The Visitors (26 page)

‘Christ, aye, but nothing like this. I meant in finding the Viking stones, help with your homework, something like that.’

‘You offered, Izzy. And here I am. I need help.’

‘I can’t get mixed up in this. I can’t. It’s madness. I’ve no beef with Lachlan.’

‘He tried to cut your ear off!’

Izzy grimaced and reached for his ear, feeling the wound. ‘And one night he would have come down here with his cigarette lighter, and that would’ve been the end of this,’ I said, gesturing at the cluttered shack, ‘and you too. I saw him kick a man half to death tonight. He was going to kill him until I got in the way.’

‘No, no and no. I don’t want to get involved.’

‘Listen to me. If the constabulary find him up by the hotel, they won’t come looking for me first. They’ll ask around for people with grudges against him. And there won’t be any shortage, but you’ll be near the top. They’ll hear about Lachie cutting your ear. That’s a pretty good motive.’

Izzy thought about this.

‘Where were you between the hours of eleven and three, Izzy?’

‘I was right here,’ he said, slow and resentful, ‘and fast asleep. You know I was here. You woke me up.’

It was hard to lay this on him, but there was no way I could shift Lachlan without him. I needed him.

‘Can you prove it? Was anyone here with you? What’s your alibi?’

‘Don’t push me, lass,’ he growled. ‘Don’t you dare. I didn’t do a thing.’

‘This is what the police will ask.’

Izzy retreated into the shadows, thinking. A gust of wind, and the canvas sucked against the frame of the shack. The lantern scattered shadows into his stacks of junk.

‘Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘All right. He was a bad lad. He was due this sort of end. I just wish it hadn’t been you.’

‘Thanks, Izzy.’

‘So where are you going to put him?’

‘I’ve thought about that, too,’ I said. ‘We’ll put him in the sea.’

He laughed out loud.

‘Just like that, we put him in the sea? Bodies float, lass.’

‘It’s a big ocean. He’ll disappear. Just like Dougie. Just like Bill,’ I said. ‘Just like Anders. There’s been people going missing for years on the islands round here. Loads of them. Sometimes they get pulled out of the sea, and sometimes they’re never found at all.’

Izzy stopped laughing. ‘I know all about Bill and Doug and Anders,’ he said, thickly. ‘I didn’t know about any others.’

‘Not many people do. Not even the police have put it together.’

‘So how do you know?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Lachlan will just be another one. It’ll never get out about what he tried to do. None of that.’

‘So we put him in the sea,’ huffed the beachcomber, shaking his head. ‘The mouths of babes and sucklings. All right. I suppose we’d better get on with it.’

He stood and fished inside another box, then threw a pair of battered plimsolls on the floor by my feet.

We trudged back along the beach. The sky was still indigo, but that pale line on the horizon was firing into dawn. The waves lapping on sand sounded like a pulse. It sounded like the beginning of time. I was exhausted. Izzy was a dark figure ahead of me. I scurried to match his bear steps. We
walked in silence for the most part. I shouldn’t have pushed him so hard to help, but there was no going back now. We let a freak solitary car come down the coast and drive away before crossing the playground and the road. In the hotel, there was the sound of a flush, then a light snapped off in a top window.

Izzy led the way, moving like a shadow, and I followed, praying no one would see. We walked into the construction site and crossed the mud and gravel. My heart beat thicker as we approached the stack of pipes. Gravity seemed to condense, the closer we came. The pipe with Lachlan waited like a black hole, drawing us in.

‘Is this the one?’ said Izzy, his voice painfully loud in the silence. ‘Is this it?’

I nodded, suddenly fearful of going back inside. For stupid seconds I could hear Lachlan’s voice, whispering from the darkness. Izzy stooped and stepped inside the pipe. He shuffled in a little way, then paused. He backed out.

‘Are you sure this is the right pipe?’

Puzzled, I checked our position. I nodded.

Izzy shone the torch in my face. I scrunched my eyes shut, squinting to see his face. He was furious.

‘Are you taking the piss?’

‘What? No!’

‘Because if it’s supposed to be a joke,’ he said, and in a single swift motion stepped close, close enough and fast enough to make me gasp, ‘it’s not even a little bit funny.’

I grabbed the torch from him and ducked around him, darting to the pipe. I shone the light into the darkness. The darkness shone back at me.

The pipe was empty.

‘No. No, he was right here.’

Izzy stood back, scowling, as I raced between the pipes,
shining the torch into each one. They were all empty. Slowing down, my pulse racing, I returned to the original one, the one where it had all happened.

‘He was here, Izzy,’ I said. ‘It was here.’

The beachcomber was silent and seething. I climbed inside the pipe and crawled down, down into that pervasive chill. I crawled beyond the cone of orange streetlight, and deeper into the tunnel. The smooth concrete pressed into my palms and bruised knees. It was damp. Under the torchlight, what I’d thought was blood was water, water in a wide arc, running down the sides where it had been sluiced into the pipe. I crawled deeper into the darkness, scuffling along with the torch in my hand, shadows and light jittering along the roof. A few metres in, I felt something beneath my hand that was not smooth concrete. In the torchlight, it was one of the buttons from my miniskirt, pinged into the depths when Lachie tore my clothes. I picked it up, stupidly small to touch. I looked a little further. There was another one. And there, just a little further ahead, lay a narrow, flat, dark object. I crawled deeper into the pipe and took the object in my hand. With some difficulty, feeling all my aches, I turned and shuffled out of the pipe.

I held out my right hand to Izzy. Two buttons.

‘You could have easily hidden those,’ he said.

I opened my left hand, showing the thin dark object. Izzy picked it up. It was Lachlan’s pocket knife. He examined it beneath the streetlight.

‘There was nowhere you could have hidden that,’ he said, quietly.

‘And look at this,’ I said.

I drew him over to the pipe. Just inside, where Lachie’s body had lain upside down against the curve of the concrete, was the large wet stain.

‘When I was here, that was blood,’ I said. ‘That’s where I passed out and he was bleeding. He lay right there.’

Izzy reached into the pipe and ran a finger along the dark stain. It had pooled at the bottom in a puddle, seeping already into the porous concrete. He dipped his finger, then tasted the liquid.

‘Salt. It’s sea water.’

‘Someone’s moved him.’

‘Only two people knew he was in here. You, and whoever killed him.’

‘But why risk me seeing anything?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I tell you this. This puts you in the clear. If the person who did this wanted you in trouble, they’d have left things exactly as they were.’

‘You think?’

‘Why move it? They must have waited for you to leave before shifting the body. They were watching you.’

‘That makes no sense. Why wait?’

He shrugged. ‘They’re protecting you, Flora. But they don’t want you to know.’

I stood lost in thought. The Dobies had been long gone. Besides, anyone who’d been defending me from Lachlan would have called the police.

‘You’ve a guardian angel, lass.’

My brain was scrambled. Behind Izzy, the sky was tanning with dawn, the colour melting into pale blue, then darkening seamlessly through the shades. Night and stars still clung to the west. I felt numb with tension, sharp with lack of sleep. Waves fizzed across the beach, the backwash sighing into sunrise.

‘No body, no crime,’ said Izzy. ‘I think we should leave, right now, and not come back for a long, long time. And at least we’ve learned a couple of things.’

‘What?’

‘There is a killer. And it’s not Lachie.’

No. It wasn’t Lachie.

‘Should I take the knife, Flo?’

I nodded. ‘Aye. Please.’

‘I’ll get rid of it. Wouldn’t want anybody else getting hold of it.’

‘No. OK.’

The beachcomber studied me. ‘You’re wiped out, lass. Go home. Sleep. We’ll see what comes of this in time. You can trust me to stay true.’

We walked out of the construction site in a pale light. It must have been about five o’clock. On the road outside the hotel, we parted ways without a look. Izzy returned to the beach. Still dressed in his overalls, I started the long walk down the coast road home.

Deep. I went very deep, tossed on the thickest sub-sea currents, tumbled over in the flow. A body spiralled from the surface, drifting towards me, creeping closer, the limbs spread-eagled and silhouetted black against the indigo. Each time I tumbled over, Lachlan drifted closer. It took for ever, but he joined me in the current, nose to nose and eye to eye. As I studied his face, his jaw dropped open. Slowly they came forward, pressing tight against each other, emerging from his mouth. Thick, knotted eels. They bobbed on his tongue, blind and grasping, crowded together.

Lachlan blinked.

I gasped for air. Someone hammered on my door.

‘Come on, slugabed,’ yelled Mum. ‘Time to get up.’

I’d slept for three hours. The injuries which had tweaked and niggled on the walk home now cracked and knifed. I eased myself to sitting, using my arms to raise myself up, and my face appeared in the little mirror. In livid red, a bruise marked the place where Lachie struck me.

‘Flo,’ said Mum, ‘come on. Are you up?’

‘Aye,’ I called, and it came out a croak.

‘Well, on with it then.’

Mum didn’t hold with lie-ins.

I wore my thickest tights and a long-sleeved sweater with a high roll-neck. Even so, nothing was going to hide the marks
on my face. I limped out and into the kitchen, pretending that nothing had happened. Mum was draping wet clothes on the drying rack. She did a double-take when she saw me.

‘Jesus Christ Almighty. What happened to you?’

I’d practiced this.

‘I fell over a wall, Mum,’ I said, looking guilty.

‘Fell over? It looks more like the wall fell on you.’

‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ I lied.

‘And that’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say about it?’

‘Aye, well. It was walking back last night. I was. Well, I was maybe a wee bit pissed.’

Her face darkened. I’d known that would do the trick. ‘Pissed. Drinking. Flora. We’ve spoken about this.’

‘I know, Mum,’ I said, letting the words come out in protest, ‘but it’s the only thing going on round here, it’s the only thing I can do for fun—’

‘Enough of that. I gave you the freedom to go out. I’m not daft, Flora. I thought you’d have a drink or two. But I also hoped you’d have the sense to stop. Look at you. Just look. You’re a mess.’

‘Mum—’ I began.

‘Be quiet. I’m talking. You could have been killed, by the looks of you.’

‘It’s not that bad.’

Ronny came into the kitchen.

‘Shit the bed,’ he said, ‘you’ve been in the wars, Flo.’

‘You should see the other guy,’ I mumbled, then wished I hadn’t.

‘Flora. Ronald,’ hissed my mother. ‘This is not to be taken lightly.’

‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘Sorry, love.’

‘The girl’s been drinking. Look at the state of her! She’s a mess.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I fell over. Stacked it on a pothole, fell over a wall. My fault for wearing heels.’

‘It was your fault for being drunk!’ snapped Mum.

Ronny looked at me strangely.

‘Fell over?’

Mum wagged a finger under my nose.

‘This is absolutely unacceptable. I expect better of you, Flora Cannan.’

‘I’m an adult,’ I muttered.

‘You’re a wee kid. I’m so disappointed in you. I’m just furious.’

I couldn’t even look her in the eye. The sodden clothes dripped on the floor.

‘Sorry, Mum.’

‘I think you should get out of the house right now. Get out of my sight for a bit.’

She spun away from me, arms folded. Numb, bruised, stung by her rage, I turned and walked away. I grabbed my boots and jacket, and went out for a walk. Waves sluiced foam in broad bands onto the beach, and everything was white and grey. Dog Rock looked empty. No smoke, no lights.

I was fifty yards along the road when Ronny caught me up.

‘Hey now. You all right?’

‘No.’

‘I guess not. So you fell over, did you?’

‘Like I said, aye.’

‘Only it’s funny, Flo. Your mum’s not seen many fistfights, perhaps. But I have.’

My stomach dropped away. I looked out to Still Bay. Halfway to Dog Rock, I spotted a seal. The dark head dipped in the foam, bobbing between the waves. Now you see it. Now you don’t.

‘I know a punch when I see one. So who hit you, Flo?’

I didn’t say a thing. I couldn’t even meet his eye. On the fringes of my hearing, back in the house, Jamie was screaming.

‘I heard there was a fight outside the Bull last night, you know. A man was airlifted to hospital. One of the lads from the fish farm. But there’s no way you did something like that. So what happened? Were you there?’

I shook my head.

‘All right. You don’t have to tell me. I’m disappointed, but it’s your call. Listen, Flora. If I see even a hint of anything else, I’ll tell your mum, and I’ll chase this as far as I have to. Understand?’

I nodded. As if it was copying me, the seal bobbed beneath the waves.

‘And give her a couple of hours,’ he said, softening. ‘She’ll calm down.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘You’re her daughter. She’s frightened of your freedom. You doing something this stupid tells her you’re not ready for it.’

I looked directly at him, then. ‘But I need to be ready pretty soon, don’t I?’

‘Aye,’ said Ronny, holding my gaze. ‘I think perhaps you do.’

When I looked back to the bay, the seal had gone.

‘See you later,’ I said.