The Last Murder at the end of the World

NINE

Our painter, Magdalene, is dressing her son, Sherko, for school. His peplos is too large, and she’s trying to add a few stitches to tighten it, while he squirms, and groans, and fidgets. He’s been standing still for almost four minutes – an eternity for a young boy.

She’s biting back her frustration, which is easy to do when you’re gripping a length of cotton between your teeth. Their morning got off to the wrong start when she discovered dirty footprints weaving their way through the door. Sherko obviously forgot to clean his sandals before he came in last night, but he wouldn’t admit it.

Not for the first time, Magdalene’s wondering if she made the right choice becoming a mother.

Anybody in the village can apply to be a parent. They need only ask me, at which point I assess their temperament and suitability, then make a decision. It’s too important a job to be left to best intentions, which is why I reject most applications and make successful candidates undergo rigorous training. Usually, this gives parents a sense of pride, and a confidence that they’re up to the task. This morning, Magdalene is finding that confidence hard to come by.

‘Mum,’ asks Sherko, in the voice of a child loading a new salvo of irritation onto his tongue.

‘Yes,’ she replies, carefully pushing the point of the needle through the cotton.

‘Why did you straighten all the pictures?’

‘I didn’t,’ she says distractedly.

The walls of the dormitory room are covered in her canvases. They’re all different sizes and subjects, done in oils, watercolours, pencils and fabric. About the only unifying feature of her artwork is that they’re usually all hanging crooked. She blames a combination of untrustworthy walls, bent nails and wobbly hammer heads.

‘Yes you did,’ he argues, thrilled to be right. ‘Look. They’re all straight.’

Her eyes flick up to the walls. He’s right, they’re straight. Craning her neck, she looks behind her. Every one of them is level.

Her heart stops. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. He’s been playing this trick for months.

‘Maybe Adil did it,’ he reasons.

Magdalene stiffens, unused to hearing that name spoken aloud. Adil is her grandfather, and he used to straighten the pictures every night before they went to bed, claiming he’d have nightmares if they were wonky.

‘Adil isn’t allowed back into the village,’ she says tightly. ‘You know that. I’m not even sure he’s still alive.’

‘Why was he sent away?’

‘He …’ She trails off, unable to voice her shame.

Adil was one of Thea’s apprentices, the only survivor of the boat wreck that killed Emory’s husband. They recovered him a week after the accident wandering in the wilderness, but he couldn’t recall a single thing about what had happened.

It was immediately clear something was wrong.

He was no longer subject to curfew, or restricted in his movements, meaning he could go wherever he wanted on the island at any time. He suffered from terrible headaches, his lucidity coming and going. One minute he’d be making jokes with his friends, same as he’d always done, and the next he’d be screaming about giant earthworms and faces pressed against glass. Magdalene would wake up in the morning to find he’d spent the night scratching strange maps onto the walls, and writing the names of the dead apprentices in endless lists.

Thea examined him, but couldn’t find any explanation for these episodes. A month after the wreck, Adil burst into Niema’s classroom and attacked her with a scalpel, demanding she dig up what she’d buried.

Luckily, Hephaestus was nearby.

He managed to save Niema, but Adil fled the village and never came back. His punishment was exile.

That was five years ago, and Magdalene’s still angry at the way he was treated.

Before he lost his friends, her grandfather was scholarly and inquisitive, an exponent of civility in all things. He adored beauty, and encouraged Magdalene’s interest in art. There’s no amount of provocation that would have led him to hurt Niema, or even consider it.

Clearly, he was changed by the wreck. He deserved compassion and treatment, not banishment and scorn. She genuinely believes that if he’d attacked a villager, rather than an elder, he would have received it.

‘Is Adil coming back soon?’ persists Sherko, paying no heed to his mother’s discomfort.

Magdalene returns her attention to the straightened pictures surrounding them, then shakes her head thoughtfully.

‘He’s been gone a long time. Even if he’s still alive, I’m not sure we’d recognise him if he did.’