‘Ah! You’re here!’ cried Jack from his seat at the table.
Helgi’s was a little bar-restaurant on Harbour Street, narrow and warm inside, full of talking, laughing people despite the cold weather and searing wind outside, and sporting a glittering collection of whiskies on optics behind the bar.
Jack and Callum were sitting at a table peering through laminated menus, which they put down as Fiona approached, giving her a little wave of welcome. Jack rose to his feet.
Something flickered in Callum’s eyes – not exactly enmity, but not exactly welcoming. More watchful.
Fiona didn’t know what she’d been expecting after the extreme sense of awkwardness that had been the van journey up, but clearly there was a status quo here that she might be in danger of upsetting. She looked over her shoulder and noticed with relief that Becky had vanished on the way through the restaurant.
‘There you are!’
To her surprise Iris stepped out, away from the bar. She looked pink and slightly tousled, with crimson lips and ruddy cheeks and big hooped earrings, and Fiona’s suspicion that the party had started earlier for them all seemed to be confirmed.
Around them, Fiona could see the locals, some peering at Iris, trying to work out where they recognised her from, others steadfastly ignoring her, having recognised her and not wishing to seem too starstruck.
It must be stressful, Fiona realised, being famous – to have to forgo one’s native anonymity, to have things expected of you by people who don’t know you; to never really be able to relax.
But then, Iris was flown all over the world on her television show, appearing on her vintage Harley-Davidson in places as diverse as Machu Picchu and the Valley of the Kings, and was very well paid to do it.
If fame was a problem, Iris seemed to wear it lightly.
‘What are you having?’ she asked Fiona, only slightly slurred, her arm drifting up around Fiona’s shoulders. Her light sweater was of the open-necked, loose kind, sliding off her shoulder, and she sported an ornate black tattoo that Fiona had seen somewhere before but could not, just at that moment, recognise.
‘I dunno …’ said Fiona. She had given the matter no thought.
‘When in Rome, try the beer,’ Iris said, with a knowing look.
‘You think?’
‘Iris, what does she want?’ shouted Jack from the table. He was pulling off his fleeced hoodie and was now clad in a black T-shirt with tour dates for some band she’d never heard of before. His biceps were well-muscled and tawny, also webbed with tattoos.
She felt her breath catch a little, treacherously.
‘I’ll try the beer,’ said Fiona tentatively. ‘Why not?’
‘Get her a Dark Island!’ bellowed Iris to Jack, who nodded in response. She slipped a companionable arm through Fiona’s, her voice dropping to a murmur. ‘I’m glad you came. Jack’s right, it’s not good for you to be cooped up all alone. How are things?’
‘They’re … well, I went to the police station.’ Fiona tried not to sigh. ‘They say they’ll be in touch.’
‘Hmm,’ said Iris, catching her mood. ‘Jack says Madison’s mother is arriving tomorrow.’
Fiona nodded. ‘Yeah. I’m picking her up from the airport.’
‘Could she tell you anything useful?’ Iris asked.
‘No,’ said Fiona, aware of how uncomfortable talking about Judy made her. ‘They’d fallen out, again.’
Iris’s mouth twisted downwards. ‘Madison did say it was a difficult relationship.’ She let out a disgusted sigh. ‘Family. I know how that goes.’
Fiona cast a curious glance at her. There had been real bitterness there.
‘They’re always squabbling about something,’ she told Iris. ‘Mostly about the estate. Madison’s father was a rich man, but …’ she paused, aware that she was perhaps sharing too much. ‘Anyway, I didn’t think much of it.’
Iris shrugged in agreement. ‘Why should you?’
Fiona shook her head. ‘You know,’ she said with feeling after a moment, ‘I am so worried about Mads, but I could just strangle her right now. She promised me she’d tell the police about Dominic …’
‘Hmm,’ Iris said, guiding Fiona towards a quiet corner under the pretence of making way for Jack en route to the bar. ‘Perhaps she meant to. We’ve been busy as blue-arsed flies on the dig. Anyway, presumably the police are going to be hunting down Mr Tate and asking him some searching questions. And maybe she has left on her own.’
‘I don’t know,’ Fiona said, trying to control the sudden impulse towards tears. ‘I know that Mads could have just left. I do. I just don’t …’
‘… Believe it.’ Iris stood back to let Callum pass by. His gaze fell on them both, inquiring, curious, but Iris ignored him, turned in fact, showing him her tattooed shoulder.
He immediately took the hint and walked on.
‘I mean, why would she do that?’ Fiona asked. ‘Just leave her career, her life …’ Me.
‘I don’t know either,’ said Iris, lowering her voice even further. ‘And it seems very unlikely, to be honest. But listen – I already knew about some of the … problems she was having.’
‘You did?’ asked Fiona, with a little flood of relief.
‘Well,’ said Iris, lowering her voice, ‘she couldn’t hide it from me.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Fiona, surprised.
‘He – well, someone – emailed my production company a fortnight ago, trying to get through to me. They didn’t, of course – they got through to Shaheed. Part of his job is shielding me from crazy people on the internet, of which there seems to be an inexhaustible supply. Anyway, this email was all some nonsense about Madison being fired from her previous job at the London unit for dishonesty.’
‘Yeah! He did that before!’ Fiona was getting angry all over again. ‘Made some mad phone call to Rachel Hemsworth about how Mads was stealing artefacts to sell on eBay. You know,’ she snarled contemptuously. ‘Like you do.’
Iris shrugged again. ‘I knew it was bullshit, of course – I’m friends with Rachel, who’s only ever had good things to say about Madison.
‘But you know, it set off alarm bells. I’d already noticed that Madison was careful not to be in the dig pictures Callum took, so I asked her about it.’ Iris’s lips tightened. ‘And she just told me. She seemed relieved, to be honest. I think perhaps some things had happened recently, and it had been preying on her mind.’
The timeline sounded right to Fiona. A fortnight ago. ‘That’s when he started tweeting at her again, I think. Or so she thought.’
‘Oh, he was absolutely charming when he started in on me,’ Iris said, her face hardening. ‘Especially once he worked out that I wasn’t going to be firing her on his say-so. “Stay away from @MadsKow unless you like being gang-raped you feminazi bitch.”’ She sneered. ‘You know. Basic issue.’
‘How lovely.’
‘Oh, I’m used to it.’ One eyebrow drew up. ‘I’m a woman on television. She told me there’s a restraining order, isn’t there?’
‘Yes,’ said Fiona. ‘For all the good it does.’
Her weary despair must have made an impression of Iris, who merely squeezed her shoulder, a tiny gesture of solidarity.
‘I’m sorry you had to put up with that,’ said Fiona. ‘I just don’t understand it. Why would he bother you?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about me. As I say, I’m used to abusive trolls on the internet. And the answer to your question is: why not bother me?’ Iris offered her a bitter smile. ‘It’s a cunning strategy, when you think about it. I’m her boss. By tagging me as well as her it makes it very clear that she’s in trouble, and by supporting her, I’m in the firing line too.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘It’s a way of isolating your victim, cutting them off from money and support.’ She sucked her teeth. ‘Revolting arsehole.’
‘Not talking about me again, I hope?’ Jack appeared next to them, brawny arms crossed.
‘Not this time,’ said Iris, turning her bright smile upon him. ‘Fiona went to the police station today.’
Jack stilled, flickering from amusement to concern. ‘I know. What did they say?’
Fiona sighed. ‘Not much. They’ll be in touch.’
His brow wrinkled into three deep furrows. ‘Hmm. To be honest, I hoped she might be in touch today herself, seeing as she knew you’d be here.’ He paused, almost tentative. ‘Um, she hasn’t, has she?’
Fiona shook her head.
‘Nah. Of course not. You’d’ve said.’ His face was glum. ‘Look, have you eaten yet?’
‘No …’
‘We were going to get some food. Becky, have you finished with that menu?’
‘What? Yes.’
Somehow Becky had reappeared, sitting next to where Jack had been. Fiona noticed that she had had to squeeze past Callum into the booth, ignoring more convenient seats, to get that position.
Maybe she’d been sitting there before she’d been dispatched to fetch Fiona from Langmire. Judging by the flushed, slightly prim way she dropped her bag and arranged her coat over the back of the booth, it seemed more than anything that Becky was keen to claim the position next to Jack.
‘I know it seems frightening to you that this creep could chase Madison all the way up to Orkney,’ murmured Iris, steering her back towards the table. ‘But you ought to know, despite all the horrible drama, she never once claimed to have seen him here. And after you left us this morning, we talked about it. None of us ever saw or heard anything remotely suspicious.’
‘I dunno, Iris. That doesn’t explain why she’s not in touch with me to tell me this herself. It doesn’t explain her texts to me on the way up. They didn’t sound like her. They were just … off.’
‘I don’t know the answers.’ Iris tilted her head. ‘But perhaps the texts are strained because she had things on her mind. I – don’t get me wrong – she wasn’t scared. She never seemed scared. But the others are all telling me the same thing – she seemed distracted.’
Fiona’s heart squeezed in recognition. No, Madison was never scared. Even when she should be.
‘You know,’ Iris offered a rueful smile, ‘I can see you’re worried to death. But despite everything, and I absolutely think we should do all we can to find her, I’m going to remain hopeful that Madison has left under her own power, for her own reasons that she’s not ready to share yet. Because I’m just not sure we have any evidence to believe the alternative.’
Fiona blinked at her.
Madison clearly had things going on that Fiona knew nothing about, and when she’d confronted her on the phone about Dom, Madison wasn’t even that interested in discussing him. Like he was a side issue.
Iris could be right, she thought with a tiny bright spark of renewed hope.
‘So, let’s travel hopefully, at least until we get some news,’ Iris murmured.
Fiona nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, feeling close to tears again. ‘Let’s.’
‘Come on. We’ll get something to eat. You look like you could do with a good feed, if you don’t mind me saying so. And we’ll drink more. That’s also a plan.’
Iris sat down opposite Becky, guiding Fiona to join her. Fiona let her gaze travel back over her shoulder, to the bar, as she took her seat. Callum was carrying three very full pint glasses carefully together, in a way that seemed to be asking for trouble, threading through the crowd at the bar towards the table.
‘You know, one thing I did mean to ask,’ Fiona said, turning to Iris. ‘Why was Madison out there in that cottage on her own? It seems so isolated.’
‘Ah,’ said Iris, ‘I thought we needed someone based near the boat in case of emergency, you know. And Madison had had sailing lessons, so she seemed the best fit. She took us across to the dig most mornings.’ Iris tilted her head, thinking. ‘It seemed to be working well. For a little while I thought I might send Becky over to join her, but that turned out not to be necessary. Which was for the best.’
She winked at Fiona, a gesture so tiny that Fiona wondered if she’d imagined it, while Becky, startled out of her conversation with Jack by the mention of her name, glanced around, wondering what she’d missed.
There was a heavy male sigh, a clink of glasses on the table. At Fiona’s elbow Callum was setting three dark pints of stout down, each in its own puddle. He looked pink and slightly pissed, like the rest of them. He was wearing a college rugby shirt.
‘Here we go, ladies,’ he said, clearly oblivious to the conversation he’d interrupted, or assuming it to be unimportant. He carefully lifted one, offered it to Iris. ‘This is for you.’
‘Thanks, Callum. I’ve talked this beer up to Fiona – she’d better like it.’
‘I’m sure she will.’ Callum didn’t even look at Fiona as he delivered her pint, his gaze fixed on Iris. Fiona understood, in a lightning moment, that either all other women were invisible to him when Iris was in the room or, alternatively, that Callum was invested in making Iris think so. ‘Chin chin!’ he said, raising his glass.
Iris gently tapped his pint with her own. ‘Cheers. Here’s to unexpected days off.’
‘You had the day off?’ asked Fiona.
‘No, just the afternoon,’ said Jack, with a wry smile.
‘It was just impossible to dig in that wind,’ said Iris. ‘We couldn’t even get the poles to stand up straight. We stuck it out until two and then thought sod it, let’s fuck off and try again on Monday.’
‘Very wise,’ said Fiona. ‘But then I’m not very outdoorsy.’ She raised her glass, regarded the dark contents with trepidation, then sipped at it.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘This is lovely.’
Over the lip of his own glass, Jack, having overheard her, grinned and winked.
There was something in the way he did this that made something flutter around her solar plexus.
Stop that, she told herself firmly. What the hell’s wrong with you?
‘Well,’ said Iris, raising her voice to include the whole table, ‘we should enjoy it while we can. Monday is going to be a complete bastard from start to finish.’
‘Oh?’ asked Fiona. ‘Why is that?’
‘We’re excavating the bodies,’ said Iris, letting her voice drop almost to a whisper. ‘We’re trying to keep it on the down low for the moment. We’re … well, we’re not entirely sure what we’re going to find.’
‘Bodies?’ Fiona was surprised. ‘Mads only mentioned one.’
‘We thought there was only one,’ said Jack, ‘because the grave had been trashed at some point after deposition, probably by rabbits. Anyhow, what with the bad weather and flooding they’ve been having here recently, the site’s very badly disturbed …’
‘But you found another skeleton?’ asked Fiona.
‘Well,’ said Jack, his blue eyes twinkling mischievously at her, ‘we found another pelvis yesterday, near the boat’s midsection. Which is usually a giveaway. Like skulls, folk tend to only have one each.’
‘Wow,’ said Fiona. ‘Have the police had a look yet?’
‘They just sent the county archaeologist. Most places it would be blue tape and sirens; out here you can practically pick bones out of the shore in places, and the police are like, yeah yeah, ancient human remains, we get it. Whatever, dude. Go wild.’
‘That is a gross exaggeration, Jack,’ Iris said. ‘Try not calling the police and see where you end up.’
‘An exaggeration,’ he said, ‘but hardly a gross one.’
‘Anyway, we’re waiting for the licence from the coroner to excavate the bones, which should be coming Monday, with any luck.’ Jack shrugged. ‘We can’t touch them till then. Everyone is getting proper narked off by it all. There’s not much to do except surveying and cleaning in rubbish weather, and no real shelter to do it in.’
Iris reached out, put a placating hand on Jack’s shoulder. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture. ‘Only one more day till we start again,’ she said.
‘Thank God,’ sniffed Becky. ‘If I’m on that island freezing to death, it would be nice to have something to show for it.’
‘Hmm,’ said Callum. ‘It should be good, though. It was a big boat, at least thirty foot. There’s somebody very important buried in there.’
Fiona glanced at him. ‘Thirty foot. That is a big boat. What’s the preservation like?’
‘Not great, not terrible.’ He shrugged. ‘The wood’s gone, of course, but the rivets are still there. Just.’
‘Ah, yeah, the rivets. I saw them on your Twitter feed. And definitely Norse?’
‘Yeah. Mid tenth century. We’ve got some … um, coin evidence.’
A kind of strain crossed his face, as though he’d been about to say something indiscreet.
‘Did you manage to get anything at all from the bones yet?’ asked Fiona.
‘The bones we’re absolutely not supposed to be looking at until we get our licence from the sheriff’s office?’ Jack glanced at Iris with a conspiratorial glimmer. ‘A little. Maybe.’
‘Really? Like sex?’ Fiona asked, her professional enthusiasm immediately kicking in.
‘Why thank you, Dr Grey, but I try to avoid it too soon before a meal. Brings on my indigestion …’
Fiona shot him a glance.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he laughed, and she saw Becky look away, scowling. ‘Sorry, Fiona. But you did kind of walk into that one. So the first body is indeterminate. The second one, the one we just found, is female, we think. But DNA hasn’t gone off for either of them yet.’
‘Anyway,’ Iris put her pint down, ‘there may even be more people in there. They’ll all be boxed up and sent off to the osteo folk, hopefully this coming week, and we’ll get to go home before long.’
‘Not a second too soon.’ Becky crossed her arms.
‘Speak for yourself. I like it here,’ said Jack.
‘Even in this weather?’ asked Becky, with a slightly too loud giggle, an awkward attempt at flirtatiousness.
‘Yeah, even in this weather.’ His animated face grew thoughtful. ‘Perhaps especially in this weather.’
‘Madison liked it here,’ blurted out Fiona unguardedly, and then felt anxious and self-conscious as they turned to look at her. ‘She told me she loved the peace.’
‘Yeah, well, she was on her own, wasn’t she?’ said Callum. ‘I’m sure it was very peaceful out in the cottage.’ He grinned at Iris. ‘Jack snores like a motorbike in the TT.’
‘I do not,’ sputtered Jack. Then he offered Fiona a conspiratorial wink. ‘At least, I’m never awake to hear it.’
Callum barked out a laugh, and the others joined in. Iris grinned, sitting back. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ she drawled.
Fiona smiled. Just go along with it, she thought. Act as though Madison is coming back, and perhaps she will. Though the beer tasted sour to her when she thought of Mads, perhaps dead somewhere, out there in the icy Orkney night.
‘Anyway,’ said Iris, and Fiona had the sense that she had been spotted wandering down this doleful mental road, ‘that’s for Monday.’
‘Yep,’ said Callum, stretching. ‘And hopefully this thing with Madison will be resolved soon and things can get back to normal.’
‘Callum,’ said Iris with a cold crispness that made the word sound like a reprimand.
Resolved. Fiona could only stare at him, but then she caught sight of Jack, frowning at Callum, then offering Fiona the shadow of a compassionate smile – he doesn’t mean to be cold.
They don’t believe anything is wrong, Fiona realised – well, except maybe for Iris. This is why they are nice to you. Why most of them are nice to you, anyway. Possibly even why they invited you out here.
They pity you.
It implies that they know something about her that you don’t.
She stood up suddenly, aware that she was about to cry.
‘Sorry, just need to nip to the loo.’
The toilets were empty, and she splashed her face with cold water, tried to calm her hitching breath.
In the mirror, her eyes were red-rimmed, her skin pale.
What if they were right? What if she has done this deliberately?
But why? Why would she lure you up here? And why wouldn’t she tell you why she needed you?
As Fiona walked back through the bar to the table, there was a pretty girl with a notepad standing next to it, taking their orders for food.
‘She does not stop talking,’ Becky was hissing to Callum, just loud enough for Fiona to hear. ‘And she is so nosy …’
‘Becks, that’s enough.’ Jack thrust a menu at her. ‘What do you want to eat?’
Fiona had not even looked at the menu yet, so when Jack recommended the burger she quickly went along with his suggestion. The others gave their orders, the girl lingering over Jack’s. She quickly withdrew, his eyes following her pert behind as she vanished.
Suddenly he glanced up, as though aware of Fiona’s attention. He offered her a self-deprecating smile, blushing slightly. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But you can’t blame a guy for looking.’
‘Hmm,’ said Iris, her eyes hard. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’ She stood up. ‘My round. Who wants another pint?’