The Shadows in the Street (7 page)

Simon enjoyed having her in his bed, liked her company, found her straightforwardness and slight stubbornness attractive. But that was all. It was all for her, too. The whole thing worked pleasantly and easily, and when he eventually went home, it would end in the same spirit. He had found out, in any case, that a farmer on the other side of the island regarded Kirsty as his own for the future, if not just for the present, and Simon guessed that he was right – when Kirsty was ready to settle she would do so with Douglas and that would be for the best too.

He opened the cottage door and wandered out onto the strip of thin grass which was all the place boasted as a garden. From here there was an uninterrupted view down to the water. The seals had gone but they would reappear later, sleek dark heads surfacing and diving. There was barely a line between sky and sea and little colour but different washes of grey, soft brown, faded green.

He had spent hours walking about the island, sitting on outcrops of rock to draw the landscape, the hills, the bobbing heads of the seals, cormorants, gulls, divers. He had brought back sheeps’ heads picked bare and whitened by the wind and salt air, strangely shaped stones and pieces of driftwood, and had drawn those, sitting in the clear light at the table in the window, or, when it was warm enough and not too windy, outside. His drawing books were almost full.

He had met a few people, enjoyed his trips to the pub, bought what he needed from the shop, and avoided the visitors. Taransay was a paradise for birdwatchers and walkers, but had little else to offer. The cottages dotted about the island, like this one, were rented out for five months of the year – otherwise, the island was too difficult to get to, too bleak and windswept.

It was the end of September. He had another week, though he could extend the rental for as long as he chose, but he knew he wouldn’t enjoy a winter here even if he could stay. The Chief had been generous with the leave but he would not take advantage of that, though there were days when he was so content to sit in the open air, eating a sandwich, drawing, happy in his own company, that he wondered how he could go back.

He had had the time, space and solitude to clear his head as well as sleep away months of exhaustion, and, equally important, to think about his life – whether he still wanted to do his job, as a DCS and as head of the Special Incident Flying Taskforce, whether he wanted to try and take up again from where he had left off with Jane Fitzroy – wherever that had been. When he had first arrived on Taransay both had seemed complex, difficult areas of life, but, to his surprise, they had sorted themselves out rather quickly. He did want to carry on with his job. He enjoyed it, he was still challenged by it, he found it satisfying. He would never be content as a full-time professional artist, though by now he could have become one – the London gallery wanted to mount a new exhibition of his work, he was illustrating a private press book, and he had more than enough plans for what he wanted to do next, after he had sorted out the Taransay drawings. But he needed the other half of his life, the balance of the two, he was quite sure of that now. And Jane he would not see again. Jane had too many uncertainties and anxieties And, increasingly, he felt that he would never need, want or find a lasting close relationship. The Kirsty Mcleods of this world suited him fine.

When Kirsty had discovered what his job was she had shrugged and said ‘Great’, but shown no real interest, asked no questions – that was refreshing too. ‘You’d have nothing to occupy you here,’ was the only other thing she had said. It was true. Taransay was crime-free and only boasted occasional visits from the police during the season. They checked gun licences but were otherwise severely underworked.

An hour later, he walked down to the village. The wind had got up again, pushing at his back. He would find that tiresome through a long winter, the moaning and battering of the gale as it scoured the island for weeks on end.

The ferry had come in, the only contact with the outside world other than a small passenger helicopter which came twice weekly in the summer. Serrailler had a friend from training days who was now heading up the local force on the mainland and had called in a favour, to get his car mothballed at the police station pound while he was on Taransay. He would fly back soon, to pick it up and start the long drive home.

But for now, there might be mail and he needed bread, eggs and coffee. As he neared the landing stage he saw Kirsty carrying a couple of large cartons off the boat and offered to help her.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, laughing, ‘you just get the next one.’

He joined the others who were unloading, lifted a heavy box of groceries and headed across the shingle to the post office and shop.

There was no mail for him. He had hardly had any during his stay, and that suited him perfectly well. In any case, though there was no mobile phone signal here, Taransay, like many other remote places, had been parachuted into modern life and global communication with the arrival of wireless broadband. He had come down to the café a couple of times a week to access emails, mainly from Cat, though quite often from Sam too, and once or twice from his father. He had even received a flurry of them from his brother Ivo, who was a flying doctor in the Australian outback. Ivo wrote no letters, only the very occasional laconic postcard. His emails were equally terse but they were often funny, and Simon realised that he’d had more communication with his triplet during his weeks in the distant Scottish isles than he’d had for years.

But it was Cat he needed to keep close to him, Cat about whom he worried. He had been so concerned about how Chris’s death had hit her, how she would cope, he had almost decided not to come here at all. She had been the one to push him into it, insist that he needed the long break, and of course she had been right but it didn’t stop him worrying. Physically, managing work and family, she would be fine – she was competent, she would grit her teeth and get on with it, and she had plenty of friends and willing help. She also had Judith, with whom she had formed a close bond that Simon should not have resented – but did. But emotionally, he knew, Cat was only just holding herself together, was more vulnerable than she would admit. He was the one to whom she always turned.

He spent the next half-hour helping to unload the ferry, then got a mug of coffee and paid for access to one of the Island Café’s two computers. The shop was busy and noisy, the café quiet.

From
[email protected]

I am sending this from the school computer in lunch hour. Thanks for the pictures of the island. I wish I could come up theyre and see you. Im OK, school is OK. I have not been picked for the rugby or soccer teams but I don’t mind. I am liking hockey which I didnt play b4. Cricket is better. If you go to the Scottish island again can I come with you? I miss talking to you about things. I miss you being here, when are you coming home? Have you been fishing if so what kind of fish? I am reading a very good book called Northern Lights. Did you know the other name for Northern Lights was aurora borealis? Can you see those on your island?

Love from Sam.

PS Hannah still likes puke pink everything. Judith bought her a puke pink new bedcover. It is puke.

PPS I really wish you were here.

There were no other messages.

Simon spent the rest of the day on the other side of the bay, drawing two of Taransay’s ancient cairns and the hollowed-out section of rock behind them, which had been excavated a few years previously and found to be an Iron Age burial site. It was windy but he was well sheltered. He had been here several times, trying to capture the roughness and textures on the stones, the intricate overgrowth of lichens, the shading of the ground. There seemed to be so little in this bleak landscape and yet, the more closely he looked, the more detail he saw.

He was only stopped by a great sweeping veil of rain that soaked him before he had gone fifty yards. It was forty minutes of hard slog back to the cottage. The sea was whipped up to a frenzy, the sky pewter. He changed, had a shower and lit the fire. Rain and wind hurled themselves at the stone walls and made a drumbeat on the roof. He stretched out on the sofa in front of the blaze and picked up an old John le Carré novel which someone had left behind. He had first read
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
twenty years ago, when what had seemed to matter was the story that he had raced through to reach its denouement. Now, what delighted him was the prose, the sense of place, the richness of a text which he had not appreciated before.

He was still on the sofa, book on the floor and the fire burnt down to a small red core, when Kirsty McLeod came banging in and woke him just after six. She bore a wide smile and a small carrier bag containing two large steaks. An hour later, Serrailler wondered why he had thought he might ever leave Taransay at all.

Eleven

There was no light on in the caravan but Jonty Lewis kicked at the door anyway. He knew she’d be in there. It was too early for her to be working and she didn’t have many other places to go. But it was several seconds before she answered and by then he’d kicked harder.

‘For Christ’s sake, do you have to do that?’ Marie stood back to let him shove his way past her into the dingy space. She’d tried to make it like a home, put curtains at the windows and a weird-looking plant on the cruddy work surface, and there were some cushions on the bench that did for a seat. But it was still a manky caravan.

He pulled open cupboard doors above his head and slammed them shut.

‘Stop doing that, will you? I haven’t got any bottles – you want to bring your own.’

He switched on the television which sat above the worktop. The picture was fuzzy but he sat down and started watching anyway.

‘I could do with a brew.’

‘Brew it then.’

But when he caught Marie’s eye, she put the kettle on the hob, not wanting to start anything, which with Jonty was never difficult.

She had the beginning of a cold, her mother was still on the run which meant she had the van to herself, and she had planned to lie down under her blankets and watch both episodes of
Corrie
and
EastEnders
. She had a boil-in-the-bag curry and a block of Galaxy. She was sorted.

Only now he was here, sprawling his legs out, tripping her up, filling the small space. But she was frightened enough of him to say nothing. She handed him his mug of tea and found a half-packet of Custard Creams.

‘When you going out?’ he asked, looking at the screen. The voices and the laughter coming out of it were fuzzy like the picture.

‘I’m not.’

He looked at her then, a long, steady expressionless look, dunking his biscuit as he did so.

‘I was out last night and my throat’s sore.’

‘Sounds all right to me.’

‘Yeah, well, it doesn’t feel all right.’

‘When’d a sore throat stop anyone?’

She hesitated, wondering if she would bother making herself tea and deciding against it. She just stood, staring out of the plastic window into the darkness.

‘I need to pay someone,’ Jonty said.

His dealer. There was never anyone else he had to pay.

She said nothing.

‘Or else I won’t get any gear.’

She wondered if anything was beyond the window in the dark field. Rabbits or a fox or someone’s cat. Funny thing, but she was never bothered here on her own at night, though she put the bar on the caravan door. She was more bothered by having him here.

‘So get yourself done up. I’ll mind the van.’

Marie shivered. She would have to go. The best she could hope to do was keep some money back for herself, but most of it she’d have to hand over. When Jonty was around he called the shots, he was the one she worked for. She remained looking into the darkness, thinking about what Abi had said – that she was getting out, saving up, looking to the future, this was the last year. She wouldn’t make it of course, none of them ever did. Marie would watch her struggle and sink under, watch her kids go into care and her hopes blotted out. All the same, she wished she had some of Abi’s guts even to think of it, make the plans in her head that were never going to come to anything. Because the difference between them was that she had long since given up on anything except getting from one day to the next and sometimes dreaming that Jonty Lewis would be found dead in a ditch with his head kicked in.

He had turned up the television. The hissing, crackling laughter blasted out of the set and filled the fetid space inside the van, along with the sound of him slurping tea. He had finished the biscuits.

She went to the cardboard box where she kept her clothes. She couldn’t wait to get out after all.

It was a busy night. By half past eleven she had been picked up by four punters, the last of whom must have been high on something, though he hadn’t seemed it, because he gave her £90. She stood on the corner at the top of Old Ribbon Street. It was mild. There was a moon. Traffic was quiet. But it didn’t matter, she’d earned plenty. She’d go back. The only thing stopping her was that Jonty would be there, feet up, guzzling everything there was to guzzle, filling the van with smoke, and waiting. If she had a place she could stash the extra money she’d do that, but there was nowhere that someone wouldn’t find. A couple of other girls had been out working but she wouldn’t trust them, and anyway, they’d gone now. The road was empty.

She started to walk, not going down onto the canal towpath and over the bridge, which was the short cut, but sticking to the main route. Abi said the only thing to worry about on the towpath was if it was muddy and you slipped, or if you met Beanie Man, but it bothered Marie. She would walk the long way, round by the Hill. A car slowed beside her but she kept her head down and the collar of her anorak up and walked faster. The car drove off. She’d had enough tonight. But then, she’d always had enough. Which one of them hadn’t? But which of them could get out, even Abi and her great ideas?