Authors: Peter May
A crack in my mind’s defences opens up to allow in the unthinkable. Three days ago I was here. On this island. The next day I was washed ashore on the beach at Luskentyre, all memory lost in a cloud of black dread, knowing that something terrible had occurred.
I look at this man lying on the floor in front of me, his head smashed in, and I ask myself the question that has been clotting in my stream of consciousness. Was it me who killed him?
I close my eyes, fists clenching, sick to my stomach at the thought of it. But it is a thought that won’t go away, growing inside me like a cancer. Is this why I have blocked all memory of the past? I stand up too quickly, blood rushing to my head, and stagger to the door, supporting myself on the stone as I lean out into the wind and rain to throw up acid and coffee.
I am shaking, tears springing to my eyes with the burning of the acid. It feels as if the earth has opened up beneath my feet and I am falling helplessly into eternity, or hell, or both. A short way off, to the east, I hear the growl of the sea as it rushes into a deep cleft in the cliffs nearly 200 feet below. And I am startled to see a group of people in brightly coloured waterproofs, fighting their way up the concrete path towards the lighthouse, leaning into the wind and the rain. Tourists, I realise. A group almost certainly brought out on Seatrek’s inflatable RIB from Uig, and landed below just before the squall struck.
Now shock at the thought that I might have killed this man combines with fear of being caught. Blinded by panic, and robbed of all reason, I dash out on to the slope just as the rain passes and a momentary break in the cloud sprinkles sunshine across the island like fairy dust. The tourists have almost reached the lighthouse above me, and I don’t look back to register if I have been seen. Locked instead in my cocoon of denial, I slither down the wet concrete and run down the steps with an almost reckless disregard for my own safety.
Below me, Seatrek’s red and black Delta Super X RIB rises and falls on the swell, anchored a few feet away from the jetty. I see a man waiting aboard her for the tourists to return. He calls to me as I reach the foot of the steps as if he knows me, voice raised above the wind and the sea. But I ignore him, dragging my tender back down the steps and leaping recklessly into her, almost capsizing her in the process. I don’t even look in his direction as he calls again, pulling instead on the starter cord, almost frantic in my desire to be gone from this place. It coughs into life on the third pull, and I gun the throttle, banking away against the incoming waves to race out across the bay to where Coinneach’s Sundancer awaits me.
I nearly fall overboard as I transfer from one to the other, but scramble safely on to the stern, before hauling the inflatable aboard and tethering her. I fire up the motor and accelerate hard away to the south-east. I look back only once as I round the eastern tip of Eilean Tighe, and see the distant figure of the man who called to me still standing in his boat, watching me go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I am seized now by a sense of urgency. I desperately need to know who I am and what it is I have done. And since I got back to the cottage I have been tearing it apart, without a thought for what the owner might say. I am beyond caring.
I have tipped the mattresses off all the beds. Stripped them of sheets and blankets. I have emptied every cupboard. Pots and pans are strewn across the floor, the kitchen table piled with crockery.
I have already been through the car, checking under seats, searching for hidden pockets. I have torn up the carpet and removed the spare wheel from its well in the boot. And I am alarmed to realise that I have no logbook for this vehicle, nor apparently a licence to drive it.
The cushions from the settee are piled in the middle of the sitting-room floor. I have unzipped their leather covers in search of anything I might have hidden inside them.
And I am slumped now at the kitchen table, almost in tears. To describe my mood as despairing would be the antithesis of hyperbole. I feel hopeless and helpless and scared, frustration welling up inside me, ready to explode in anger or violence, or both. I find myself wishing now that I had drowned in the aftermath of whatever happened out on Eilean Mòr the night I lost my boat. I grip my hair in both hands, tipping my head back and shouting at the ceiling.
Bran, who has been following me around, excited and bewildered, barks now. He must wonder why this lunatic who has been rampaging about the house has the same scent as his master. And the tears of vexation that have been gathering in my eyes finally spill over to burn my cheeks as they run down my face.
I wipe them away with my palms and force myself to stop hyperventilating, and try to think clearly. It is not easy. There is simply nothing in the house to tell me who I am, beyond a name. When the money in my wallet runs out, I have no idea how I will buy food, or petrol for the car. If I am stopped by the police while driving, I will be unable to show them a licence or papers of ownership, and will then have only five days in which to confess my loss of memory, or run.
I daren’t even contemplate the man in the ruined chapel on Eilean Mòr. Because, the more I think about him, the more convinced I become that it was me who killed him. The urge simply to run is almost irresistible. But where would I run to, and how would I finance it?
I don’t know how long it is I have been sitting at the table before I get up and wander through to the hall, thinking vaguely that perhaps I should start to clear up. The day has passed in a blur, and the light is fading outside. Bad weather has set in again, and rain is battering against the windows, running like tears down the glass.
Bran pushes my hand with his head and I realise I have just been standing here in the hall, inert, my brain and all my thinking processes on hold, unable to recall exactly why it was I had come through. Which is when I notice for the first time the hatch in the ceiling outside the spare room. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, because it now feels as if I always knew it was there.
I wonder how I will reach it, for I can’t recall seeing stepladders anywhere in the house. Then I remember the garden shed, which would be an obvious place to keep them. I hurry out into horizontal rain that catches the last light of the day and streaks the coming darkness. I am soaked within seconds. But the shed is securely padlocked, and I know that there was no key for it among the ones I recovered from the car.
Back in the house, I check the kitchen cupboard again, in case somehow I had missed a pair of stepladders. But, of course, there are none. Only brooms and shovels, and cleaning fluids on a shelf above them. I have almost shut the door when I see it. A pole about two metres long, with a shallow S-shaped hook on the end of it, hanging on the back of the door, and I realise immediately what it is for.
Outside the spare room, I look up and see the cream-painted metal loop set into the hatch. I raise the pole, slot the hook into it and pull it down. Initially it resists the pull of the spring that holds it, until finally it locks in place and reveals the bottom rungs of a folding ladder. I hook the pole now into the ladder and extend it down to the floor.
Bran leaps out of the way of the pole as I let it fall, and I climb rapidly up into the roof space. It is dark, and I reach into it, fumbling about until I find a switch that fills the attic with light from a solitary naked bulb. Apart from the layers of insulation between the rafters, it is quite empty. With the exception of a single black briefcase that stands up, just within reach.
My fingers are trembling as they close around the handle, and I pull it towards me before climbing quickly back down to the hall. I want to throw the briefcase on the floor and open it right there and then. But I force myself to stay calm and carry it through to the kitchen, where I sit down and set it on the table in front of me. And now I am almost afraid to open it. Perhaps it is better to live in ignorance than be confronted with an unpalatable truth.
Finally I lay it flat, release the clasps and lift the lid. I am not sure what I might have been expecting, but I could hardly have been more startled. The briefcase is filled with bundles of £50 notes. Twelve bundles altogether, with space left by others that have clearly been taken. Spent, no doubt. With the silence of the house ringing in my ears, and a sensation of blood pulsing in my head, I lift one of the bundles and count twenty notes. £1,000 per bundle. £12,000 in total, and there might easily have been another eight bundles in the case to begin with.
At least I know now how I financed my life here. With cash. But whose cash, and why? Is it stolen money, or payment of some kind? One answer simply raises more questions. I sit staring at the notes in disbelief for a very long time, at the end of which I hear my own voice. ‘Jesus!’ It is a whispered oath, as if I am almost scared to speak out loud.
Then I notice the fold-out compartment in the lid. If it were empty, it would be sitting flush. But it isn’t. I pull it open and draw out a blue folder. I push the briefcase aside and lay the folder in front of me to open it. My mouth is very dry, my tongue almost sticking to the roof of my mouth, but it doesn’t even occur to me to get a drink.
Inside the folder, held together by a paperclip, is a bundle of badly photocopied sheets of A4 paper. I say badly photocopied because these are duplicates of newspaper cuttings that are almost unreadable. Too much ink has made the letters and words of the text thick and furry, and the accompanying photographs so dark as to be very nearly black.
I remove the paperclip and start to sift through them, aware that my breathing is so rapid and shallow that I am starting to become light-headed. I stop and take a deep breath and examine the sheets that I hold in my hands. They are all clippings of articles taken from newspapers and magazines dating back to 2009. And they are all about me.
‘Thirty-five-year-old champion yachtsman, Neal Maclean.’ ‘Thirty-six-year-old team trainer, Neal Maclean.’ ‘Neal Maclean (37), successful Scottish youth coach . . .’
A champion in my own right as a young man, it seems I am now training youth groups and individuals participating in single-handed racing events organised by the Royal Yachting Association of Scotland. One on the Clyde coast. Another in the Firth of Forth. A weekend of racing on Loch Lomond. Coach of the winning team at the 2012 West Highland Yachting Week. Head coach of the Scotland team sent to Weymouth to compete in the Youth Nationals in 2013. Heading up the RYA Scotland Junior Class Academy summer programme that same year.
The photographs are mostly of young men and women who have won competitions, but there is one taken of the entire Scotland youth team. Black-smudged smiling faces with me at their centre. My features, along with everyone else’s, are virtually indistinguishable, but my curly black hair, longer then, is unmistakable.
I scan each article, hungry for personal details. But there are none. Just my age. And I read about myself getting older with almost every piece. By my reckoning, I must now be either thirty-eight or thirty-nine. No mention of family, or occupation, or home city. None of these posts is professional. Sailing is my hobby. While I know more, now, about how I spend my spare time, I know nothing further about myself.
I turn over the final sheet and stop dead. This is no newspaper article. It is an extract of birth that bears the embossed seal of the General Register Office, Scotland, issued almost exactly two years ago. Neal David Maclean, son of Mary and Leslie, born 1978 at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Not just any birth certificate. My birth certificate. I sit looking at it, held in shaking hands. A strange affirmation, somehow, that I actually exist. And there, written on the other side, in a hand I recognise as mine, is the address of a house in Hainburn Park, Edinburgh.
Reconnecting with who I am seems just a touch away. I pull the laptop towards me and load up my browser to type
BT phone book
into Google. A link takes me to the home page of British Telecom’s phone directory. I type in my surname and the address on the back of the extract of birth, then hit return. Up comes my full name, with phone number and address, including post code. I am very nearly afraid to breathe, in case it all vanishes like smoke in the wind. But as I sit staring at the screen it remains there, burning itself on to my retinas.
I know now exactly who I am and where I live.
*
I have found an empty overnight bag in the bottom of the wardrobe, and it sits on the bed beside the clothes I am laying out for my trip. Underwear, socks, a spare pair of jeans, a couple of shirts. I have no idea how much to pack, or how long I will be away. For this is a journey into the unknown, with no predetermined destination and no return ticket. At least, not yet.
I hear the door open into the kitchen and freeze, listening intently. But I can barely hear anything above the pulsing of blood in my head. Bran, who has spread himself on the bed, unsettled and depressed at my packing, lifts his head for a moment, then drops it again to sink back into his huff. But I am not taking any chances. I reach below the pillow to feel for the hunting knife left by my attacker last night and move carefully into the hall.
‘Neal?’ Sally’s voice is shrill and carries more than a hint of alarm in it.
I step into the sitting room and see her framed in the archway to the kitchen. She looks pale, shocked, and her eyes drop to the knife I hold in my hand.
‘For God’s sake, Neal, what’s going on?’
The relief that courses through me is almost disabling. I lay the knife on the table beside the lamp and take three quick steps towards her, to pull her into my arms and hold her. I feel her surprise and initial resistance, before her hands slip around me to spread themselves on my shoulders. Her head tips back to look at me. I see confusion and fear in her eyes.
‘What on earth’s happened?’
I kiss her softly and close my own eyes to rest my forehead on hers. ‘I missed you today,’ I say. ‘I really missed you.’
‘I had to go up to Stornoway with Jon.’ She kisses me. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then she steps back, holding both my hands, and stares at me earnestly. ‘Who did all this?’ And a flick of her head indicates the mess that surrounds us.
‘I did.’
Her astonishment is patent. ‘Why?’
‘I was looking for me.’
Confusion clouds her eyes before they flicker towards the table. ‘And the knife?’
I lead her to one of the settees, replacing the cushions, and sit us both down. We are turned, half-facing each other, still holding hands, and I tell her everything. About my attacker the night before, and the intervention of a third party that almost certainly saved my life. I see her eyes widen in horror and disbelief.
I tell her about my fruitless trip out to Eilean Mòr, but omit the discovery of the body in the chapel. I am afraid to even put that into words. Then my frantic search of the house to find something, anything, that would provide a clue to the real me.
I stand up and lead her through to the kitchen and open up the briefcase to reveal the bundles of cash. Her eyes are like saucers. She lifts one, as if only by touching it will she believe it really exists. ‘Neal, this is scary.’
I nod. ‘And it’s not all.’ I show her the cuttings and the birth certificate, and the confirmation of my address in the BT phone book. Neal David Maclean, from Hainburn Park, Edinburgh. ‘I’m going there tomorrow.’
Her eyes crinkle with concern. ‘Is that a good idea? You might find you have a wife and family.’
‘I’ve got to know, Sally.’
She seems resigned to it. ‘Will you fly?’
‘I have no credit card or photo ID. But I checked the internet. I can pay cash for a ferry crossing from Tarbert to Skye tomorrow and drive down.’
‘Without a licence or logbook?’
‘The chances of me being stopped are negligible, Sally, unless I’m in an accident.’
She slips her arms around me, and I hear her voice, very small, as she presses her head against my chest. ‘I’m scared I’m going to lose you.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I say, but there is little conviction in my words.
She looks at me. ‘Whoever you are – whoever you really are – you might not want to be with me once you know. Once you remember.’
‘Of course I will.’
But she just smiles, a sad, wistful little smile. ‘You should go to the police, Neal.’
I step back, surprised. ‘Why?’
‘Why? Because someone tried to kill you, that’s why. And, because they didn’t succeed, there’s a good chance they’ll try again.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’d have to tell them that I’ve lost my memory. That I’ve been lying about why I’m here. That I’ve got twelve grand in cash stashed in a briefcase in the attic and I don’t know where it came from. There’s so much more I still need to know, Sally. I can’t go to the police.’ I hesitate, and realise that there is something else I need to confront. But, still, I can only address it obliquely. ‘Besides, chances are they’re going to come looking for me soon enough.’
She is startled, eyes wide with surprise. ‘Why?’