Night Falls, Still Missing

by Helen Callaghan

He’d passed her in the corridor, as she’d sat outside Madison’s room, waiting for him to go. Their eyes, despite both of their best efforts, met.

  She’d watched him try to muster up some kind of smug, petulant remark, some expression of his old contempt, and fail. Instead he’d merely given the tiniest nod as she met him gaze for gaze, and walked past her.

  Well, she thought. I am a killer now, I suppose. And Hugo has always had an unerring sense of his own self-preservation.

  ‘He brought me Percy Pigs,’ said Madison, weakly shaking the little bag of sweets in her hand. ‘I suppose I must have given him a real fright.’

  Fiona smiled at her. She might despise him, but he was still Mads’ brother. It would be good if those two could come to some sort of understanding.

  ‘When did you know something was up?’ she asked. ‘You know, at the dig?’

  ‘Straight away.’

  Fiona raised an eyebrow. ‘You never said anything to me about it.’

  Mads looked at her for a long moment.

  ‘I didn’t want to admit it.’ Her bruised mouth turned down, as though this admission tasted sour. ‘Getting this job was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me.’ She offered Fiona a crooked, secretive smile. ‘I could tell you were impressed.’

  ‘I was. Of course I was. But Mads, you don’t need to impress me …’

  ‘I know I don’t,’ she said, flicking the idea away. ‘It’s me, not you. I get it. But see, the thing is, you’ve never understood how intimidating you are. You think you’re still that little girl from the estate, from the bad home. But it’s not true. It’s not been true for years and years now and it makes me absolutely crazy when you pretend it is.

  ‘You’re like … like this machine, that people just promote and praise and admire. It’s not your fault, but I don’t think you’ve ever appreciated what it feels like to constantly be playing catch-up.’

  ‘Mads …’

  ‘No, no, let’s be real.’ Madison held up a quelling hand. ‘I know you work hard and are super-smart and blah blah blah. I get it. I do. But you know … we started out at the same time, and, well,’ she looked away, her cut mouth twisting with restrained emotions. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to watch.’

  ‘Mads …’

  ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.’ She scowled, sniffed. ‘It may mean it’s difficult to cope with you when you rub it in with impromptu celebration drinks in London with no warning …’

  Fiona flushed. ‘I’m sorry, Mads. But if I can’t share my good news with you – I mean, what are we doing?’

  Madison shrugged. Her green eyes were shining, and wouldn’t quite meet Fiona’s. ‘I dunno. I suppose that’s true. It’s just … hard to process that news sometimes, you know?’ She swiped at her face with the back of her hand. ‘And maybe … maybe I could be less of a jealous cow.’ Madison sniffed again. ‘I’m sorry. I know I hurt your feelings that day, and I never apologised.’ She half-smiled. ‘If it makes you feel better, it totally ruined Prague for me.’

  Fiona was amazed and touched. This was the most frank she’d ever heard Madison be about this; this massive white elephant that had stood between them. ‘All right,’ she said, softening. ‘If Prague was left in ruins, I consider myself avenged.’

  Madison let her head fall back on the pillow and began to chuckle, before bursting out a gasp of pain. ‘Ow, these fucking ribs! Ow … ow. I hate my life.’

  ‘Do you think Jack knew Iris was planting these finds, then?’ asked Fiona eventually.

  ‘Yeah.’ Madison scratched behind her ear. ‘Or at least he suspected. I don’t think he was ever actively part of it. But he knew all right.’ She dropped her hand, sighed in weary disgust. ‘They all knew. It was just that they didn’t dare say anything.’

  ‘Why didn’t he tell anyone, though?’ asked Fiona. She was surprised at how much it hurt, realising this about him. She blew out softly, thinking. ‘Probably because they’d have looked at him too. Even if he was found not guilty, everyone would always have wondered …’

  ‘That’s part of it.’ Madison fell silent for a moment. ‘Personally, I think he didn’t say anything because, deep down, as much as he resented all her efforts to control him, he loved her.’

  ‘Really?’ Fiona frowned.

  Would you call that love? Iris had systematically run off all his other lovers through threat, manipulation and deceit, while pretending their relationship was platonic.

  If that was love, it was from the same family as Dom Tate’s love for Madison – a dire, toxic, controlling emotion that cared nothing for its object; something better exorcised than indulged.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Madison gave a wise nod, her head only slightly stiff. ‘This was the thing with Iris, the crazy, stupid thing. If she’d only ever faked the Jesmond Hill torc, she would have got away with it. If she’d been able to love Jack without trying to own him, they would have ended up together. Even this dig now – you say they found this gorgeous little silver hoard, a woman warrior grave everyone’s going to be analysing and talking about for years, the TV stuff, the academic success – it should have been enough. But, somehow it just wasn’t.’ She made a helpless gesture. ‘It was just the way she was built.’

  Silence fell. Fiona was remembering that last moment, that gritted-teeth rage, the falling silver of the wrench, the way Iris’s chest had resisted then yielded as Fiona drove the spike into her heart.

  She was remembering it every few minutes, with the steady, remorseless predictability of Helly Holm’s lantern. Then, after a little while, she remembered it again. Then again.

  Without being told, she knew that she would be remembering it, at greater and shorter intervals, for the rest of her life.

  ‘You’re right about one thing, I reckon,’ Madison said. ‘They’ll all take the fall along with Iris, guilty or not.’ A pause. ‘It’s a shame. I really liked Jack.’

  ‘So I hear.’ Fiona raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Don’t start.’

  Fiona didn’t reply, instead gazing at her own broken nails.

  ‘And what about Dominic Tate?’

  Madison blinked at her. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘He told me at Langmire that you two were “back how you always were” …’

  ‘He’s a liar,’ snarled Madison. ‘I thought we’d established this.’

  ‘So you didn’t ask him to help you?’

  ‘No!’

  Fiona waited, silently.

  ‘Of course I didn’t ask him for help,’ said Madison, rolling her eyes. ‘I may have pointed out that someone was pretending to be him to spook me and it was in his interest to look into it – remotely. I certainly didn’t invite him up to Langmire, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘He had a key cut while he was there …’

  ‘Did he?’ Madison’s fist clenched, making the bandage strain against her skin. ‘Fee, he was in the house for just twelve hours. He pitched up in the middle of the night with some story about how his hotel had let him down. I could have died of shock when I opened the door and there he was, complete with stupid grin and a fistful of petrol station flowers.’

  ‘But you took him in …’

  She waved this away. ‘I did. I had to. He slept on the couch and he took a lot of persuading to keep on it, too, the cheeky bastard. The next day I told him the Fletts had seen him and he needed to bugger off. In fairness to him, he went.’

  ‘He’s a dangerous man.’

  ‘You always thought so. The police caught him trying to sneak on to the ferry home, you know. Tail between his legs. They told me this morning. Didn’t surprise me. I always thought he was all talk. Talk, and spiteful little acts of vandalism.’ She let her head fall back. ‘I keep telling you this, but you won’t listen. I never once thought it was him when the harassment started up again here. He has things to lose.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And he didn’t like me that much.’

  Fiona couldn’t help herself – they should agree to di
sagree, she supposed, but it was just so ridiculous – why couldn’t Mads see?

  She growled in frustration.

  ‘It’s not about him liking you! Mads, the things he threatened to do to you – the things he’s already done – he’s a fucking nutter that respects no boundaries, no matter how much you try to minimise him away. Why didn’t you just call the police and have them sort it out?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t. Don’t you get it?’ Madison was growing angry, even while appealing to her. ‘I was gathering all this evidence for this gigantic archaeological fraud, trying to keep a lid on everything – I couldn’t have Dom arrested in the middle of sodding Orkney while I’m trying to prove that he’s nothing to do with it all …’ she petered out, as though struck by something.

  ‘You know,’ she said, turning to Fiona, her expression suddenly wondering, ‘I was so terrified, Fee, but of all the wrong things. I knew Iris was storing up trouble, big, big trouble for me, and that she was a bad enemy, but I never thought she’d plot to kill me. That’s just … I mean …’

  She shrugged helplessly, as though at the sheer absurdity of it all, but her mouth was turning down now and she had begun to shake, the burden of her bravado becoming, suddenly, too much for her to bear.

  ‘Mads,’ said Fiona, moved nearly to tears herself in pity, and also because she saw in Madison’s shock and anguish the mirror of her own. She reached over to take her clenched hand. ‘Mads, don’t. It’s okay. We’re safe now. It’s going to be okay …’

  Madison shook her head wildly, as though denying anything was wrong, but her bruised face was scrunching up, and ugly, hoarse sobs were issuing out of her. Those thin fingers hurt as they dug back into Fiona’s hand.

  ‘I-I can’t help it. I keep thinking about it, Fee. It was this nightmare and it just went on and on and on …’ She swiped at her face with her hand. ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Madison,’ asked Fiona gently. ‘What happened with Iris and you? At the end? Did you go to Helly Holm and meet her …?’

  ‘No!’ Her response was explosive, her cheeks wet. ‘Not at all … she came round to Langmire on Monday night after Jack left.’

  ‘And you fought?’ Fiona asked. ‘And broke the mirror?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Proper fisticuffs. She knocked on my door at midnight – I thought it was Dom come back again so I didn’t answer, and she was supposed to be on a plane to Edinburgh anyway. Then I heard her voice and I just knew.’ Madison rolled her eyes. ‘I had to let her in, didn’t I? I didn’t want to. After all, I had her fake Valkyrie hidden in the sugar jar and the house still smelled of sex.’

  ‘Mads,’ said Fiona, disgusted. ‘Please.’

  ‘Well,’ said Madison, with a slight blush. ‘It did. And it had a bearing on how things went, I think. She didn’t directly threaten me, but it was this … I dunno how to describe it – concern trolling.’

  ‘Concern trolling? What’s that?’

  Madison rolled her eyes heavenward, in a parody of piety, joining her hands as though in prayer. ‘“I’m so worried about you, Madison.” Talking about my stalker. About more problems with the samples, which somehow justifies her driving out here at fucking midnight while she’s supposed to be off filming. And oh no, what can she do to help me …’ Madison snarled, despite it clearly hurting her. ‘Gaslighting me – no, not gaslighting me. Just clearly laying down that I’m in her power.’ She dabbed at her torn lip, where a tiny spot of blood had sprung up. ‘Just so there’s no mistake.’

  Fiona considered this. ‘Hmm.’ Once again that silver wrench was falling, and her arm was drawing back, the spike gripped in her cold hand. Oh God, will this ever stop?

  Madison did not appear to have noticed. ‘I knew by then she was deliberately contaminating some of the samples I sent to the lab. You know, to throw off the C14 dating, that kind of thing.’

  Fiona was distracted, surprised at the pettiness of this, though really, why should she be? ‘She sabotaged you?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Mads, licking more of the blood on her lip away. ‘But you know, looking back, I don’t think screwing up my dating samples was personal at all. I think it was part of the whole plan.’

  Fiona threw her a sharp glance. ‘What makes you say that?’

  Madison gave her a crooked smile. ‘It’s smart. Very smart. Because when she plants her Valkyrie, she’s probably been very careful but she can’t guarantee there’s not something on it, some DNA or chemical which might give her away. If, for some reason, it’s hard to get a good reading out of that soil, or something is screwy, or the Finds Manager is having personal problems and is just a blubbering wreck, it covers her if something inconsistent turns up on the object, do you know what I mean?’

  Fiona gave a little gasp of understanding. ‘So she was always going to throw you under the bus?’

  Madison thought. ‘I dunno. Maybe. I’m not sure. I think she would have taken me with her, if I’d kept my mouth shut and played ball and seemed properly grateful for all the compassion she had over my sample-screwing personal issues. And kept my hands off Jack, of course.’ Again that half-smile. ‘That goes without saying.’

  She stretched, shifted on the bed, wincing around her bound leg.

  ‘Or maybe she would have booted me just like she meant to boot Becky. But the contaminated samples always seemed to come from Trench C, where I found her little smoking gun, so I guess I was consistent in my “incompetence”.’ She made little air quotes. ‘It was how I knew to look in there first. Speaking of smoking, they’re not going to let me vape in here, are they?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ Madison scowled, adjusting her pillow with impatient little tugs. ‘Anyway, she’s stood there, saying these things, and I just – I just saw red. I was so sick of everything by then. Sick of keeping secrets. Sick of lying and being two-faced. Sick of being controlled. I tried to walk away. I went into the bedroom, but she followed me, so I told her she was a fraud. She went ballistic, Fee. She went to slap me, and I threw her backwards into the mirror hard and it broke. The crash kind of snapped us both out of it.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘After the fight?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘After the fight, we calmed down and talked.’

  ‘Talked?’ Fiona squinted at her, mystified. ‘What about?’

  ‘Well …’ Madison was looking away, her expression bleak, not able to meet Fiona’s gaze. ‘After I found the Valkyrie on Saturday, I got to thinking some more.’

  Something about Madison’s evasiveness impressed itself on Fiona. ‘And?’

  ‘I started to wonder,’ she paused, as though considering how to proceed. ‘I started to wonder how useful it was to turn Iris in.’

  ‘How useful it was to turn Iris in?’ repeated Fiona.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Turn her in, for perpetrating a series of massive and criminal archaeological frauds?’ Fiona persisted. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  Madison blushed, a purplish colour under her thin, bruised cheeks. ‘Um, yes.’ She glanced at Fiona. ‘You know, I knew you’d be like this about it all. I just knew it.’

  Fiona regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I guess I’m waiting to hear why I shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Right,’ conceded Madison, her attention sinking to her orange hospital blanket. ‘I will admit it does look very bad at first glance.’

  Fiona was silent. ‘I’m waiting,’ she said eventually.

  ‘No – right – I’m just saying that if you take Iris down, it’s true, Iris is stopped. And that’s a good thing. But also, I thought of all the damage this would cause. That torc is going to be declared a fake, right, and no one will thank you for that. And all the people that work with her, all the archaeologists that ever dug with her, everyone at her production company, the millions of people that watch her show, and …’

  ‘Jack,’ inserted Fiona with crisp emphasis. ‘You forgot Jack in that list.’

  Madison had th
e grace to look embarrassed.

  ‘Yeah. I admit. As much as I would have loved to have taken Iris down publicly, I couldn’t do it to Jack. Because, you know, it would have been the end for him.’

  She raised her head, and their eyes met.

  ‘You really liked him, didn’t you?’ Fiona asked quietly.

  Madison didn’t reply to this, affected not to have heard. ‘All that other stuff is true too, you know,’ she said. She sighed, and it was like a sob. ‘I thought if I could just get her to stop, you know, scare her, then – well, maybe that would be as good as handing her over and not ruining all these lives. It seemed the most, I dunno, the most …’

  ‘Humane option,’ supplied Fiona.

  ‘Yes,’ hissed Madison, though with an element of surprise, as though she hadn’t expected Fiona to see it that way. ‘Exactly that. I told her I’d give her back the Valkyrie after the dig, but I had pictures of where and how I found it, and if she ever pulled anything like this again, anywhere in the world, I’d go straight to the authorities … and she was shocked. Absolutely shocked, Fee. Like, huge levels of denial. She couldn’t believe I was accusing her of this, despite the fact that I’d basically caught her red-handed. It was so weird.’

  Madison blinked, as though the strangeness of it all was once again nonplussing her.

  ‘At first I thought it was bluster, but I think she just – she just couldn’t cope with the idea of herself as someone who does something like that, even though she must have been making and prepping the artefact for ages …’

  ‘Cognitive dissonance,’ said Fiona, remembering their final conversation, and once again that spike was plunging towards Iris’s heart – the resistance, the giving in …

  … The unbelieving shock in Iris’s dark eyes as she’d sunk on to the icy grass.

  … The way she’d looked up at Fiona, and her final expression – that terror, that despair, as she realised she was dying.

  Behind her, the sea had roared.

  It took her a moment to focus her attention on Madison again.

  ‘Yeah!’ Madison was saying. ‘Cognitive dissonance. And to be honest, it gave me a bad feeling. But I told myself … I don’t know what I told myself. I told myself she was not an apologiser. That she was probably mortified at being caught – after all, she lived in this world where nobody ever confronted her. That for all her female empowerment talk, the person that Iris was interested in empowering was herself.’ Madison spread her palms helplessly.