Chapter 9 #2
“Excuse me?” I ask, thinking maybe he’s had a stroke.
“Ob Gorm Mor is the name of the bay between you. Means big blue-green bay.” He doesn’t look up from the glass he’s cleaning. “And the castle is Caisteal Eachainn.”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“What about it?”
“Is anyone living there?”
The glass goes onto the rack. He picks up another. He takes his time.
“Officially, no. The trust that owns it considers it uninhabited.”
“And unofficially…?”
He looks at me then and I can see him trying to decide how much info to give me.
“Unofficially,” he starts, “there’s been a man in that castle, off and on, longer than I’ve worked this bar. Quiet. Doesn’t trouble anyone. Comes in here once in a while for a drink. Pays in cash. Doesn’t stay long.”
Oh, thank god—Alasdair isn’t a ghost. He exists.
“Does he have a name?”
“He’s never given me one.”
“Has anyone?”
“Lass.” MacLeod sets the glass down. “If a man comes into my pub and pays for his pint and minds himself and makes no trouble, I don’t ask after his name. That’s how this pub stays a pub. You follow?”
“Sure do,” I agree, feeling slightly reprimanded.
“Aye.”
He goes back to the glasses. I work on the chips, squirting some brown sauce on them, then dipping them in tartar. I let a beat go, and another.
“My great-aunt…” I trail off.
“Yes?”
“Did she come here much?”
He almost smiles. “Effie Galloway sat where you’re sitting once a fortnight for forty years. Half-pint of bitter, a full if she was feeling fine, a packet of crisps and a stare at the door like she was waiting for someone to walk through it.”
The chip in my hand goes cold.
“Did anyone? Come for her, that is?”
“Not while I was serving.”
That sits in me. I drink some of the pint to push it down.
“Did the man at the castle ever come in here and talk to Effie?”
He shakes his head. “Never saw them together. Man from the castle was always alone. He preferred it. So did Effie, mind you.”
Hmmm.
The door opens behind me. MacLeod glances up and his shoulders go back.
“Inspector.”
Oh god, please don’t let it be MacRae again.
The man who’s come in takes the stool four down from mine. He doesn’t look at me, but at least he’s not MacRae. The bartender pulls him something dark without being asked. Inspector, apparently, says, “Fine afternoon.”
“Same to you, Sinclair.”
“Quiet today.”
“Tuesday. Always quiet.”
A pause. The man clears his throat. “I’ve news, if you want it.”
“I never want it.”
“Aye. Well then.”
I stare down at the chips and hope he keeps talking because last time I was here I got a boatload of information and I don’t want to pass that up again. Even though that information did me more harm than good.
Sinclair lowers his voice. “Body washed up at Gairloch last night. Tide brought her in.”
My eyes widen. That’s not too far from here. Just a couple of lochs over.
“Christ.”
“Aye.”
“Same?”
“Same. We’ve a witness this time. Hill-walker through the trees up the slope. Couldn’t see clear, the light was failing, but he saw enough.”
“What did he see?”
“A woman on the shore. Screaming. And then she wasn’t on the shore anymore. He says it was a man. Dark hair. Tall. He says she was being dragged into the water.”
The fork in my hand goes very still on the plate.
“He couldn’t see her face,” Sinclair goes on, low. “He couldn’t see the man’s face either. By the time he got down to the water, the shore was empty. Blood on the rocks. A shoe.”
“Fourth this summer.”
“Fourth.”
“Christ.”
“Aye.”
A long silence. MacLeod polishes a glass that does not, by any measure, need polishing.
“They should be scared,” Sinclair says, quiet. “The women on this coast should be very scared, MacLeod, and I don’t know how to tell them that without telling them what they already know.”
“Aye.”
“You’ll spread the word?”
“As I can.”
“Without spreading panic, of course.”
“Well, that’s the trick of it.”
“Aye. That’s the trick.”
I eat one more chip I don’t taste. I push the plate forward an inch. I lift my hand for MacLeod, as if I’ve been doing this all my life, and he comes over with the tab on a small folded slip.
“Thank you, Ms. Galloway.”
“It’s just Iris,” I reply. I lay cash on the slip—too much, because I always tip too much when I’m rattled—and I sling the canvas bag over my shoulder as I stand.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Iris.”
I turn toward the door.
Sinclair is looking at me. Not openly; just enough to see who I am.
I drive the whole way home with both hands tight on the wheel and the same sentence replays in my head.
Dark hair. Tall. Dragged into the water.
Alasdair this morning. Black trousers, black shirt, bare feet on a horse with no bridle, telling me to come down to the rocks after dark, where he’d come up out of the water to meet me.
A lot of the men on this coast have dark hair. A lot of them are tall. Sinclair said the witness couldn’t see clearly. I’m building a case out of nothing.
Except I’m not.
I know I’m not.
I get home. I lock all the doors and check the windows several times.
The light goes at nine and the bay turns slate, then to iron, then black as sin.
I sit at the kitchen window and watch the rocks at the foot of my spit go shadowy, and then darker, and then gone. I don’t walk down to them. I don’t see him come but I also don’t see him not come. The water is too dark by the time I’d have known either way.
It’s not long before I close the curtain and hope he wasn’t out there this whole time, staring at me, taking in all the fear and worry on my face.
I go to bed and fall asleep wondering whether I’ve just saved my own life or done something he won’t forgive me for.
And what I’m going to do about it.