1

The present day

The woman’s face rippled as she battled her emotions. Her chin twitched. Her cheeks developed a tic. Her eyes became reservoirs. But she maintained the ritual of pouring tea. The well-used strainer was carefully placed on the rim of the china cup bearing a blue floral pattern. The matching tea pot was hidden under a knitted cosy with only its curved handle and spout showing. The tea, perfectly tanned, fell steadily into the cup, even though the electric impulses that thrummed around the woman’s facial muscles conducted along her arm and made the pot tremble.

To Rebecca Connolly, more used to a teabag thrown into a tannin-stained mug, the process was old-fashioned, almost quaint, but she understood why it all seemed so important to Maeve Gallagher.

‘Sugar?’ The question was asked without any eye contact. Maeve’s focus remained on the tray in front of her, as if the paraphernalia was something that needed to be closely watched at all times.

‘No, thanks,’ said Rebecca, her voice soft.

‘Milk?’

‘A dash.’

The forced banality of the conversation, like the heightened emphasis on the process, was necessary. The woman needed time. She had to fix on the little things, the everyday matter of simply making and pouring a cup of tea, because it held her steady and kept the grief at bay.

The sing-song of children’s laughter floated in from the street outside. It was a warm autumn day and they were enjoying it. Rebecca saw Maeve glance through the window of her neat, over-furnished front room to watch the group of teenagers walk by directly outside. There was no garden to act as a barrier, just the window facing directly onto the street and, beyond it, the river. There was no irritation in the woman’s slight movement but rather something wistful, as if that laughter was not the laughter she wanted to hear.

‘Tell me about Edie,’ said Rebecca. Her voice was still gentle but she had to get Maeve to talk. That was why she was here.

Maeve said nothing as she handed over the delicate cup and saucer. She remained silent as she offered the tea plate piled with chocolate biscuits, which Rebecca refused with a shake of the head. Maeve carefully laid the plate back down on the tray perched on the wide footstool. Too carefully, as if she was delaying the inevitable. Rebecca gave her time, sipped the tea, waited. After all, Maeve had agreed to speak to her. She had something to say, and now that she had given her a gentle prod Rebecca knew she had to be allowed the time to say it.

Rebecca gave the room a brief scan. There were four large armchairs and a long couch arranged around a rectangular coffee table with a shelf underneath bearing a variety of magazines and a couple of jigsaws. In the corner beside the wide windows a large flat-screen TV sat on a black unit and through its smoked-glass doors she could see a satellite box and a DVD player with a few DVD cases sitting upright beside it. The gas fire in the tiled fireplace was dark, but the room was warm, thanks to the radiator under the window. The gas fire was no doubt only used in winter, which can be harsh in Inverness. On the mantle sat a reproduction carriage clock but its hands were still, as if time had ended at twelve minutes past three. This was not a room that had a lived-in feel, but then no one actually lived in this room, they just sat here on occasion, either on their way to or just back from elsewhere.

Eventually, inevitably, Rebecca’s eyes fell on the heavy sideboard taking up much of the wall beside the door. The piece of furniture looked old, second-hand. It was polished, but she could see scratches and gouges in the dark wood of the doors, perhaps made over the years by carelessly handled luggage. The sideboard itself was not what drew Rebecca’s attention; it was the photograph sitting on it. Encased in a silver frame, a shot of a teenage girl with long dark hair falling in waves to her shoulders. A pretty girl holding a black and white kitten. She was smiling. Her eyes danced with delight. Edie Gallagher.

Rebecca wondered where the kitten was now. It would be older, but not much. Rebecca guessed the snap was a year old. The cat would be in the rear of the house probably, where the family lived. Not allowed here, in the business part of the building, even though the Belle View Guest House hadn’t had a guest for many months.

Rebecca returned her attention to Maeve. She sat erect in the armchair, her cup and saucer clasped in both hands on her lap, her eyes fixed on the window, her head slightly cocked as if listening to the fading voices and laughter of the young people, her eyes still misty as she longed to hear that one laugh she would never hear again. On the other side of the street Rebecca could see the River Ness reflecting the blue sky. Across the water church spires punctuated the heavens, but Rebecca knew Maeve wasn’t seeing them. A small sigh, a tiny shiver, and then—finally—a solitary tear erupted.

‘She was my lass,’ she said, the simple statement and that lone tear almost breaking Rebecca’s heart. She blinked, told herself to concentrate on the job in hand. She heard the voice of her own father, still bearing the lilt of the islands, talking about police work but insisting it worked with journalism too.

A good officer doesn’t need emotions, but a great one knows how to use them. Without emotion, we cannot empathise. If we can’t empathise, we cannot understand. And if we can’t understand, then why the hell are we doing the job?

Maeve didn’t move as she spoke again. ‘She used to come in that front door like a hurricane, always full of energy, always full of . . .’

She stopped and her face quivered again. Rebecca knew what she had been about to say.

Always full of life.

Maeve swallowed the word back and spoke again. ‘I would tell her to shut the door behind her, but she never did. Always left it wide open, rain or shine, as she dashed up the stairs, desperate to get her school uniform off and into her jeans and T-shirt, or whatever. Every time I hear that door opening now, I think it might be her.’ Her eyes glistened as she stared into the sunlit street. ‘But it’s not, of course. It’s never her. Never will be.’

Rebecca laid her cup and saucer on the tray. Her pad was tucked beside her, against the arm of the roomy armchair, and she wanted to scribble Maeve’s words down but didn’t want to do anything that might draw the woman from her thoughts.

Her editor had sent her to get Maeve to do something no one else had managed. Get her talking. Get us quotes, something none of the others have.

He’d sent Rebecca because this was what she was good at, getting people to talk, getting people to trust her. It was a skill she’d inherited from her father. At least that’s what her mum said.

He could always get people to open up. It was a gift.

That gift had served Rebecca well during her three years in newspapers. People warmed to her. People spoke to her, told her things. People like Maeve, who had not spoken to a single journalist since her daughter Edie had died.

‘I wonder if he thinks about her?’ Maeve said, suddenly. ‘That man . . .’

Greg Pullman. The London trader who slammed his hired car into Edie while he was high on booze and cocaine. Who left her broken and dying in the street while he roared away in his high-performance dick extender. Who was that day to be sentenced.

‘I wonder if he considers the life he took,’ said Maeve, her voice low, barely above a whisper. ‘I wonder if he cares at all.’ Finally, she looked at Rebecca. ‘What do you think he’ll get?’

‘A custodial sentence, I think. He’ll do time.’

A tight little nod, satisfied. ‘Good. I’d hate to think that he’d get off with it just because he’s got money.’

He’d been staying in his cottage on the Black Isle for the week and had met up with some mates for a weekend jolly in Inverness. He’d decided that he was fit to drive. He didn’t even remember hitting the teenager, or so he said.

‘That won’t influence the judge,’ said Rebecca. ‘He’ll go away, Maeve. I’m certain of it.’

Another bob of the head, then Maeve’s eyes drifted back to the window and the sunlight and the river flowing across the street, as if seeking out the red brickwork of the castle, where the court sat.

‘Ralph’s down there now. He said he wanted to see it. Wants to see the man’s face when he hears that he’s going away.’ Her gaze swam back towards Rebecca. ‘You’re certain he’ll be jailed?’

Rebecca nodded.

Maeve’s eyes hardened. ‘He’ll get, what? A few years? His licence taken away? But then after those few years he’ll be out again and getting on with his life. He’ll be out again to work and play, have a family. To drink again, to take drugs again, probably even drive again, won’t he?’

Rebecca didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She knew that everything Maeve had said was possible but there was no way she was going to say so because she sensed where this was leading and didn’t want to break the flow.

‘But my Edie can’t, can she? She can’t get on with her life because he took it away. She won’t ever work. She won’t ever have a family, won’t ever grow old. He took all that away from her. He took all that away from me and Ralph. He took it all.’

Maeve placed her untouched cup of tea on the tray, then stood and walked to the window. It was a sudden movement, as if she simply had to move, compelled by the rage building inside her. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about her grief, as far as Rebecca knew. She’d kept it contained, bottled up. Rebecca recalled a snatched shot of her outside the court on the day Pullman was found guilty. The muscles were drawn, the mouth a tight line, her head held so erect Rebecca could see the tendons of her neck standing out like cables. She must have wept, but privately. Now that single tear had breached the dam and it was about to burst. Maeve leaned on the sill, her head slightly bowed, and Rebecca saw her shoulders shudder.

‘Maeve . . .’ Rebecca began to rise but the woman held up a hand, shook her head. She didn’t want Rebecca’s sympathy. She needed to get this out. Rebecca sat back again, feeling she should somehow offer comfort but grateful she didn’t have to.

Her phone, nestling beside her pad, vibrated against her thigh, but she ignored it. Whoever it was would have to wait. The flow, it was all about the flow.

‘I hope he dies in prison,’ said Maeve, her voice strong and not watered down by the tears that now fell freely. ‘I hope some other prisoner kills him. I hope he feels just a portion of the pain Edie felt as she lay there in that gutter. I hope someone guts him, the way he’s gutted me and her father.’

Rebecca sat back. She had her quote. She had the line that would make that week’s splash. She had what no other paper had.

The reporter within her was delighted.

The human being was saddened.

* * *

She convinced Maeve to agree to a photograph, which she took with her phone. Newspaper cutbacks. No need for staff photographers; if you were lucky a freelancer would do (though none were available that day). Rebecca was too young to have known how it was in days of yore—those days actually far from yore, being just a few years earlier—but she’d heard from old hands how things had been done. There was a time when a snapper would have been sent out with her, or at least arrangements made for one to visit. But the industry had changed, moved on, become more efficient in the bid to protect profits. She was wise enough to know that ‘efficient’ didn’t mean improved.

The shot she took was typical tabloid: Maeve holding the framed photograph of Edie and looking heartbroken. It was cheesy and it was basic. A professional photographer might’ve been more creative, but Rebecca was a mere scribbler. She waited another fifteen minutes before she made her excuses. She thought Maeve was ashamed of her low-key outburst, of her display of near-public emotion, and was relieved to see her go.

As Rebecca walked towards her car, the October sun welcome after the interview, she glanced back at the guest house and saw the woman at the window, still clasping the framed photograph of her daughter to her chest. Rebecca gave her a small wave but it wasn’t returned. Maeve Gallagher looked so alone, it was doubtful she even saw her. She was lost in the mists of grief and anger and memories of a stolen young life.

Rebecca turned away and dug her phone from her coat pocket. The missed call was from Chaz Wymark. He was a photographer, young certainly but she had no doubt he would have come up with a far better shot of Maeve. She reached her car, settled on the small wall separating the roadway from the riverbank, and thumbed the call back. As it rang she raised her face to the sun. Make the most of it, she thought, winter isn’t far.

‘Rebecca.’ Chaz sounded pleased to hear from her. He always sounded pleased to hear from her. They’d never met face-to-face but had spoken often on the phone.

‘What’s up, Chaz?’

‘Oh, big doings over here, you better believe it.’

Over here. Chaz was speaking from Stoirm, an island off the west coast where he lived. He provided local snippets and photographs in return for a payment so small it made minimum wage look overly extravagant. Storm Island, they called it. Her father had been born there, but the only thing he ever said about it was that it was aptly named. But big doings. On Stoirm? She couldn’t believe it.

‘What’s going on, Chaz?’

He told her. While he spoke, she knew she was on to something. This time, though, there was something new, a quickening of the pulse, the flutter in the gut as nerves prepared to take flight.

This time it was about Stoirm.