42

The present day

Rebecca listened to Donnie. Her gut had told her this wasn’t for publication, so she hadn’t taken out her notebook or recorder. Donnie was telling her only because he felt she had to know, and probably to appease his own conscience. After all this time, how would she make any of this stand up sufficiently to go to press? She couldn’t accuse a peer of the realm of being involved with people traffickers without proof, and the word of a former addict who could be seen as having an axe to grind wouldn’t be enough. Even if he would be willing to repeat it outside this little room, which she sensed he wouldn’t.

And as she listened she knew that the truth about Mhairi’s death and the reason her father left the island were tied in a way. It was all about protecting family. It was all about keeping secrets.

Mhairi was looking for Henry to tell him she thought she was pregnant. Her mother told no one at the time to protect her daughter, who was already seen as . . . what was it Molly had said? A Jezebel. Carl Marsh had maliciously steered her to Thunder Bay, where she would discover that her current lover was involved in smuggling young women, no doubt destined for brothels on the mainland. Donnie Kerr was earmarked to borrow and sail the Kelpie but his drug addiction had put him out of the game, so his father was pressed into service. Lachlan had said nothing to protect his son. Donnie had never told this story before because it would blacken his father’s name.

Family.

Secrets.

‘After that, everything was just about as I said before,’ said Donnie, his voice hoarse and weak now. ‘Mhairi gave me money, dropped me off in the Square, went to fetch little Sonya from her parents’ house.’

‘Just about as you said before,’ Rebecca said. ‘Was there more?’

Donnie looked at Sawyer again, who said, ‘You’ve gone this far, might as well tell the rest. If you’d told me all this back then, things might be different now.’

‘Aye, like you’d believe a strung-out junkie. Anyway, it didn’t fit your preferred version of events.’

Sawyer shrugged. ‘Tell her, Donnie.’

Donnie took another deep breath, closed his eyes as if mustering his strength. ‘I told you that I didn’t see Mhairi again after she dropped me off and that was the truth. I went into the hotel bar but MacDonald wasn’t there. I had this cash burning through me, and I knew he lived in a wee flat above the bank, so I banged on his door. There was no answer. Turned out the guy was on the mainland that night, but I didn’t know it. So there I was, money to spend but nothing to spend it on. I was feverish and jittery and all those little creatures were having a party under my skin.

‘But I kept thinking about Mhairi and her face when she saw Roddie on that RIB and the way she was so sad and so frightened and so angry all at the same time. And I wanted to help her, I didn’t know how, but even in the state I was in I wanted to be with her and get her through this. She’d said she was in trouble, but I didn’t know if she meant because of what she’d seen or if there was something else.’

Rebecca briefly considered telling him about Mhairi’s pregnancy fears but decided against it.

‘So I decided I’d go to her cottage, make sure she was okay. Or at least I think I did.’

‘You think you did?’

‘You’ve got to understand what I was like.’ He swallowed, licked his lips, reached to the bedside cabinet for the glass of water. Rebecca moved round the bed and handed it to him. He took a long drink, thanked her, then his head sank back onto his pillows again, his eyes closed. ‘You have to understand my state of mind then. I was out of it, I had no idea what was real and what wasn’t sometimes. I’d see things, hear things, things that weren’t there. Shadows on the moors would become creatures. The wind would become voices. The stories that we’re all told on the island would take root in my mind, become real. For a long time I wasn’t sure about this, couldn’t be sure if I was imagining everything, including going back to the cottage. For years I didn’t know if I’d just thought about going back or if I dreamed I’d gone back or if I’d actually gone there. I remembered the wind battering at me as I walked. Or did I? I seem to remember throwing up a couple of times but couldn’t tell you if that was on the road or wherever. Everything I saw, thought I saw, would come like wee lightning flashes of memory.’

‘So what is it you think you saw?’

Donnie opened his eyes and his gaze was steady. ‘I didn’t get as far as the cottage,’ he said. ‘I was a wee bit away, I could see Mhairi’s car, but then I heard someone walking along the road behind me. Again, you’ve got to understand what I was like, what people thought of me. I was a junkie and I couldn’t be trusted. I was out on the Spine in the middle of the night so I must’ve been up to no good, probably going to tan somebody’s house. So I nipped off the road, hid in the hedgerow.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I couldn’t see his face. He had on a wide-brimmed hat and one of those long wax coats, you know the type with the sort of cape over the shoulders? Real outdoor gear. He was just a shadow moving in the dark sort of thing. He walked right past me, straight to the cottage. He went up to the door.’

‘And did he go in?’

‘I don’t know. I decided to head back home then. I was feeling really ill and by that time I’d decided that I was more important than anything Mhairi was going through.’

‘But you don’t know who it was?’

He took a breath. ‘Not then. I think I do now. Those coats, the good ones, they’re hard-wearing. They can last years if they’re properly taken care of. The thing I remember was this splash of red on the shoulder.’

‘Red? Like blood?’

He shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that. Paint, maybe. A big red patch on the left shoulder of the cape.’ He thought about it again. ‘Woke up the next morning in my own bed—well, came to, more like. Didn’t know if it was all real. Until the other night when that bloke jumped me. Just before I passed out I saw the coat again, and the hat. Saw the red mark on the shoulder, fainter now but still there. Roddie was wearing it.’

Rebecca let that sink in. ‘So Roddie was wearing it the night Mhairi died?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I’d been with him, remember? He wasn’t wearing that, he was wearing a thick sort of parka. I remember telling him that if he fell overboard it would drag him down. He changed into a yellow oilskin before he got into the RIB.’

‘So who do you think it was?’

‘I think the only person it could have been was Campbell Drummond. Roddie’s dad.’