19

Chaz was waiting outside the hotel in his dented, well-travelled Land Rover. He leaned through the open window and looked down at Rebecca’s leather boots. ‘You not got any wellies?’ he said, smiling.

She looked down at her feet. ‘Won’t these do?’

‘Yes, if you don’t mind them being ruined by salt water.’

Rebecca did mind that. The boots she was wearing had cost her a fortune.

‘You’ll find an old pair of wellies in the back—should more or less fit you,’ said Chaz. ‘They’re my mum’s.’

She swung the rear door open and saw an almost pristine pair of green wellies, a fresh pair of thick socks wedged in the top of one boot. She picked them up and carried them round to the passenger side and climbed in.

‘I knew a big city girl like you wouldn’t pack wellies,’ he said. ‘Always prepared.’

‘Were you a Boy Scout?’

‘Not in the way you think,’ he said and left her to ponder the mystery of his words as he hauled the wheel to the right in order to U-turn from the Square.

It was another sunny day and as the beams sparkled on the surface of the calm water she found it hard to believe that the island was often the focal point for elemental sound and fury. She saw the ferry midway out on the Sound and had to shield her eyes to see whether it was coming or going. It was heading for the island. BBC Radio Scotland played on the radio, the morning news show discussing the US President’s response to allegations that tweeting was unpresidential. His response was, in fact, unpresidential.

Passing the church on its hillock overlooking the town reminded her of Fiona McRae and the woman she’d spoken to in the graveyard. She must’ve been staring hard at the church because Chaz noticed.

‘It’s Mary Drummond’s funeral tomorrow,’ he shouted over the throaty roar of the engine.

‘Was Mary well thought-of in Portnaseil?’

‘There’s no other way to put it than beloved.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d know what it was like for her after the murder? When people must have believed Roddie was the killer?’

‘It wasn’t easy. I think Mr and Mrs Drummond went through a bad time for a year or two, maybe longer, but she was still an islander. Mary Drummond was a strong woman. She faced up to it and she won people over again. In the end, the islanders rallied round her. They’re like that with their own. Incomers not so much, but if you were born here you’re family.’

‘How do you know all that?’

He gave her that shy smile of his. ‘My dad’s nurse, she’s an islander. I’ve been gradually teasing things out of her.’ His shoulders twitched slightly. ‘She dotes on me, treats me like a son.’

Rebecca would guess the nurse wasn’t the only woman who doted on Chaz. It wasn’t just his looks, it was his whole manner. She was certain people warmed to him. ‘And what about Mr Drummond? How was it for him, did your nurse say?’

Chaz let out a small laugh. ‘Campbell’s a different matter. He began to isolate himself from the community—well, as much as he could, given he’s the only mechanic on the island, and more importantly was married to Mary. Business tailed off for a while but having a monopoly had its benefits, I suppose. Campbell, though . . .’ Chaz exhaled slightly. ‘I don’t think Campbell ever forgave the people for the way they kind of cold-shouldered his wife for a while. He didn’t care for himself. From what I hear, he was always a solitary man, but Mary was a cheery, outgoing soul. She took him out of himself.’

‘And his daughter?’

‘Shona? She’s married now, has a child of her own, but she had a hard time, it’s true. She was at school and was picked on by some of the other kids. But that passed, as it always does. Memories fade.’

‘That man last night—Carl Marsh—his memory hasn’t faded.’

‘Aye, well, Carl’s a bitter, angry man. I don’t know why his wife stays with him, to be honest.’

Rebecca thought about Simon. He wasn’t anything like Marsh, but she’d allowed things with him to drift too long. ‘Sometimes it’s easier.’

Something in her tone made Chaz give her a sideways glance. ‘Sounds like experience talking.’

She smiled. ‘I’m old beyond my years.’

Thankfully he left it at that and they drove on in silence, giving Rebecca the opportunity to take in the scenery. They’d left behind the straggling properties on the outskirts of Portnaseil, heading south past small inlets and larger bays ringed with sand, the calm water emerald and translucent close to shore but transforming into sapphire blue further out and then shattering into glinting diamonds where the sun struck it. Vegetation lurked under the water, dark patches of life in an alien world. The landward side was grassland and heather, dotted with a few stands of trees—Scots pine, aspen, rowan, birch and willow, the occasional interloper like Douglas fir or oak. Many of the trees had been planted by a previous Lord Stuart, she had read. He wanted more trees on the island so transplanted saplings from the mainland. The hills beyond were pock-marked with small conifer plantations and topped with heather burnished autumn brown. The mountain, Beinn nan Sìthichean, rose up into a brooding jagged peak, dominating all around. It looked like a difficult climb, but Rebecca’s research had told her it was a Corbett, so while the path upwards was steep it was accessible to most. It looked magnificent against a blue sky broken by a few dusty clouds. This was more of her world than the undersea environment yet it was still not her world. She had been born in Glasgow and worked in Inverness. For all her blood roots on this island, she was an outsider—Chaz had called her a city girl—and she knew it.

The road rose swiftly and there was a sharp bend as the coastline dropped away and opened up to a rock-strewn plain stretching out to the water. She looked down and saw jagged fingers of stone pointing to the sky and others lying on their side.

‘The Seven Sisters,’ said Chaz. ‘The legend is that they came here to wait for their husbands who had gone across to the mainland to fight. They vowed they would never leave that spot until their men returned.’

‘I take it the men didn’t return?’

‘Well, the sisters are still there. The three witches of the mountain made it easier for them to wait, turned them to stone. They say when the men come back they will spring into life again. Loyalty—the islanders pride themselves on that.’

They zipped past the distillery and Rebecca caught sight of a new sign in the process of being hauled up on the wall facing the road, then the entrance to the big house, with a small castellated gatehouse guarding the way. She craned round to catch a glimpse of the Stuart home, but it was set too far from the road and obscured by mature trees.

‘Is it a proper castle or just a large house?’

‘It’s a bit of both. There’s an old castle there, but over the centuries bits and pieces have been added on. Frankly, it’s a bit of an architectural eyesore, but I suppose Lord Henry’s doing his best to spruce it up.’

They travelled in silence for a time, the radio losing the competition with the rattle of the vehicle’s body and the deafening growl of the engine. Then Chaz slowed and said, ‘That’s where it happened.’

Rebecca studied the little white cottage set slightly above the road behind a wooden fence and gate. Its walls shone in the sunlight, the little garden was immaculate, the flowerbeds beneath the windows bare, but Rebecca knew in summer they would be filled with colour and fragrance. Looking at it now, she had trouble imagining anything dreadful having occurred there.

A little further on Chaz spun the wheel sharply to the right. ‘Hang onto your hat, things will get bumpy from here on.’

She barely had time to wonder how much worse it could get when, as if to prove his point, the Land Rover bounced from the tarmac onto a deeply rutted dirt track, sending a spray of mucky water from the first of many puddles over the bonnet and up the sides. She grabbed hold of a handle above the door as the vehicle lurched to one side while Chaz corrected the wheel. Now she knew why these things were called bone shakers.

‘I take it not many people drive along this road?’ she said over the engine and the thump of the wheels hitting troughs.

‘Not unless they have a four-wheel drive.’ He smiled back at her. ‘Or they have something against their suspension!’

They twisted under overhanging trees and splashed through small streams draining across the rutted track. Rebecca saw no cottages or farms, only the occasional ruined homestead, their windows empty, their roofs gone, their moss-covered stone walls seemingly growing from the land. Once families had lived here, loved here, died here. Once men and women had worked this earth. Now all that remained of them were these silent, dead buildings. And perhaps a few slabs of stone in a graveyard like the one in Portnaseil. She had seen empty buildings many times in Glasgow and Inverness, but something about these caused a deep melancholy to settle upon her.

‘Not been used since the Clearances,’ said Chaz, as if reading her mind. ‘The laird back then, Lord Henry’s great-great-great-grandfather, give or take a great or two, had made a fortune out of kelp but that market crumbled and he saw his fortunes wane. He could’ve sold the island but he didn’t. He’d seen what other landowners on the mainland had done, cleared the land, ran sheep . . .’

As he spoke, he jerked his head towards a cluster of sheep at the side of the road. They seemed to wait until the Land Rover was almost upon them before they skittered away into the long grass and gorse that stretched right around the track.

‘He saw how those lairds had cleaned up, paid off their debts, so he had his factor move the people out. Some went to live on the coast, became fishermen. Some moved to the mainland, to the cities. Others caught a boat to America or Canada. They called it “improvement” and said it was for their own good, that the land could not sustain so many people, and maybe there was truth in that.’

‘Life was hard on the land back then,’ said Rebecca, repeating what her father had said years before.

‘Aye, bloody hard. Long hours, backbreaking work, very little return. People starved. They died from diseases they probably shouldn’t have died from. But this land was their home and had been for generations. The laird was more than just a landowner, he was their leader. But he thought more of his pocket than he did of his people and he could make more from the four-legged Highlanders than he could from rents that were never paid. He didn’t even live here. He had a house in Edinburgh and he needed the money to maintain his lifestyle and to give his wife nice gowns to impress their pals.’

Chaz stopped the vehicle in a makeshift passing place and pointed to a collection of low stone walls. ‘That used to be a settlement and the factor served eviction notices to every family. They refused to leave. The factor came with a company of soldiers and burned them out. Five men were arrested and thrown in jail. Their families hauled their few belongings on this track all the way to Portnaseil. That’s why it’s called the Làrach nan deur, the track of tears.’

He stared at the walls for a moment and Rebecca sensed his anger. He hadn’t been born on Stoirm, but he was outraged by what had happened almost two hundred years before. Once more, the words of her father echoed in her mind: Injustice is injustice. Time doesn’t change that. What’s wrong is wrong . . .

Chaz jerked the vehicle back into gear and pulled onto the bumpy track once again. ‘For a long time these moorlands were used for grouse shooting, but that played out in the 1970s. They hope the grouse will return but there’s no real sign of that so far. There are a few here and there but not enough for the men to get their jollies. So they shoot pheasant, around the trees, and they can be restocked every year. All this is still owned by the estate. Lord Henry has his chums up for weekends to blast away at the birds—at anything that moves, if you ask me—and then they go back to the big house for fancy food and drink. They hire local people to serve them. Treat them like serfs, some of them. That’s what he wants to expand.’

‘What kind of people does he have for friends?’

‘Some landed gentry. They can be okay with the staff. Showbiz types like Newman, who can be a bit full of it. But the money people, you know—market traders, hedge fund types, all mouth and braces. They’re the worst. Some of them have a shocking attitude to ordinary folk.’

Rebecca thought of Greg Pullman and Edie Gallagher. His contempt had led him to a prison cell and her to an early grave. ‘How do you know all this? Have you worked there?’

Chaz shook his head. ‘My friend, Alan, he’s in administration. He doesn’t tell me everything, just enough to know that some of these people are total scum. And Lord Henry wants to bring more of them here, to expand all this . . .’

Chaz waved one hand towards the world outside the cab of the Land Rover.

‘You don’t approve?’ she asked.

He thought about it. ‘I’m happy to see more money coming to the island, as long as the ordinary folk benefit. I’m happy if there’s increased employment, even if it is minimum wage, although no way do I want to see zero hours contracts but I’ll bet they’re in the business plan. But the killing? No, not happy with that. I don’t understand it, killing for pleasure. Can’t get my head around it.’

‘What do the islanders think about increasing tourism, though? They must want that, surely?’

He smiled. ‘The islanders have a funny attitude to tourists. They want their money but they don’t like the idea of outsiders coming in and tramping all over the place. Ideally, what they’d want is for the tourists to come over on the ferry, leave their cash at the harbour and then bugger off home again.’

He slowed at a closed metal gate across a cattle grid. ‘Do me a favour, can you open that and let me drive over it, then shut it behind me?’

She climbed out and stepped gingerly onto the metal slats of the grid, pulled the bolt back on the gate and swung it open. She followed its swing and waited until Chaz bounced across, the weight of the vehicle making the grid kick and grind in its pit. He stopped again to allow her to close the gate. When she turned she saw Carl Marsh watching her from the shade of a clump of Scots Pine, a shotgun tucked under his arm. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, green canvas trousers and strong leather thigh-length boots. He had a flat cap on his head. He looked like Elmer Fudd in the cartoons, all set to kill the wabbit. She looked beyond him, to the other side of the trees, and saw a blue Land Rover, larger than Chaz’s short wheelbase model. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw someone in the passenger seat.

‘And where are you two off to?’ Marsh asked, his Yorkshire accent heavy with suspicion, as he walked towards them. Rebecca wondered if he should have the weapon covered, but then they were on estate land. She then wondered if he was going to order them off.

‘Morning, Carl,’ said Chaz, smiling through the open window. ‘Taking Rebecca to see Thunder Bay.’

‘Oh, aye?’ The man studied Rebecca closely. Over the years she’d been scrutinised by many men. Sometimes their eyes slid up and down her body as if they were sizing her up for some kind of kinky costume. Sometimes they just focused on her breasts. She felt nothing overtly sexual in Carl Marsh’s gaze but fought the urge to cross her arms just the same. There was something discomforting in the way he looked at her, as if he was probing for weak spots, something he could use to overcome her.

‘And you are?’ he asked.

‘Rebecca Connolly.’

He squinted at her. ‘Saw you at the meeting last night.’

It was a statement rather than a question, but Rebecca confirmed it all the same. ‘You did. And I saw you, inside and outside the hall.’

If he was ashamed of his behaviour, he didn’t show it. His eyes flicked back to Chaz, as if dismissing Rebecca for now. ‘What’s so interesting about Thunder Bay?’

Rebecca felt Chaz was going to somehow pander to this man, so she said, ‘Do we need your permission to go there?’

There was something reluctant in the way Marsh turned back to her, as if he didn’t want to talk to her at all, but his gaze was steady. ‘This is estate land.’

‘It’s a right of way, Carl, you know that,’ said Chaz, his voice reasonable.

Marsh was still staring at Rebecca. ‘Aye, for now. When the new plans go through, that might change.’

‘A right of way is a right of way,’ said Rebecca. ‘Changes on the estate can’t affect it.’

‘We’ll see, lass, we’ll see.’

‘No, there’s no “we’ll see” about it. Tell me, Mr Marsh, have you heard of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003?’ She saw by the roll of his eyes and the way his nostrils twitched that he had. She was unsurprised by his reaction, as he’d probably had it thrown at him more than once. All the same, she continued. ‘Some people call it the Right to Roam, I’m sure you’ve heard of it.’

He clearly did not want to debate the rights and wrongs of the Act, so he asked, ‘What’s your interest in Thunder Bay?’

Rebecca was not about to tell him anything. ‘What’s your interest in my interest in Thunder Bay?’

His face tightened. ‘Does this lass ever answer a straight question?’ he asked Chaz.

‘This lass isn’t inclined to explain her reasons for wanting to travel on a right of way to see a local attraction.’ Two men had now attempted to treat her like a child this morning. It normally took till lunchtime for that amount of chauvinism to rear its head.

‘The Land Reform Act doesn’t allow for motorised vehicles,’ countered Marsh.

Rebecca didn’t have an answer for that.

‘Come off it, Carl,’ said Chaz. ‘There are four-wheel drives up here all the time.’

‘Aye, as I said, for now.’ Marsh was smiling now because he felt he had triumphed.

‘Rebecca wanted to see the bay, that’s all there is to it, Carl,’ said Chaz. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s worth seeing.’

Marsh nodded, almost absently. He was still staring at Rebecca. ‘They say you’re a reporter.’

Shit, she thought. Her attempt at staying under the radar hadn’t been too successful.

‘Why are you here, on the island? Why now?’

Rebecca debated telling him the truth but decided not to. She’d seen him talking to Sawyer the day before and the chances were he had more than an inkling of the reason behind her presence on the island. She’d be damned if she would make it easy for him. ‘I came to cover last night’s meeting.’

He didn’t believe her. No surprise there. ‘And that’s all?’

‘What else is there?’

A slight smile. ‘Have it your own way, love. But just remember, we don’t like outsiders sticking their nose into island business. We have a way of dealing with people who do.’

Chaz’s voice was hard when he said, ‘Okay, Carl, that’s enough . . .’

Marsh threw a sneer in Chaz’s direction. ‘And you best be watching your step, too, Chaz Wymark. There’s folk around here who don’t like your kind.’

Chaz gave it a beat before he said in a level voice, ‘What kind would that be?’

Marsh’s sneer intensified. ‘Like I said, outsiders.’

Chaz barked a small laugh. ‘And on what part of Stoirm will I find Yorkshire, Carl?’

Marsh’s eyes narrowed as he gave Chaz the stare. Chaz gave it back. Rebecca realised this young man was tougher than he seemed.

A slight nervous laugh rose in Rebecca’s throat. ‘Are you threatening us, Mr Marsh?’

He didn’t even look at her. ‘Stating a fact, love. And you reporters like facts, don’t you?’ His eyes moved in her direction again. ‘You want my advice? You stick to last night’s meeting, report on it fairly, talk about the benefits to the island the plans will bring. Don’t be talking to people you shouldn’t be talking to.’

‘Well, I didn’t ask for your advice, but as it’s been freely given, exactly who would constitute someone I shouldn’t be talking to?’

‘Donnie Kerr, for instance. He’s trouble, that one, and a waster. He’s got it in for Lord Henry, always sniping at him. Take whatever he told you with a pinch of salt.’

‘Can I quote you on that?’

His lips thinned into what might have passed for a smile, if Rebecca had been feeling generous. But she wasn’t. It was a smirk. ‘You stay on the track until you reach the bay. Don’t be raking about in the woods or on the moorland. You outsiders are nothing but trouble on the land.’

And then he turned and walked back into the stand of trees. As she climbed back in beside Chaz, she watched him reach his own vehicle. She focused on the windscreen, but she still couldn’t see who had been sitting there watching their exchange.

‘Pleasant sort, isn’t he?’ she said.

Chaz started up the engine. ‘I’m surprised to see him here this morning. He usually lectures at the charm school in Portnaseil on Thursdays . . .’