CHAPTER 11
THE STORM REACHED
the island just after midnight. Later, I would find out that it was actually two fronts that had collided off the coast of Iceland, playing out their battle as they swept down the North Atlantic from the Arctic. Their assault would be credited as one of the worst the Western Isles had experienced for over fifty years, creating gale force winds that left a trail of roofless houses and flooded roads before battering themselves out against the British mainland.
I was in my room when the storm hit. Tired as I was, I’d found it hard to sleep. Jenny hadn’t called, and there was still no answer from either her flat or her mobile. That wasn’t like her. I was starting to feel a gnawing anxiety that something could have happened. To make sleep even harder, the wind was booming outside, rattling the window angrily, and my shoulder was aching despite the anti-inflammatories I’d taken. Each time I started to drift off, I would feel myself falling down the gully and jerk awake again.
I was considering whether I should get up and try to work when the bedside phone rang. I snatched up the receiver.
‘Hello?’ I said, the word rushing out.
‘It’s me.’
Tension I hadn’t even been aware of drained from me at the sound of Jenny’s voice.
‘Hi,’ I said, switching on the bedside light. ‘I’ve been calling you all day.’
‘I know. I got your messages.’ She sounded subdued. ‘I went out with Suzy and a few of the others from work. I turned my mobile off.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t want to speak to you.’
I waited, unsure what to say. A gust of wind wrapped itself round the house, its moan rising in pitch. The bedside lamp flickered as though in response.
‘I was worried when you didn’t call last night,’ Jenny said after a moment. ‘I couldn’t call you on your mobile, and I didn’t even know where you were staying. When I got your message this afternoon it was like…I don’t know, I just felt angry. So I switched off my phone and went out. But then I came in just now and I really wanted to talk to you.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…’
‘I don’t want you to apologize! I want you here, not out on some bloody island! And I’ve had too much to drink, and that’s your fault as well.’
There was a grudging smile in her voice. I was pleased to hear it, but it didn’t displace the heaviness in my chest.
‘I’m glad you called,’ I told her.
‘So am I. But I’m still pissed off with you. I’m missing you, and I’ve no idea when you’re coming back.’
There was a note of fear now. Jenny had recovered from an experience that would have destroyed most people. While she’d emerged stronger from it, it had left a residue of anxiety that still surfaced from time to time. She knew only too well how thin the line was that separated everyday life from chaos. And how easily it was crossed.
‘I’m missing you too,’ I said.
The silence on the line seemed hollow, broken only by static whispers.
‘You’re not responsible for everyone, David,’ Jenny said at last. ‘You can’t solve everyone’s problems.’
I wasn’t sure if it was resignation or regret I could hear. ‘I don’t try to.’
‘Don’t you? Seems like you do, sometimes. Other people’s anyway.’ She sighed. ‘I think we need to talk when you get back.’
‘What about?’ I said, feeling something cold brush against my heart.
A crackle of static cut out her answer. It faded, but not completely.
‘…still hear me?’ I heard her say through it.
‘Only just. Jenny? You still there?’
There was no answer. I tried calling her back, but there was no dialling tone.
The line was dead.
As though that had been its cue, the bedside lamp suddenly flickered. It steadied after a few seconds, but its light seemed dimmer than before. The phone lines obviously weren’t the only things affected by the storm.
Feeling leaden and frustrated, I put the receiver down. Outside, the wind seemed to roar with triumph, flinging rain in reckless bursts against the window. I made my way over to it and looked out. The gale had shredded the cloud cover, and a full moon bathed the scene with ghostly pale light. The street lamp outside was shaking in the wind.
A girl was standing underneath it.
She seemed frozen, as though the fluctuating power had taken her unawares. Her face tilted up when I appeared in the window, and for a second or two we stared at each other. I didn’t recognise her. She looked in her teens, and was wearing only a thin coat that offered no protection against the weather. Underneath it was what looked like a pale nightgown. I saw how the cloth was lashed by the wind, how her wet hair clung to her head. She was blinking the water from her eyes as she stared up at me.
Then she darted into the shadows beyond the street light, heading into the village, and was gone.
Any hope I might have had that the storm would have passed by morning was snuffed out as soon as I woke. The wind shook the window, rain beating against the glass as though frustrated at not being able to break it.
The memory of the unfinished conversation I’d had with Jenny lay heavily on me, but the phone was still dead when I checked it. Until the landlines were repaired, the digital police radios were now our only point of contact with the outside world.
At least the power was still on, although the fitful way the lights were flickering suggested it might not remain so for much longer.
‘One of the joys of living on an island, I’m afraid,’ Ellen said, when I went down for breakfast. Anna was eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table, the portable gas fire filling the extension with pungent warmth. ‘The phones are always likely to go off when we get a real storm. Electricity too, if it’s a bad one.’
‘How long are they usually off for?’
‘A day or two, sometimes longer.’ She smiled at my expression. ‘Don’t worry, we’re used to it. Everyone on the island uses either oil or bottled gas, and the hotel’s got its own back-up generator. We won’t starve or freeze.’
‘What’s wrong with your arm?’ Anna piped up, staring at my sling.
‘I fell down.’
She thought about that for a second. ‘You should watch where you’re going,’ she said, confidently, going back to her cereal.
‘Anna,’ Ellen chided, but I laughed.
‘Yes, I suppose I should.’
I was still smiling as I went into the bar, my dark mood gone. So what if the phones were down for a day or two? It was an inconvenience, not life or death. Fraser was already eating through his breakfast, devouring a huge plate of fried eggs, bacon and sausage. He looked hungover but less so than he had on the previous mornings. No doubt the prospect of the support team’s arrival had cramped his enthusiasm.
‘Have you spoken to Duncan yet?’ I asked as I sat down. I’d been wondering how the camper van would hold up in this wind. It wouldn’t be very comfortable for him, to say the least.
‘Aye, he’s fine,’ he grunted. He slid his radio across to me. ‘The super wants you to call him.’
I felt my spirits sink, suddenly certain it wouldn’t be good news. It wasn’t.
‘The storm’s buggered everything,’ Wallace said bluntly. The radio connection was so bad it sounded as though he were calling from the other side of the world. ‘We’re not going to be able to get SOC or anyone else out to you in this.’
Even though I’d half expected it, the news was a blow. ‘How long before you can?’
His response was lost in a swell of static. I asked him to repeat it. ‘I said I don’t know. Flights and ferries to Stornoway are cancelled until further notice, and the weather report’s not good for the next few days.’
‘What about the coastguard helicopter?’ I asked, knowing that it was sometimes used to airlift police teams to inaccessible islands.
‘No chance. The storm’s playing havoc with shipping, and they’re not going to pull one from rescue duties for a corpse that’s been dead a month already. And even if they could, the updraughts from Runa’s cliffs cause problems for helicopters at the best of times. I daren’t risk sending one in this. Sorry, but for the time being you’re just going to have to sit tight.’
I massaged my temples, trying to ease the nagging headache that had started. Another buzz of static drowned out Wallace’s next words.
‘…given instructions to bring Andrew Brody in on this. I know he’s retired, but he was SIO on two murder investigations. Until we can get more men on the ground out there, that sort of experience is going to be useful. Listen to what he tells you.’ He paused. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
It was clear enough. I wouldn’t have wanted Fraser left in charge either. I tried not to look across at the police sergeant as I handed him the radio.
He’d obviously already been told the news. He glowered at me as he stuffed the radio away, as if it were somehow my fault.
‘Have you spoken to Brody yet?’ I asked.
It was the wrong thing to say. Fraser stabbed his fork into a piece of bacon. ‘It can wait till I’ve finished breakfast. And taken Duncan his.’ His moustache worked as he chewed angrily. ‘Not as though there’s a rush any more, is it?’
Perhaps there wasn’t, but I’d prefer Brody to hear sooner rather than later. ‘I’ll go and tell him.’
‘Please yourself,’ Fraser said, slicing through his egg as though trying to scar the plate.
He was still eating when I finished my own breakfast, making a point over taking his time. Leaving him to his sulk, I asked Ellen for directions to Brody’s house, struggled into my coat and set off.
The wind staggered me as soon as I stepped outside. There seemed an almost hysterical quality to it as it shrieked and gusted, and by the time I reached the seafront my shoulder was hurting from the constant need to brace against it. Beyond the cliffs, the lonely outpost of Stac Ross was nearly obscured by white mist as the breakers dashed themselves against its base. In the harbour itself, boats thrashed against their moorings while the ferry was being flung against the concrete jetty, slamming against the truck tyres hung there with dull, percussive thuds.
Brody lived at the other side of the harbour. Keeping as far away as I could from the stinging spray, I made my way across the seafront. On the far side, the cliffs rose up from a small shingle beach, alongside which was a large corrugated metal shack. Tarpaulin-covered piles of building supplies were stacked nearby, and rotting hulks of old boats littered the yard around it. At one side a decrepit fishing boat was raised up on blocks for repair, its timber hull partly stripped away so that the curved spars of its frame resembled a skeletal ribcage. I guessed this was the old hulk Guthrie was repairing. If it was, he had his work cut out for him.
Brody’s house was set well back from the harbour, a neat bungalow that had somehow avoided the uPVC modifications of its neighbours. I wondered if his dislike of Strachan had made him refuse the chance to have it renovated along with the rest.
When Brody opened the door he might almost have been expecting me. ‘Come in.’
Inside smelled of cooking and pine disinfectant. The house was small and tidy, with a bachelor’s lack of ornament. A gas fire hissed in the lounge’s tiled fireplace. A photograph of a woman and girl took centre place on the mantelpiece. It didn’t look recent, and I guessed that it was his wife and daughter.
The border collie looked up from its basket and wagged its tail when we walked in, then settled down to sleep again.
‘Cup of tea?’ Brody asked.
‘No thanks. Sorry to call round like this, but the phones are out.’
‘Aye, I know.’
He was wearing a thick cardigan. Standing in front of the fire, he tucked his hands into its pockets and waited.
‘You were right. It was murder,’ I said.
He took the news in his stride. ‘You sure you should be telling me this?’
‘Wallace wanted you to know.’ I explained what I’d found, and what the superintendent had said. Brody smiled.
‘Bet that went down well with Fraser.’ But he quickly grew serious again. ‘An accidental death’s one thing, but this changes everything. I suppose there’s a chance that the killer isn’t from the island, but it’s pretty remote. The victim had to have had a reason for being on Runa, and my guess is he was it. How she got here doesn’t matter for now. But I think we’ve got to assume the killer’s local, and that the victim knew him.’
I’d already reached the same conclusion myself. ‘I still can’t understand why anyone would burn the body and leave it at the cottage instead of burying it or getting rid of it at sea,’ I said. Unlike Fraser, I couldn’t believe the young woman’s killer was just incompetent. ‘Especially if the killer lives on Runa. Why leave it lying there for weeks until it was found?’
‘Laziness or arrogance, perhaps. Or nerves. It takes a lot of guts to go back to a crime scene.’ Brody shook his head in frustration. ‘Christ, I wish Wallace had sent a full team out here when he had the chance. We might have had an ID on the victim by now. Finding out who killed her would be a whole lot easier if we knew who she was.’
‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’
He sighed. ‘Just wait for the storm to lift, and hope that we can keep a lid on this until then. The last thing we want is for people to find out this is a murder inquiry before the mainland boys get here.’
I’d once been part of a community that had torn itself apart through fear and suspicion, and I’d no desire to repeat the experience. But it still didn’t seem right to keep this from the islanders.
‘Are you worried how they’ll react?’ I asked.
‘Partly,’ Brody agreed. ‘Murder or not, island communities like this don’t like outside interference. But I’m more worried about what the killer might do. At the moment he still thinks this is being written off as an accidental death, but if he finds out otherwise then all bets are off. And I’d rather not take any chances while there’s only two police officers on the island.’
Letting that sink in, Brody absently patted the pockets of his cardigan.
‘They’re on the mantelpiece,’ I told him.
He gave a shamefaced smile as he picked up the packet of cigarettes. ‘I try not to smoke in the house. My wife used to hate it, and after fifteen years of marriage you end up ingrained. Like Pavlov’s dogs.’