Night Falls, Still Missing

by Helen Callaghan

  By the time they’d returned from Langmire and discussed all of these new developments with the others, it was too late for Fiona to sort out a hotel room, and the others would not hear of it anyway.

  She was glad, in a way. A hotel room would have been very lonely.

  And who knew who could find her there?

  The archaeologists were in the kitchen, getting coffee and snatched breakfast prior to heading out to Helly Holm. Today was the big push, the attempt to remove the bones before the storm blew in.

  There was a strained kind of earnestness at work in everyone, and she noticed that nobody spoke of Madison, seemingly determined to pretend that nothing was wrong. The removal of the human remains from the dig still had to be attempted today before all was potentially lost.

  This embarrassed them all, she saw, but it was not enough to stop them.

  And after all, what did she expect them to do? Sit at home, drink tea, weep?

  Nevertheless, she felt a flicker of irrational rage. Her world was falling apart, and there was something hot and galling in the way other people’s continued to turn, unchanged.

  The first thing she did was phone the police again.

  ‘And did you have some information you wanted to share?’ asked the woman on the phone.

  ‘No,’ said Fiona, rubbing her tired eyes against her sleeve, ‘not since last night. I was hoping Inspector Linklater would share some information with me. About the case. I’m coming into Kirkwall now anyway because I left my car there …’

  ‘Well, it’s under investigation at the moment, and if you’re not one of the immediate family …’

  ‘The family aren’t here – her mother’s had a heart attack with the shock, and I think Mads’ brother is over there looking after her.’

  ‘I know, love, but …’

  ‘Look,’ she said with sudden force. ‘I came all the way up here to see Madison and I was the one who discovered she was missing! My whole life is on hold right now. I’m not asking for all the ins and outs – I know there are things that you can’t tell me – I’d just like someone to give me the basic facts. At the moment I’m living on rumours and speculation, and it’s driving me mad. Where the fuck is she?’

  If she had surprised herself, she seemed to have shocked the policewoman. There was a moment of silence – she had the sense that the phone was being held to someone’s chest, to mute it, and some lengthy conversation seemed to be taking place.

  Fiona let her head drop into her hands. She had to try not to antagonise the police. For starters. Her mind was drifting now, and to miserable and depressing places. Would they send divers out to the car today? Tomorrow? What if they all had to wait till summer to find out if Madison was down there?

  Surely not. Surely the sea could not be that cruel.

  ‘Hello? Are you still there?’

  The policewoman’s voice startled Fiona.

  ‘Yes, sorry, it’s just that …’ But she wasn’t sure she was sorry. So far, being apologetic wasn’t getting her anywhere.

  ‘I’m sure,’ said the woman, with professional sympathy. ‘So, just so you know, the investigation will be handled from Inverness now.’

  ‘Inverness? Why?’

  ‘We’re not set up to handle an inquiry of this type here. But anyway, they’ve arrived this morning and they’ll be wanting to speak to you. They can explain the process to you themselves. Fiona Grey, is it?’

  ‘Yes …’ They must have been talking about her.

  ‘You came up from Cambridge, aye?’

  ‘I did …’

  ‘And you’re still on Orkney?’

  ‘Yes. I’m staying with Madison’s team at Nordskaill House, near Stromness … I haven’t got the postcode on me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. We know it. We’ve got your mobile, it says here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lovely. Don’t worry. I know they mean to speak to you.’ Her voice was soothing now, and Fiona sensed that in that hidden conversation, there had been a sea change. ‘They’ll be in touch very soon.’

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  ‘What’re your plans, then?’

  Jack stood next to her as she switched the kettle on.

  At the kitchen table behind her, Iris was murmuring instructions to Callum, final remarks on the digging strategy, while Callum nodded wisely, his chin resting in his hand.

  Becky, who was walking by, slowed, paused by the table to listen.

  Iris did not look up at her. ‘Are the lunches ready, Becks?’ she asked shortly.

  Becky, with a long-suffering sigh, moved away towards the fridge.

  ‘Who, me?’ asked Fiona.

  ‘Yes, you,’ said Jack, who appeared to be making an effort not to notice Iris and Becky.

  ‘Um, I need to get my car,’ said Fiona, distracted by what she had just witnessed. Obnoxious as Becky was, she seemed to get landed with the lion’s share of the menial tasks at the dig – cooking, housework, taxi service … this, she knew, had not been Madison’s experience. According to Mads, Iris had liked her, encouraged her.

  Dominic Tate had told her that Madison thought her stalker was someone that was jealous of her.

  With a slight crawling feeling, Fiona realised that Becky fit the bill perfectly.

  ‘I realised I forgot something at Langmire,’ she said. ‘Madison’s hat. It fell off the bed in the confusion and Iris didn’t pack it. I don’t want to lose it. And I still have the key …’

  ‘Oh, you’re heading back that way? You want to come see Helly Holm? We can give you the tour of the dig.’

  ‘Won’t you be busy?’

  ‘Busier than a one-eyed cat watching three mouse holes.’ Jack smiled. ‘But you should still come. It’s an amazing site.’ He offered her a tentative shrug. ‘It might be good to see what Mads was working on, yeah?’

  Fiona had had it in her head to refuse, but after the night’s long, tossing, turning thoughts, she had realised something – Mads had wanted to show her something.

  Maybe it was time to start looking.

  Other than the police, she would have little else to do. It seemed unlikely, with Judy in hospital and Hugo with her, that she would be required to wait for her any more.

  I should go home, Fiona thought. Adi was waiting. Work was waiting. She was accomplishing nothing here.

  I will not go home until Madison is found.

  She stilled, surprised at the steely resolve in this internal voice. Because that was the answer. Madison had called her up here because she was in trouble, and Fiona was going to answer that call through to the end.

  She was going nowhere.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, and heard the determination in her voice. ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘Are you good to go now? We’ll drive you up to get your car …’

  ‘Oh, there’s no need to do that,’ said Fiona. ‘You’re busy.’

  ‘Not at all, it’s partly on our way. You can follow us back.’

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  She drove her recovered car behind their white van, towards the road that would take them to Langmire, where the archaeologists would board the boat to Helly Holm. The fields were snowy, empty, and that vast sky was full of scooting, turbulent clouds. The lighthouse flashed against them.

  On the fence lining the road there was movement, black flapping – a raven that had been resting on the wire lifted itself up with a harsh cry and moved off inland. Fiona watched it go out of the corner of her eye. Ravens, she thought, the feasters on the battlefield, the scavengers of the dead. It felt like an evil omen to her, and her heart sank within her.

  Yet, according to the Vikings, also Odin’s birds.

  That was the legend, wasn’t it? Odin, the Norse king of the gods, had two ravens called Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory, that he sent out into the world every day and who brought him back news of all that transpired.

  And it seemed to her, for a second, that its black wings were like a fluttering banner, calling he
r to act, but to do what, she didn’t yet know.

  She was so tired she might have imagined it, but she thought she heard it calling after her, long after she had driven past it.

  She said her goodbyes to the others at the tiny private jetty by Langmire, as they began loading the boat. Fiona would cross over to Helly Holm on foot in a little while to join them, once the tide sank.

  The boat jostled the tyres nailed to the side of the quay, making her feel queasy and nervous. She was glad to leave them and set off on the day’s errands.

  First things first. She had to pick up Mads’ hat and give the missing key, the one Dom had had cut, back to Douggie and Maggie. The bottles of Prosecco she had brought for her arrival dinner with Madison were still in the house, and she had resolved to give them to the Fletts as a thank you gift for letting her stay at the cottage.

  She would certainly never drink them now.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The house itself looked vacant, bereft. The windows reflected the cloudy snow, and they appeared opaque, like shuttered eyes.

  She yawned, caught sight of herself in the glass in the front door as she opened it. She was sallow, her hair sticking out like red straw, her eyes black-shadowed and tragic, like a banshee.

  On the porch carpet lay a courier’s note that had fallen through the letterbox – a package had arrived. It had been left in the shed around the back. She scowled at this, squinting. There was no sign of a sender or an addressee on the note. This would be the books for review that her boss, Maude, had threatened to send. She hadn’t thought Maude would follow through on it. She should have known better.

  She tucked the note into the back pocket of her jeans.

  On a peg in the porch hung Mads’ furry wolf hat. She picked it up, wondering. She was sure she had had it with her in the bedroom. How peculiar. The Fletts must have come by this morning.

  Surely it couldn’t have been Dom. He no longer had his key and she’d shut the window last night.

  Back here again, to this house. She sighed, closed her eyes. It was like she couldn’t escape it, there was always one more thing. She wondered if she should go up to the house, ask them before coming into the cottage, but it was just a waste of everybody’s time. She would nip in quickly, seize Madison’s hat, and then take the key up there.

  After that she would be done. She would never return.

  Somewhere between her ears, it seemed to her that the raven was still croaking, an insistent message that she could not interpret.

  Within, the house was as she had left it last night, except for a cold atmosphere that seemed unaffected by the heating. Dom had gone, she was sure, but still she checked upstairs, in the bathrooms, even in the cupboards.

  She wondered where he was. Had he handed himself in? The police had refused to be drawn on the subject this morning.

  It occurred to her that she was possibly standing in the middle of a crime scene, and that something might have happened here, or begun here, that had ended very badly for Madison. It might even have been happening while she was in Inverness at the Premier Inn, muttering and complaining to Adi about how inconvenient this all was.

  A cold flush of shame was moving over her. Her whole attitude, from the very beginning, was that Madison was being selfish and dramatic. She could see that now. And while she hadn’t said it out loud, she’d not stopped Adi or any of her other friends from expressing this opinion, not really. While Adi had been sniffing about Mads’ lack of mutuality, and Maude had been shaking her head at the peremptory nature of Fiona’s summons, had Fiona herself actually been not-so-secretly basking in the projection of herself as suffering martyr, willing to do so much and go so far for a friend?

  Wasn’t that the way they had always cast themselves – herself as the sensible one, the long-suffering one, the weak one from the broken home with the tragic past, and Madison as her confident, wealthy, thoughtless antithesis? And wasn’t the truth more fluid, more complicated, and more difficult than that?

  Yes, Madison had lied to her. It was undoubtedly true. But it was also true that she had been desperate for Fiona to come here.

  She stood in the middle of the kitchen and she wanted to weep in regret.

  Well, she thought, brushing a hand across her burning face, that will all change.

  There must be something I can do.

  The Prosecco was lying in the fridge. She had not even taken it out of the plastic bag when she put it in there, so she just lifted it all out, set it on the kitchen table. Other than that, the fridge was empty.

  In the bedroom something was different.

  The broken panel of mirrored glass in the wardrobe was gone, leaving only the wooden underlay behind, like a blind eye. Douggie must have come in and done it this morning.

  That was fast, she thought, feeling an unreasoning, rising anger. What was the hurry?

  Stop it. You’re overreacting, she told herself, as her eyelids began to burn, her hands to shake, because you’ve had this shock, and they’ve found, they’ve found …

  Madison, where are you?

  ‘Hello?’ came a familiar voice from the front of the house.

  ‘Hello?’ she called back, trying to compose herself into some semblance of normality. ‘Douggie, is that you?’

  What is it with them? she thought for a moment, filled with annoyance. The minute something so much as moves here, they appear.

  They must have driven Madison mad.

  ‘It is, it is.’ He stood at the front door and was peering at her as he came into the hallway, and she had the unusual sense that he was not entirely sure what to expect from her.

  She schooled her tiredness, her temper, away from her face.

  ‘I saw you were here, and I thought, you know, I’ll come down and see her …’

  ‘They found Madison’s car in the sea,’ she said, not able to meet his eyes, aware that if someone was kind to her now, she would not be able to hold it together.

  ‘I know,’ he said, sounding gruff. His gaze was also kept low. ‘Professor Barclay told me.’ He let out a long, deep breath, shook his head. ‘A very bad do. But no point fearing the worst till it’s on ye, hen.’ His hands went tentatively to his pockets, then out again, and she realised he wasn’t sure whether to touch her or not.

  ‘Thanks, Douggie,’ she said. ‘You’re right. We don’t know if … we don’t know anything yet.’ She took a breath, tried to pull herself together. ‘Do we?’

  ‘No,’ said Douggie, with equal stoicism. ‘Not at all. Anyway, I just wanted to say goodbye to you, and I wish you could have seen the place in happier circumstances.’

  ‘Oh, how I wish that too.’ She could feel it again, rising up within her, clamping her throat shut, compressing her breathing. ‘I … I have some wine to give you both.’

  He looked almost offended. ‘No, you don’t have to do that. You were barely here.’

  ‘I know. I only stayed one night in the end.’

  ‘So, you werenae here early this morning?’ His blue eyes were wide, surprised. ‘Maggie was sure someone was.’

  ‘No. Not after we locked up the house last night. But it was so kind of you to offer it to me. You’ve both been so good.’

  ‘Ah. Well. That’s nothing,’ he said, blushing. ‘Anyway, you’re very welcome. I know Maggie wanted to wish ye the best. She couldnae be here as she’s working on Stronsay today.’ He walked forward, let his rough fingers caress the blameless wood of the wardrobe panel. ‘You know, you didnae have to take the glass out.’ He gestured towards it. ‘I would have been happy to do that. You might have cut yerself.’

  In her tiredness, her grief, it took her a second or two to understand him.

  ‘Me? I didn’t touch the glass. I thought you did it this morning.’

  ‘What? No, not at all.’ He seemed surprised at the idea.

  ‘But … you’re quite sure? You didn’t do this?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  They blinked at one another, then at
the wardrobe, with its new freight of sinister mystery.

  ‘And Maggie …?’ Fiona asked. ‘Could she have …?’

  ‘No. She’d have known better. I was going to patch it up after you left, you know, for the next guests. Put some tape over it for safety. The new panel is probably going to get held up on the mainland now, you know, with the bad weather we’re expecting.’

  ‘But that’s so strange.’ Fiona stared at the wardrobe, their figures reflected in the glass flanking the central missing panel, their faces filled with a mutual bafflement. ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘I dinnae – I dinnae like to ask,’ said Douggie, his words stumbling in embarrassment, ‘but did you give the key to anyone else?’

  She felt her face flush all the way up to the hairline. She hesitated. This was the moment she should tell him about the events of last night.

  But if Dom Tate was telling the truth, and he wasn’t Madison’s stalker here, then who was?

  Could she trust Douggie?

  Or any of them?

  Bloody hell, Mads. Why couldn’t you just once, just when it mattered, have been straight with me?

  Would it have killed you?

  Douggie had stilled, aware that something was up.

  She sighed, thrust her hands into her pockets. Well, this part he was going to find out anyway.

  ‘You probably ought to know – Madison might have had a guest here for a couple of days. I think he had a key cut for his own purposes.’

  Douggie didn’t move. ‘A guest?’

  ‘Yes. A man.’ Fiona looked away. ‘I found out yesterday.’

  Douggie shook his head. ‘She’s allowed guests, God knows. Cutting keys for them, well, that’s …’

  ‘I can guarantee you that she didn’t know about it.’

  He huffed out a heavy sigh.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t explain why anyone would come in here and smash the glass and tidy it away.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets, peering at it. ‘That is bizarre, to say the least.’

  But Fiona suddenly understood and fell silent, chilled by the hugeness of it, the scope.