Evil for Evil (3 page)

‘But I heard it too. That’s how I know. I was out one night a while ago, down on the shore, when it was like this, just getting dark, and I heard it – screams and groans and stuff. And you know there’s a
dead baby
on the island.’

It was a telling detail. Craig gulped. ‘What did you do?’

‘Went back home. But I tell you, you’ll not get me going there at night.’

Always the leader in their ploys, Craig was reluctant to give way. ‘I still think it’s bullshit. Probably just the deer. They make noises you could think were ghosts if you were daft enough. It’ll only take a minute.’ He headed for the opening.

‘We’re not supposed to go too close inshore where there’s rocks. Dad’ll go, like, mental,’ Jamie said in a last desperate attempt. ‘He won’t let us have the boat again.’

‘We’re not going to tell him, are we?’ As Jamie sat straining his ears for untoward noises, Craig steered in through the entrance.

It was almost dark now, but it was clear immediately that it was a very dull cave – just a shallow hollow worn in the cliff, with no tunnels leading off or anything. Disappointed, Craig shone his torch round as the boat bucked in the swell of the waves in the confined space.

‘See? There’s nothing here,’ Jamie said with some relief. ‘Come on, let’s go before you cowp the boat and we’re in real trouble.’

‘Oh, all right,’ Craig said sullenly, giving one last sweep of the torch round, then up across the roof. ‘Here – what’s that?’

A wide shelf, high above. Something white. Bones. A skull, gleaming in the light, gaunt and grinning, its blank eye sockets seeming to stare directly down at them. The gasp of horror from the two boys came as one breath, then as Jamie set up a terrified wail Craig found reverse and they shot back out into open water.

‘What’ll we do?’ Jamie said, when he was able to speak. ‘We’ll need to tell someone.’

Craig was pale, shaking but more composed. ‘They won’t let us out in the boat again if we tell them. It’s probably just some old smuggler
or something, hundreds of years old – nothing to do with us.’

‘Not say anything?’ Jamie was torn. It seemed the sort of thing you ought to tell about – but his dad would really rip him up for going in there. And it was so gross, maybe if they didn’t talk about it Jamie could just forget they’d ever seen it.

Neither of them spoke as they headed back to Innellan.

The paramedics were kneeling in pools of blood on the kitchen floor of the council flat as they worked on the young woman, trying to staunch bleeding from stab wounds to her throat, chest and arms. She was battling against them drunkenly, flailing her arms and groaning obscenities.

‘Oh God, she’s going to be sick again,’ one of them exclaimed. ‘Pass me that bowl.’

DI Marjory Fleming left them to it and went through to the lounge, her stomach churning. The scene of crime team were standing by. The woman could die later – or even before they could get her out.

Just another domestic. Fleming realised with revulsion that the lounge carpet was so disgustingly filthy that the soles of her shoes were sticking to it. It was actually an effort to move them when DS Tam MacNee came in.

A hard-faced Glaswegian, MacNee was wearing his invariable uniform of jeans, white T-shirt, black leather jacket and trainers. His expression was grim.

‘They’ve picked him up. He’s about paralytic, blood everywhere, and it looks as if she chibbed him too. Didn’t seem clear about what happened, but any decent brief will tell him to cop a plea.’

‘Oh, I suppose so.’ Fleming sighed. She was several inches taller than her sergeant, a fit-looking woman with a neat chestnut crop; clear bright hazel eyes were her most striking feature. In her smart trouser suit she looked out of place in these squalid surroundings.

She was breathing through her mouth, not her nose. The plastic trays bearing evidence of half-finished, rotting takeaways, the empty bottles, discarded clothes and battered toys were the least of it: there was also a pile of soiled nappies and what looked like dog messes on the floor. She didn’t want to think what she was carrying on the soles of her shoes.

‘The paramedics are trying to get her stabilised. It shouldn’t be fatal, but she’s so drunk they won’t make predictions.’

MacNee shrugged. ‘Frankly she’d not be much of a loss.’

Fleming’s pent-up anger, which had been seething as she dealt with hysterical neighbours, organised an investigation, liaised with social workers about the two toddlers, the baby and the two Staffies and issued a press statement, burst out.

‘Why the hell do we do this job, Tam?’ she raged. ‘Such a sodding waste of our time and the taxpayer’s money! Two worthless people drink themselves stupid and belligerent, then think it’s smart to involve a carving knife in the row they’re having. They terrorise the neighbours and apparently she’s worse than him. Sometimes I think we should leave them to get on with it.’

MacNee raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s not like you, boss.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Fleming said tiredly. ‘It’s this place that’s getting to me.’ She gestured at the rubbish-strewn room. ‘They’re living in a midden and it’s not as if they had anything else to do – even ten minutes
with a black plastic bag would help. And now there’ll be three poor bloody kids who didn’t ask to be born to parents like that – at least, she’s presumably their mother, though how many he fathered is a whole other question. They’re going into care, and we know what that means.’

‘Aye. Not that they’d be better off left here. Just another generation of neds in the making.’ MacNee paused. ‘Only we’re not to call them that now, are we?’

Fleming gave a faint smile. ‘Glad the directive’s had some effect. They’re “youngsters in need of choice and chances”, Tam.’

MacNee snorted. ‘Or chancers, for short. Anyway, what more is there we can do tonight?’

Fleming grimaced. ‘I’m waiting to see what happens with her, then I’ll have to go back for the formal bit. Oh, it’s the job, but this is so damn depressing! And I can’t see any hope it’ll improve.’

‘Ah, you need what I heard some guy on the radio describe as Presbyterian optimism – we’re all doomed, but we’re not letting it get us down.’

MacNee grinned hopefully, exposing the gap between his front teeth. Fleming was surprised into a half-laugh.

‘Sorry, Tam. I suppose I’m pissed off anyway because it’s Cat’s last night before she goes off to uni and we were to have a special supper.’

‘You’ll not be back in time, will you?’

‘No. I told them to go ahead.’ Fleming sighed. She’d been doing a lot of sighing this evening.

Christie Jack was feeling cheerful as she came down the drive from Lovatt’s farmhouse on her way to the Smugglers. Today had been a good day, with the excitement of the news team, and seeing herself on the telly too. Matt was pleased, said they’d done really well. It gave her a warm glow, Matt’s approval.

When she saw Melissa Lovatt sitting on a grassy knoll, staring out across Fleet Bay, she checked, pulling a face. She’d have to say something, but it would probably turn out to be the wrong something. Lissa was the sort of woman Christie despised – droopy, a bit weird, either sick as a parrot or over the moon, and if you didn’t get the tone right, she’d a genius for making you feel uncomfortable. Poor Matt spent his life on tiptoe.

Christie liked to think she was tough. She’d had to be. The only way to get respect was to fight for it and she’d no truck with people who whinged. You needed to put it all behind you and get on with life, that was all. Which was perhaps why she’d been so totally poleaxed when everything fell apart.

It came out of a clear sky, a bleached sky with a blistering white sun and air that was shimmering with heat. Just an ordinary day, as ordinary as a day ever was when there were towelheads out there trying to kill you and you were in a Snatch Land Rover that offered about as much protection from roadside bombs as a frilly nightie. But you didn’t let yourself think about that, any more than you worried about personal freshness when your whole body was permanently bathed in sweat.

Just an ordinary convoy, just the commute to work, except it never followed a regular route. Just an ordinary Afghan village they were driving through, with its street of ramshackle houses and the men standing talking in groups who turned their heads as the vehicles passed. No waves this morning. Sometimes they waved, sometimes they didn’t.

Then a movement in a dark doorway, caught a fraction of a second before the grenade came arcing through the air, slowly, slowly, as if it were floating, and yet too quickly for the officer standing on recce in the hatch to duck, and the world exploded. A hell of gunfire, primitive yelling and whooping, then tearing groans – groans right at
her side, and the smell of terror and hot blood as her comrade bled to death. Her own hands slippery as she tried futilely to staunch the flow. An animal scream, which she recognised as her own voice
…

It was a sound that became familiar over the next weeks and months. The first flashback hit a week after – and again, and again and again. Without warning she would be right back there, and a quivering wreck wasn’t much use as a soldier.

They’d given her treatment, but in the end she had been given a medical discharge, feeling an abject failure and impossible to live with. She was so angry – angry with herself, angry with everyone who crossed her path, angry with the whole world. She’d dumped her boyfriend before he could dump her; he hadn’t protested and getting through the day took so much energy she barely noticed he’d gone. And all sorts of things had started crawling out of the woodwork, too, things Christie thought she’d banished long ago. Her coping strategies simply weren’t working any more.

It didn’t help that she was skint, going without proper food to pay rent for her lousy bedsit, living with the ‘what-if’ terror. She’d been homeless before, until the army took her in; they’d washed their hands of her now.

The chance encounter with her former CO was a sort of miracle. He’d served with Matt Lovatt in Bosnia and heard his plan of offering a bolt-hole for soldiers needing peaceful R and R.

‘A working holiday for as long as you need it,’ he had explained, ‘though the work’s meant to be therapeutic rather than a quid pro quo.’

Christie wasn’t entirely certain what a quid pro quo was, but she could understand all about a roof over her head and food she didn’t have to pay for. She could hack it, whatever it was like.

Yet she’d actually considered leaving, the first couple of days. It
was kind of a weird household, for a start, with odd relationships – a job lot of emotional cripples, though Kerr was the only one who actually had a missing leg. And it was so effing quiet! No music, except sometimes the classical stuff with no proper tune, no banter, no outlet for the aggression constantly bubbling below the surface as Christie was politely grateful and on her best behaviour. The nightmares were worse than ever.

That second night, sweating and trembling, she went down to the kitchen to escape them. It was July, one o’clock in the morning, and the darkness was lifting already. In the cool grey light she made tea and found a handful of Hobnobs; she was still perpetually hungry, craving the comfort of starch and sugar. When the door opened she jumped guiltily.

Kerr Brodie limped into the room. He was a thickset man with grizzled grey hair; he smiled a lot but Christie noticed the smile seldom reached his hard grey eyes. He was fully dressed; he obviously hadn’t gone to bed yet. He grinned at her startled movement.

‘At ease, soldier. Heard you moving about.’ He sat down at the table. ‘Got the heebie-jeebies, then?’

The silly term got her on the raw. Digging her nails into her palms, she said, ‘I’m fine.’

‘That’ll be right,’ he said sardonically, then took out some keys and threw them across. ‘The major’s orders. These are for the small motor boat. There’s a shack on the island with bedding and blankets. Get across there and yell for a bit. He’ll leave food till you’re ready to come back.’

Being there alone might just push her over the edge, but she was past caring. She took the keys and went.

After three strange days when Christie spoke to no one, screamed,
cried and hurled rocks into the sea, she felt spent and peaceful. The fourth night, she slept like a baby.

Back at the farmhouse, she still had bad days, but could believe now that eventually the horrors would recede. With hard physical work she slept more soundly and on bad days she could go to the island and let the murmur of wind and waves which was somehow part of a deep, deep silence wrap itself all about her.

She seriously owed Matt, and by extension Lissa too, though it was hard to see what she’d contributed. Christie pinned on a big smile now as she approached.

‘Hi, Lissa!’

It was much colder now the sun was only a line of gold down on the horizon, but Lissa didn’t seem to have noticed. She’d pulled her cotton print dress over her bent knees and was clasping them, her blue eyes dreamy. She was small, with a faded prettiness, brown curling hair and fine, pale skin, but her cheekbones were too sharply defined in her thin face.

She looked round. ‘Isn’t it a perfect evening? And look!’ She reached down to delicate blue flowers growing by her feet, cupping one tenderly in her fingers. ‘I love harebells. Witches’ bells – that was the old name. Hares are witches’ familiars, you know, and they were meant to ring to warn them if the fox was around.’

‘Mmm.’ Christie tried not to wince. ‘I’m off to the pub. Fancy coming?’

Oh God, she’d done it again. ‘You know what they’re like,’ Lissa said, blue eyes tragically reproachful.

‘Mmm,’ Christie murmured again. ‘Well, see you later.’

Yes, she knew what they were like. A few poisonous characters holding a grudge, and the rest absorbed in their own lives and indifferent to strangers. But once you’d hung out for a bit the
regulars were mostly friendly, and during the summer there were all the holidaymakers too. If she was still here come the winter, she couldn’t quite see herself walking along to socialise with the bizarrely awful Derek, but towards the weekend even now there was usually quite a jolly crowd. Matt and Lissa were making a big mistake in cutting themselves off, even if neither of them was exactly sociable.

As Christie reached the Smugglers, a group of young men appeared from the opposite direction. They were in high spirits, one with a helium balloon tied to his wrist, wearing a T-shirt with messages scribbled on it, mostly obscene.

They arrived just as she did, but the one in front stepped back to usher her ahead of them. He was seriously fit – big and broad-shouldered, with close-cropped dark hair and brown eyes. Christie smiled a thank you.

The pub was quite full now and Georgia was being kept busy, but when she caught sight of Christie’s new acquaintance she called, ‘Andy! Didn’t know you were around. Come and give us a kiss, then.’

Andy, grinning, obliged. ‘I’ve borrowed the family caravan for a weekend with some of my mates. Can you do us a jug of beer?’

‘Course I can, my love. Having a party?’ She began pulling pints into a large jug.

‘Wake, more like. This guy’s getting married.’ Andy jerked a thumb at his sheepish-looking friend.

‘Should be you, by rights. Your mum and dad were saying you needed to find a nice girl and get settled.’

‘Plenty time for that. I’m still young …’

Georgia wiped off the jug and set it down. ‘Getting older all the time, petal. Still, make the most of it.’

‘Trust me.’ Andy winked, then noticed Christie was standing
patiently beside the bar. ‘Oops, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This young lady was ahead of us, Georgia.’

‘Sorry, dear,’ Georgia echoed. ‘What’s it to be?’

Christie saw ‘Andy’ was looking at her properly for the first time. ‘Put it on my slate, Georgia,’ he said. ‘An apology for queue-jumping.’

He had a great smile. Christie smiled too. ‘No need. But … oh, just a Becks, thanks.’

‘Cheers!’ he said, pouring out beer for himself and passing the jug to one of his friends, but he didn’t rejoin the group. They introduced themselves: he was Andy Macdonald, from Kirkluce, and his mates, after sidelong looks and some pointed remarks, settled at the end of the bar, with a bit of good-natured jostling.

Then the bomb went off. Christie screamed, a piercing, full-blooded scream, looked wildly about her, then dived under the nearest table with her hands round her head. An absolute silence fell.