Skein Island

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

‘I was certain someone would come,’ says Inger. ‘I have to say, I’m surprised it’s you.’

‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I thought I’d be alone. I’m so glad I’m not. Can I come in?’

The light shining from her cottage window had been the first good moment in a terrible day. Packing, saying goodbye to David, driving for hours in heavy traffic on the last Friday afternoon before Christmas, and then arriving at Allcombe and having to find a fisherman to take me over to the island as heavy drizzle blanketed the Bristol Channel: I had done all of these things, all the while thinking that an empty island would await me. I expected to sleep that night in my ancient threadbare sleeping bag from university. But in the shroud of late afternoon, the lights of the staff cottage had sung out to me. I had no hesitation in making for it.

Inger says, ‘Yes, come in, come in. I’m sorry, I’ve not seen many people for a while.’ She steps back and I enter. The heat hits me. It’s cosy inside, a tiny living space leading into a kitchen, much smaller than the guest bungalows. There’s a squashy white sofa, anglepoise lamps, and patchwork covers on the cushions. There is a pot-bellied stove in the hearth from which warmth is emanating at a ferocious rate. I put down my rucksack and strip off my coat, then my jumper.

Inger closes the door, and says, ‘I don’t really understand anything that happened. You’re Mrs Makepeace’s daughter, have I got that right? So that means you must own this island now?’

‘Yes, I, um, own it. I’m sorry, do you think I could have a coffee?’

‘Yes, all right.’ I follow her into the kitchen. She’s dressed in a grey tracksuit, her blonde hair scraped back. I watch her fill the kettle with water from the tap. ‘Nearly everyone left. There was no word about reopening, or getting paid…’

‘Do you have contact numbers for staff?’

‘They will be in the reception office. Why? Do you need to talk to them?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say.

Inger takes two mugs from an overhead cupboard and spoons in instant coffee. I can see she’s thinking hard. ‘I hope you decide to open the island again. I think it would be a good thing to do.’

‘Why did you stay? Even without pay?’

‘I was hoping that the island – what it stands for – could be salvaged. I’d like to help with that.’

‘Another thing that needs saving from drowning?’ I ask her. She smiles, and the kettle clicks off as the water boils for a furious few moments, then settles back down into stillness.

There are a hundred empty beds to choose from on this island, but I am glad to be on Inger’s sofa, listening to the crackle of the fire in the belly of the stove, feeling my body relax into sleep.

Inger has put up no Christmas decorations, and that is another thing I am grateful for. It reinforces my belief that this island is separate from normality, kept free of the usual demands that life places upon us. It is suspended in salt solution, an embalmed island in time, and the fight to keep it preserved in this manner is about to begin.

I wonder if David is alone in bed tonight. I hope so. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I want him to spend at least one night missing me before he turns back to Sam for comfort. For some reason I’m certain that he will; it was a promise in his face when he talked of her. There is unfinished business to be taken care of between them, I think.

Since I’ve given up all rights to him, I shouldn’t mind. But I do. I do. So I allow myself to feel grief and guilt for a few minutes, safe in the knowledge that Inger won’t come down to ask what’s wrong, even if she hears me. She’s not that type of woman, not like Rebecca. Rebecca’s interest lay in examining problems, and Inger is interested in solving them single-handed. If she can’t do that, then she doesn’t want to acknowledge the problem in the first place.

But who am I to criticise her, or Rebecca, after all the things I’ve done? I wallow in self-loathing for a moment, like a pig in mud, and then I tell myself that I no longer have the luxury of hating myself because I have to be better than that. I have so much to do, and I don’t even know where to begin.

I am terrified. The basement will be excavated – I’ve paid a fortune for female workers to come here, claiming it’s in the spirit of the island, and I might find Moira waiting for me under the earth. If not, if she somehow escaped, as I suspect she did, then where do I look for her? How do I catch her when I know what she could do to me? She dismembers, she destroys. She is a monster.

Perhaps it’s easier to be a man. If I’d been born a hero, I would have no doubts now. But I’m weak, and scared, and still a victim.

But I’m also a survivor. It is a thought that comforts me and moves me towards sleep, further down, until I close my eyes and leave all the unanswerable questions until the morning.

‘What are we looking for?’ says Inger.

‘Not sure. Invoices. Receipts. Letters. Personal documents. Anything.’

I wish I was better at coming up with ideas. It was Inger who pointed out that maybe all the paperwork hadn’t been kept at the white house, and maybe we should look at our immediate surroundings. To do something manual, to throw around paper rather than merely ideas, is a relief, even if we’re only finding thank you notes from past visitors, and ferry timetables stretching back to 1978.

‘What’s in that one?’ I ask Inger. We are sitting cross-legged, facing each other, on the floor of the back office. A stack of documents from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet sits between us. She’s holding a vinyl ring folder that looks a lot more exciting than the weather print-outs from the Meteorological Office that I’m examining.

‘Receipts from the mainland for fresh fruit,’ she says. ‘I have a new understanding of how many pears we all ate last year.’ She puts down the folder and stretches, raising her arms above her head as she yawns. I catch her yawn, and return it. I’m tired too, even though it’s still early in the afternoon. But I’m not despondent. Even if we don’t find something here, a clue to help me understand this place better, we’ll find it in the remains of the white house, I’m sure. The excavation has been completed; nothing was found, apart from a few intact barrels of water and some lucky declarations that escaped destruction. The white house is now being rebuilt. The basement has been filled in with concrete.

‘Look,’ says Inger. She holds up a few sheets of yellow paper, stapled in the top left corner. ‘It was underneath the receipts. It doesn’t have a red file, but it looks complete.’

It’s a declaration. I recognise that type of paper, and the letterhead. It should have been lost with the other hundreds, thousands, of declarations that Vanessa kept in the library. I can see the loops and lines of a neat, sure hand, setting out a life story in black.

‘What does it say?’

Inger purses her lips, then reads aloud, ‘“I’m not going to give her a second helping. She takes all of my time and energy as it is. Instead I’m going to keep this all to myself. It’s the story of how I came here, and why I stayed. My very own—”’ She stops reading. ‘It’s a proper declaration. It’s private.’

‘It’s Vanessa’s declaration.’

‘Yes, I think so. The handwriting…’ Inger looks up at me with her steady eyes. ‘Do you think we should destroy it?’

‘Destroy it?’

‘Declarations weren’t written to be read.’

That’s true. The authors never dreamed that their words would be read aloud in order to feed a monster, but that is what happened. And I know that, no matter what the reason behind my mother’s decision to record her past, she wouldn’t want me to read it. But I don’t really care whether she’d hate it or not.

‘Inger, would it bother you if I asked to keep that?’

‘Are you going to read it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? What do you think you’ll learn?’

‘I don’t know.’ I feel tempted to lie, to say I’m hoping to gain some sort of empathetic and wonderful insight into my mother’s choices, but I suspect Inger will see through such bullshit. So instead I tell her, ‘I already know why she abandoned me, and that she thought it was the right choice. I suppose I just want to own something that was personal to her. To feel I have a right to it. I already have her money and the island. Now I want a little bit of her voice.’

Inger considers this, and nods. ‘That makes sense,’ she says. She folds the paper once and gives it to me. ‘Do you want to read it now? Shall I give you some time?’

‘No, thanks. I’ll do it tonight.’

‘All right. Tonight.’

So we spend the rest of the day sorting through a history of bungalow allocations and staff holiday requests and coastguard reports, and I feel like I’m on the edge of a precipice, teetering, toeing the chalky, ragged drop into a cold, blue sea below.

The day is done; the night is here. How strange time has become to me. It is disjointed, unconnected to the slow sweeps of the hands of the clock. I could almost believe that I am not aging at all.

The dim light of Inger’s anglepoise is casting a circle over the sofa, where I lie in my sleeping bag, with my mother’s declaration in my hands.

Outside, all is calm, still and cloudless, the iciest of nights. In the morning all will be frozen, but in here the stove gives out glad heat and the spicy, warming smell of burning wood. Inger has gone to bed, and the moment has come.

I lift the declaration and read:

I put down the paper on the floor beside the sofa, and settle myself for sleep. It’s easy to relax into the pillow, to feel lethargy seep into my arms and legs, to snuggle into the warmth of the sleeping bag.

I know them now: Vanessa, Amelia, Moira, Skein Island. I understand that Moira makes men strive to go forth, to fulfil their destinies, while women go round in circles. They return to what they understand, and surround themselves with the familiar, even if those familiar people and places hold terrible memories for them. They hold close the things that they detest.

And now I hold the thought of Moira close. I will find her, and bring her back, so that I don’t have to be anyone’s victim.

But, just like all the best heroes, I can’t undertake this adventure alone. I’m going to need help.

I know exactly who to ask.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Being a hero was not as easy as it sounded.

David had only one place to look for the man who had violated his wife, and that was the library car park. But hiding in the bushes for three hours a night was not an option; the police regularly patrolled the spot now. And he was fairly certain he wasn’t dealing with a stupid adversary, so why would the man turn up here anyway? He had considered going to Sam, asking her to somehow lower the police presence, but the pain of Marianne’s departure was too acute. He couldn’t picture himself on Sam’s doorstep, begging for entry, with things leading in a direction he was not ready to revisit. So he kept his distance from both her house and the library, and as a consequence had nowhere to go and nothing to do except despise his own uselessness.

But then, one cold, dark January night, there was a knock on his front door, and time started to move forward again.

Arnie and Geoff stood there, holding each other upright, trying not to look drunk, and failing. David checked his watch. 11:48 p.m.

‘Cornerhouse just kicked out, has it?’

‘We heard a little birdie saying my daughter’s pissed off again.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘I’ve got a library card,’ said Geoff, in a very loud voice, standing to attention.

‘Is it true?’ said Arnie.

An upstairs light in a house across the street winked on.

David said, ‘You’d better come in.’

Arnie and Geoff wobbled into the living room, not taking off their shoes and coats, and David shut the door and followed them. They sat side by side on the sofa, hands in their laps, attention fixed on the television screen and the end of the film David had been watching.

‘Rocky,’ said Geoff. ‘Brilliant.’

Sylvester Stallone was sweaty, desperate, having his eye cut so he could continue to see the killer punches coming. David took the remote from the arm of the chair and switched it to mute. ‘Marianne’s gone back to the island,’ he said. ‘She’ll probably write to you, once she’s ready.’

‘I’m not reading any letters from that place,’ said Arnie. He had a patchy grey beard that made him look even more unkempt than usual, and the smell of beer wafted out from him in waves. ‘Listen, come to the pub with us.’

‘It’s closed.’

‘Not now, boy.’ Arnie shook his head at Geoff, who tittered. They had become a circus double-act, stuck together, gurning at each other for their own amusement.

‘Listen,’ said David, ‘it’s really late—’

‘The way I see it,’ Arnie said, ‘that bastard hurt Marianne, am I right? He hurt my daughter. I’ll be honest, I might not have cared about it much five or six years ago. All I cared about was the cubes. I’ve mowed Mags’s lawn, if you get my drift, every Saturday for the past decade because of losing on the cubes. But I don’t owe her any more favours now and I don’t need the cubes any more. I used to need them to know stuff, but now it comes to me anyway.’

David sat down in the armchair. Rocky had just lost the match and was calling for Adrian, his pulped wreck of a mouth hanging open. ‘What kind of stuff?’

‘Other people. I’d drink the medicine down, and then I’d go in the back room and see other people living their lives. Marianne, in her library. Vanessa reading, in the darkness, always reading. Like mother like daughter. And now I see it in my dreams, at night. I saw what happened to her. I saw that man come into the library. I know his face. I know how to get him. Into cameras, isn’t he?’

‘Once, with the cubes, I was watching a big fight,’ said Geoff, his eyes still fixed on the screen. The credits were rolling. ‘There was one in red trunks and one in blue, and I was in the corner, with the stool, waiting for the bell to ring. I don’t know what it meant.’

‘We can stop him,’ said Arnie. ‘Well, you can. With our help. Before he does it again.’

‘He won’t use the library,’ David heard himself saying, while another part of his brain shouted about the ridiculousness of it. ‘The library staff are never alone now. And it’s being staked out by the police.’

‘It’s not bloody America here yet, mate. They don’t have the staff to keep that up for long. Give it two weeks and they’ll have to call it off. Then you’ll be ready to step in.’

‘What makes you think he’ll come back anyway?’

‘That’s what he does. Besides—’ Arnie tapped his nose. ‘He won’t be able to resist it. We’ll make sure of that.’

David stood up. He couldn’t reach a decision. Was some sort of plan forming? Arnie and Geoff were the last companions he would have picked for this mission, but they did seem to be committed. They were both sitting up straight now, looking more focused. Maybe having something to think about other than the cubes was doing them good.

Arnie raised his eyebrows. ‘Well?’

He could tell them to go, and they would. Probably without much of an argument. But did he really want to do this alone?

‘I’ll put on some coffee,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to sober up if we’re going to really talk about this.’

‘White, two sugars,’ said Geoff.

‘I’ll take it as it comes, son,’ said Arnie, with a smile. ‘And then we’ll talk about what you need to do tomorrow to kick this thing off.’

‘Isn’t tomorrow a repatriation day?’

‘It is. It’s too much for him to resist. You’ll see.’

The credits had finished rolling, and the late news had started. David turned the volume back up, and let the sounds of battles and blood from around the world reach him as he went into the kitchen, switched on the kettle and waited for it to boil. Things were escalating. It wasn’t his imagination. Hatred was growing, proliferating, and it was his job to stop it.

The feeling in the crowd was different.

Usually, on repatriation days, there was a quiet air of solemnity over the town. People spoke in lowered tones, and many of them wore dark colours. It had become a tradition, and although David was aware of the undercurrent that existed between the serial mourners who turned up just for the catharsis of the occasion and the true locals who tried to go about their daily lives in the packed high street on such days, this level of tension was new to him. It was heavy, blanketing the people as they waited for the hearses, nine of them, the most amount of deaths to make up a cortege. The faces in the crowd were beyond sad. They were angry.

David stood back in the chemist’s doorway and wondered how Arnie had picked it up before it had even begun. Could there have been talk in The Cornerhouse? But then, nobody went there any more. Instead, apparently, all the drunks were out on the streets at night, hanging about, breaking car windows, stealing when they got the chance. The local paper had dedicated its front page to the ‘crime spree’ that had hit Wootton Bassett, warning locals not to go out at night until the police had cleared up the problem.

A rougher element had descended on the town: bikers, that was the general gossip going around at David’s office. But he didn’t see any new faces waiting for the hearses that afternoon. They all looked familiar, set in intensity, each one wearing the same expression as the next in the row along the kerb. There were very few women and children. Men stood alone, and the sense of danger was thickening, intensifying, until it was as palpable as a storm waiting to break over the street.

The first hearse drove past.

Something terrible was about to happen. He could feel it. The second car in the cortege was level with him when the banners went up, three of them, painted red words on ripped white sheets, waving back and forth, so the only words he could make out were WAR, FUCK, DEATH – and then the crowd rumbled, pulled back and sprang forward as one to engulf the banners and those that held them.

The hearses came to a stop as men spilled out onto the street. Some threw themselves onto the bonnets of the cars, hammering with their hands and feet. David heard breaking glass and screams, coming from further down the road. Someone stumbled into him, blocking his view, grabbing at his shirt. He pulled back into the protection of the doorway and shoved, hard, until the man fell back. Another took his place, with fists raised. David’s instincts told him to duck, then aim for the gut. He connected with the white T-shirt ahead of him, felt the flesh and fat underneath give. But he was in the swell of the crowd now, moving away from the doorway. Bodies were all around him, pressing, pushing, jostling, falling into fights, the street overtaken with battles, and in the distance, police sirens, pressing closer.

Then he saw her.

She was standing by the fifth hearse, holding the door handle on the driver’s side, with her baton in her other hand, held up over her head like an exclamation mark. She was trying to reach two men on the roof of the car; more were attempting to climb up from the other side. The aloneness of her was starkly visible. Her black and white uniform stood out, even though she was so small, in a sea of men. It terrified him to see her that way, as a target. He called out her name, couldn’t even hear his own voice over the noise of the crowd, and started to push towards her, not taking his eyes from her in case she disappeared under the weight of the uniform.

The crush of bodies grew stronger. He felt the pressure of them, elbows digging, hands reaching, and he shoved back, not caring how he connected as long as they fell back. He heard a woman screaming and started to throw people aside with the same kind of strength that had infused him on the island. His own power amazed him. Within moments he stood at the fifth hearse, and put his body between Sam and the crowd.

She was breathing hard, her hat missing, her hair mussed, with a dusky swelling below her left eye that promised to be a beauty of a bruise. The screams had not been hers, but she was holding her left hand at a strange angle, cradling it in her right. He reached for it.

‘No!’ she shouted over the din, snatching it back. ‘It’s bad.’

Someone jostled David from behind, and he turned around and punched, randomly. He felt his fist connect, and then there was a groan of pain.

‘Reinforcements,’ she shouted. ‘On the way.’

He looked over her head, around the scene. It looked like chaos, a kind of hell, men fighting, men crying, men trampling over each other. He realised something down the street was on fire; the smell of burning rubber was growing stronger. ‘We need to go.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s go,’ he shouted.

‘Where?’

He needed time to think, and a better field of vision. He swung himself up onto the bonnet of the hearse, and kicked the legs of the men on the roof until they crumpled and fell into the street. Then he pulled Sam up beside him, hauling her by her shoulders, and helped her up to the roof.

The first two hearses in the cortege had been overturned, and one was alight. The police were forming a line across the street at The Cornerhouse end, and had linked arms to start a march forward, but the men were not moving back, not obeying the shouted commands. Some of them had armed themselves with stones and bits of wood, and pulled the hoods of their jackets up over their faces. This is an organised attack, he thought, and a surge of adrenaline ripped through him. The seconds slowed to a crawl as he took in the pattern of the crowd, and the twenty or so men who had formed a group were working their way down the hearses, destroying each one in turn.

Behind him, at the other end of the street that led in the direction of the library, there was no organisation, just random destruction, men running, shouting, smashing with contorted faces, fighting each other in the madness of the moment. It was too dangerous – he couldn’t see a way through. But the small alley that led to the library car park, that looked clear, although it was in shadow and so impossible to tell who might be lurking inside.

David made his decision. It was his best chance to get Sam to safety.

There was no time to explain. He picked her up, threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and jumped down from the roof. As his feet impacted on the ground, time began to move forward at an extraordinary rate, as if a fast-forward button had been pressed. He ran for the alley, weaving and dodging, hugging Sam’s legs against his chest. She was so light, so easy to carry. He could have run with her for miles.

He reached the alley, edged inside, ran through the semi-darkness, and burst out into the car park. It was full, the cars in perfect order, each one parked between the white painted lines, as they should be. How ridiculous they looked, after such chaos.

There was nobody in sight.

‘Can you walk?’ he asked her, then realised she could hardly reply from that position, so put her down. She looked red-faced, in pain, holding her arm against her breasts. ‘Sorry about that. Did I shake it about?’

‘I should be back there.’

‘No. You need to see a doctor.’

‘Listen, I’m glad you were there, but I don’t need—This isn’t about wanting anything from you.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s okay.’

But it wasn’t. The sensation of being watched pricked at his senses. He scanned the car park again, more carefully, looking for something out of place, anything.

The feeling of malevolence, directed solely at him, was so strong that his body reacted. His muscles clenched, his feet shifted apart to a fighting stance; it was intuitive.

‘What is it?’ said Sam.

‘I’m not sure.’ The feeling intensified. ‘Get behind me.’

She moved back, and he was grateful that she had the sense not to argue. There was danger here. Someone was calculating, planning to hurt them. It came to David that perhaps photographs were being taken.

‘Come out,’ he called, at the gaps between the cars, the dense part of the hedges, the corner of the library building.

Nothing.

The feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived. Suddenly it was just him and Sam, alone in the car park, and as he turned to face her he realised she was no longer flushed, but pale, almost grey, and her eyes had lost their focus.

He caught her as she fainted. He swung her up so he could cradle her against his chest and started a jog away from the fighting, the noise, keeping to the back streets that led to the local surgery, letting the pall of smoke and the sound of men shouting fade into the distance.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, yet again, as David put a cup of sugary tea on the bedside cabinet. She was still fully dressed, lying on the bed, having refused to get into her nightdress. ‘Really. You can go home now.’

It saddened him that she was so uncomfortable. He felt no such awkwardness; the familiarity of the purple duvet, the matching curtains, the string of bells along the staircase, was soothing, calming. And they had shared such an intense experience that afternoon. He had held her, saved her.

‘I’ll go in a bit,’ he said. ‘Once you’re asleep.’

He didn’t want to get home, sink into the armchair, and end up watching the news, with running commentary on what had gone wrong and whether the gangs had been dispersed from the high street. He only wanted to stay by Sam, his soporific, and care for her broken wrist. He couldn’t help remembering an ancient custom he had once heard of – saving the life of somebody meant they belonged to you. It seemed obvious that Sam belonged to him, in a way that Marianne never had.

‘I can’t sleep with you here. Not after… Where’s your wife, anyway? Shouldn’t you tell her you’re okay?’

‘We’ve split up.’ Was that the truth? Yes, he supposed it was. They had both accepted that they couldn’t be together any more. Still, the words sounded wrong, and it must have shown on his face, because Sam said, ‘I’m sorry, really,’ before falling back into silence. ‘At least let me make you some dinner,’ he offered. The late afternoon sunlight was waning, hovering on the brink of collapse into another long night. Swindon hospital had taken up hours – crowded, frenetic, with ambulances arriving and subdued, beaten men slumped into the orange plastic chairs scattered through A&E.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ He was ravenous; how could she not be? Didn’t they feel the same things? He was certain that their thoughts and emotions were linked in some way. ‘I’ll make something anyway, and you can throw it away if you like.’

She shrugged, and winced.

‘Is it still very painful? You can have another painkiller if you like.’

‘I don’t need you to tell me what I can and can’t have!’ She struggled to a more upright position, leaning back against the pillows. ‘You are such a hypocrite, standing there, pretending to look after me, to care, when you—’

‘I do care.’

‘You went after Marianne! You chased her to that island.’

‘You said I should.’

‘I changed my mind.’ She started to cry, and it burned that he couldn’t help. He suspected she would never allow him to touch her again. All he could do was stand there and watch her pain.

When she finally caught her breath and subsided into sobs, he risked sitting next to her on the bed. She didn’t scream at him to get out, at least.

‘This is all wrong,’ he said, keeping his voice low, comforting. ‘I know it; you don’t need to tell me. All I can say is that something has happened to me. I’m not the person that I was before I left for the island. I’m not the man you knew, but I’m also not Marianne’s husband any more, not in any way that counts. I’m not anything normal. Being this new person, it’s got… responsibilities. That I can’t explain. But I think you’re one of those responsibilities. I feel that I want to look after you.’

Marianne would have hated such a sentiment, but Sam nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Okay. I can see how you feel that. I can’t pretend that doesn’t make me happy. So you can look after me, if you like. Just as long as you don’t, don’t just… As long as it doesn’t just tail off into nothing, is what I’m trying to say.’

‘I don’t think it can. It feels really… permanent.’

She gave him her hand again, the unbroken one. It wasn’t love, not in the sense that he knew it. But there was rightness in it.

‘I want to hug you but I can’t,’ she said, so he moved around to sit behind her, squeezing between her back and the pillows so she could recline against his chest. He put his arms around her, breathed in time, and felt a deep peace penetrate him. The smell of her, her dried sweat and fear and the last gasp of whatever deodorant she had applied that morning, made him want her. He kissed her neck.

‘I left home at sixteen,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t stand it. Every day was the same as the one before, and I wanted… I wanted my life to mean something. It’s not that my parents were bad people. It was me. I couldn’t bear to be like them. It felt as if they were already dead. I never went back. I’ve always been moving towards a more exciting life. Sometimes it was so difficult, working for it, searching for it. Now it’s here. With you. I feel alive for the first time. Is that a cliché?’

For the first time it occurred to him that she was still very young. ‘I think we’re meant to be together,’ he said. He thought of Sam’s clean walls, without photographs, deliberately wiped clean of memories. And then he thought of Marianne, alone on her island, and of the last promise he had made to her. ‘I have things I have to do, though.’

‘What things?’

‘The man who attacked Marianne. I promised her I would find him and stop him. I think he was at the library car park today, watching us.’

‘Why would he come back there? He’s not stupid.’ She slid her fingers along his wrist, and he felt himself grow hard for her. He could bury himself inside her, take away all of their bad memories from today.

‘I don’t know. It’s become a contest. He knows who I am. He’s laughing at me. Men who do these things, they have to be stopped.’

‘Yes. We can stop him, together. If you need to catch this man, I’m going to help you. I need it too. I was out every night, checking that car park, waiting for him…’ She shivered, and he tightened his hold on her. ‘Let me help you. If he’s in competition with you, then he’ll want me. I can draw him out for you.’

‘No! That’s not—’

‘I’m not scared. I told you. We belong together now.’ She sighed, a deep, long sound of satisfaction, and relaxed against him. A few moments later, while he was still thinking of some way to dissuade her, he realised she had won the argument by simply falling asleep.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Rebecca steps off the boat with her arms held out to the sides, as if performing a balancing act. She’s wearing very high heels. They are black and glossy and utterly unsuited to the rough planks of the landing platform or the shingle of the beach; she had to know this, having been here before. But she’s obviously chosen to forget it. Or maybe her need to be dressed impressively outweighed her desire to be able to walk without wobbling.

When she sees me coming towards her, she nearly falls over, but I sprint the last few feet and catch her hands, steady her, and take her bag from the amused fisherman standing on the dock.

‘Thanks, Barney,’ I say, and he nods, and returns to his boat, casting off once more.

‘I never thought you’d be opening it up again,’ says Rebecca.

‘Why not?’

She shrugs. It’s one of those February days with a permanent icy fog, the kind that can penetrate your clothes in seconds. I feel it through my parka. But at least Rebecca has on a proper winter coat too: long, woollen, black to match her shoes. Her hair is glorious henna red in contrast, straight out of the bottle. I wonder what shade of grey she is underneath by now.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s walk up to the house. If your leg is fine with that.’

In response she sets off at a fast pace. Within moments she has to slow again, as she reaches the boggy fields and her high heels squelch into the mud.

‘So the house is all finished, then?’ she says, her breathing coming faster.

‘Nearly. Turns out builders work a lot faster when you give a bonus for meeting deadlines.’

‘Lucky you, with all that money. I would have thought you’d have moved to the Bahamas by now.’

‘There’s no place like this, I’ve discovered.’

‘A great location to have a break from reality,’ she snaps. She’s so very angry with me, for some reason. But still, she walks on, and shows no sign of attempting to turn around, to signal to the fisherman to take her back.

When we reach the gravel path she stops, catches her breath, and attempts to scrape some of the mud from her heels onto tufts of wild grass. Her movements fling yet more mud up onto her coat, and I try not to smile as I wait, with my walking boots and thick socks and spattered trousers in place.

She takes one look at my expression and scowls. ‘I’ve brought more sensible shoes in my bag, okay?’

‘Well, good.’

‘I just—This is armour, okay? I knew it was ridiculous, but I needed armour. Besides, isn’t this a job interview? If it’s a real job.’

‘It’s a real job,’ I tell her.

She doesn’t respond. The house is in view now, as close to the original as I could get it. Work is nearly done on a conical extension, rising up from the centre of the house, a kind of tower that will act as a library for the new declarations. It will be a light, airy construction, with plenty of windows to catch the sun, and shine out like a lighthouse.

‘Are you sure your leg’s okay?’ I ask her.

‘It’s fine.’

‘And how’s Hamish?’

‘I’ve left him.’

‘Seriously?’ This astounds me. ‘Why?’

She ignores the question. ‘Have you left David, then?’

‘Not exactly. We agreed that we had to be apart.’

‘How very mature you are.’

In silence, we come up to the house, enter the hallway. It has been reconstructed in the familiar black and white tiles. I walk through into the dining room, and we take off our coats and sit on either side of the table. Rebecca shakes her head at me. ‘It looks exactly the same.’

‘I wanted to capture the original feel of it. Lots of things are different; some of the artefacts were damaged, and I donated others to museums.’

‘If I was your therapist I’d suggest to you that this is not going to help you to move on.’

‘It’s a good thing you’re not, then.’ I don’t want to argue with her, but she’s making it impossible to avoid. In desperation, to break through to something real, I say, ‘But the job of Resident Therapist is yours, if you want it.’

‘What?’ She glances around the room, as if expecting to spot hidden cameras. ‘Are you kidding?’

‘I’m not interviewing anyone else. As I said in my letter, I’m reopening the island, and I think you’re perfect for it.’

She bursts into tears, then clamps her hands over her face and takes shuddering breaths. I don’t know what to do. Eventually I get up, go out to the kitchen and pour her a glass of water. When I come back to the dining room she is composed, mascara clotting around the corners of her eyes.

‘Thank you,’ she says. She takes the water and sips it. ‘But I don’t know if I can accept.’ Her face quirks into despair, then straightens once more.

‘Why not?’

‘I believe this island should help women to establish real answers to their very real problems, and I want to be a part of that. I’m not sure what you believe. I think it has something to do with statues that come to life and suck up words. I couldn’t encourage you in this fantasy. Let me be clear about this.’

Her morally superior tone of voice reminds me of how irritating she can be, but I’m determined to have her here to be my voice of reason. Nobody will work harder to restore this island to what it should be – the way that she pictures it, as a haven. Besides, she links me to the roots of this island – why I came, what I expected to find.

‘I don’t need you to believe what I believe. I just need you to be yourself.’

‘That’s easy.’

‘Only you could say that, Rebecca.’ I tell her of my vision of the island. How it will differ from what it was, and how we’ll try to make it work.

She listens hard, nodding, frowning, then puts down the cup of water, and runs her fingers through her hair. I sense she’s decided to accept my offer; it’s in the way she looks around the room, this time with the fresh perspective, evaluating it as a home.

‘So what happens now?’ she says.

‘You can start whenever you’re ready.’

‘I’m ready now.’

‘What about your stuff?’

‘All in the bag.’

It occurs to me that there’s something more going on here than I had bargained for. ‘Rebecca, what’s going on?’

‘I told you – I’ve left Hamish. I really don’t want to go back and see him. It wasn’t amicable. He became…’ She bites her lip. ‘Listen, I can’t go into this. You’ll feed it into your fantasy and make it part of your reality, and… God, this is ridiculous! I can’t do this.’

‘What did Hamish become?’

‘I… Look, he set up a network of internet friends to monitor and report back on paedophiles. People they thought might be paedophiles. There was a man living on our street and Hamish thought he was… Well, he had been convicted of something, and Hamish got really concerned over it, and so did some others. And then he set up an online group and it just grew. It went from a few friends to thousands of them. All over the country. He said he was doing it to keep everyone safe, to keep our grandkids safe. When I pointed out we didn’t have grandkids he wasn’t even listening. And he always listens. We communicate. That’s who we’ve always been, as a couple. We communicate.’

She stops talking. I don’t try to break the silence that surrounds us. Eventually, she says, ‘See? I can feel you thinking it.’

‘I’m only concerned for you,’ I tell her, but I’m a terrible liar, and she shrugs it off.

‘You’re right, though, it’s all men. His group, all men. Doing vigilante things. Organised packs, on the streets. He said I needed to be protected, that all women and children have to be kept safe in these times. What kind of a person says things like that? That’s not Hamish. But I can’t fight him, I can’t stay and watch him…’ She shakes her head. Her grief and pain are waves that emanate from the core of her. I can feel it washing over me, dragging me down too. ‘I don’t know what’s gone wrong with the world. It’s the media, perhaps. The pressure of the news, the tabloids. It’s not what you’re thinking, Marianne.’

I try to focus, to not let my feelings for David get caught up in this. ‘But you don’t want to be out there any more, whatever it is. You want to be here. Where it’s safe. I can understand that.’

She clears her throat. ‘Oddly enough, I do feel safe here. Safe alone with the only certifiable loony I know. Sorry, I shouldn’t use such terms, should I? Very unlike a counsellor.’

‘Well, you’re not alone. Inger is here too. She’s very efficient. With her help we’re going to be back in business in no time.’

‘That’s great. Listen, I didn’t mean it, the loony thing. It’s just the stress.’

‘You did mean it. But it’s okay. I actually kind of like being called a loony. It makes me feel less boring.’

Rebecca straightens her skirt with the palms of her hands. ‘Marianne, no matter what you do, nobody could ever call you boring.’

The idea of this – that I am beyond the conventional in every way – appeals to me. ‘Thanks.’

‘It wasn’t exactly a compliment.’

I hear footsteps coming down the stairs, then Inger knocks on the open door and shoots me a look that I translate as concern. Do I look in need of help? I don’t feel it. ‘Inger, come on in. Do you remember Rebecca?’

‘We never met properly.’ They shake hands, a very businesslike gesture.

‘So you’re on board?’ says Inger. She’s so very direct. I hope Rebecca will respond in kind.

‘Yes, all right, consider me signed up.’ Rebecca lets out a long breath. ‘So where do we begin?’

I wait for them both to sit down again, so we are all gathered around the table. Inger has brought along a pen and paper, and looks ready to take notes. This has officially become a business. ‘We’re going to start by getting Moira back.’

‘The statue,’ says Rebecca.

‘Yes.’

‘The statue that got destroyed in the basement.’

Inger and Rebecca exchange looks. Well, let them both think I’m mad, as long as it unites them. They have to learn to work together.

‘It didn’t get destroyed. It’s in Crete.’

Rebecca gives me her best maternal, disapproving look, as if she’s just walked into the kitchen to find me smearing jam on the walls. ‘What would it be doing in Crete?’

‘You have to trust me on this.’ Or perhaps I’m asking too much. ‘No, okay, you don’t even have to do that. You just have to get this place up and running while I go to the cave in Crete, find her and bring her back here where she belongs.’

‘The cave in Amelia Worthington’s story?’ says Rebecca. ‘Seriously? Why would Moira – the statue – be back there, anyway?’

‘Because women go round in circles.’

Inger and Rebecca stare at me, and then we all burst out laughing.

‘It’s not safe to be travelling alone,’ says Rebecca, finally, and the atmosphere in the room changes, thickens, into a sense of uncomfortable possibility. I really am going to Mount Ida.

‘You sound like Hamish,’ I tell her. ‘And I’m not asking you to condone my decision. I’m asking you to run this place. That’s what you’ll be good at. The two of you, together – the unstoppable administrators.’

‘I don’t think much of that as a super-power, do you?’ she says to Inger.

Inger leans forward and takes my hand across the table. It’s such an unexpected gesture that I feel my cheeks flush and tears prick my eyes. For all Rebecca’s objections, it’s Inger’s compassion that could undo me. I could ask them to go with me, to risk walking into that cave.

And then I force myself to remember what Moira did to the last people who entered the cave in Mount Ida, and I know I have to go alone. I stand up and pull my hand free. ‘Listen, it’s going to be fine. Inger, can you show Rebecca to the staff accommodation? I’ve got to organise my flight.’

I walk out of the room before anything more can be said. Between them, they will do everything that must be done to get this place running. They won’t need me at all.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In the back of Sam’s Mini, he crouched: cold, squashed, numb.

They had agreed on 8:30 p.m., but David didn’t dare check his watch for fear that the light on the dial could possibly be spotted from outside. It was so dark, beyond what he had imagined when he pictured this moment. It made him sure that he had failed to envisage other happenings – what hadn’t he planned for? How could he keep Sam safe in every circumstance? It was impossible to guarantee.

He tried to push such thoughts away, and forced his mind to return to the plan.

Sam would return from the supermarket laden with carrier bags at 8:30 p.m. She would walk through the deserted car park, and then open the boot to her Mini to load the bags. She would slam the boot and walk around to the driver’s seat, and if nothing happened in that time span, she would simply get in and drive away.

But if something did happen, David was ready.

Except that his legs were slowly turning to stone in this position. He had no sensation left in his cramped thighs. That was what he hadn’t counted on – he wouldn’t be able to get to her, to leap from the car in time to save her. Surely his body would never respond.

He had to trust it. His body would automatically respond to Sam’s need. It would wake up, come to life, as it did whenever she walked into the room. They had been living together for three weeks now and he couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t get close enough. He only felt sure of her safety when he was inside her. At all other times, from morning to night, he watched her, trying to protect her. If she was threatened, he was certain something in him would awaken. Something primitive, violent.

‘I hear you’re shacked up with the policewoman,’ Arnie had said last night, over a pint in The Cornerhouse.

‘Yes, I, um…’

‘Good on you.’ Arnie clapped him on the back, a strange, congratulatory gesture that belonged to a different age. ‘She’s a pretty little thing. Going to help you catch that bastard, is she?’

‘How did you know that?’

He tapped the side of his head. ‘Saw it. Geoff’ll be coming along too, just as back up.’

‘No, I think I’d rather handle it alone,’ David said, his eyes on Mags, who was slumped over the bar, her hands in her hair, her white blouse dishevelled. Every time he saw her she looked smaller, greyer.

‘Up to you. But it won’t work out in your favour without Geoff.’ Arnie took a sip of his pint. ‘It’s just how I’ve seen it. Tomorrow night. You in the car, her as bait. Geoff’ll just happen to be walking past, like.’

And, because Arnie had seen it, David went along with it.

The world had gone crazy anyway. Crime rates were rising, the internet was filled with talk of taking matters into your own hands, forming groups, taking stands. It had become, so quickly, a world of them and us, retribution and revenge, derisions and decisions that would affect thousands. It was a pandemic of punishment; believing that one old man could see the future seemed like the least of David’s worries.

He shifted his weight and rubbed his legs. Where was Geoff? It was impossible to see anything outside the car, now that the timed safety light on the library wall had switched back off. Sam had assured him that the police had moved on from their patrols in this area. Crime was everywhere – they couldn’t afford to sit outside one building while gangs of teenage boys staged battles in the streets.

There was still no sign of Sam.

Maybe his enemy had been waiting in the alley instead. He could have grabbed her while David crouched there, like an idiot, could have dragged her to a quiet place where he could take his photographs and work up the courage to put his fingers where his lens had gone. The thought was enough to make David move. He stretched up, reached for the inner handle of the car.

Footsteps.

The steps, quick and light, approached the car. The safety light switched on, cast shadows around the back seat. He heard the blip of the key fob, and the locks in the Mini slid up. The boot opened. Cold air poured into the car and the rustle of plastic bags, so close to his head, made him flinch.

The boot slammed shut. He heard Sam’s feet move to the driver’s door, not too fast, taking her time.

‘Excuse me?’

A man’s voice, low, in a local accent, close to the car. ‘Excuse me, have you dropped this?’

It had to be him. David felt it, knew it, as adrenaline uncurled in his stomach and spread through his veins; it was him.

‘No, no, that’s not mine,’ said Sam.

‘Oh right… Only I just found it on the ground over there… What do you think I should do with it? Should I hand it in somewhere?’

‘Leave it on the rail next to the library, maybe?’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Just up—’ David could picture her turning, pointing. Then nothing. Her voice simply stopped. He waited on, expecting something to happen: the sound of a struggle, a scream, anything to galvanise him, send him into action. The silence enveloped him, bringing its own inertia. But then the enormity of the moment stung him, like an injection into the heart, and he leapt up, ignoring aching muscles and doubt, and sprang out of the car.

There was nobody there.

The ground crackled underfoot from the cold, and the air was tight in his lungs. On the bonnet of the Mini rested one red knitted glove, without an owner. No noise, no sound, no sense of proximity to anyone, anything living.

The surreality of it was so strong, he wondered if he’d fallen into a flashback from the cubes. Maybe everything was a lie, a dream. Maybe Marianne had never gone back to the island and all this was a game in his head. He could walk home, now, at this moment, and find her there, curled up in their bed, dreaming of books and beauty.

A flash of movement from the alleyway, the glint of the safety light on glass. Geoff stepped forward, his glasses illuminated into two small, round mirrors, and shook his head. David read his meaning – They didn’t come this way.

Where, then? Through the hedge? Unlikely, without making any noise. To another car? Then Sam was still here. Nobody had pulled away. David jogged around the car park, between the rows, looking into each window, narrowing down that avenue of escape to an impossibility.

There was only one place left.

He walked up to the library door and was unsurprised to find it ajar. He pulled it open, walked into the darkness, used his memory to take him around the displays of paperbacks on circular stands to the front desk.

The door to the back office was closed and a yellow sliver of light crept from under it.

David put his hand to the handle. He took a breath, and opened the door.

The light confused him, made a jumble of the small room, and then the space began to pull into sense, and – Sam. Alive, still clothed, untouched – the relief of it, of being in time, took him over. His eyes held hers, tried to comfort her. She was sitting on the desk, her arms crossed over her stomach, her shoulders hunched. Beside her stood the man he had come to stop.

It wasn’t an ugly face.

The eyes weren’t too close together, the lips weren’t narrowed or cruel, and the hairline wasn’t receding. The nose wasn’t bent. It wasn’t an unremarkable face either; it was a shade beyond that, in the direction of pleasant, amiable, easy to like, with an upward curve to the jaw that suggested a permanent smile. He was the kind of man who could have had a girlfriend, if he wanted to. He could have had friends, a life, nights out down the pub.

David felt a pure white blast of hatred for him, this man who had choices, and had instead decided to hurt, to maim. It might have been possible to pity an ugly man. Instead David felt bloated, pregnant, with rage.

Sam made a sound in her throat, a whine, and he saw the knife at her thigh, level with the crotch of her jeans. It was small, straight, pointed. A paring knife, did they call it? For peeling fruit. There was a pair of handcuffs on the desk beside him.

‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said.

‘I just showed it to her in the car park and she came with me. I didn’t even have to do anything. What’s your name?’

‘David.’

‘I’m Mark.’ He had no sense of urgency. It was one of those slow, relaxed voices, almost like a radio presenter on a show late at night. ‘Listen, they always do as they’re told. I think they like it really, I mean, deep down. I’m not just saying that to try to wriggle out of it. If they said no I would stop, that’s my point. I’m not an animal, here.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said David.

Mark nodded. His smile widened. ‘All right. Let’s be honest. I knew who she was. I knew you’d be coming for me. I’m not scared of you. I’m more scared of myself. Where all this could go. I know it’s not right, but I’m not going to let you just… I bet women throw themselves at you, don’t they? Knight in shining armour.’

‘I’m just a normal man. You could have been that too.’

‘No, I couldn’t. I don’t want to be. Neither do you.’ Mark looked around the room. David followed his gaze – the computer, the swivel chair, the display of thank you cards pinned to a cork board. Thanks for finding that book. I’d given up all hope. ‘I took your wife here. With the camera. Just photos. I only wanted to look.’

David pointed at the handcuffs. ‘Then what are they for?’

‘Protection,’ said Mark.

Sam gulped, such a loud sound, surprising, and Mark looked at her as if he had forgotten she existed.

‘Do you want to go?’ he said. ‘You weren’t really my type, anyway.’ He let the knife drop from her thigh. She didn’t move, for a moment, a long breath, then she took a step towards David, and another, crossing the room in tiny increments, making such slow progress that David felt the urge to grab her and push her through the door. Instead he said, very gently, ‘Go, I’ll meet you outside. Honestly, go.’ She turned her enormous eyes up to his, and then she left.

‘What now?’ said Mark. ‘Now there’s no policewoman, are you going to perform a citizen’s arrest?’

David kept his attention on the knife. There had to be some kind of instinct within him that would tell him what to do.

‘I think it was meant to be like this,’ said Mark. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

‘There’s no excuse.’

‘How do you know? Did you choose to be here?’

‘Yes,’ he said, but it was impossible to believe it. Marianne had told him to be here, and Arnie had told him when to be here, and apparently this was all exactly as it was meant to be. Who was in charge? He was the vessel of other people’s decisions. And maybe Mark was the same.

‘Prove it,’ said Mark. ‘Don’t do what they tell you to do. Do what you want to do. I can see you don’t want to be here. Take my word for it that I’ll never do it again, and you go home, and I go home, and nobody gets hurt, do they? You don’t want to be responsible for this, not really. And I want to stop doing it, I swear. I can stop. I’ll just stop.’

But the terrifying revelation at the heart of his words was that Mark wouldn’t stop. He was right. It was beyond control, not Mark’s decision to make. And that meant David could do only one thing. The inevitability of it was breathtaking. It infused him, filled him with the conviction that the moment had come, all options had been reduced to one, and there was nothing left to do but kill him.

Mark raised the knife. ‘So move out of the way, okay? I’m leaving now. You can just let me go, and we’ll never see each other again.’

‘I can’t let you do that.’

‘Listen, I look at your wife’s insides every night on my computer, in her mouth, up her legs. She’s all soft and pink and ready. You want to go home to that, don’t you?’ He flicked out with the knife. It was a weak movement, without conviction. ‘You’re not going to make a move, are you?’

David felt nothing. He watched the movements of the knife, as Mark talked on, working himself up, trying to pry him from his position in the doorway.

‘You’re really going to take me on? Just walk away, mate, you don’t need it. I’ll cut you, I swear, I’ll cut you.’

‘You take photographs. This isn’t New York. You’re not a gang member. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing with that knife. You’re standing in a small public library in Wootton Bassett.’

Mark flashed forward, lifted the knife to David’s face, laid it against his left cheek. The coldness of the blade was astonishing; it was all David could do not to flinch. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me this is an overdue library book?’

David reached up, grabbed Mark’s hand as he started to put pressure onto the knife, felt a cut opening under his eye, and then twisted Mark’s wrist with all his strength. The snap of the bone was audible. It was easy to keep twisting until the point of the knife touched Mark’s throat.

Through the skin, through the fibrous muscle, to the larynx, slipping past the cartilage of the jaw.

Mark hissed on it, a sound like the releasing of steam, and David let go of the knife and took him by the upper arms to steer him into the swivel chair.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Let it go. It’s time to let it go.’ He took off his coat and wrapped it around Mark’s neck, knife and all, tying the sleeves tight in a double knot. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s the way we were made. Better to be dead.’

He realised he was speaking a deep truth, the deepest, as he patted Mark’s hand and tried to soothe the pleading in his eyes. If a man had no choice but to cause pain, then it was better to be dead, undeniably. Why did Mark have to fight this, try to speak, make faces of agony and fear? David couldn’t bear it any longer. He pinched shut the nose and mouth, and sang over and over, ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep,’ until the desperate eyes finally rolled over, and the story was done.

David pulled the material of his coat over Mark’s face. He walked to the office door and clung to the frame as he called for Sam.

She came, with Geoff running after her, his face shining with excitement. ‘What happened?’ he said.

‘I killed him. Call the police.’

‘You’re bleeding.’ Sam touched his face, traced the path of the blood with one finger, as soft and cool as a raindrop.

‘I’ve got a plaster,’ said Geoff, and pulled a small first aid box from his coat pocket. David found himself laughing, and Sam had to tell him to stop so that she could apply the plaster underneath his eye. Once she was done, she kissed his cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

There was no reply to that. Had he done it for her? He supposed he must have: for her, and Marianne, and for all women everywhere.

‘Call the police,’ he told her.

‘I am the police. Let me deal with this. I’m not going to let you go to prison over that bastard, do you understand? You need rest. A good night’s sleep. Geoff, give me a hand.’

Sam held one arm, and Geoff held the other, and David let them lead him from the library, through the car park, back to the passenger seat of her Mini.

‘Stay here.’ She kissed his lips, like Friday night wine at the end of a long week. She kissed his forehead, and he felt absolved, anointed. Her mouth, her words, her touch – it was enough to send him into sleep without guilt.

He didn’t remember the drive home, or being put to bed. When he woke, it was bright outside. A cold, crisp winter sun penetrated the curtains, and Sam was beside him, naked, her mouth open, her legs splayed in sleep.

And downstairs, on the doormat, waiting for him, was a package from Skein Island.