Chapter Thirty
The water glittered sugar-pink as the rising sun nosed above the horizon. Jayne sat on deck, her knees tucked into her chest, feeling the wind ripple through her hair. She had untied her signature braid, wanting to feel free in the elements. Unbound.
She wasn’t alone. Most of the villagers were up here, too – David, Donald and Mhairi, Angus and Fin MacKinnon, Effie, Mad Annie – unable to sleep through the plunge and roll of the Atlantic, too excited to risk missing the first sighting of home. Only Norman remained below deck, sleeping in MacLeod’s feathered bed.
He had been displeased to find her on board. He’d been irritated enough by her absence at breakfast that morning, having woken from his drunken stupor to find nothing ready for him; but to miss two lots of wages, he had argued...Jayne had simply shrugged, saying that she wanted to see her home again too. It was a defiance that had not gone unnoticed, and she knew he intended to punish her for it at a later time. For now, at least, she was safe in company.
She watched the horizon, a line that never tilted although the boat cut and carved through the water in sweeping arcs, powered by billowing sails.
‘Is that...?’ Donald asked suddenly, getting to his knees to peer more closely. ‘Is that her?’
The villagers followed the direction of his pointed finger. Sure enough, a pale, indistinct haze could be just made out: a shadow in the distance, growing in density and form as they drew closer.
Jayne never took her eyes off it, her heart thudding faster, harder as they ploughed through the waves. Destiny was calling – she could feel it.
‘There she is!’ Mad Annie cried, pulling her handkerchief from her shirt pocket and waving it as if she expected St Kilda to wave back. Everyone else cheered and waved too. Even though they knew it was ridiculous, they had to do something with their hands. Like an old dog getting to its feet on its master’s return, their island home steadily reared up, blotting the horizon once more.
It took another two hours from that first tentative glimpse for their home to fully rise from the sea. Noble and majestic, St Kilda’s ragged stone walls emerged cathedral-like, a black diadem from the blue. Drawing closer still, they saw the stacks standing like sentries in the sea as the waves battered them with huge, heaving run-ups, the scattered landmasses of the archipelago – Dùn, Boreray and Soay – clustering around Hirta like huddling sheep. And as they slipped into the kelpy basin of the underwater caldera, the skies grew thick with seabirds, and the soundtrack of their past came to their ears. There were none of the lilting melodies of the songbirds on the mainland; rather a savage cacophony of strangled shrieks and murderous cries. The sounds of home.
Jayne saw Effie sitting erect, her rope looped around her waist as she eyed the cliffs that had once been her playground. Angus threw a cheeky comment her way – some kind of bet, it seemed – and in the next moment Effie was shaking his hand with an intense expression.
‘Norman, you’re awake!’ Angus cheered as a dark, tousled head appeared at the top of the steps.
‘How was I supposed to sleep over the racket y’re making?’ Norman muttered, coming to sit beside Jayne. His breath was sour and he looked rough – his black eye had yellowed, the cuts still crusted with scabs. ‘You’d think they’d never seen the place before.’
David glanced over at the two of them, looking away again before she could catch his eye.
‘If you’re so unmoved by coming back, Norman, why did you bother coming at all?’ she asked. It was provocative of her to be so direct. Confrontational, even. But she reminded herself that she had to be bold, brave and courageous, because she had to know – why was he here?
Norman regarded her. ‘You’ve quite a mouth on y’ at the moment, Jayne,’ he said loudly. ‘Have y’ got your monthly curse?’
David’s head whipped around as she felt her cheeks flame. She quickly looked away and Norman chuckled, his objective achieved.
They were sailing past Boreray now and the crew began hauling in the sails, slowing their speed so that they curled into Village Bay at a declining clip. Immediately the waters calmed, the wind dropping as the cliffs encircled them with a loving embrace, welcoming them home. The villagers gathered at the bow rails and Jayne caught her breath as she had her first sight of the village, the stone cottages standing there just as they’d left them, forgotten foot-soldiers still in formation on the battlefield.
A collective silence blanketed the boat. Tears pricked her eyes as she saw their own ghosts: Mad Annie sitting on the wall, knitting...Ma Peg carding on the stool in her doorway...White sheets flapping in the wind down the long allotments that stretched all the way to the beach...Angus and Fin patching a roof...The men hauling the smack...Children running barefoot around the cleits...Chimneys puffing and golden squares from windows on moonlit grass...Effie dangling playfully on a rope...Mhairi and Flora dancing on the sand...Lorna washing bandages in the burn...Molly and David kissing on a path...And Jayne herself, sitting on the rocks as the sun went down, a silvered silhouette upon which bruises couldn’t be read.
She saw it all, the lives they had lived here, and it seemed to her their laughter still echoed around the glen, hymns sounding in the kirk, their shouts forever red-hot in the snow.
Another yacht was already at anchor, shadowy figures on the beach telling them that the lairds and their minister had arrived in advance. One head glinted like a nugget of gold.
Beside her, Effie startled. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘What’s he doing here?’
Jayne felt the sand between her toes as she waded in to the beach, her skirt gathered about her legs. Everyone up ahead was already shaking hands with MacLeod and the earl, the minister clutching his Bible and ready to work. There was a celebratory atmosphere ashore, as if this was more than a transfer of deeds.
Effie was right beside her. Jayne saw the way Sholto swallowed at her head-down approach, taking care not to get her rope wet nor meet his eyes.
‘Did you not know he was coming, Effie?’ she asked quietly.
‘No.’ The word was a breath, without shape or hope, and Jayne could hear the pain in it. Would Effie have come if she’d known? ‘...How does he seem?’
‘Nervous...He’s watching you.’ Jayne tried to talk without moving her lips.
They stepped out of the water and towards the dignitaries waiting for them on the shore.
‘...And this is Mrs Ferguson, Norman’s wife,’ Donald said, introducing her as Sir John offered her a hand.
‘How d’you do, Mrs Ferguson?’
‘Sir,’ she nodded, seeing David was watching on. Norman was on the beach already too, trousers still rolled up to his knees, his hands on his hips as he looked up at the glen.
‘And Miss Gillies, who you...already know,’ Donald faltered.
Effie stopped before them with a sigh and a nod. ‘Your lordships.’ She was wearing her brother’s breeks again. Nostalgia, perhaps? Or just practicality?
‘Effie,’ Sir John said warmly. ‘Our guest of honour!’
Effie frowned, as did Norman, who had turned back to watch. ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly, sir,’ she demurred.
‘Oh, I would. It’s thanks to you we’re all gathered here today.’
‘Really?’ Donald asked, curious. ‘And why’s that, then?’
Everyone listened keenly. The exact reason for this homecoming hadn’t been made explicitly clear, beyond Effie helping them to find something – but MacLeod just tapped the tip of his nose. ‘All in good time, I promise.’
‘Hello, Effie,’ Sholto said.
Effie looked across at him. ‘...Hello, sir.’
Sholto winced at her formality. Everyone did. Jayne saw a sharp look of pain cross his features as Effie began walking up the beach towards the grassy allotment of her old home. For a moment no one else stirred, but then they disbanded too, making straight for the cottages they knew so well. Norman led the pack.
‘Shall we proceed to the kirk then, gentlemen?’ the earl’s minister asked. ‘We can offer up our blessings while the villagers reacquaint themselves.’
Both Sholto and MacLeod looked agitated, watching Effie as she stalked away across the grass, but reluctantly they nodded. ‘...Of course.’
Jayne headed for her home, her spirit soaring as she trod barefoot on the lush grass – everyone had left their boots on the boat – her senses assaulted by the intensity of being back. She could taste the salt on the breeze, could feel those familiar winds tussle and tug at her hair. The heavy slump of the waves and the cries of the birds crowded her mind, pushing out all other thoughts so that she could almost forget what was coming.
The door of number two was still closed. She had assumed Norman had gone ahead to come here, but as she pushed it, she felt the air of desertion she remembered from that last morning here. Complete abandonment. No one lived here; no one had ever loved here, either.
She walked in and stared at the bare rooms, where no visible trace of the Fergusons remained. They were devoid of furniture but not of memories. No one would ever know he had thrown her against that wall or kicked her against that door as she’d tried to escape. The tin bath where he’d once held her head under the water was no longer tipped upside down round the back.
She stood at the doorway to Molly’s box room, the place where she had died. Closing her eyes, she tried to feel her presence; but nothing lingered. The girl’s spirit was free now, far from here, and it was another presence Jayne felt instead – the darkness, like a black smoke that billowed behind her and wouldn’t come free now, not till it was done. She knew they were on borrowed time, that the clock was already running down.
It would be soon, she knew that. The visions came with a hyperbaric pressure system that steadily ratcheted up inside her body. She could feel the moment building as the elements came together, and she had felt a sharp surge as she stepped onto the sand here, onto the grass – the very grass where it would happen.
She went back to the doorway and leaned against the wooden frame as she always used to, watching the activity of her neighbours. Angus and Fin MacKinnon were checking the metal ties that kept the roof strapped down in high winds. One had seemingly come loose, and they were tightening it in tandem. Mad Annie was sitting on the wall, smoking her pipe and kicking her legs as she looked back in at her cottage, as if it was a child she couldn’t decide was in need of a hard hug or a good scolding. David was sweeping Ma Peg’s doorstep, a promise he must have made to her. It had always been one of his chores, and Jayne supposed old habits were hard to give up.
Much like loving him.
She looked across at Lorna’s cottage, right at the very end of the street. It stood slightly apart, with the blackhouses either side she had once used as medical stores and a clinic room. The roof was in poor order from its more exposed position and the cottage had a forlorn, melancholic air, as if aware of its owner’s fate.
David stepped back inside and Jayne felt seized by the urge to talk to him. If she couldn’t adequately explain herself, at the very least she had to apologize for rejecting him in the moment he’d offered her everything.
She strode quickly along the familiar path, knowing the pitch and size of every slab. She glanced in the windows of number five, the Wee Gillies’ old home, as she passed, catching sight of two figures in the bedroom. She’d not seen Effie since she’d all but run away from Sholto on the beach. Jayne had assumed he had gone to the kirk with his father and MacLeod, to endure the official ceremony the lairds were insisting upon, but...
Her feet stopped. No, it wasn’t Sholto she’d seen. And as her mind played back the glancing image, she heard sounds. She knew all too well what a struggle sounded like, and she ran back into the cottage.
‘Where is it?’ Norman growled.
‘Norman!’ Jayne gasped in utter horror as she stood in the bedroom doorway. ‘What are you doing?’
He turned, and she saw the black look in his eyes she knew all too well. He had Effie caught against the wall, her arm pinned awkwardly behind her back. She was whimpering in pain as he turned her arm at the wrist a little, threatening to break it. Jayne knew exactly how much that hurt. He had done it to her many times over the years, but to see it so graphically being inflicted upon someone else...Upon wee Effie, of all people. She was strong, but she had no chance against a man of Norman’s size.
Norman bared his teeth, unconcerned by her interruption. ‘Get out, Jayne,’ he growled again. ‘This doesn’t concern you.’
But Jayne’s body wouldn’t obey his commands. Not this time.
‘Leave her alone. Let her go.’
‘I said get out! Don’t make me make you regret waking up this morning!’
She felt herself start to shake. His threats, so familiar, provoked a reflexive response in her now. She knew when to run, and this was it... Turn around. Go.
She stepped forward. Two steps.
Norman’s eyes narrowed at the defiance. A confrontation had been brewing between them for days now, and she knew exactly the consequences of provoking him like this. Until now, she had known there was safety in numbers – he wouldn’t beat her till they were home – but if he was doing this to Effie, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike her in front of Effie too. Neither one of them was safe.
Slowly, Jayne raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Just tell me what it is you want from her, Norman,’ she said in her calmest voice.
‘She knows what!’ he sneered, twisting harder on Effie’s arm and making her cry out.
‘Do you, Eff?’ Jayne’s voice quavered on the question, but she knew she had to pacify her husband. He was like a cornered rat, never more dangerous than he was right now. To have thrown off his veneer of respectability like this, to expose his true self to one of their neighbours, could only mean one thing – he had nothing left to lose.
‘I’m not telling him anything!’ Effie gasped through gritted teeth.
She cried out as he wrenched her arm around, holding it at a grotesque angle so that Effie’s knees buckled and she fell to the floor.
‘Effie, tell him!’ Jayne pleaded. ‘Whatever it is, it’s not worth this!’
‘You don’t know that,’ Effie whimpered.
‘I do. Really , I do...Please just give him what he wants...Please. Trust me. Whatever you’ve got, give it to him.’
Norman pressed his face up to Effie’s ear. ‘Listen to her,’ he sneered. ‘She’s talking sense for once.’
The empty room echoed with Effie’s laboured breaths. She was panting hard as she tried to withstand the pain, but Norman kept twisting her arm just a little bit more, a little bit more...Once more and he’d break her arm.
‘Fine,’ she gasped. ‘Fine!’
‘Where is it?’ Norman whispered menacingly.
A tear slid down Effie’s cheek. ‘...In the inky pool,’ she gasped. ‘I put it in the inky pool.’
Jayne watched as Norman’s entire body softened, the tension lifting off him at last. She had no idea what Effie had hidden, but the inky pool was over in Glen Bay, a curiously dark, small pond in which the water glistened black like an oil slick. No one could account for the phenomenon, but the villagers’ best explanation was that the grease or lanolin from the sheep and birds, cleaning themselves, somehow made its way into the water courses and pooled there.
Norman released Effie’s arm with a savage push, throwing her forward so that she sprawled across the floor. Jayne lunged for her, getting down on the ground and drawing the girl into her arms and a fragile safety; for the first time, she saw Effie had a nasty graze on her cheek.
Her husband stared back at them both, his chest heaving as he began to calm himself down. ‘Not...a...word,’ he threatened, pointing a finger at them both.
‘Of course not,’ Jayne whispered before Effie could respond, squeezing her with her arms a little tighter in silent warning. ‘I never do. You can trust me, Norman.’
He stared right into her soul, seeing everything broken and frightened inside her. ‘Aye, but make sure she understands it too,’ he growled. He cast his attention onto Effie once more. ‘Things can always get worse, little lady. For you and y’ loved ones. We all remember what happened to Poppit, now, don’t we?’
Effie flinched, and Jayne could feel her shaking in her arms – but it was with rage, not fear. Effie was a fighter. ‘I’ll make sure she understands, Norman,’ she said quickly.
There was a silence as Norman ran a hand through his hair and adjusted his shirt, then he strode out of the cottage. For several moments, neither woman stirred. It was hard to believe what had just happened – their joyful homecoming tarnished in this way, violence erupting in the middle of a peaceful day.
Effie wriggled out of Jayne’s arms. ‘We need to stop him,’ she gasped.
‘No.’
‘Aye, Jayne! We can’t let him do this!’
‘Yes we can. Just let him go. Let him do what he needs to do. It doesn’t matter.’
But Effie misunderstood. ‘How can you say that?’ She looked at Jayne with an expression of utter disbelief, and Jayne knew what she was really thinking; it was what David hadn’t been able to understand either. Why had she stayed with Norman all these years? But there was no easy one-word answer. Survival took many forms.
‘What is it he’s gone to get, Effie?’
Effie turned away, rubbing her sore arm. ‘It’s supposed to be a secret.’
‘And so is this,’ Jayne replied, watching her. ‘What is it Norman wants so badly that he’d hurt you like this?’
But Effie shook her head, not listening. ‘How could you make me give it up to him like that?!’
‘Because it was the only way to make him stop,’ Jayne replied simply. ‘What is it he wants?’
Effie sighed and dropped her gaze to the ground. She looked exhausted. ‘...The Sir Rory Mor horn,’ she said finally.
‘...What’s that?’
‘It’s a MacLeod artefact. Mathieson stole it last summer and hid it over here. The theft was kept a secret. Superstition or something.’
Jayne closed her eyes, her own suspicions confirmed at last. If Frank Mathieson had stolen the horn but the theft had been kept a secret, then there was only one way Norman could have known about it: her husband was the third man the police believed to have been involved in the smuggling ring. She remembered the final days and nights on the isle, when the two men had been roaming the hills, examining every cleit as a so-called inventory check for the landlord...That last night when he hadn’t come home at all.
‘Norman killed Frank,’ Effie said, watching Jayne as she got to her feet.
‘No.’ The word came out before Jayne could stop it.
‘Aye, Jayne,’ Effie said pityingly. ‘I know it’s hard to hear. He’s still your husband even if he is a brute, but there’s no honour among thieves. Norman’s a thief – I saw him creeping around MacLeod’s library at Dunvegan. I reckon he was looking to see if the horn had been found and brought back. He must have thought Frank had double-crossed him or gone back on his word, and they got into some kind of fight—’ Her voice broke as a memory surfaced. ‘I met him coming back from Glen Bay the morning we left – when he killed Poppit. He was the very last man on the island, don’t you remember? He was making sure no one found the body.’
Jayne shook her head. ‘No,’ she repeated.
Effie raised an eyebrow. ‘I know. Donald’s only here because you finally told the police Norman didn’t come home that last night.’
‘Did Mhairi tell you that?’
‘No, David...’
‘Hello?’ A knock came at the door. ‘...Effie, are you here? I must talk with you.’
Both Jayne and Effie froze at the distinctive voice sounding through from the kitchen. A moment later, Sholto appeared in the bedroom doorway. He took in the sight of them both: the fear on their faces, Effie’s grazed cheek and dishevelled clothes. ‘My God, what’s happened?’
Jayne looked over at Effie. She could see, as Effie met the blue-eyed gaze of the man she loved, that it was all over for Norman now.
‘...There’s something we need to tell you.’
‘He can’t fight all of us,’ David said, his eyes blazing as the men gathered around him.
He could, Jayne thought to herself, looking at them too. They weren’t a large group: Sholto, Donald, Angus and Fin. Jayne wasn’t convinced the earl, MacLeod or the minister could really be counted on for fighting prowess, but at least they represented authority and made up numbers.
She watched from her perch on the wall. Effie had given a comprehensive and clear account of what she knew to be true, and there was nothing Jayne could do to change those facts. Norman had been exposed at last for what he really was.
David kept glancing over at her, though he was leading the chase, powered by a rage that long predated today’s revelations. Several of the villagers had caught sight of Norman already heading over to Glen Bay. The men had agreed to head over to the inky pool and confront him there; he was a big man, and an angry one too, but even he, they believed, couldn’t overpower nine others. They had Effie’s rope for immobilizing him. He could be stowed in the hold until they were back on the mainland, and then they would call the police for his arrest.
‘Onwards, then!’ David cried, leading the march towards the Am Blaid ridge. Only Mad Annie and Mhairi – who wasn’t taking any risks – hung back as they started up the steep slope. They covered the ground quickly and easily; eight months in a gently undulating landscape couldn’t undo the muscle memory that came from decades of hiking this ground, not to mention ancestral heritage. They were fit and strong, the inclines familiar beneath their bare feet, and the village men, along with Sholto, quickly pulled ahead of the earl, MacLeod and the minister.
Effie, beside Jayne, kept throwing her concerned looks as they strode out, as if she expected Jayne to sink to the ground at any moment.
‘I see him,’ Angus said as they reached the saddle of the ridge. He pointed out the white dot of Norman’s shirt, bright against the grass. ‘There.’
Jayne looked down on the glen. MacLeod’s brown-fleeced ancient-breed sheep now grazed the slopes and it looked a very different scene to that of a year prior. Even here in this remote outpost in the Atlantic, life moved on, it seemed.
She caught sight of her husband striding forth, unaware as yet of the chase. She thought of his coming rage as her betrayal was revealed to him – a secret not kept after all. But now she knew that the blows he was saving for her would never land.
David turned back. ‘Stay here,’ he commanded the women, but his eyes were upon her alone.
‘Not likely,’ Effie muttered, going wide as the village men streamed down the other side of the ridge, coming for Norman fast and breaking into a run. They wanted the element of surprise. It would be far easier to overpower Norman if he didn’t see their approach.
Jayne ran after them too.
The inky pool was set below a rocky outcrop on the far north-westerly side of the bowl. It couldn’t be seen from above, as the bluffs dropped away out of sight so that the moor seemed to extend in an unbroken sweep down to the sea. But the villagers knew it well. They could find their way there in the dark if required.
It had been clever of Effie to hide the horn there , Jayne thought. The cleits were the obvious hiding nooks and, even though there were two thousand of them or thereabouts, Frank and Norman between them would have been able to cover enough ground in those final few days and nights to find the horn. Jayne could imagine their growing anger and mistrust of one another on that final night, as the last cleit had given them nothing.
She watched as the gap was steadily closed on her husband – David was in the lead, Angus close behind – and felt her heart pound ever harder, knowing this was their goodbye. Not face to face, but at a remove. Norman would never hurt her again.
He was coming round to the bluff now and she saw him stop and look down into the inky pool, trying to perceive the horn from a height. For several moments he stood still, his head moving from side to side as he studied the dark depths for a lighter spot.
Suddenly his body became taut, alert as a hunting dog pointing towards its quarry. He moved sharply sideways. Had he found it? He straightened abruptly and she recognized his delight – she could read him, even at a distance. Norman was readying himself to claim what he’d come for.
This was his final victory, she thought, watching as David and Angus advanced. They were perhaps a hundred feet away now, speeding silently over the grass. They were hunters, all of them – Norman too, for he turned suddenly, detecting the lion stares trained on his back.
‘Halt there, Norman!’ David cried. ‘Don’t go any further!’
Norman froze as he saw their number heading for him. As he saw her racing over the grass and realized the game was up.
There was only one person he didn’t see.
He began to laugh, a maniacal laugh that became a roar as he railed up at the heavens. Jayne stopped in her tracks at the scale of the rage within him now that he didn’t need to be quiet any more. Now that he didn’t need to hide what he really was.
How had she survived him?
‘Don’t do anything foolish, now, Norman!’ Angus warned as he took up the flank. He was the only islander close enough in size to match Norman one on one.
Norman watched as the other men spread out, taking their positions on the moor. He couldn’t get past them to reach the boats, and behind him there were only cliffs. It was over. His threats towards her and Effie had failed and he’d been exposed. There was no getting off this island. There was no way out of this.
‘Just give it up, Norman. We know everything,’ David panted, slowing to a walk now. He was less than six feet away from his foe – the man who had denied him twice over: first Molly, then Jayne herself. ‘We know what you did. You killed Frank.’
Jayne saw the look of surprise that crossed her husband’s face, but it was only momentary. He was still calculating a getaway.
‘And what do you intend to do, David?’ Norman jibed, seeing that David was unafraid. ‘You’re going to be the one to stop me, are y’?’
‘Aye.’
‘Come on then, big man!’ Norman jeered, drawing him in. ‘Land one on me! Let’s see if y’can take a point off me.’
But David only laughed. ‘I don’t need to take points off you, Norman,’ he said with a cold smile. ‘I’m taking your wife...She loves me.’
Jayne felt her heart quail as David spoke a truth she had thought would never see daylight. Perhaps he had thought the same. But his tactic worked, as Norman, completely wrong-footed, looked over at Jayne in utter disbelief. It had never crossed his mind that she might betray him. He hadn’t thought her capable of anything beyond mere existence. Simple survival. She was just a thing to him.
‘It’s true, Norman,’ she cried out. ‘I love him! And I hate you!’
Let those be her last words to him, she thought, trembling as she saw the rage gather anew in his body. If they were alone now, she knew he’d kill her.
‘You bitch—’ he spat.
‘Don’t call her that!’ David growled, stepping forward as Norman pulled his hands into fists, getting the reaction he wanted. He drew back to throw one of his heavy punches – unaware of the figure emerging behind him: Effie, climbing onto the rocks.
‘I’ve got it!’ she cried triumphantly, her wet hair slicked back, her clothes sodden, holding up the horn. She must have slipped into the pool unnoticed behind him.
Norman turned, but something happened; Jayne couldn’t see what. He caught his own foot, or he slipped in his haste, unbalanced by his warrior pose...All she saw was his arms beginning to wheel. His broad, powerful arms that had inflicted so much damage on her, turning uselessly in the air, unable to right him. Unable to stop his fall over the ledge.
He disappeared from sight in the next moment – gone, just like that – down towards the black-water pool.
Jayne knew he had hit the rocks before she rounded the hillock and saw his arm outstretched, his hand upturned and fingers curled as blood slowly seeped into the grass.
Effie screamed, stunned by what had happened so quickly, right in front of her.
But Jayne was utterly silent, feeling the dark shadows curl away from her heels at last, now that the dream had come to pass.