Fiona’s mood ratcheted between anger and alarm as she drove, the road vanishing beneath her wheels, her radio fading in and out into clouds of static. The asphalt gleamed faintly with what looked like gravel before she realised, with a little start, that it was road salt. According to the car dashboard, it was -1C outside. The cold radiated in through the windows, barely held at bay by the little heater.
The digging must be lovely right now, she thought ruefully to herself, as Grangeholm 7m Helly Holm 2m appeared on a nearby road sign.
Before she knew it she was passing a tiny, neat little car park with an information board, which then narrowed into a single concrete track. This continued for about three hundred metres before vanishing beneath the bible-black sea.
It was a road to nowhere.
She found herself braking, slowing down.
Further out, beyond the car park, there was nothing except for the rush of the waves, the sighing of the wind against her windows, and high up, perhaps half a mile out, the flare of a slowly revolving lantern – the Helly Holm lighthouse. It illuminated nothing. It was merely there to shine a light on itself.
Above the car park was a single sign:
Helly Holm – Please read safety instructions
This was it. The dig site.
She pulled into the car park, feeling the sea winds gently buffet the car as she pulled her coat on and crushed down her woollen hat before climbing out.
The cold was staggering, the wind throwing it into her face like a rain of tiny daggers. She pulled up the collar on her coat, quickly fastened it, her fingers already numbing around the buttons before she could thrust them back into her pockets. She’d left her gloves in the car. It was not a mistake she’d be making again, at this rate.
But still, she walked briskly up to the small concrete track, looked out to sea, peering into the velvet darkness. The islet was not visible, as the cloud was a series of thick, fast moving bands, but somewhere beyond the sea was Helly Holm.
She waited for a few minutes, feeling cold and disconsolate, hoping to be rewarded with a momentary clearing of the skies, a glimpse of the island, but there was nothing, nothing but the gleam from the lighthouse, lancing out then vanishing, teasing her.
Fiona sighed, then reluctantly returned to the car.
It was obvious that whatever had been happening on the island, it was over for the night. If so much as a torch had been shining out there, she would have seen it.
∗ ∗ ∗
Fiona nearly missed Langmire House, which would, in daylight, have been difficult to do, as at first glance it seemed to be the only dwelling for miles around. It was a small white house set in a neat square enclosure of drystone walling, closed off with an ornate cast-iron gate.
It rested at the foot of a big sloping hill, strewn with massy boulders, separated from it by the asphalt strip of the road. Up on the hillside itself she could see twinkling yellow lights and big shadowy buildings – a farm of some sort, with a pale narrow track leading up to it, glistening with ice.
But on the other side lay the cold, murmuring sea, which she was starting to realise was never far away from her here. The rutted driveway ran off the road, past the cottage and out towards what she could see was a small quay, with a single moored boat swaying restlessly on the moving waters.
At some other time, she might have been charmed by it all.
Fiona pulled up on to a rectangle of gravel before the gate and got out, this time prepared for the bite of the freezing wind with the addition of her scarf.
A bottomless anger and anxiety was growing within her.
There was clearly nobody home.
All of the lights in the cottage were out. The windows were pools of darkness. As she opened the little gate and let herself through, following the icy flagstones to the front door, there was not even a porch light on.
Stepping up, she pressed the doorbell, the only illuminated thing, and stood back.
Within the house there was an upbeat double-chime, but no answer.
Her gloved hands balling into fists against the cold, she moved to the window, peered in. The curtains were open, which was strange at this time of night, but then she supposed privacy wasn’t a problem for people around here. She leaned close, squinting into the darkness. She could make nothing much out – a sofa that might be leather, the silver rim of a flatscreen TV, the vague shadow of an open door into another room.
Ringing the bell again achieved nothing. Neither did calling Madison herself several times more once she’d retreated to the comfort of her car.
Am at Langmire House – where are you?
She debated for a moment whether she should add her signature kiss, decided against it. No. Let her see how annoyed you are.
Because that was it. Madison was being feckless again. It wasn’t that anything had happened to her, Fiona told herself, despite feeling a kind of dull nausea, like seasickness, only composed of worry.
But somehow this sick feeling didn’t stop her just closing her eyes, resting her head against the car window, using her bunched coat as a pillow of sorts, as the stereo played gently and the chugging engine warmed the interior.
The sea journey had taken it out of her, and she was simply exhausted. The patch for her travel sickness sometimes made her drowsy, and despite the lonely location, the darkness and her own uncertainty, her eyelids were beginning to flutter.
Don’t fall asleep, Fiona told herself. If she calls, you’ll miss it.
But somehow, within minutes, the muffled thump of the wind, the roar of the sea and the hot breath of the car had combined to pull her under.