’t found her. Then she wouldn’t have had a messenger. Perhaps she might have decided to deliver the message herself and to stay alive.

  Hannah was speaking again, quickly. ‘I was so scared. Max was swinging towards me, grabbing at me. I said I wanted to go back to the Jacqueline and I didn’t want to spend the night on the island. But Max just kept on at me, trying to pull me off the ledge. He was swinging in so fast and I picked up the boathook …’

  Cal listened to the water and didn’t dare to make another sound.

  ‘… I was just trying to protect myself. I didn’t mean to harm him. The boathook went into his eye. The speed of his swing drove him on to the spike.’

  Hannah stopped. Then, her voice trembling, she said, ‘Can’t you see, I was just trying to keep him away.’

  Then: ‘I can still feel his weight …’

  Cal waited for her to continue.

  ‘I let the boathook go and Max swung past me and hit the back wall. After he fell, he didn’t move. I didn’t know what to do. I thought he might still try to grab me. I kept on kicking at him …

  ‘… My shoes and gloves were covered in his blood. I killed him.’

  Silence.

  ‘Hannah, are you all right? Hannah?’

  He switched on his torch and Hannah covered her face with her hands. She was kneeling, sitting back on her legs, her left side leaning against the alcove wall. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as she twisted away. ‘I had to make sure you were all right.’ After he turned off the torch, an impression remained of Hannah being caught in the light and never being able to escape. He considered the glare that would be waiting for her outside, whether his reassurances about her being young enough to make a new life were misguided and whether, in Hannah’s place, he wouldn’t choose the dark.

  After a while, he apologized again. There was another silence before he said, ‘Did Joss find you on the ledge? Is that what happened next?’

  Helen excused herself when Catriona finished her cigarette. After so many dramas, she felt wrung out. ‘I think I’ll put my feet up in the chalet and maybe go for a run later.’

  ‘OK, see you sometime,’ Catriona replied before going inside.

  Back at the chalet, Helen read the case file on Max Wheeler then rang Beacom on the landline. Would he mind listening while she worked out some thoughts? She was coming round to the opinion that the investigation went wrong at the beginning. Why were the three Wheeler girls always questioned together? And why was their father allowed to sit in on the first interview? No attempt had been made to test the stories of the three girls separately.

  ‘I might have done the same,’ she said, ‘since the girls were young – Joss, seventeen, Chloe, fifteen and Hannah, eleven. But knowing what we do now about Max’s character – him being turned into a bully by Ewan – I can’t help feeling the investigation was overly influenced by the family’s show of grief, in particular Hannah’s distress. If they hadn’t been teenage girls – pretty, middle-class girls – would the investigation have been conducted that way? I don’t think it would. From the beginning they were regarded as the victims and the township as the villains.’

  ‘That’s not surprising,’ Beacom said, ‘given the history of antagonism between the family and the township. Also, the aunt’s car was vandalized that night. At the time, would I have thought there was a connection between that and Max’s disappearance? I’m sure I would, and David Wheeler was talking abduction or murder right from the start; so were the media, putting pressure on the police.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ Helen said. ‘Now, sir, would you mind going outside and telling me what you see.’ She waited on the phone.

  ‘Smoke, a fire,’ Beacom said when he returned. ‘Is that the right answer?’

  ‘Yes,’ Helen replied. ‘I think that’s what you’re supposed to see. Are there any police on Priest’s Island overnight?’

  ‘There’s a constable on the Jacqueline but no one on the island.’

  ‘In that case is there a RIB I could use, sir?’

  ‘Should be one.’

  ‘And two officers?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Can you ask them to bring the RIB to the old slipway, where McGill’s pickup is parked? Give me half an hour. I’ll change into my tracksuit and make out I’m going for a run.’

  A few minutes later, Helen called Beacom again. ‘Did anyone think to bring some night-vision equipment?’

  To Cal the sea lapping against the chamber’s walls was the sound of the tide flowing in as well as of time running out. The water was at his thighs. Soon it would reach his hips and, in time, he would have to move. But, for the moment, he stayed where he was in case he disturbed Hannah. Perhaps it was Cal’s imagination but he thought she was speaking faster as though the tide was carrying her along, hurrying her towards the conclusion. ‘Yes,’ she said, in answer to his question about Joss finding her. ‘And Chloe was with her.’

  ‘Did they climb down to the ledge?’

  ‘No, I must have crawled back up the crevice to the top of the cliff. I don’t remember anything except Joss and Chloe finding me there. I couldn’t speak. They saw my shoes and gloves, and asked why they were covered with blood. They thought I was hurt.’

  ‘Did they ask where Max was?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you tell them?’

  ‘Not straight away. I couldn’t. Then Joss sat behind me and held me and asked, “Is Max all right?” and I started crying. Joss said, “What happened?” and I told her about the swing and Max trying to pull me off the ledge and me trying to stop him with the boathook. Joss asked, “Where is Max now?” and I said he was still on the ledge. He wasn’t moving. I was crying all the time, begging Joss and Chloe not to tell my father.’

  As if wondering to herself: ‘Isn’t that mad? I was more worried about my father knowing than about killing Max.’

  To Cal: ‘Be sure to tell him that, will you?’

  Cal said nothing.r />
  Hannah had flashes of memory after that. ‘Joss taking off my shoes and socks though not my gloves – I don’t know what happened to them. I remember Joss going away, then Chloe. When they came back Joss sat on one side of me and Chloe on the other. They talked in turns, saying they’d removed the rope hanging down the cliff and dropped it into the sea. They had also dislodged rocks to block the crevice that ran down the cliff, making it look like Max had caused the fall and had become trapped on the ledge. Joss said people would think Max had impaled himself trying to lever the rocks out of the way with the wooden end of the boathook.’

  Cal was encouraged by how easily she was now speaking, as if the memories were no longer as painful. ‘What did they do with Max?’

  ‘They left him where they found him, up against the rear wall of the ledge by the back of the raven’s nest. That’s where I’d kicked him. The boathook which had fallen out of his eye was beside him. They said our father would never have to know how Max died so long as we all stuck to the same story. I had to tell him I’d changed my mind about spending the night with Max because I was cold and wet after falling into the sea and Max was being horrible and wouldn’t let me borrow his spare clothes. Joss and Chloe would back me up and say Max was putting up his tent when they last saw him. In fact, Joss and Chloe had done that and lit his fire.’

  Before going to the jetty, Joss and Chloe had taken off all Hannah’s clothes and washed them and her in the sea. She was shivering when she returned to the Jacqueline, which backed up her story about being cold and wet. ‘I dried myself with a towel, changed into my pyjamas and had supper. I went to bed by eight thirty. Joss followed me soon after but Chloe stayed up later, going on deck at nine thirty with her torch, pretending to our father that she had an agreement with Max to exchange “good night” signals after dark. None of us slept that night because we were dreading the morning when Max would be found dead.’