Eleven

“Have you been absolutely straight with me?” I asked as soon as I was in the kitchen door, unwinding my scarf and kicking off my boots. The table was set with a cloth and a jug of water instead of just a filled tumbler.

“What?” Stig turned round and stared at me. His glasses hid his eyes, the light bouncing off the lenses just like Miss Drumm’s. But she could see better, despite her blindness. “What do you mean?” he asked me.

“For starters, you said last night that you didn’t sleep again after you moved and the dew soaked in, but then you said the next thing you knew was that Vanman was shaking you.”

“Van the Man,” said Stig. “After Van Morrison, not after white-van man.”

“Van Morrison?” I repeated.

“He’s a singer,” said Stig. “Come on, Gloria. I know you go more for books than records, but you must have heard of Van Morrison.”

“But why was he shaking you if you weren’t asleep?” I asked, trying to wrench my mind back to where it should be instead of jumping to crazy conclusions.

“Because he didn’t know I was awake, I suppose,” said Stig.

I felt all my held breath leave me in a rush. Of course, there was an explanation for everything. And I couldn’t actually remember which one of the Eden kids was something like Douglas or Dougall, if he’d ever said. They were common enough names, like Morrison. There was an explanation for everything.

“Okay, next question,” I said. “This occurred to me tonight reading to Nicky. Why the huttie?” This time Stig didn’t try to fend of the question. He nodded slowly with his lips pushed out as if he was thinking. “You were camping in the clearing with the fairy rings that night. Moped died at the bridge. And yet April texted you to meet her at the huttie. Why?”

“To stay out of the rain?” said Stig.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. And it’s bothering me.” Miss Drumm was bothering me too. If she wanted to tell me about the hallowed place, and it was half a mile from the bridge, why did she mention the bridge at all? “Listen,” I said. “Poor Edmund chose the Hermitage at Dunkeld to commit suicide, didn’t he? And if you were going to describe the Hermitage you’d say … ”

“A wee building and a waterfall,” said Stig.

“Why didn’t he choose somewhere with a bridge and a swing?”

“His brother chose a car park.”

“Yes, but … ” I was thinking so hard than when Stig smacked his hands together he startled me.

“You’re right,” he said. “Oh my God, Gloria, you’re right! Nod killed himself in a car park because all he wanted was to die. But Ned wanted to say something. He wanted to leave a sign. But it’s the wrong sign. It’s not a bridge.”

“But April knew what that sign meant,” I said. “And that’s why she told you to meet her at the huttie.”

We stared at one another for a long time after that, both of us trying to work it out. Then Stig glanced at the stove and stood up, unhooking the oven gloves. “Did anyone up at the home say anything about the police?” I shook my head. “So they haven’t found her. Are you still up for … what you said?”

“After dinner, yes, I’ll go.”

Which was delicious, of course.

“This is actually worth a bit of bad language,” I said mopping up the last of the sauce with some of the rosemary bread.

“Wait till you taste my chocolate cheesecake,” said Stig. “I’ll get to say cu—” He bit the word off and winked at me.

He cleared the plates, wrapped all the leftovers in foil, and put the kettle on. Then he handed over the A4 pad I had given him that morning and started running hot water for the dishes.

“I could get used to this,” I said.

“As long as you don’t mind the shopping,” said Stig. “I’ve done a list.”

But I was looking at his other list.

Moped Best—Mitchell D

Ned McAllister—Edmund D

Nod McAllister—Nathan D

April Cowan D

Van the Man Morrison—Douglas? Then: CD Now: same

Jo-Jo Jameson—John? Jonathan? Then: Moniaive Now: ???

Bezzo Best—Alan Then: CD Now: ???

Scarlet McFarlane Then: London Now: ???

Scarlet McInnes Then: Glasgow Now: ???

Cloud Irving Then: Borgue Now: ???

Rain Irving ditto ditto

Sun Irving ditto ditto

Stig Tarrant—Stephen Then: CD Now: Gloria’s
house

I stared at it for a long time, that one name looking bigger and blacker than all the others. My heart was hammering. Did this bombshell change everything? How far back did it stretch and how deeply into my life had it got its tentacles?

“Well?” said Stig, tipping out the dishwater and wringing the cloth so hard I could hear it squeaking.

“I can check these names against the computer the day after tomorrow when we’re open again,” I said, amazed at how steady my voice sounded compared with how warbly it felt inside me. “And then I’ll just have a general look online. How many Rains, Suns, and Clouds can there be?”

“You’re still on the first sheet?” he said, giving me a puzzled look. I could tell from the way the pad of paper was ruffled into little seersucker shapes, the way it gets when someone leans hard with a biro, that he had filled a good many pages.

“What about Miss Naismith?” I said. “She should have an entry. What was her first name? And there must have been someone else. Secretary, janitor? Someone.”

“No idea what Naismith’s first name was,” said Stig. “And no, no one else. It was sort of on a shoestring. A cleaner used to come, but nobody else lived there.”

“How late did the cleaner work? Did she have a key to the gate?”

“Couldn’t say,” said Stig. His voice was low and gruff. Was I getting near something he didn’t want to tell me? Were there things he didn’t want to tell me? I looked at the list again. There must be.

I told him I would take the notes to bed with me later, after I’d been to the huttie again. Told him that was where I did important reading because that was where I concentrated best. He believed me.

“Takes all kinds, Glo,” he said. “If I tried to read in bed I’d be asleep in seconds. Maybe not tonight, mind you.”

“Try it,” I said. “I’ve got most things. Except Westerns.”

“The last book I read was at school,” he told me.

“Nick Hornby,” I said, calling over my shoulder as I walked along to the living room to the big bookcase. “High Fidelity.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“About a Boy then.”

“That was a girl’s film. Carol tried to make me, but I got out of it.”

“It was a boy’s film, actually,” I said. “And it’s a boy’s book too.” I came back to the kitchen and put it in his hands. “Don’t turn the pages back. Use a bookmark. And I’ll go to the chemist tomorrow and get you some sleeping tablets. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

This was either the bravest thing I had ever done or the worst idea of my life, and I would never have dared to go through with it if it had been a night like the one before, black as pitch and freezing cold with lashing rain. But tonight was dry with a thin fresh wind and a good bit of light from a three-quarter moon.

Anyway, I had to. When I stopped Stig from phoning 999 it was like jumping off a cliff. A split-second decision and no way back. Now, if the police broke into April’s flat and found a note casting suspicion on Stig, and then they found he’d disappeared, they’d be looking for him so hard it would be like a manhunt. I pictured them in Rough House opening doors and swiping at curtains with their truncheons. And even though I knew that was nonsense, once the idea had grabbed me, it wouldn’t let go. There would be traces of him everywhere. If they asked the residents, Miss Drumm would say I was on edge. If they looked in my byre, they’d find his car. If they checked to see if I was connected to Eden …

I shook the thought away and tried instead to concentrate on April.

Finally she would be taken care of, taken somewhere safe, given somewhere proper to lie down instead of staying curled in that hole. Her poor arms would be bathed, her eyes closed, and she’d be at peace. And as long as she lived alone, the other half of the plan would work too. Stig said she was divorced, so chances were she did.

Stig had said a lot of things. The names on his list danced in front of my eyes again, and once again I forced the thoughts away.

Did I have the courage to look at her, touch her, check her pockets?

I pulled off the lane in the same spot as the night before, stepped out of the car, and played the torch around. Our footprints were gone in all the rain, as I’d said they would be, and there was no sign of any new disturbance. I slipped through the gate again and up the path to the door.

I wasn’t as strong as Stig, and I had to haul on it and shove it hard with my shoulder to budge it. Already I was sniffing, couldn’t help it, even as I tried to tell myself that it was almost cold enough for frost out here and she’d been there only a day. There would be no smell yet. There was no smell except earth and leaf mould, that mushroomy pungent smell of Milharay in a wet winter. Once the door was open, the dust and damp of a cold, closed building was mixed in there too but there was nothing stronger, and that made it easier for me to squeeze through the gap and into the deeper darkness, where the torch made shadows leap and shudder all around. It took every scrap of my nerve to steady the beam and train it on the far side of the floor where the tilting slab lay.

We hadn’t made as good a job as I’d thought of wiping away the evidence of our visit; the edges of the slab were smudged and there was a smear on the floor in front of it too.

A smear of what? I wondered, crouching down and peering at it in the torch light. It could have been coffee or ketchup just from the look, but there was no question here, in this place. The only puzzle was how.

I’m not a fanciful woman. I couldn’t afford to be, living all alone in that isolated house, with the stone outside and Miss Drumm’s stories ringing in my ears. I’d read Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allen Poe, and Thomas Harris and go to bed quite happily in the dark to dream of old friends and exams, just like everyone. But at that moment, crouching there, all I could think was that those smudges were April’s fingerprints from where she’d grabbed the slab and pushed it open. And that smear was a trail of her blood from when she’d hauled herself out or perhaps from where she had slithered back in again.

“Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, Nicky,” I said to myself as I set the torch down and took a firm grip. When the slab shifted, I grabbed it and set it upon its edge. Then I held my breath, took the torch, and shone it down into the hole.

She was gone. Nothing left of her except a small rusty stain.

I took the moment needed to kick the slab back down again, but I didn’t bother with the door. I just squeezed through and left it open. The raw edge of the cut chain would attract attention soon enough anyway, I told myself. But really, I just wanted out of there. As far away as I could get, as soon as I could get there.