Fear hits me like a sledgehammer when we get outside. The baby’s skin is pale blue, her eyes closed, even though I’ve been breathing air into her lungs. Someone shouts my name but nothing matters except keeping Lottie alive. I press one finger against the side of her neck and feel nothing, until a weak pulse beats against my skin. She makes a choking sound, then colour floods back into her cheeks.
‘Thank God for that.’
I cradle her against my chest as Keith Pendennis approaches. He looks incredulous when I explain that Vine is the killer; we must stand guard until she’s locked in a holding cell on St Mary’s. The woman lying on the wet grass looks too frail to harm anyone, her lower legs covered in burns, a dark line of bruises marking her face. The reality of her situation seems to have hit home at last. She’s curled in a foetal position, eyes screwed shut to avoid picturing her future.
When I rise to my feet, Shadow is tearing up the hill, with Eddie sprinting behind. My deputy’s face looks stricken when he sees me clutching Lottie.
‘She’s okay, but we need to get her to hospital.’
He seizes his daughter from my arms and relief floods through me when the child releases a thin wail. If she can cry, she must be breathing more easily. By now the pain is starting to register; the skin on my forearm has blistered away from my hand to my elbow, but I’m lucky to be alive. If I’d spent more time in that locked room, none of us would have escaped.
I’m still in a daze when I see Liam Poldean and Mike Walbert crossing the channel in a small boat loaded with fire-fighting equipment, but it could be too late to save the cottage. Smoke and flames are already gushing from the ground floor windows; there’s little chance the volunteer fire crew can contain the damage, especially as the tide is still too deep to bring the water tank across from St Agnes with Mike’s tractor. The police launch is anchored by the shore at the foot of the hill. Lawrie Deane and Keith Pendennis carry Vine down to the waiting vessel, while Eddie tends his baby. Someone wraps a silver blanket around my shoulders once we reach the boat, but the cold air feels soothing after the flames, the pain flaring through my nerve endings.
The boat heads for Hugh Town at its highest speed, a long strand of wash churning behind us. At last the wind has dropped, the storm finally relenting. The sea is bathed in clear light as we ease into St Mary’s Sound. When I look back, Jimmy Curwen is watching us leave, but he’s not alone; a swirl of gulls dance above his head as he walks blank-faced towards Liam and Mike’s boat. It hits me again that I made a serious mistake; Jimmy would never set out to hurt anyone, unless they were attacking the creatures he considers to be his closest friends.
I can’t absorb all the information Eddie gives me as the boat scuds over the waves. He’s gazing down at his daughter, but it sounds like he spent hours going from house to house, until Shadow led him to Covean Beach. The dog is curled at my feet, half-asleep, as if it’s all in a day’s work.
Naomi Vine is blank-faced when she’s carried to the ambulance on Hugh Town quay, refusing to say a word. I’d rather not share the confined space, but I won’t leave her unguarded after the trouble she’s caused. Normally I’m allergic to hospitals, but it’s good to arrive in a clean environment, where the air smells of disinfectant instead of paraffin. I’ve known the doctor who examines me all my life. Ginny Tremayne gave me all my inoculations as a kid, and doled out free condoms at my secondary school with an amused look on her face. The medic’s salt-and-pepper hair is drawn back in a loose ponytail when she inspects my wounds.
‘You’ll need some Novocain before I dress that burn, Ben. It’ll make you feel a bit woozy.’
‘No, thanks. I’ve had enough drugs to last me a lifetime.’
A look of concern crosses her face when I explain about my dose of Rohypnol. Tremayne examines my eyes with a torch pen then makes me recite the alphabet, before checking the state of my tongue. ‘No lasting damage, but that burn needs cleaning fast. Are you sure about the local anaesthetic? It’ll hurt like hell otherwise.’
‘I’ll grin and bear it, Ginny.’
‘I thought you were too smart to be macho.’ She gives me a gentle smile. ‘Curse all you like, the room’s sound-proofed.’
She takes ages swabbing my wound, then covering it with gauze. I’ve been sitting in the chair so long, pain and exhaustion have levelled me, but Naomi Vine’s mad speech is still ringing in my ears. I need a full confession to lay the case to rest.
‘Can I go now? There’s work to do.’
Tremayne gapes at me. ‘You’ll be here two days at least. I’m treating you for shock, and that wound needs to be kept surgically clean or you’ll need a graft. You don’t want that, do you?’
The doctor’s manner is so firm there’s no point in arguing, so I let her lead me to one of the minute hospital’s rooms, resenting her instruction to lie down. I’m certain there’ll be no rest with the buzz of voices outside and the clatter of feet marching down the corridor, but my eyes close anyway, a tidal wave of sleep washing over me.
When I surface again, it’s from a vicious nightmare. I dreamed that the sky was lit by huge fireworks, while St Agnes burned, but my real surroundings are calm. The room is in semi-darkness and a figure is seated by the door, his overcoat neatly folded on his lap, not a hair out of place. DCI Madron pulls his chair closer when he sees my eyes opening.
‘You’ve slept all day, Kitto,’ he says quietly. ‘Your fan club’s been here, bearing gifts. Your uncle brought you a radio, Zoe Morrow left some brandy, and there’s a book from Liz Gannick. Maggie’s just outside, chatting to the nurses.’
‘There’s no need for fuss, sir. I’m fine.’
‘You even slept through the nurses changing your dressings. They’re pleased, by the way. The scarring should be minimal.’
‘How’s Lottie?’
‘The baby needed some oxygen, but she’s fine. Eddie and Michelle took her home earlier.’
‘And Naomi Vine?’
‘The morphine’s loosened her tongue. I’ve taken a statement from her already.’
‘She killed Rogan and staged her own abduction to frame Tolman, didn’t she? It satisfied all her needs. She wanted the boathouse as her gallery and to punish her ex for rejecting her.’
‘It looks that way,’ Madron replies with a slow nod.
She arranged the meeting the night before Rogan disappeared, said she’d had a change of heart about his observatory plans and had decided to finance the whole thing. She even made him promise not to tell his wife until they’d thrashed out the details, so it could be a big surprise for the community. He mentioned that he was going to the mainland that night at her house, which gave her the perfect opportunity. She lured Rogan onto Burnt Island, then shoved him into the fire while he was drugged.’
‘How did she get him there?’
‘She pretended to be so excited about the new observatory she wanted to plan the rebuild immediately, fed him a line about Burnt Island being the best vantage point, and begged him to take a quick look with her first thing in the morning, before his boat left.’
‘And Jimmy Curwen had nothing to do with Rogan’s death.’
‘He must have dropped his coat at the scene. I imagine he wanted to put out the flames.’ Madron looks down at his hands. ‘The burning body would have been a terrible sight.’
‘Why did she want to punish her ex so badly?’
‘She’ll need a full psychiatric assessment, but a specialist on the mainland thinks she’s got narcissistic personality disorder. Naomi attacks anyone that gets in her way. Martin Tolman and Alex Rogan was obstructing destiny, in her view. Her campaign began soon after she arrived on St Agnes. Apparently she took an immediate dislike to Gavin Carlyon; she tampered with the fireworks before last year’s display, which explains his injury. The youth courts will have to retract Adam Helston’s arson conviction, too. I imagine his parents will be thrilled to hear that their boy never started the fire at the Walberts’ place, and they’ll sue for a big compensation claim. She set light to their barn as practice for greater things to come.’
‘What about the Cornish messages?’
‘That was clever, wasn’t it? She wanted us to believe that an islander hated outsiders enough to kill them, so she bought a book of local words and phrases on the mainland. The language became one of her obsessions. She hid the stones and seashells she used at the crime scenes at the Carlyons’ house, in case her own property was searched.’
‘Did Rachel know?’
‘She’s claiming innocence. Vine says she stole the keys to the holiday cottage from Rachel’s house, but she could be lying. The woman seems to have had a hypnotic effect on some of the islanders.’
Madron pulls his chair closer, and for once the anger between us drops away. ‘You did well, Kitto. Your approach was unorthodox, but your commitment’s exceptional. Eddie’s got you to thank for bringing his baby home alive.’
‘I made mistakes, took too long getting there.’
‘You race at things, Kitto. It wouldn’t hurt to slow down.’
‘Why do you criticise me all the time?’
His smile fades. ‘Did you ever hear about my oldest son?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Tom was young and impetuous, like you, immune to advice. He was training to be a pilot, but he died in a motorbike crash before his thirtieth birthday.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
The DCI shakes his head. ‘I chose the right man for the job. Liz Gannick tells me you’re a natural leader; she’s hinting that her partnership report will be favourable.’
Madron says a brisk goodbye then exits the room, leaving me closer to understanding why he always finds fault. I take time remembering his low-key praise. Words of encouragement slip from his mouth so rarely, I should have made him write them down so I could get a tattoo.
I fall asleep again, only waking when a nurse slips into the room. She barely speaks as she removes the gauze, then dresses my burn again, before leaving me alone. My thoughts keep returning to the extraordinary measures Naomi Vine took to frame her ex-boyfriend. Someone must have told her about the underground tunnels on Wingletang Down, where she kept her arsenal. I still don’t know where she acquired all the flares, making it seem like the whole island was under siege, but she must have made plenty of trips to the mainland.
It’s after midnight when I rise to my feet, too preoccupied to sleep again. I walk into the corridor, dressed only in hospital-issue pyjama bottoms and a white surgical robe. Lawrie Deane is dozing on a bench outside the room next to mine, where Naomi Vine is being kept. He looks startled when I wake him. The news that I want to speak to the woman who almost killed me seems to amaze him, but he lets me go ahead.
Vine’s appearance has changed since we lay opposite each other on a stretch of filthy carpet. Someone has washed her hair, every speck of grime cleansed from her skin. Apart from the frame over her legs to protect her burns, and her bandaged cheek, she looks like any other forty-year-old woman. Only her intense expression reveals that she’s mentally ill. I lower myself onto the chair, a few feet from her pillow.
‘It’s late for bedside visits, Inspector.’
‘I’ve been thinking about what you did.’
‘I’ve got no regrets.’
‘Why did you kill an innocent man, who was just about to become a father?’
‘He wouldn’t listen to me. The boathouse would have made a perfect exhibition space, with a viewing platform, so people could see my sculptures arranged across the beach. They would have looked so beautiful, right at the point where the ocean meets the land.’ Tears well in her eyes.
‘Alex wanted something better. His telescopes would have shown people the entire solar system.’
‘That man was only chasing glory, and he was a coward at the end. You should have heard him squeal as his flesh melted away.’
When she begins to laugh, I know she’ll never go to prison. She’ll live in a psychiatric institution for the rest of her days. I can still hear her cackling as I return to my own room.