The Island House (51 page)

O
N HIS
summer break, Simon liked to sleep in, but this morning, first light found him awake. He was thinking about Freya and about Findnar—sexy girl, intriguing place, and both so full of possibilities.

Drinking with Rob Buchan at the pub had sparked the internal conversation. Simon had not spent much time with his childhood friend since he’d returned to Portsolly. He’d told himself he was too busy, but that was not true. Rob, in fact, made Simon uncomfortable. Their lives had taken such different paths and that was part of the problem. Simon was proud of his success, the result of bloody hard work, where Rob—that lively kid of those distant summers—had morphed into a loser living in the past. Simon felt sorry for the guy because Rob’s sense of entitlement trapped him like a fly in a closed room, and it provided neither the will nor the energy to recapture the much-insisted-on status and power of his ancestors. Resentful and bitter, Rob had quickly become tedious, and that “quiet little drink” at the pub had started to feel like a mistake, especially since his old friend could drink for Scotland when someone else was buying. Whisky, too, inflamed Rob’s indignation, especially against Freya.

“A backpacker. An Australian! But I’ve got her measure. She knows she’s vulnerable now. More than one way to send that message. She’ll be gone by winter.” He tapped his nose. “Then I’ll drive the price down and buy the island back.” Rob snorted. He was pleased with himself.

“Vulnerable?” Simon had stared at him. “You took Freya’s boat?”

“Freya, is it?” Robert had lifted his empty glass, waggled it winningly. “And why would I do that?”

“I have no idea.” Simon had been impatient. “Just one more. It’s late.” He’d gone to the bar and when he’d returned, Rob was morose. “More than fifty generations, father to son. All gone. My birthright. But I found the helmet, she didn’t. Or her dad. Don’t know the island like I do.”

“Helmet?” Lying in bed, Simon thought about why he’d asked the question. Having decided Rob was a fantasist, perhaps he’d seemed bored because the response was petulant. “It’s true! I’d go over there when Dane was away. He never knew. I’ll find the rest of the hoard when she goes and she will, trust me.”

“Ah, the hoard.” Simon had drained the last of his whisky. “Must go. Lots to do.” Rob had grabbed his arm. “Come with me. I haven’t shown anyone else. Old times’ sake? You can tell me what it’s worth.”

Why had he gone? Simon threw the bedcovers back and padded to the bathroom in the vestry. Cleaning his teeth, he thought about it. Conscience, the obligation to be polite to a childhood friend, had been laid to rest after the third drink. No, it had been the expression in Rob’s eyes. Honest greed.

And there, in the sitting room of the tiny cottage—all that remained of the glory of the Buchans—it truly was. Wrapped in newspaper, hidden in a cupboard among sporting trophies from long, long ago, was an actual helm. Viking era or earlier. After washing himself—no shower yet, that would come—Simon flipped through the shots he’d taken on his phone last night when Rob had gone to the bathroom. Bronze, had to be, and the amount and quality of the ornamentation (gold, couldn’t be anything else) was extraordinary. This was the work of a master, a very great smith. At first he’d thought it a ceremonial object and not designed for battle. But the dent in the side said otherwise. Someone
important had owned this helmet, and maybe died wearing it too.

It had been after midnight when Simon left Robert’s cottage. He’d been glad to go. The atmosphere of unwashed clothes, old dog, and toxic narcissism had become oppressive, as had Rob’s increasingly wild schemes for reclaiming Findnar. But the helm had been real, a genuine treasure. Perhaps the hoard, after all, was not a myth.

He knew a lot about himself, Simon Fettler, and thought he’d sorted out the pattern of his life quite nicely. He’d had a lot of women in his life, too, even lived semiseriously with one or two at different times. But he was fussy, fatally so—or so his friends said. And if they were all busy getting married—and good luck to them—Simon still guarded his emotional independence. Yet spending time with Freya on the island—kissing her—and then meeting Robert last night at the pub had set fate’s wheel turning. He could feel it—the game changer had arrived. Perhaps this could be the girl, and Findnar the place he was meant to be? The island with such glittering possibilities . . .

Omens. Simon laughed. Was he, after all, superstitious? It seemed unlikely after a life lived, most definitely, in the material world. His was a fortunate existence, one that provided him with pleasure and interest. Didn’t mean, though, that there wasn’t room for a challenge. A treasure hunt, say, and a very good-looking girl with an interesting edge. These were both challenges undoubtedly. And what was life without the spice of risk? Unlike so many people, Simon Fettler liked change, he really did. He’d always been a rover.

“Hello, Mr. Boyne.” Katherine knocked on the office door.

Walter swung around startled. “Miss MacAllister. Something I can do for you?” He was glad of the distraction—finally he’d made a start on filing.

“I’m looking for Daniel. Is he around?”

Walter got up; a man does not sit in the presence of a lady, and Miss MacAllister was certainly a lady. “He’s gone to get coffee.”

The workshop door swung open, and Dan appeared in the rectangle of light holding two coffees and a brown paper bag.

“Here we go, Dad, got us a treat too.” He shouldered the door closed. Then he registered the visitor. “Hello, Katherine.”

The librarian nodded to Walter. She hurried toward Dan. “Have you a moment?”

“For you, Katherine, always.” He grinned.

“I should like to go to the island. Now.” Katherine did her best to sound composed. Her eyes said something else.

Dan blinked; he hesitated. “Okay with you, Dad?”

Walter exhaled. Relief did not begin to describe what he felt about the change in Dan in the last twenty-four hours. “Of course. Denny’ll be back soon. Take your time.”

Dan’s belly tightened. “Right then.” He put one of the coffees down, and the little bag of pastries. “You have this, Dad. Just give me a moment, Katherine. Need to load the stuff.” As Katherine watched, Dan limped toward a heap of equipment lying beside one of the benches. “Freya needs to shift that bit of stone we found.” He dumped coils of slender steel hawser and assorted other equipment onto a flatbed trolley with large rubber wheels, and slung a box of tools, including a battery-driven drill, on top. “Dad, did you move the steel?”

“Stacked it out of the way.” Walter pointed.

“Give me a hand?” Father and son loaded lengths of steel on top of the other materials.

Dan opened the workshop door. “After you, Katherine.”

It was a clear, high day. Gulls wheeled over the water and dived for scraps in the harbor, and the little port was busy with comings and goings as Katherine automatically slowed her stride to Dan’s.
But she was left behind as, pushing the trolley, he limped energetically toward the runabout moored at the stern of
The Holy Isle.

“Dan, wait.” She hurried after him.

“Day’s wasting.” He was already in the hull. “Can you pass the stuff down? None of it’s heavy, just cumbersome.”

Katherine and he worked well together. Five minutes and everything was neatly stacked, and the trolley had been loaded too.

“Let’s go.”

Katherine nodded; she jumped down into the boat. No skirt today. Something had made her wear jeans this morning, and she’d left a key with her neighbor so that Ishbelle and her babies could be fed. Just in case . . .

Compline’s back door was unlocked. Katherine knocked. “Freya, hello?” She opened the door, listened for a reply. “Freya?”

“She’s not here.” Dan stared out over the meadow, shading his eyes. “We’ll find her.” He nodded at the loaded trolley. “Let’s get this to the standing stones. Won’t be nearly as hard as hauling it up the cliff, I promise.”

With some asperity Katherine said, “Wishful thinking, Daniel Boyne.” The beach, not to mention the cliff path, had been a struggle for them both.

“Dan.”

He wheeled. Freya was standing in Compline’s open doorway. He smiled warmly. “Hiding, were you?” And then he saw how stressed she was.

Katherine started forward at the same moment. “Child, are you all right?” But Dan got there first. He pulled Freya into his arms, holding her close.

She tried to speak calmly. “I saw her, Dan. Last night. I was inside, she was on the other side of the glass, and then she was gone. She looked at me. Right in my eyes. I searched everywhere,
and then, back in the house I found, I found—” She swallowed, couldn’t go on.

Dan held Freya tighter. “You’re safe, that’s what matters. No need to be frightened.”

“I’m not scared, Dan, it’s not that. But each time she’s closer, and I don’t know what it means.” Defeated, Freya leaned against his chest. “But thank you so much for coming back. And you, too, Katherine. At least you’re both real.”

“Real?” Katherine’s expression changed.

A quick glance at Freya and Dan said, “It’s a long story, a tale for the fire tonight, Katherine. But we’re here to work and the day’s wasting.”

Freya’s expression brightened. “Okay, then. Let’s move that stone. It’s important, I know it is.”

As the pair took hold of the trolley and pushed it toward the meadow, Katherine hung back. She so wanted to ask who
she
was, but did not have the courage.
Michael, tell me what I should say.

“That’s ingenious, Dan. Really clever.” Freya stood back to admire his work. It had taken some hours, but a squat, cross-braced tower stood at each end of the trench that housed the slab.

Bolted together from short lengths of steel, a thick arm, also of steel, jutted from each of the towers at head height. Behind a guard, a loop of steel hawser ran through a pulley to form a sling under the stone. A chain-driven mechanism, cranked by hand, would allow the hawser to be ratcheted tight, and then two people working together, one at each end, could raise the stone.

“I played with Meccano as a kid. This is a bigger version—it’s all just problem solving, using what’s to hand.”

If Dan was modest, he was certainly pleased with Freya’s response. “Well, I think you’re pretty damn clever.”

Her fond expression warmed him very much.

“What happens when the slab gets to the top?” Katherine eyed the structure.

“That’s the beauty of this.” Dan pointed to a gimbal. “Once we’ve got it above the trench, we unlock the arms and swivel them. Then we drop the slab.”

“Lower it, you mean,” Freya put in.
Stop bossing the man around!

He said, patiently, “We lower the slab carefully to one side of the trench. Right—all rigged and ready. Freya, you take that end, I’ll do this. Three, two, one . . .”

At first nothing seemed to shift as they pumped the handles back and forth, then, slowly, the slings tightened around the stone.

Dan was breathing faster. “Keep going.”

Freya followed his rhythm. Her biceps were burning and sweat stung her eyes as the stone began to move; she gave up trying not to pant.