Authors: Iain R. Thomson
Two hours passed, time to rap on the door. Its viewing hatch slid open, the unpleasant eyes of the constable looked in. “Kindly open this door.” He said nothing, the hatch closed. More hammering would be futile. High above me a fluorescent strip light replaced the shaft of sunlight. Demanding a solicitor would be pointless, the nearest had to be on the mainland. Given my lack of co-operation so far maybe a different approach might ease the situation. I lay on the mattress thinking and worrying about Eilidh. She should not be part of this ridiculous travesty.
A metallic click and the cell door opened. “Now Mackenzie we'll have a word in my office.” The Sergeant stood back and motioned me to go ahead of him. Our footsteps echoed down the corridor, I found it amusing to think he must reckon me dangerous. Eilidh sat at the back of the police station. In mutual relief we laughed as she came across and gave the criminal a hug. “I came round to spring you but they caught me with the ladder.” “No, no, not a ladder,” although in poor taste, given a man's death, being pleased to see each other made us silly, “the window's too small. If I'm booked in tonight, get gunpowder, not too much, the accommodation's a bit cramped.”
“When you two have finished, I'll maybe get a word.” Just an impression, but Sergeant MacNeil could be a different man without a sneering constable in the background. He sat down to study his notes, “Subsequent to our first meeting when you claimed an assassination attempt, you failed to come forward. An identification of the corpse revealed it to be that of a Londoner, the body went south and so far the case remains open. Have you anything to add?” I shook my head.
“This second body has still to be identified, but it now seems clear you weren't involved in,” he eyed me closely judging my reaction, “â¦in what may have been murder. Two Americans helped this yachtsman from the Castleton bar last night but didn't return to the hotel. I understand you'd met the deceased when he arrived at Sandray” Briefly I told the Sergeant what little I knew of Anderson. He wrote without comment, closed his note book and adopting a puzzled tone, “Why in the world would two Americans kill a drunken yachtsman, if they did?” then casually, “and why would some stranger come all the way to Sandray and attempt to kill you?” I shrugged, aware of being watched. “You say you didn't know your attacker, mmm, that suggests his actions could have been premeditated?” His easy style masked an edge, “Any idea why that might have been?” I preferred not to mention my briefcase or the London experience. “No, it's a mystery to me.”
Small communities have a knack of divining more of a person's affairs than might seem possible and doubtless the sergeant wasn't behind the times. He began to probe, “You appear from nowhere, there's an assassination attempt, now a murder; who knew you'd come out here?” Not wishing to divulge a suspicion that somehow the two incidents were linked, “Nobody had any prior knowledge, my decision to travel north happened to be entirely a spur of the moment whim.” “Is that so,” one eyebrows rose, I hoped not in disbelief, “Well now, a whim; perhaps you're just a photo in a Post Office window that reads' missing person',” the tone almost smacked of teasing. I guessed he knew plenty about me. “That suits me fine,” I grinned.
After a lull, fresh thoughts prompted the sergeant to lapse into his natural manner, “Look here, there's the question of this man's boat.” In a roundabout way of telling me he spoke to Eilidh, “You know salvage can be claimed by the first person aboard any vessel found abandoned on the high seas,” and as if hinting at our course of action, “I suppose the yacht wasn't exactly abandoned, just drifting with a corpse on board, anyway the pier master's the official Receiver of Wrecks.” Wearily he returned to shuffling notes, “This boat and its owner is some complication.”
We awaited his next move. Eventually glancing from Eilidh to me, he framed a question almost as if hoping my reply would be evasive, “You'll have signed that Sheriff Warrant?” Eager to get outside, this was not the moment to tell him it lay in shreds, “No, not yet Sergeant, I'm thinking about it.” His stare took time to pass. “Whilst you're busy thinking young man, you'll be wise not to leave Halasay, that eviction order meant what it said.”
Directing us to the door and once out of earshot of a glowering constable, he spoke to me in a friendly manner, “See you look after that woman MacKenzie, her folks were good friends of mine,” adding in to no one in particular, “I believe there's something called squatters' rights.”
Down at the harbour the masts of Valkyrie and the Hilda swayed above the lip of the pier. A fluttering strip of blue and white tape hung on poles. “I dare say they may be waiting for detectives but if I can get past MacNeil's cordon, I'll sail Hilda round to Ach na Mara this evening.” Eilidh squeezed my hand, “Don't worry, he's one of us.”
Driving back to the croft, Eilidh was in high spirits, “Iain's busy clipping, I told MacNeil to stop his nonsense and let you out.” Bonnie girl, she laughed and laughed. The bleating of ewes and lambs greeted us. Newly clipped sheep free of their heavy fleeces sprang up from the clippers of the shearer. Fresh white coats, smelling differently, had puzzled lambs running away from equally mystified mothers. Iain, head down, his back bent and sweating in the heat, stopped the clack of his shears long enough to welcome me, “Come on MacKenzie, this isn't the day to be passing time in the cooler, I've just started and there's a new sharpened pair of shears awaiting you.”
Iain made the work look easy, a sheep against his knees, a sweep of the arm, rhythm, flow and the steady clack of metal amongst creamy new wool; in minutes the fleece would be a neat heap and four pounds lighter, shorn and white, the ewe would bound away. Bending was not for Eilidh, but Ella, deft for her years gathered each fleece and rolled it into a tight bundle for Iain's willing children to carry and stack on the growing mountain of wool. Given a few tips by the expert, “Don't hold the sheep too tightly, keep the blades flat against its skin and mind your fingers.” I picked up the shears- they were razor sharp. After a couple of hours of struggling and finding their fleeces fell into pieces instead of coming off like a rug, I realised that learning which button to press on a computer was child's play compared to clipping sheep.
Eilidh brought out tea and pancakes warm off the girdle. We sat against the stack of wool and smelt like the animals now happily back to their grazing. The ones I'd dealt with stood out, going by the neatness, I realised Iain had clipped six to my one and thinking I'd have learned the skill more quickly, I shook my head. “Don't worry, it'll take at least five hundred ewes before you get the idea, but you're coming on Hector boy, some never get the way of it.” All afternoon we'd clipped away under a hot sun, sweat dripping and the morning forgotten, I was happy again. The last clipped sheep bounded off to find her lambs, supper arrived and a needful dram.
Iain dropped me at Castleton pier and thinking of the five hundred sheep before I learnt the skill, “I'll be over to give a hand with your own clipping tomorrow.” “That'll be great,” and over his shoulder, “if your back isn't too stiff.” He was right, my back ached.
The mainland steamer had sailed hours ago. A deserted pier, no coloured police tape to prevent me from boarding Valkyrie. A quick look about, nimbly down the iron rung ladder and I stood on the yacht's teak laid decks admiring her lines. Truly she was a beauty, the elegance of a sweeping bow matched the curve of her stern, strength and grace. Would I pursue a salvage claim?
I looked at her cabin door and felt impelled. Heavy brass hinges and mahogany panels, it opened smoothly. Evening shadow darkened an empty bunk. A faint smell hung about the cabin, a sweet sour odour, the lingering stench of a corpse. My skin prickled. The body had gone, but the contorted face of dead Anderson stared out of the bunk, the lolling tongue, frothing saliva trickling down a cheek faintly blue in the first stage of decomposition. Huge eyes bulged from their sockets, burst blood vessels flared red. No longer starting eyes of terror but imploring, abjectly pleading, turning slowly. I followed their gaze. The navigation table; I looked down and on it, unfolded, a chart of the Indian Ocean. A pencil line circled a group of islands. I bent to read their name, a corner of the chart lifted, ever so gently. The cabin door swung softly.
I leapt back. Instantly the eyes vanished. I was staring again into an empty bunk; in my nostrils the wafting sweet rancid odour. Sickness welled up. Bolting up the companionway, I was out in three steps. Gulping the clear air, I hurriedly cast off mooring lines and swinging over the rail, dropped aboard the waiting Hilda.
Standing out on the yacht's bow, there above my head, her black lettered name, âValkyrie', now a yacht cursed by some dastardly murder. So a boat is the animation of the elements, so too their spirit is in her, in her name. Would the maidens of Viking belief carry aloft a dead man's soul in their arms? Are all souls in the arms of a myth, a myth within a myth? I made haste to sail.
The day's waning heat brought a breeze, and light though it was, coming out of the south west it put a curve into the Hilda's old brown canvas and a ripple at her bow. Often on a fine evening, just as I was doing, Eachan had chosen the aloneness of sailing round to Castleton and home again. A gentle night settled on the ocean, and as it would have done for him, the course for home on its glittering surface was lit by stars. Unheeding of a complexity which smothers the voice of simplicity, the sea spoke to me, the island slipped past, and the beaches of the gloaming awaited a moonlit hour when grains of silver would become treasure and emptiness their reassurance that all was not yet within the cell of man's ingenuity.
The haunting tune, Lassie with the Golden Hair, sang in my thoughts, and in the gloam of a summer's night it brought me to the jetty of Ach na Mara, and Eilidh.
Ignoring warrant and warning, ten days later we were back to our Sandray home. Another week and I had the conversion of byre to bathroom finished. Eilidh, calm and content, busied herself with baby clothes and bedding for the crib I'd made. Out on the croft Muille and I learnt a little of the art which passes between a shepherd and his dog. A mixture of luck and us both running, finally drove our small flock into the pens I'd built. By late afternoon the ewes were clipped and their fleeces spread over the loft space I created above our two rooms and the bathroom, “What better insulation. Do we need a new mattress?” Eilidh thought me half serious, and on reflection it wasn't a bad idea.
A hot day, copious sweat and pleased I'd managed to clip our sheep without too much struggle, down to the bay I ran and splashed headlong into the sea. Eilidh followed down more sedately, the baby was due anytime. She undressed slowly, waded in and attempted to float alongside me. “I'm front heavy!” she called, turning over after the third try. I swam across and lifting her in my arms let her float face up. Wavelets circled the mounds of her body as I gently let her rock up and down. An intimacy that harks to the primitive surrounded us, and naturally as the setting sun is wedded to the long horizon, we belonged. Pressing her tummy Eilidh whispered up to me in a little excited voice, “I think the baby might come tonight,” and the blueness of her eyes glowed from the depths of a great happiness.
After supper I sensed Eilidh grew uncomfortable and ventured to enquire, “Should I go across for Ella?” She reached out and took my hand, “No Hector, it'll be all right, I want it to be just us both,” she held her stomach for a moment, “so don't leave me; that's the first wee pain.” We'd talked about the birth often enough, now the baby was on its way. I fought to stay calm, “Would you like to lie down?” She smiled, “No thanks I'll just walk about outside, don't worry I'm fine.” Shaking inwardly I nodded and taking her hand, we walked round and round the house.
Every so often Eilidh would pause. Her contractions were becoming stronger, more frequent. We leant together on the gable of the old house. No shroud that night to cover the hill of its saying, for as at fullness of a golden harvest, an orb arose, wide, close and watching. Orange beams pierced splintered crags, the hill reached out, a black shadow at our feet. Haunted stone and fallen slab, amidst the breathless air, the solitary tread of a last journey, “A blue eyed boy, born beside the sea, his talisman a raven in a cage, it brought him here a thousand times ago,” Eilidh tilted her head, moonlight fell across her face, “The raven is gone, his severance from the coming of the sea kings is complete,” and in the hushed voice of reverence, “yet we are here.”
A woman was soon to add a generation to those from whom we came; time and place, wherefore its mystery? Words formed, extemporal and unbidden, “The hill too will vanish, the moon wander from its orbit, sun and planets be dragged into a blackness from which there is no escape, but for us there is no severance, no parting from the birth of light or from its ultimate future; we are entangled in an endless cycle, and to each other.” We went into a house that stone upon stone was built of the Hill of the Shroud.
In our bed by the light of the Tilley lamp, the baby appeared. A dark head of hair, Eilidh whimpered softly. I helped with the shoulders and a child slid into my hands, a boy. I lifted him and cleared his mouth with my finger. The umbilical cord, two pieces of thread knotted tight, my hands shook; scissors; I cut swiftly between the knots. The boy began to cry.
At the sound, Eilidh half sat up, and dragging pillows in behind her she cried quiet tears of elation. I put the slippery bundle into her arms. She bent over him and quietly licked his face. The crying stopped and stretching his arms he pursed hungry lips. After a little time stroking the boy, touching his long limbs, spreading out toes and opening his hands, Eilidh tenderly gave him her full red nipple. She looked up, tired but smiling. I smoothed her hair and out of a heartfelt joy, we laughed and rubbed noses.