Gavin Darroch was in a good mood. The progress meeting he’d just come out of on a redevelopment project south of the river had gone well. He was satisfied the talented young guns who worked for him were on their way to delivering a design which matched the remit and was, at the same time, aesthetically pleasing. The public/private partnership committee members more often than not wasted time squabbling among themselves vying for power, struggling to agree on anything. Gavin was confident they would approve what he’d be presenting to them at the end of the month.
His mobile rang. Mackenzie. Immediately, he felt himself tense. It had been over a week since he’d visited his sister, taking Monica and Alice with him and phoning ahead as Derek asked, rather than dropping in unannounced.
Mackenzie had looked better, there was no doubt about that. The bruising had disappeared, she had colour in her cheeks and put on weight. But beyond the usual greetings, she hadn’t had much to say. Derek did the talking for both of them, more vociferous than they’d known him, filling the gaps in the conversation whenever they appeared. Gavin may not have noticed how often he answered for Mackenzie, Monica certainly did. Given what his wife had been through, his over-protectiveness wasn’t difficult to relate to.
When Mackenzie went to the kitchen for a glass of water Derek said, ‘You’ve no idea how difficult it is. She’s absolutely obsessed with that bloody house. Never stops talking about it.’
Monica wasn’t surprised by that. ‘Understandable, given what she’s been through.’
Derek was on the point of adding something when Mackenzie came back.
Gavin smiled at his sister. ‘Just asking if the doctor’s pleased with your progress?’
She looked at her husband. He replied, speaking as if she wasn’t in the room. ‘Very happy. We’re on course to make a complete recovery. Whenever she’s well enough we’re going away for a long holiday, just the two of us. Palm trees and coconuts.’
At one point during the hour with the Crawfords, Alice woke up and cried out. No louder than normal. Mackenzie’s reaction was troubling. She froze. Derek moved to the arm of the chair and gently rubbed her hand, keeping the conversation going while Monica attended to Alice.
Something and nothing.
But in the car going home with the baby asleep in her cot in the backseat, Monica said out loud what her husband was already thinking. ‘She isn’t right, Gavin. You can see that, can’t you?’
He wasn’t ready to admit it was true. ‘It’s early days. It’ll take time.’
‘Of course it will. That isn’t what I mean.’
Monica’s concern went deeper. She wondered if her sister-in-law would ever get over it. It was the stuff of nightmares and it had come too close to home. She’d found herself on several occasions imagining how she’d cope if it happened to her and never got very far.
It was too terrifying to contemplate.
Gavin closed his office door and put the phone to his ear. Mackenzie’s voice was an urgent whisper, as though she was afraid of being overheard. Not possible. For a month after she came out of hospital, Derek spent every day and night with her, telling anyone who would listen that the business could go to hell. Eventually, he’d gone back to work. Mackenzie would be alone. It didn’t sound like it.
‘I want you to take me to the house. I need to see the house.’
This was wild. ‘Mackenzie, hold on. What’re you talking about?’
She repeated what she’d said. ‘Take me to the house, Gavin. Today.’
Derek’s warning about her obsession came to him and he spoke gently. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, sis.’
She wasn’t listening. ‘I have to see it.’
‘Why? What good will it do?’
Mackenzie didn’t explain; she pleaded with him. ‘I have to. I have to go.’ And Gavin knew Monica’s fears were justified. His sister was nowhere near right.
‘It’ll only stir things up. Put it behind you. Melia’s dead, he’s dead, he can’t hurt you again. It’s over.’
‘Over?’ At the other end of the phone the laughter was harsh. ‘You really believe it’s over? For you, maybe. Not for me. It’ll never be over for me. Take me to the house, Gavin. Please. Now. Right now. Come and get me.’
‘But Derek – ’
She cut him off. ‘Derek thinks he can solve this the way he solves everything. But they’re my demons. I’m the one who has to face them or it can never be over.’
The excuse was genuine – his diary was rammed. ‘I can’t. I’ve had too much time off already. We’ve got a helluva lot on. The business needs me.’
‘I need you.’
She went quiet, the silence more disturbing than her frantic request. Her brother thought she’d hung up. ‘Mackenzie? Mackenzie, are you there?’
‘You ask why. I’ll tell you why.’
His sister started to speak. Words he’d never wanted to hear, pictures he couldn’t even think about. Gavin covered his ears but it was too late. Her voice was cold; detached. Like a narrator reading an extract from a horror story. She didn’t spare him and when it ended, he was shaking.
‘Shall I go on? Do you want to hear the rest of it? The worst of it? Would you understand then?’
she isn’t right, Gavin
you can see that, can’t you?
‘Stay where you are. I’m on my way.’
They left Glasgow and drove south. Above them the sky was overcast, the default position for Scotland these days. For almost forty miles they didn’t speak and Gavin was glad because he’d no idea what to say. Across from him in the passenger seat Mackenzie stared out the window, quietly humming a monotonous tune that reminded him of something. At Abington, the landscape morphed before them as they climbed into the Lowther Hills and the dissonant music faded until all that was left was the purr of the engine.
The last time he’d been here seemed like years ago. Leadhills village was as it had been. Yet there was peace here, of a kind.
They travelled on.
As they got nearer, Mackenzie sat bolt upright, one hand pressed against the dashboard in front of her, gripped by a fear too unspeakable to name. Except she had named it. Most of it. Her brother made one last attempt to dissuade her from revisiting the old house. ‘Let’s not do this. It won’t change anything.’
She didn’t reply. Whatever her shortcomings, Mackenzie had never lacked courage. Being prepared to put herself through this, to relive the ordeal, may not be wise. But it sure as hell was brave.
He drew up outside the derelict building and pulled on the handbrake. Mackenzie braced herself and started to get out.
‘I’ll come with you.’
She kept her face turned away. ‘No. No. I have to do this myself.’
Attached to the door handle, a blue and white fragment of police tape marking the crime scene fluttered in the wind. He watched her walk towards it and go inside, wanting to run after her, to hold her and tell her it was all right. Her duty, her only duty, to herself and her family, was to get well and come back to them. Instead he stayed where he was and prayed he hadn’t made a mistake in bringing her here.
Mackenzie’s legs were so heavy she could barely get them to obey. She had to force her feet to move, each step taking her closer. Her heel split a tile blown from the roof. It cracked like a gunshot in the quiet. Above her, the granite house towered against the grey clouds, the hole in the roof a giant wound, and for a moment her resolve failed. She stumbled and almost fell. From the car, Gavin saw her wrestle against an invisible power, regain her balance and continue.
At the end of the corridor, at the top of the steps, she hesitated, her brother’s words loud in her ears, urging her not to do this.
it’s over
It wasn’t a choice. She refused to spend the rest of her life tied to him. Mackenzie ignored the feeling of panic rising in her, flicked on the light tied to the handrail, and went down.
Everything was as it had been. The basement was small, much smaller than she remembered, the distance from the bed to the steps just yards. Not how it had seemed crawling towards it in the dark. She ran her fingers over the bed. The chain was missing, taken, she assumed, by the police to be used in evidence against a man who would never have to answer for his cruelty, a terrifying shadow that appeared in her nightmares and invaded every waking hour.
he’s dead
he can’t hurt you again
Not true. He had hurt her. He hurt her still.
The chair where he’d watched was just a chair. And the rats made no sound. But they were there, hiding behind the walls, and when night came they’d be back.
scratch scratch, scratch scratch
Mackenzie tidied the wrappers and cartons into a corner then dragged the sheets from the bed and remade it, tucking the edges under and pulling the grubby covers tight the way she’d seen the nurses in the hospital do then sat in the middle, hugging herself as if she was trying to stop the world from getting in, slowly rocking backwards and forwards, singing softly.
‘Ring a ring o’ roses,
a pocket full of posies;
atishoo, atishoo.
We all fall down.’
Standing outside the open door, Gavin heard and worried again that bringing her back to this place had been the wrong thing to do.
Eventually she came back to the car, moving like a sleepwalker over the rough ground. He jumped out and draped his jacket round her shoulders like he’d done before. Her skin was ice cold, her lips bloodless. The house seemed to have sucked the energy from her body in a final act of malice.
On the journey to Glasgow, Mackenzie stared through the windscreen. They were approaching Hamilton when Gavin found the courage to ask how she was.
‘You all right, sis? You okay?’
She replied in a tiny voice with questions he couldn’t begin to answer, tears in her eyes. ‘Why would he come after me? What had I done to him?’
He reached over and took her hand. ‘The police say the motive was revenge. It wasn’t about you. Melia used you to get to Derek. Blaming yourself is wrong.’
She shook her head. ‘No, that’s not it. It was about me. I saw it in his eyes.’
‘Look, you have to put this behind you. I’ll do anything I can to help.’
A strand of hair fell across her face and was absently brushed away.
She turned to him. ‘Anything?
‘Anything.’
‘Then burn that place to the ground.’