The Visitors (29 page)

The selkie myth was a suppression of female sexuality.

I didn’t like that at all.

I’d worked for three hours when the lunch bell rang. In minutes, the library filled with younger kids wanting internet access. Ignoring their curious looks, I checked my email once more before leaving. There was a message from the Tobermory crofting commune.

In a heartbeat, everything else dropped away. I hovered the cursor over the unread icon for a full minute, wavering, wondering if I really wanted to know. Then I clicked to read it.

It was from a woman called Jacinta. She was fairly new to the commune, she said, but had spoken to some of the older residents. One or two still remembered Marcus Mutch, though not especially fondly. He’d been bolshy and pompous, and hadn’t mucked in with the rest of the commune. Rather than working his share, he’d shirked and skived and swapped his tasks. He was remembered as an aspiring writer, working feverishly late into the night, then reading his stories to anyone who cared to listen – and some who didn’t care at all. All his work was about selkies and Scottish folklore. He’d passed into commune infamy for insisting that his writing be considered a fair share of the work. Nobody agreed, and he was promptly voted out by the rest of the workers. After barely a year on Mull, he’d stomped off the island in a rage, leaving half his things. He’d claimed he was sick of Scotland, and was going to try his luck elsewhere.

That might have been that, said Jacinta, except that he’d written to the commune a few months later, demanding they forward his remaining possessions to his new address in Brixton. They’d complied, pleased to be completely rid of Marcus Mutch.

No one had heard from him since.

My throat was dry. It hurt to swallow. Brixton, London. Whoever he was, Mutch was in the clear. That was one loose end tied up. I’d have to tell Ailsa before she explained my theory to her dad. Strangely, there was no great sense of relief – only anticlimax.

I sent a quick thanks to Jacinta, packed my things and left, planning to grab a sandwich before my visit to the constabulary. There was a cold bowl in the bottom of my stomach.

Walking down the stairs, not caring about where I put my feet, I heard the muted snuffles of someone crying. At the stairwell, hunched beneath the first flight and hugging her
knees, was a schoolgirl. I couldn’t see her face. I didn’t think I knew her. I approached the shaking figure, cautiously, and bent low to touch her shoulder.

‘Hey,’ I said, softly, ‘are you all right?’

The figure flinched and turned. It took a moment to recognise her through the tear tracks, the smudged mascara. It was Tina Robson. She was equally baffled to see me all dressed up, and for a dumb moment we simply looked at each other. She recovered first.

‘P-piss off,’ she said, running a sleeve across her eyes, her face. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘Tina? What’s going on?’

‘Like you give a shit,’ she said, sneering, caught halfway to a sob. I looked at her. This was insane. In five long years, I’d never known her to cry. I’d never known she had heart enough to manage it.

‘I’m trying to be nice.’

‘Well, don’t bother.’

She turned away to the wall. Her shoulders shook again.

I stepped back and chewed things over. Something occurred to me, lurching upwards from the dark. There was a reason Tina had a reputation. Older boys, drinking, drugs. The handsome prince who would take her away from it all. I didn’t want it to be true, but nothing else could upset her so much. I framed the word, and mouthed it twice before I managed to say it aloud.

‘Lachlan. It’s Lachie, isn’t it?’

She froze. Still facing the wall, she nodded, and then her shoulders shook even harder.

‘How long?’

She shifted. When it came, her reply was thick with snot. ‘A couple of years.’

I looked up from the stairwell. In decreasing spirals,
perspective sent the stairs darkening towards the third storey. Tina sniffled.

‘He was. He was my way out of here. He was taking me to Edinburgh. He loved me.’

He didn’t love her. Lachie wouldn’t have taken her anywhere but Family Planning. But this wasn’t the time to tell her that.

‘Tina,’ I said, ‘I’m so sorry—’

Without turning round, she flapped an arm at me, waving me away, and another sob broke loose, high-pitched and ridiculous. I reached out again and touched her shoulder, then withdrew from the stairwell, stepping quietly. The door creaked like a coffin lid, and the sounds of the schoolyard flooded through. It was too bright, with the sun caught low in the clouds. Kids were shrieking too loudly. As the door closed behind me, I caught another of Tina Robson’s sobs.

Tina and Lachlan. I hadn’t known about that, but I could have guessed. She’d always hung out with older guys. She always partied hard. It boosted her social standing. And as for Lachie – well, it wasn’t that big a town. There had always been rumours about him and Tanno schoolgirls. It hadn’t mattered much to me, but it mattered to Tina Robson. A shudder passed through me. She’d steer clear of me, for now, after I’d seen her crying. But if she ever discovered that I’d been with Lachlan on the night he died …

That thought turned my stomach to ice. She’d tell the police. Or hunt me down.

It was after lunchtime, but I wasn’t hungry any more. The whole thing was such a mess. There was no one adult enough to understand except Ailsa, and I couldn’t ever tell her.

I held my breath as I crossed the playground, focusing on my shoes alone. I felt suddenly, oppressively like a fraud,
a priss, a fake. The clothes, the hair. It was a costume for an actress, a mask. It was slipping.

I left for the police station and kept my eyes fixed upon the gravel because the entire school, every kid in Tanno, was watching me walk, and all I had to wear was guilt and shame.

The lobby of the police station was like a doctor’s waiting room. The floor was laid with carpet tiles, chequered beige and burgundy, the walls a wan green. Placed haphazardly around the room, dog-eared posters advised me to lock up my bike, not to drink and drive. Report Crime.

The room was lit a nervy white-blue by fluorescent lights set into the ceiling. Something somewhere was humming. There were thick veneered doors set into every wall, and a counter cut into one side.

In a dull burst of office noise, the door beside the counter swung open, and DC Duncan emerged carrying several sheets of paper. He scanned the room. I was the only person there. He smiled at me.

‘Hi, Flora.’

‘Detective Duncan,’ I said.

‘Please,’ he said, wrinkling his nose. ‘I’m just Tom. You know that. Nice to see you. How long’s it been?’

‘Umm, years, I suppose. You went off to Glasgow.’

‘Aye, and then I came back. Missed the old hometown, you know.’

I grimaced.

He grinned. ‘Still at school, then? Mr Baillie still there?’

‘Aye, more’s the pity. I’m in sixth year.’

‘Great years, aren’t they? Not long to go.’

‘No.’

He stepped back and looked at me.

‘It really is good to see you, Flora.’

There was a pause.

‘I suppose you’re wondering why we wanted to see you.’

‘You could say that, aye. My mum’s furious.’

‘Sorry about that. It’s important we speak to you, though. I’m hoping you might be able to help us out. I’m looking for … Well, character references, I suppose you might call them. To help me flesh someone out a little.’

‘Lachlan.’

‘I understand,’ said the policeman, ‘if it’s too difficult for you to speak about.’

I swallowed thickly. ‘No,’ I said, ‘no problem at all. If it helps you work out how he died.’

‘Oh, we know how he died.’

‘He drowned … didn’t he?’

The detective was shaking his head. ‘He didn’t drown.’

‘But I thought … everyone on the island thinks he drowned.’

‘And maybe that’s no bad thing for now. But I’m ninety-nine per cent convinced that he was murdered. I think he was killed on Bancree, and his body dumped in the sea. We’re still waiting on the autopsy, but I’d bet good money on what it’s going to say. And there’s more, too.’

Duncan turned around, punched in a code and twisted the latch, holding the door a chink apart so I could look through. Beyond was a little anteroom. Again, my heart leaped, stumbled, and somehow beat on. Hunched in a plastic chair sat the Polish man who’d fought with Lachie. It was more than a week since they’d clashed, and he was in a terrible state. His hands were pitted with scabs. He wore a padded eye patch, and his head was wound about with bandages. Jutting above
the collar of his tracksuit, rendering his neck obscenely wide, was a thick brace. His lower lip sagged open. Inside there was a glint of metal and red rawness. A vicious blue bruise crept out from under the eye patch and over his nose to bloom red around his good eye. He stared glumly, fixed, at the floor.

‘Jesus,’ I breathed.

I was genuinely glad he was still alive, but riddled at once with a dread of being recognised. The Pole was the only person to see me and Lachie alone together. Aside from the killer, he was the only one who could put me in the frame.

‘Two fractured vertebrae,’ said Duncan, closing the door with a firm clunk. ‘The doctors tell me he’s lucky to be alive.’

‘What happened to him?’ I said, trying to hold my desperate nerve.

‘I’m pretty sure he had a run-in with Lachlan on the night he died.’

‘You think he killed him?’

‘No chance,’ said Duncan. ‘When Polski here was picked up, he was half-dead. He’d nearly drowned on his own blood. The doctors found teeth in his stomach. No, it wasn’t him.’

‘So how’s he connected?’ I said, and turned from the closed door to look up at the detective. He gazed directly at me. Inside, I crumbled, but forced myself to hold his gaze.

‘Lachlan’s body displayed marks consistent with a fistfight. My guess is that they had a set-to, and that Lachlan kicked the shit out of him, minding my language. We suspect that a third party then took advantage of Lachie being distracted by the scrap. In fact,’ he said, peering closer, ‘you look like you’ve been in the wars yourself.’

‘I fell,’ I said shortly, staring him out. ‘What third party? Who did it?’

At last, the detective looked away. ‘We’re not sure,’ he said, folding, and for a moment he was a wee boy at Tanno
Academy, a few years above me, not even needing to shave. Then he turned back. ‘But we’ll find out. None of it stacks up. Lachlan isn’t the only one, is he? You must have heard the rumours.’

‘Of course, aye. Bill. And Doug, and Anders.’

The detective nodded. ‘We are pursuing the possibility that all these men are connected. And maybe more. It’s hardly a big secret when everyone’s talking about it.’

John’s map. His newspaper clippings, his mission. He was right after all. I felt a lurch of sadness, a wave of sympathy. Half a lifetime chasing shadows.

‘We were hoping,’ said Duncan, gesturing with his thumb, ‘that the Pole might have seen something.’

‘What does he say?’ I asked, trying to keep the desperation from my voice.

‘Nothing. His jaw’s wired shut, and will stay that way for weeks, maybe months. It’s broken in three places and he’s lost half his teeth. And, somehow, he seems to have forgotten how to write as well.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He’s not talking. He’s not saying a word, by mouth or writing. To me or the translator. All I have are the facts that someone beat him half to death, that person was murdered, and that he wants to go home as soon as possible. Omerta. We won’t see him again.’

‘How do you know he wants to go home?’

‘His compatriots from the fish farm assure me that’s the only thing on his mind. The mysterious fact that he can make himself understood to them, but not to me, has not escaped my attention.’

‘Do you think any of them could have done it?’

Duncan shook his head. ‘No. They’ve good alibis. Some of them were working night shifts. Others were drinking in
the Ship. Another was with his girlfriend. She’s one of your schoolmates, incidentally,’ he said, looking at me with a smirk.

‘I haven’t any mates at school.’

‘Aye, well. They were all in Tanno. I think they’re in the clear. Only matey here and a couple of others were drinking in Tighna, and the other two are accounted for until they went to find him. Besides, it doesn’t feel right. The bust-up with Lachie was a fluke, as far as I can tell. The murder feels more than that.’

A stern-looking policewoman emerged from the office door, passing behind us, and I looked again into the little anteroom. This time the Pole saw me, and visibly flinched in recognition. He jerked back into his creaking chair, his lip curled, showing more of the metal that wired his jaws together. He emitted a weird, strangled gurgle, whimpering, not blinking, his one good eye staring at me. His reaction made my stomach lurch. He remembered me. He knew exactly who I was. I willed the door closed, closed before someone noticed his reaction. Duncan was still standing beside me, his back squarely to the Pole. Shaking and wincing, the Pole pointed one hand at me. At that moment, the door shut on him.

‘You all right there, Flora?’

I nodded too rapidly, feeling a tight hard lump in my throat. My heart thrummed a hollow terror.

‘Fine, I’m fine. Just a bit shaken. He’s really mashed up, that guy.’

‘I’m sorry you had to see it.’ He spoke levelly, not sounding sorry at all. He watched me closely. I swallowed hard.

‘Why exactly did you ask me here?’

‘We heard that Lachlan had a bit of a thing for you.’

‘He had a thing for all women.’

‘We heard that he asked you and a pal out for a drink in
the Bull Hotel. We heard you turned him down shortly before he left. Don’t worry about the drinking,’ he said, latching onto my guilt, ‘we’ve bigger fish to fry right now than teenagers on the piss. The point is, you knew him. Tell me about him.’

‘There’s not much to tell,’ I said. ‘I only knew Lachie a little, and what I knew, well … I hated. I detested him. He tried it on with me and my friend, and we said no. He threatened Ronny’s job. We saw him around a few times, but not really to talk to, you know?’