The Visitors (32 page)

Ailsa went in first, wading into the water without breaking stride, and lowered the bow of the little boat. I laid the stern into the shallows. She stood up to her shins in the bay, wavelets lapping over her bare knees, the wind blowing dark hair in front of her face. She had to raise her voice over the sound of the sea, hissing and shushing on the sand.

‘Flora,’ she said, ‘listen. I want you to know this. I’ll always be your friend. Do you hear me?’

‘Excuse me?’ I replied, lifting my voice into the wind. Salt spray lifted to my face.

‘Will you remember?’

‘I’ll remember, but I don’t know why you’d say such a thing.’

‘Just in case. If me and Dad have to go away again. Even if you change your mind about me.’

She spoke so lightly, so honestly, it made me uncomfortable. I looked away into the grey green ploughing sea.

‘Why would I change my mind?’

‘Just remember what I said. Remember that, Flora.’

A wave raced in towards me, sluicing over my feet. I hopped away, uselessly, but my shoes had already filled with frigid water, squelching even as the sea rolled back. I wanted to reach out. I didn’t know what she was saying to me, but I sensed there was truth in it, truth and urgency.

A light flared in me. I had to give something back. In case it happened to me. In case she ever found out what I was.

‘Ailsa,’ I faltered, ‘about Lachlan.’

She watched me so closely, her dark features knitted with concern as the water ploshed between her legs. I tried to frame the words, but nothing came. I couldn’t say anything, and then the moment was gone. I shut my mouth.

‘Lachlan’s dead, Flo,’ she said. Her voice cut through the busy sea, the blustering wind. ‘He’s gone. I only met him twice, and I’ll never care enough to miss him. It wasn’t your fault he died. Was it?’

Her dark eyes, asking, imploring. I was mute.

‘Life is tough enough with the people you care about, without wasting time on the ones you don’t.’

Spoondrift scattered from the lacing wavecrests, fizzing
as it pattered on the water. And then she grinned, wind whipping at her hair. Still beaming, she leaned backwards into the sea. Her skirt dipped two fingers deep as she pulled on the boat, tugging the weight of the dinghy towards her. I let go the handle at the stern and she jumped in, her legs lean white scissors as she swung herself aboard. Already adrift and under momentum, she cranked the outboard once, then twice, the engine caught furiously, and she dipped the whizzing blades beneath the surface. At once the water foamed white. She turned the rib for Dog Rock and didn’t once look back.

I stepped out of my wet shoes and knocked them together, shaking loose the crust of sand. I went inside. Ronny sat by himself in the lounge, his hair up in the samurai topknot. He held a tumbler with a mouthful of whisky still sloshing at the bottom. The bottle was uncorked on the floor beside him. The gathering storm let only a little daylight through the window. It was about five in the afternoon. I’d never seen him home so early on a weekday. I’d never seen him drinking during the day, except with Anders.

‘Hey, Teenwolf,’ I said, cautiously, ‘how’s it going?’

He’d been lost in thought, and started at my voice, looking up. Amber fluid spun madly in the glass.

‘Hey, Flo,’ he said, and looked down. He gestured at the tumbler. ‘Not great, to be honest.’

‘You’re back awful early.’

He grinned without humour. ‘Not my call. The decision’s been made. The distillery’s closing, pet. Lachie was the end of it. Old man Munzie’s had enough. Clachnabhan is up for sale, and we’re on reduced hours while he looks for a buyer. So I came home.’

‘Better here than the Bull,’ I said, gesturing at the tumbler in his hand.

‘Clachnabhan Malt, eighteen years old.’

‘That’s older than me.’

He raised the glass and peered at me through the whisky.

‘There was a time, not long after I’d met your mum. Me and Anders had been out drinking. When the Bull closed, we bought a bottle of whisky, and decided it was a good idea to climb the Ben. The best idea in the world. There was absolutely nothing else we could do instead, you know? So we struggled up it in pitch black, right to the top. And there, at the summit, we drank all the whisky. Man, we were blootered. We had an argument about football, Denmark versus Scotland. It was incredibly important. We decided that the only way to settle the fight was to race each other back to town. And so we go running down the hill, blind drunk, totally out of control. Running into trees, falling over.’

Ronny snorted with laughter, but his eyes glistened.

‘So who won?’

‘It was an honourable draw. About halfway down, we crashed into each other. Anders cracked his head on a branch, and I twisted my ankle. We limped back to his house, and I remember thinking – things are pretty good. I was with my best mate, the job at Clachnabhan was going grand, and I’d started seeing this amazing woman. That was your mum. Then Jamie came along. Anders has been there, Flora, all the time.’

He brought his sleeve to his eye.

‘And now he’s not,’ finished Ronny, sadly, ‘and the distillery’s going, too.’

Bear hugs. Big laughs. Holding Jamie like a china doll.

‘What will you do?’ I asked.

Ronny twisted the tumbler between his fingers, transfixed by the tiny waves in the whisky, watching it slide across the glass. He started shaking his head.

‘The question isn’t what I’ll do, Flo. Here’s the question. If the distillery closes,’ and here he held up the tumbler, whisky
detonating gold in the lamplight, ‘then exactly what else is there?’

There was no good answer. With Clachnabhan gone, there was nothing but the fish farm, and Ronny had done his time on that. He grinned wide and wolfish at me, no humour in his smile.

‘You know what that means?’

I nodded, mute.

‘Sláinte,’ he said, and downed the glass in one gulp. He sucked his cheeks, and reached to refill the tumbler.

Ronny would make the only decision he could for the good of his family. If the distillery closed, they’d be leaving Bancree.

Leaving the island.

Leaving the island. It was all I wanted, but even thinking it felt unreal. I tested the weight of the doorframe, pushing against it, pushing until my palm began to burn. I felt cheated. Leaving was supposed to mean something. I felt robbed of the choice. I left Ronny to his whisky, and walked through to my room.

I felt too numb. I imagined Ailsa’s face when I told her we were going. For ridiculous moments, I wanted to stay on Bancree more than anything in the world. I wanted to stay on Dog Rock.

I peeled off the muddy clothes and examined myself in the mirror. The ghosts of bruises still marked my ribs, my hips, my thighs. There was a faint red line still clinging to one side of my neck, but it was fading fast. Every day, my body healed a little more, forgot a little more. Soon it would remember nothing. None of my injuries had been bad enough to leave a scar. The memories were fading, as memories always do.

In the mirror, my body was not my own. My breasts were too small. I was too pale, too skinny, too tall, too awkward.
There was nothing to my hips, no curves. Nothing feminine, womanly, girly, sexy. The bones stuck out. Flora, virtually fat free. Richard gave me bruises when we had sex. My hair was plain. My cheekbones were too high and broad, gypsy-girl, Romany, Slavic girl. Weirdo. My eyes were cat’s eyes, almonds, too pale. I wore weird clothes. I did weird things.

I took off my hoop earrings, dropped them on the floor. Eased off my bangles. They hit the carpet without a sound. I undid the ribbon from my hair. It was cool in the room. The air prickled me, chasing across my skin, raising goose bumps in waves. I reached an arm around my body, spreading my fingers, intertwining ribs and fingers, tracing the channels of my rib cage from the lower floating bones to my sternum. Another ley line, running from my thigh to the sloping underside of my breast. Everything in angles. Where are the curves, skinny bitch? What kind of woman are you? What it’s like to fuck a real girl. Real girls, spilling pink and white from tabloid newspapers that men read in their tea breaks. The tiny hairs on my arm stiffened into thin down. I could’ve had a coat of fur.

I could have been a Viking girl.

I could have been a selkie, rank with salt.

I climbed into bed, despite the early hour, and pulled the covers across my head, and I cried and cried because there was nothing else to do. And when I was done, two voices echoed in my skull.

All things heal in time, said Izzy.

It never gets better, said John.

I was startled awake by a rap at the door. Groggy and disorientated, my eyes gummed with sleep and tears, I gazed at the shadows on the ceiling and tried to make sense of the sounds. Coming round, my attention focused to a point.

‘Flora?’

Mum called through the door, and knocked again. I could hear the tension in her voice. ‘Flo, it’s the constabulary, love. The police. They need to speak to you. Are you decent?’

‘Can I call them back?’ I yelled.

‘It’s not the phone, Flo.’ Her voice was tight. ‘They’re here. Now. In the house.’

Something caught high in my throat. I threw on some clothes and stepped warily from the room.

Mum waited in the hallway, sadness and anger and shame all mixed up together.

‘You told me it was nothing,’ she said, and touched me on the shoulder, pushing me so slightly towards the kitchen.

Tom Duncan sat at the table with Ronny, drinking a cup of tea. In front of him, on the kitchen table, lay a cardboard folder. As I walked into the room, they both turned to look at me. Mum followed close behind. I could feel her at my back. Ronny stood up, clearly pissed from the whisky. He and Mum stood together by the worktop.

‘Miss Cannan,’ said Duncan, ‘good evening.’

Him being on Bancree was bad enough. Calling me Miss Cannan made it worse.

‘My name is Flo. You know that. You know me, Tom.’

He looked down at the tablecloth, then cleared his throat.

‘This is official business.’

They must know about me and Lachlan. Somehow, they knew. Duncan gestured at the vacant chair. I sat down with a hundredweight in my stomach.

‘What’s going on?’ I said.

‘Soon after talking to you,’ he said, ‘we received an anonymous phone call.’

Tina Robson. It must have been Tina, calling my bluff. I felt my fist curl. I studied the table, waiting. But what Tom said next surprised me.

‘Following that phone call, I made a few enquiries into John Dobie.’

I looked up, baffled.

‘John?’

‘I now have very good reason to believe he’s required to assist in a number of ongoing investigations. I understand you know him and his daughter fairly well.’

They wanted John. The police had finally woken up to Izzy’s theory. Two plus two equals five, and torrents of rain burst in rattles on the skylight.

But who would call the cops? Tina didn’t know a thing about John Dobie.

‘Ailsa’s my friend,’ I said. ‘You already know that. She hasn’t done anything.’

‘No one’s accusing her of anything,’ said the detective. ‘But her father, well. That’s something else. John Dobie may be extremely dangerous.’

‘Where’s your proof?’

Duncan was silent.

‘There’s no proof, is there?’

‘I have extremely strong suspicions. We’ll find evidence on that island. I know it.’

‘Leave him alone. He’s done nothing wrong. John Dobie’s had nothing but bad things happen to him. He lost his wife. He’s been looking for her half his life.’

‘Yes,’ said the detective, queerly, ‘he has. It’s taken me a while, but I traced him back. I need to inform you, Flora, that his movements match those of several other suspicious disappearances.’

‘That’s because he’s investigating them himself!’

‘He’s doing what?’ asked Duncan, blinking in surprise.

‘John believes they’re all done by the same person. He thinks it’s been going on for years, but your lot haven’t made the connection. So he’s been looking for the killer himself. And he’s tracked them here, to Bancree.’

Duncan leaned back, thinking, and stared at the rain streaking on the window. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose.

‘Christ. No, Flora. It’s the other way round. He doesn’t follow the missing people. They follow him.’

I started shaking my head. Behind him, Mum put her hand to her mouth.

‘Do you not see,’ said Duncan, ‘how this looks?’

‘You haven’t met him. He couldn’t hurt anyone.’

Even as I said it, I faltered. I thought of the sadness in him, but also the menace, the streak of anger.

First Izzy, now the police. The jigsaw pieces rotated, and started making a picture, but it was all wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

I want him to stop, said Ailsa.

‘It’s perfect,’ said Duncan, softly. ‘No wonder they never caught him.’

‘But he’s heartbroken. His wife was one of the missing people.’

‘You’ve been over there, Flora!’ said Mum. ‘You’ve been alone with him.’

‘He’s looking for his wife, that’s all. He’s so sad. He’s completely broken by it.’

They looked at me.

‘I can’t explain,’ I said. ‘It’s like he’s had his heart ripped out, and now he’s walking about without it.’

‘That’s tripe,’ snapped Mum. ‘She’s talking nonsense, Detective.’

Duncan leaned back in his chair and placed his hands slowly on the edge of the table.

‘You could have been killed,’ he said. He was trembling.

‘And you have no idea what that means to me,’ I replied.

‘Flora, please. This is a very serious matter. It’ll go badly against you if you’re seen to be helping them.’

‘How will it go for me,’ I snapped, ‘if they’re innocent? What if John has to look for missing people because you can’t find them, Detective Constable?’

Rain lashed against the roofs and windows, and ran in streams and spatters down the glass. Duncan looked at Mum, then Ronny, then opened the folder on the table. He slid it over to me. I opened it. Inside a plastic wallet was a
Shetland Times
newspaper report from the 1990s, photocopied in crinkled black and white. The headline shouted in bold capitals: