‘It leaves here in forty-five minutes.’
‘I bet the views will be gorgeous.’
‘They may be, but it’s too dark to see anything, and anyway, they’d be wasted on me,’ she said. ‘You know I get terrible seasickness and I’m frightened of boats.’
‘But you’ve put the patch on, haven’t you?’ he breezed.
Her hand drifted up to the little plaster behind her ear. ‘Well, yeah, but it just takes the edge off …’
‘You’ll be fine. Most of motion sickness is just psychological anyway.’
‘I dunno, Adi.’ She shifted in the car seat. She’d managed to put off thinking about the boat for most of the day, but this discussion was stirring unwelcome feelings. ‘It doesn’t seem “just psychological” when it’s happening …’
‘Hmm,’ he said, but there was something distant in it, as though she was being deliberately obstructive. ‘Never mind. What are you up to right now?’
‘I’ve been sat in the car brushing up on my Early Norse metalwork, since there is a very real danger celebrity archaeologists might attempt to have intelligent conversations with me about it.’
‘Ah yes,’ he said, then loudly performed the trumpet-driven theme music from Discovering the Past in the form of raspberries, eliciting shocked laughter from Fiona. ‘“And now, the glamorous Professor Iris Barclay fills us in about an exciting discovery from Britain’s mysterious prehistory …”’
‘Philistine,’ she hissed in mock contempt.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I hope your meeting with the great woman goes well. Make sure you put some lippy on. And laugh at her jokes.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Fiona, confused.
‘I mean,’ said Adi with barely concealed surprise, ‘Iris Barclay would be a great contact for you. Obviously.’
‘I suppose. She’s really highly thought of in feminist archaeology at the moment – her paper on gendered grave goods in the Tpaletske Roman-period cemetery was astonishing …’
‘What? No, I don’t even know what any of that means, you ludicrous creature. I mean a media contact. You know, for getting on TV.’
‘What? Me?’ Fiona rolled her eyes. ‘That’s an adorable idea, but …’
‘No … well, yeah, it is adorable, true, but that would be a brilliant move for you right now.’
‘You say the sweetest things.’ She laughed again, but she was blushing with pleasure. ‘No point making much of that, anyway. I’m here for Mads, and I’m pretty sure she isn’t going to want me hanging around her boss much.’
‘Hmm.’ Adi sighed, a tight little exhalation of breath.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Fiona, you should make Madison show you the dig. You should make her introduce you to Iris Barclay …’
‘Well, she will, of course she will …’
‘She will on her terms.’ Adi’s voice was tinged with strain, frustration, and ultimately, pity. ‘She should introduce you properly, put you together. It’s the very least she could do.’
‘What do you mean? Why should she?’
‘Because you’ve dropped everything and come all that way for her? Because it could be good for you, professionally?’ He snorted. ‘If Madison was a real friend, she’d make a point of helping your career.’ His voice was cold. ‘She never lets you in on anything if there’s any danger of her having to share any glory.’
She felt herself flush. ‘That’s horrid. Why would you say that?’
‘Because it’s true.’
Fiona tried not to sigh. Adi did not like Madison, and he wasn’t being fair.
Madison wanted something of her own. Fiona’s career had taken off in ways that Madison’s never had and Fiona knew she felt it. Iris’s patronage was the best thing that could have happened and, rationally or not, Mads was nervous and insecure about losing it.
Fiona understood Madison, even if Adi could not.
‘If it makes you feel any better,’ she said, ‘I’d rather be going to Zurich with you tomorrow.’
He made the hmm noise again, as though she had not really answered him.
‘To be fair, it could all be worse, you know,’ he said, relenting. ‘Beautiful Scottish islands and dead Vikings and buried treasure,’ and at this last his voice grew low, mimicking a pirate’s. ‘Arrr! It sounds awesome.’
‘I wish you were here instead of me, then,’ she said. ‘My feet are blocks of ice right now.’
‘You miserable cow. You don’t know you’re born. Do you want to know what I did in work today?’
She grinned despite herself. ‘What did you do?’
‘I gave a presentation on international insurance legislation as it relates to investment banking,’ he said, full of mock annoyance. ‘And it was every bit as exciting as it sounds.’
She giggled, shifting her phone to her other hand. ‘How thrilling.’
‘Nail-biting. Absolutely nail-biting.’ He yawned.
‘You know, I just wanted to …’ She was reluctant to begin again on this subject. ‘Well, about Mads …’
‘What about her?’ His tone was suddenly short, brisk. ‘Has she told you what she needs you for yet, or is she still being mysterious?’
‘No,’ Fiona admitted. ‘But it will be about that ex of hers – Dominic Tate. I know it.’
‘But something’s bothering you, isn’t it?’
Fiona sighed, looking out at the sea and the distant lights of the ferry.
‘No. Well, maybe yes.’ She scratched her temple.
‘Which is?’
She bit her lip. ‘It’s probably nothing, but it just stuck with me. She said something in a text. I asked her if she was okay and she said, “Why shouldn’t I be?” It just – I dunno, I thought it was strange, since she’d asked me to come up at such short notice. Like she’d no idea what I was talking about.’
‘Yeah?’ Now there was cool anger mixed in with the pity. ‘A tenner says you get all the way up there, and all this ex-stalker drama she needed you for is over and your trip’s been for nothing. It’s just that she didn’t want to tell you.’
∗ ∗ ∗
The ferry was called the Hamnavoe. With its blue cloth seats and polite safety announcements delivered in a soft brogue that was almost Scottish, almost Scandinavian, it was deceptively comfortable at first.
Fiona sat in one of the lounge chairs, the rain pattering gently against the darkened windows. Her fingers drummed on the armrest next to her. She was too anxious to read, to look at her phone – to do anything.
In the beginning she thought she would be all right as they pushed through the flat sea, but once they pulled out of Gill’s Bay and joined the tidal race of the Pentland Firth she could feel it, that sickening tug and rock, as though giant hands were pulling and pushing the boat up and down. She sat blinking and swallowing her excess saliva, fighting the dragging current of her nausea while her coffee cooled in front of her, untouched.
Through the window the vanishing harbour lights appeared and disappeared with the rolling of the ship. Somewhere below in its bowels, a car alarm started to wail, like a squalling child.
You have the patch on. And Adi is probably right. It’s just psychological …
Madison hadn’t responded to any of Fiona’s more recent texts. This was normal, she reminded herself, as there was no signal out on the islet the dig was on. But as seven became eight, then eight-thirty, Fiona had found herself growing uneasy, and not just with seasickness.
On an impulse, she jabbed Mads’ picture, lifted the phone to her ear. This time it went straight to her recorded message.
Hi Mads, where are you? Just tried to call. Are you meeting me at the terminal still? Fx she texted instead.
A pause before the phone chimed once.
Sorry – not ignoring u! Things r MAD here! BIG BIG FIND on site here at Helly Holm!!! Can’t talk now but SO MUCH catching up 2 do! See u in 30 mins! MXXX
Wherever Mads was, ther
e must be signal of some sort.
Sounds exciting! What did you find?
Another pause, then the chime.
Take 2 long 2 text. Tell u when I see u!
Fiona sighed.
All right – keep me in suspense! See you soon. Fx
∗ ∗ ∗
As Fiona rumbled out along the steel plates of the ferry on to solid earth, she was greeted by the sight of a picturesque stone town built into the side of a hill, the restless dark sea lapping at its edges. This must be Stromness, she realised, and the streetlights illuminated intriguing sandstone buildings threaded with narrow flagged streets, and a harbour full of boats, their masts a thicket streaked in moonlight. The stars above were hard, sharp and impossibly numerous, like sugar grains spilled across the sky.
Despite her journey, her doubts, she felt a little flicker of excitement, now that she was back on dry land. Fresh sweet air swept in through the open crack in her car window, tasting of salt.
Madison must love it here, she thought.
A great longing rose in her then to see Madison, and in that moment she realised how much she’d missed her these past two months. The reasons for their quarrel, which had made her so furious, evaporated in her mind as though they’d never existed.
They would have a few drinks and talk, and Madison would tell her why she had summoned her all the way to the very northernmost tip of the country, and together they would solve everything – whatever it was.
First, she had to find the terminal office, where Mads was going to meet her. She pulled slowly in front of the ticket office near the car park, gulls wheeling above it by the lights of the harbour.
And waited.
∗ ∗ ∗
‘Are you all right there?’
Someone was tapping on the driver-side window.
Miserable and furious, Fiona was still sitting in her car, in the dark.
She pressed the button, lowering the window, letting the cold in. An earnest man with a heavy, jowly face was now leaning over her, his hooded jacket zipped up to his chin and striped with hi-vis markings. The battering wind seemed to have no effect upon him.
‘I …’ Fiona wanted to cry, was aware of this as a building pressure. ‘I’m waiting for my friend – she’s meant to meet me here, but she’s not answering her phone …’
The other cars had rumbled away, one after the other. A small knot of foot passengers in weatherproofs – men, women and children – had waited patiently at the flat terminal building, new cars arriving to drive them away in twos and threes.
Soon all were gone, even the gulls, except for three men locking up the offices, who must be making their way home for the night.
And Fiona.
By then she’d been there for over an hour, with no word from Madison, and no answer to her numerous frantic phone calls.
‘Meet you here, aye?’ The man had kind eyes and a low, lilting accent – an Orcadian. Around him, through the gap in the window, the cold sea air blew in, stirring her unruly hair and the forgotten shopping bag with its celebratory bottles of fizz.
‘Yeah,’ said Fiona, already feeling calmed by the man’s measured manner. ‘She’s called Madison Kowalczyk. She’s an archaeologist, over at Helly Holm …’
‘Oh aye, they’re doing some work out there, aren’t they? Do you know where she’s staying?’
You know, thought Fiona, I do. ‘Yeah, it’s …’ She thumbed through her phone. ‘Langmire. The village is Grangeholm …’
‘Aye, I know it. It’s on the other side of the island. If your friend doesnae show, you can head out that way yerself. You’ll probably meet her coming,’ he said, scratching his head under his bright orange hood.
‘Oh, thank you. I don’t know what I thought. I just haven’t heard from her since before I got on the ferry.’
He nodded. ‘They do work some late hours out on Helly Holm sometimes. Are you one of them, then? An archaeologist?’
Fiona demurred. ‘Yeah. But I’m not here to dig …’
‘No? I hope you packed warm anyway. Ye’ve picked the time of year for it,’ he said placidly.
∗ ∗ ∗
After he’d delivered his directions and gone, she rolled up the window, letting the car’s heating once again flood the interior. She was overreacting, she realised, and making a fool of herself – if the others had found something at the site, no wonder Mads was delayed.
You’re just tired, she told herself. You’ve been travelling for two days, after all, and you’re missing Adi. A couple of glasses of Prosecco and a good laugh and a good night’s sleep in a warm bed will set you as right as rain.
Fiona picked up her phone again, tried to push down her annoyance. However busy Madison was, she should have let her know she’d be late. Fiona knew she was being treated in a cavalier – in a (let’s be honest) Madison-like way.
Say something, murmured a voice in her ear. It sounded like Adi’s. You’re here at her request.
But what would the point be? And why start fighting with Madison again, before she had even arrived at the house? Why spoil everything now and possibly ruin the whole week?
Fiona sighed, staring out across the blackness of the sea lapping at the harbour.
Check her social media.
Of course. If there was something going on at the dig, the team might tweet it.
Almost without realising it, she had gravitated to @HellyHolmDig, the Twitter feed for the dig Madison was working on.
Madison did not appear publicly on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, and had not done so for some time. Fiona knew that this had been hard for Mads, who treated all forms of social media with the narcissistic enthusiasm pundits on the television were endlessly warning the world against.
There were only two pictures today, all taken at least four hours ago in full daylight. Fiona tried to batten down her disappointment.
One showed the excavated end of some tapering shadow in the earth. This must be the Viking boat they’d found – the wood had wholly rotted away, leaving only its dark ghost in the soil.
Above it stood a man in a grey woollen hat, perhaps in his late thirties, adjusting some surveying equipment – squinting through the sights, unconscious of the camera. His eye, focused on the device, was a very pale blue. This was Dr Jack Bergmann – site supervisor and Iris Barclay’s right-hand man.
The second image was of a tray of rubbly pieces of decayed iron, little more than black nuggets of rust, being held up by a woman, her head uncovered despite her hair being tugged at by the wind, her smile wide and gleaming.
This was Iris Barclay, Madison’s famous boss.
@HellyHolmDig: A lovely surprise! @ProfIrisBarclay shows off rivets from rescue of 10th-century Viking boat burial! Rare survivals. #HellyHolm #Archaeology
Fiona thumbed through both pictures again while the wind shook the windows in her little car. She frowned into her phone, trying to make sense of things. The recovered rivets were nice – interesting, true, especially to an expert on ancient metals like herself, but hardly show-stopping. Even a professional like Madison would not have described them as a BIG BIG FIND!
Madison must be referring to something else.
Idly she tapped Madison’s Twitter handle in the search box: @MadsKow.
She knew there would be nothing from Madison herself, but there was a new tweet from a stranger, someone that had tagged her.
It was from @BH9JTqwwx – a fake account, Fiona realised, doubtless attached to some fake email address. The profile icon was a drawing of a sinister smiling man, his eyes whirling.
Fiona’s breath stopped in her chest. She felt cold and sick.
It was happening again.
@MadsKow YOU CAN GRUB IN THE DIRT TILL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH BUT I WILL FIND YOU AND CUT YOUR FUCKING TITS OFF CHEATING WHORE. #golddigger #youllgetyours
2
Grangeholm, Orkney, January 2020
Fiona’s mood ratcheted between anger and alarm as she drove, the road vanishi
ng beneath her wheels, her radio fading in and out into clouds of static. The asphalt gleamed faintly with what looked like gravel before she realised, with a little start, that it was road salt. According to the car dashboard, it was -1C outside. The cold radiated in through the windows, barely held at bay by the little heater.
The digging must be lovely right now, she thought ruefully to herself, as Grangeholm 7m Helly Holm 2m appeared on a nearby road sign.
Before she knew it she was passing a tiny, neat little car park with an information board, which then narrowed into a single concrete track. This continued for about three hundred metres before vanishing beneath the bible-black sea.
It was a road to nowhere.
She found herself braking, slowing down.
Further out, beyond the car park, there was nothing except for the rush of the waves, the sighing of the wind against her windows, and high up, perhaps half a mile out, the flare of a slowly revolving lantern – the Helly Holm lighthouse. It illuminated nothing. It was merely there to shine a light on itself.
Above the car park was a single sign:
Helly Holm – Please read safety instructions
This was it. The dig site.
She pulled into the car park, feeling the sea winds gently buffet the car as she pulled her coat on and crushed down her woollen hat before climbing out.
The cold was staggering, the wind throwing it into her face like a rain of tiny daggers. She pulled up the collar on her coat, quickly fastened it, her fingers already numbing around the buttons before she could thrust them back into her pockets. She’d left her gloves in the car. It was not a mistake she’d be making again, at this rate.
But still, she walked briskly up to the small concrete track, looked out to sea, peering into the velvet darkness. The islet was not visible, as the cloud was a series of thick, fast moving bands, but somewhere beyond the sea was Helly Holm.
She waited for a few minutes, feeling cold and disconsolate, hoping to be rewarded with a momentary clearing of the skies, a glimpse of the island, but there was nothing, nothing but the gleam from the lighthouse, lancing out then vanishing, teasing her.
Fiona sighed, then reluctantly returned to the car.
Night Falls, Still Missing Page 2