16

The hotel bar was compact, with a small L-shaped counter behind which a dark-haired woman with a Glasgow accent served up drinks and flirted in equal measure. Rebecca wondered if her looks and ability to handle the chat-up lines were why she was hired, although she did seem to be smart and knew her business. The flirtatious barmaid was cliché, but it was important that she be a competent cliché. The gantry was well-stocked, with a wide variety of whiskies. The pub was doing a brisk trade and she recognised many of the faces from the meeting.

Photographs of Stoirm from the past hung on every wall. Black-and-white images of people long dead but immortalised in paper and chemicals. Men in caps and working clothes, pipes prevalent, stationed behind ploughs, herding sheep or working on boats, their faces strong and ruddy even in monochrome. Unsmiling, serious men who often regarded the camera with suspicion. Women, too, wearing long dresses and bundled in layers of wool against the elements, walking with children, working at looms, carrying laundry. Their faces were worn but many at least smiled. In one, a group of women were sitting at the harbour repairing fishing nets and laughing, as if one of them had cracked a joke.

A small flat-screen TV tuned into Sky Sports sat on a shelf high up in the corner above the door. The sound was turned down because below it a thin-faced young woman with long brown hair was strumming a guitar accompanied by a much older man with a fiddle. The woman was singing as she played, something Gaelic and melancholy. The mixture of live music and the silent screen was typical of Scottish Highland and island life—the traditional co-existing alongside the modern. And often usurping it.

The barmaid gave Rebecca a big smile as she laid a gin and tonic and a non-alcoholic beer in front of her. She asked if it could be charged to her room.

‘Sorry, hen,’ said the barmaid. ‘It’s the hotel bar, but it’s no’ part of the hotel. Me and my man run this separate.’

Rebecca understood. Ash and his family were Sikhs, and although selling alcohol wasn’t exactly banned by their religion, she believed, they had obviously opted not to. She paid for the drinks with a twenty, made a mental note to find a cash machine in the morning and thrust the change into the pocket of her jacket. She carried the drinks through a small open doorway to the lounge area, where Donnie sat at a tiny round table in the corner. There was no one else in the small lounge, but Rebecca guessed that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. They could still hear the music and the voices from the bar, but at least they had some semblance of privacy for now.

He thanked her and sipped the beer, grimacing slightly at the taste, then sat back and stared at her as she struggled out of her jacket, one hand on the table top, his other dangling from the wooden arm of the chair.

‘So, Miss Connolly,’ he began.

‘Rebecca, please.’

He dipped his head slightly. ‘Rebecca. What can I do for you?’

She sipped her G&T. ‘Roddie Drummond.’

He smiled. ‘I told you, old wounds. You shouldn’t pick at them—look what happened out there.’

‘He’s back on the island, that’s news.’

He took another mouthful of his drink, then carefully laid his glass back on the table. ‘Some folk would say that’s the island’s business.’

‘People will be interested . . .’

He laughed. ‘Ah, it’s gone from being news to people being interested. I think there’s a difference, don’t you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Well, maybe not. You reporters never do see the distinction. Wars, political scandals, disasters—they’re news. Roddie being back? That’s just curtain twitching for anyone on the mainland.’

‘So why did you agree to speak to me?’

He paused to think about that. ‘You were at the meeting, you saw what Henry Stuart is up to. That’s not been reported, not properly anyway. I’m hoping that if I cooperate a wee bit with you, you’ll report that story too. A bit of quid pro quo.’

‘Agreed.’ She’d already decided she’d file a story on the plans for the estate. How she was going to explain her presence on the island was a problem to be solved later.

‘Also, you saw what happened out there. I think things here could easily get out of hand and maybe if they know that the outside world is looking in, everyone might calm down.’

‘Curtain twitching has its uses, then?’

The corners of his mouth twitched as a smile tickled. ‘Everything has its uses, Rebecca. So what do you want to know?’

She dug in her large bag and produced a notebook, pen and her small digital recorder, which she held up slightly before asking, ‘You okay to be recorded?’

He waved one hand in agreement while he took another mouthful of beer, his face folding with slight displeasure again.

‘Can never get used to the taste of this stuff,’ he said.

‘So why do you drink it?’

‘I’m an addict,’ he said. The words were blunt, with no attempt at evasion. He had said it many times before, she felt. ‘I’m not about to replace one addiction with another. And I don’t like sugary soft drinks.’ He watched while Rebecca opened the notebook to a fresh page and scribbled his name and the date at the top. ‘You take notes as well as recording?’

‘The recording is so I can quote you accurately, the notes are for me to refer to as an aide memoire,’ she explained, then clicked the recorder on. ‘So, what can you tell me about Roddie Drummond?’

Donnie thought about this for a moment. ‘What can anyone tell you about Roddie Drummond? He was born on the island, brought up on the island. His father is a decent man, he owns the Portnaseil garage. That man can fix anything that goes by land or sea, he’s a bloody genius. His mum, God rest her, was loved around here. His sister is a braw lass, too. She married an incomer; he teaches at the school. None of them deserved what happened.’

‘But what about Roddie himself?’

He sighed as he considered his answer. ‘I suppose I knew him better than most. We grew up together, went to school together, got drunk together. But even then, I never really knew him. Roddie was . . .’ He struggled for the correct description. ‘I don’t know how to say it. I want to say aloof but that’s not right. He wasn’t a loner, he wasn’t strange in any way, but he was kind of insular, you know? No, he was like a peninsula—he was connected to the rest of us, but there was a lot that was out there on his own. Part of us, but solitary.’

Rebecca scribbled down the word ‘peninsula’. She liked that.

‘He was always that wee bit closer to Henry.’

‘What? Lord Henry Stuart?’

‘Aye, only he wasn’t a lord then, of course, because his old lordship was still alive and drinking. He was just Henry to us, part of our wee gang. Me, Mhairi, her brother Ray, Roddie. Well, when Henry was on the island. He was sent away to private school on the mainland. He was too good for our wee school, but come holidays—summer, Christmas—he was back, and the five of us were inseparable, I suppose you’d say.’ That smile twitched again. ‘The Famous Five, only we weren’t quite so wholesome, unless there was a book called Five Go Bevvying.’

‘And Roddie and Henry were close?’

Donnie considered this. ‘I don’t know how to put it. Roddie was always . . . in his thrall. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but do you know what I mean? Roddie followed him about when he was here, like a wee dog. We used to slag him off about it, saying he was in love with Henry, but there wasn’t anything like that . . . well, maybe not consciously. Roddie was impressed by money, and Henry’s family had most of it on the island, although at that time they were pretty much on their uppers, relatively speaking. The aristocracy having cash flow problems can often be completely different from you and me being short of the readies.’

She nodded. ‘And what about Mhairi?’

His eyes softened. ‘She was the best of us, frankly. She was the one who kept us right.’

‘You and Mhairi became more than friends.’

‘Aye. I know Roddie was head over heels about her. I saw Henry looking at her too, once we were old enough to realise she was more than just one of the lads. But back then it was always her and me.’ He stopped, eyes drifting slightly as he almost lost himself in the memory.

Rebecca brought him back, feeling a twinge as she said, ‘She had your baby.’

‘Aye. Well. I buggered that up. I became a different person and ended up being wasted a lot of the time.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Anything I could smoke or inject. I was a wreck.’

‘What about Mhairi? Did she take drugs?’

He shook his head. ‘No way. Her brother Raymond died of an overdose in Glasgow. She hated drugs. Now, drink, that was something else again. Mhairi could drink the lot of us under the table.’ He sipped his lager again. ‘Not while she was pregnant, though. She was a great mum. Loved that wee one.’

Rebecca scribbled down the words ‘great mum’, fighting her own feelings of remorse. She decided to move him away from talk of family and babies and motherhood. ‘What about the night she died?’

Donnie pushed his half-empty glass around the tabletop. So far he had exuded good humour tinged with sadness, but now his face was tight with no flickering smile to ease it. He didn’t speak for a few seconds, then he gave his head a little shake. ‘This is harder than I thought,’ he said, standing up. Rebecca felt alarm hit her—was he cutting the interview short? ‘This stuff is crap, but I’ll need another if I’m going to do it. You want one?’

She looked at her glass. She had almost drained it without realising, so she nodded, rifled in her jacket pocket and came up with a ten pound note. ‘Here, let me pay.’

He didn’t make any pretence of protesting. He took the bank note without a word and disappeared through the narrow doorway into the bar, leaving Rebecca on her own. A sprightly melody drifted in from the musicians, a jig of sorts, some of the patrons were clapping in time. It was an example of the bipolar nature of Scottish culture—one minute morose and plaintive, the next wild and carefree. She had never been a great lover of traditional Scottish music, but she found her foot tapping with the beat. Her island blood was getting in tune, she thought. Next thing she’d hear the skirl of the pipes and she’d look for an Englishman to kill. Or at least someone from another clan.

She was aware of someone watching her and through the doorway she saw Bill Sawyer sitting alone, a glass in his hand, which he raised in greeting. There was something about the man that unsettled her. Maybe it was the way he watched everything that went on around him, but then she tended to do that too. Maybe it was his superior attitude. She’d met a lot of police officers, through her dad and her job, and some of them believed they were above everyone else. Her dad had told her that it was usually the bad ones who were like that. She knew she would have to speak to Sawyer at some point, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.

Her phone rang and she felt the brightness created by the gin and the music dissipate when she saw it was Simon. She debated briefly whether to answer then decided she couldn’t be that heartless.

‘Hello, Simon,’ she said, knowing there was a hardness in her voice she really had not intended.

‘Are you OK?’ His voice was full of concern. She was confused at first, but then she realised he must’ve heard she’d called in sick.

‘I’m fine, just a touch of stomach trouble,’ she said, her stomach actually churning a little. A lie is always found out, her dad used to say, so it’s always better to tell the truth. It may be painful at first, like ripping a plaster off, but it’s always for the best. Still, she was committed now. Then she realised he might worry, given their history, so she added, ‘Something I ate, maybe.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Home. Taking it easy.’

‘I’ve been ringing your bell for ten minutes.’

Shit. A lie is always found out . . .

‘Sorry,’ she said, her mind scrambling for an explanation. ‘I didn’t hear it.’

‘You didn’t hear me ringing the bell for ten minutes?’ He had adopted his courtroom voice, the one he used when about to skewer someone’s evidence. Quiet but pointed.

‘Simon, please, I’m really not feeling . . .’

‘Rebecca, where’s your car?’

She was thrown by the question. ‘My car?’

‘Your car. You usually park it in the street outside your flat. It’s not there.’

Double shit. She had left it at the ferry terminal. He had her on the back foot, so she decided to go on the offensive. ‘What is this, Simon? Am I being cross-examined?’

‘No, I . . .’

‘Because I don’t like being questioned, okay?’

‘Rebecca, I care about you. I’m concerned. I heard you were sick, so I thought I’d come over, make sure you’re all right. But I didn’t get a reply and now I’m standing in the street and your car’s gone. I’m worried.’

‘Don’t be. I’m fine.’

There was a pause and Rebecca could hear the faint sound of traffic at his end. She pictured him standing in her street, looking up at her dark windows, the phone to his ear, his hand running through his thick brown hair, something he did when he was thinking. She’d covered court cases in which he had been involved and seen him do that while considering, or pretending to consider, his next question.

‘Where are you, Rebecca?’

She considered keeping the lie going but decided against it. Time to rip that plaster off. ‘Stoirm.’

‘The island?’

‘You know another place called Stoirm?’

As usual, when speaking to him, her words came out sharper than she’d intended. She wasn’t in the least bit sorry. He’d caught her out in her lies and she was pissed off, not just at him.

‘What are you doing there?’

‘A story.’

‘Does Barry know? I mean, he told me you were ill . . .’

Of course, Simon and Barry were pals, something with which she was never completely comfortable. She often wondered if they talked about her, if Simon shared intimate details with his best bud. Guys did that, didn’t they? She knew girls did. She often wondered if Barry knew what had happened six months before . . .

‘No, he told me not to come. But this is too big to miss. And I don’t want him to know yet, either, Simon, so please keep it to yourself.’

‘He won’t hear it from me.’

Better not, she thought, and immediately regretted it. She knew Simon well, was certain he wouldn’t say anything, but it was best not to get on his wrong side, just in case. She forced her voice to soften. ‘Thanks, Simon, I appreciate it. This is important to me.’

Donnie reappeared in the doorway with another G&T for her, a fresh beer for himself. Behind him, she saw Sawyer’s eyes were on them both.

‘Simon, I need to go.’

‘When will you be back?’

‘I don’t know.’ She gave Donnie a slight smile as he placed her glass on the table and sat down again. ‘Couple of days, maybe.’

‘You want me to come over? We could make a wee holiday of it . . .’

‘No, I’m working, Simon. I have to concentrate on it.’

‘I could help . . .’

Donnie was staring at the tabletop. He was trying to appear as if he wasn’t listening but he couldn’t help but hear and that made her feel awkward.

‘Simon, I have to go. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, okay?’

‘Okay.’ He was disappointed. ‘I lo—’

She cut him off before she heard the words. She didn’t need that right now.

As she dropped the phone in her bag, Donnie asked, ‘Boyfriend trouble?’

‘Ex-boyfriend trouble,’ she said, an embarrassed laugh rippling her throat.

He smiled. ‘Relationships,’ he said. ‘Never easy.’

‘No,’ she said, wondering if he was thinking about Mhairi. ‘So, tell me about that night.’

He took a deep gulp of his beer, set the glass down again, stared at it. She didn’t know if he was gathering his thoughts or reconsidering his decision to talk to her. The music had changed again. The girl was back to plaintive mode, her voice sweet and solemn. No guitar this time, just the fiddle, its notes conjuring up feelings of loss. Finally, he took a deep breath and exhaled, long and slow. Then he spoke. ‘As I said, I was wasted back then, out of my head on drugs.’

‘What were you using?’

‘Like other kids on the island I smoked a bit of weed, but when I went to Glasgow I discovered the hard stuff.’

‘Why did you go to Glasgow?’

‘Looking for work. Ray and me, we thought the world was our oyster, you know? It was all out there waiting for us. God knows there was nothing here. My dad wanted me to work on his boat with him but that wasn’t for me. Ray’s dad wanted him to work with him in the village store—did you know they owned the wee shop in the Square?’

She nodded. She wasn’t looking forward to calling in there to speak to Mhairi’s parents.

‘We didn’t find any real work, some casual stuff, labouring and the like, but we did find heroin. That was easy enough. I was never one for needles, so I was smoking at first, then I turned to snorting. But that didn’t bring the high fast enough, so I overcame my squeamishness and began to inject. I was with Mhairi’s brother when he OD’d. That’s what made me come home. I remember watching the paramedics trying to revive him and thinking that it could’ve been me. Something clicked in my brain, right there, as I watched them give up, watched them shake their heads at each other. I told myself I’d had enough. That the shit wasn’t going to take me the way it took Ray. I thought I could beat it, you know? I thought I was more powerful.’

‘But you weren’t?’

His laugh was rueful. ‘No. Addicts often think they’re in charge but they’re not. But I thought coming back to the island, away from the temptations of the big city, maybe I’d have a chance to kick it.’

‘But you didn’t.’

He shook his head, sipped his beer. ‘There was a bloke around here by then, name of MacDonald. He’d come over from Inverness and was doing a wee bit of dealing. Nothing major, just a bit of weed and coke. But he had some heroin too.’ He smiled, but he hadn’t said anything funny. ‘If there’s one thing an addict can do, it’s find a supplier, and I honed in on him like flies to shit. All thoughts of kicking it went out the window.’

‘You could’ve got help.’

‘I could’ve, but I didn’t. I’m a Stoirm islander, you know? There’s things we don’t do. We don’t turn on family. We don’t ask outsiders for help.’

‘What about Mhairi? Did you get back together?’

There was sadness in the way his shoulder slumped. ‘No. She was carrying the kid when I left the island. I was gone eighteen months—that’s how long it took me to screw up my life completely—and she’d moved in with Roddie. I moved back in with my father, Lachlan. He was still fishing, scratching a living out of it because he was the best sailor on the island. There wasn’t anything he didn’t know about the waters around Stoirm.’ Donnie’s eyes turned soft again as he thought of his father. ‘He stood by me through it all. Defended me. Supported me. Family is everything, we stand by each other. It’s an island thing.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He’s gone, seven years now.’

The words came automatically. ‘I’m sorry.’

He acknowledged her with a slight inclination of his head. ‘Dropped of a massive brain aneurism. He was only fifty-five, still a young man really, but he just collapsed down at the harbour. Gone before he hit the ground, they said. Ticking time bomb, these things, but I can’t help but feel that I contributed to it.’

‘And your mother?’

‘She walked out when I was ten. She was from Thurso originally and never took to island life. Maybe that’s where I got my restless spirit from. Dad was an islander through and through, and couldn’t face living anywhere else, so they separated, eventually divorced. I still see her now and again, when I go over the water, but she never comes here. Not even for his funeral. To be honest, I don’t feel any connection to her. It was always my dad, because he was always there for me. Always. It was a shock to lose him like that.’

‘We all think our fathers are invincible,’ she said.

Donnie looked at her, sensing some common ground. ‘Your dad still around?’

She shook her head. ‘Cancer,’ she said. ‘He was an islander, too.’

That surprised him. ‘A Stoirm islander?’

‘Left when he was a teenager. John Connolly.’

He tried to place the name but came up with nothing. ‘Sorry, didn’t know him.’

‘Do you know of anyone called Connolly on the island?’

‘No, but we don’t all know one another intimately. We’re close but not all related, despite what mainlanders think.’

Donnie fell silent, perhaps thinking about his father. Rebecca considered her dad. He was an islander, always there for her too, but so was her mother. Her childhood had been happy and free of trauma. Of course, when she’d entered her teenage years there was drama, but that was of her own making, not to mention her hormones. But overall there was a Disneyesque quality to the Connolly home. Until her father died, of course. There was nothing Disney about that. He fought it, the cancer, but it was too strong even for him. She had once thought him invincible, thought he could take anything on and best it. But she’d watched him waste away, his strong body being eaten by a pernicious, unfeeling disease.

She brought her mind back to the present. ‘Can you tell me about the night Mhairi died?’

Donnie reached for his drink again and took a hefty mouthful. Then he began talking.