Lazarus Island
1
Sam Thorne had never been a superstitious man. He did not believe in omens, or providence, or the tired old philosophy of ‘what goes around comes around’. He prided himself on being a practical man, rational and thoughtful. And yet, when he awoke that morning, he found himself paralysed by a clear and palpable dread. It hung in the air above his bed, a nameless, shapeless thing, whispering to him, warning him of the events to come.
Guilty conscience, he told himself, that’s all.
Once he was on his feet, he put it to the back of his mind; but the grim, uneasy feeling stayed with him for a long time after.
2
He stood at the French windows and watched the sun come up, drinking hot, strong tea from his favourite mug. The gulls were restless this morning, swooping and swaying on the currents of the North Sea, hundreds of them clustered around the top of the old lighthouse which marked the skyline like an exclamation point. After a fitful night’s sleep, the spectacular view of Port Farron and Scalasay’s eastern shoreline never failed to revive his spirits.
This was why he’d come here. That view, so refreshing after the cluttered, claustrophobic skyline of London, soothed his soul. He had no regrets about coming to the island. He just wished Rachel felt the same. She never said a word about it, not anymore, but she didn’t have to; he could read her discontent in everything she did or said. But things would get better, he kept telling himself. Given time, she would come around.
“Sam, I need you to do me a favour.”
He turned to find his wife crossing the wood-panelled floor in her navy blue nurse’s uniform, holding her hair above her head in clumps, hairclips clenched between her teeth like masonry nails. She stopped in front of the mirror and set about creating a French plait.
“What?” he said.
“I need you to have Becky today.”
He threw his head back and sighed. “Today? Why today?”
Rachel stopped working on her plait and turned to him. “Sam,” she said, head cocked to one side. “You know why. Ben Garrett is coming today.”
Ben Garrett. The convicted rapist of three young islanders ten years back. He murdered his last victim, a thirteen year-old girl, slitting her throat and pushing her off a cliff. Ben Garrett was a monster, and yet the authorities were letting him out to visit his dying mother. There’d been much debate in the press over the ethics of letting someone so dangerous out of prison, even for one day, even under the strictest security escort.
“I thought they weren’t going to give him his day release?” Sam said.
Rachel shrugged. “Soon as they threw the Human Rights ball into the argument, the Government caved in. They’re calling it a mercy trip.”
Sam snorted in disgust. “Mercy trip? That’s rich. Where was Ben Garrett’s mercy when he threw that girl onto the rocks at Pierre Point?”
Rachel didn’t answer, her attention focused on applying her lipstick. “So, will you have Becky so I can be there with Cynthia?”
“Aren’t there more deserving people on this island who need you?”
“Sam! Don't you dare try and take the moral high ground over this. There are only a hundred and twenty people on this island. I have to go where I’m needed. It’s not like–”
“Not like London,” he finished wearily. He had heard the argument so many times. She’d been a district nurse back in Bushey Heath where they’d spent the first few years of married life. There’d been an abundance of sick and elderly people, providing her with full-time work, a good wage and self-esteem. Here, on this tiny Hebridean island, the work didn’t justify a full-time waged district nurse. No wonder she resented coming here.
“I did warn you this might happen,” she said.
Sam turned away again, looking out to sea. “Well, I wasn’t planning to do any writing today anyway!”
He saw Rachel roll her eyes in the reflection of the glass. “Sam, please. You told me yesterday you haven’t written anything in weeks. Don’t tell me today was going to be any different.”
The accusation stung like a blade between his ribs, but something made him bite his tongue. Probably, he admitted, because it was true. He hadn’t produced anything in, not weeks, months. He’d managed to grind out a couple of short stories, but before trying them on the usual markets his agent had sent them back, requesting rewrites. ‘Lacking inspiration’, was the attached comment, and Sam thought that just about summed up his entire situation. After three prolific years, in which he’d produced three best-selling mystery novels, everything had come grinding to a halt. The only thing coming out of the Sam Thorne literary stable now was a stony silence.
He tried to think of an acerbic response to Rachel’s cutting remarks, but even that seemed beyond him.
So he said, “I’m not sure I like the idea of you being at the Garrett’s house when this murderer turns up.”
“Sam, he’s going to be in chains, and under armed escort. I’ll be quite safe.” She paused, staring out at him from the mirror whilst her hands busied themselves with her hair. “Jesus, Sam,” she said. “For a moment there it sounded like you cared.”
Sam looked round at her. She pursed her lips, avoiding eye contact. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he said.
Just then, he heard the side door slam shut. Seconds later, a small figure in a denim skirt and pink blouse raced across the garden outside. She skipped over to the small vegetable patch which Rachel had started up, blond pigtails bouncing, and crouched down to examine something she had planted days before.
“Well?” Rachel said.
“All right,” he said. Watching his daughter soothed the brooding beast in his heart. “I’ll have her.”
The phone burst into life, ringing like a klaxon through the house. After three rings, Sam realised his wife was not going to answer it.
“Rachel?”
“I’m doing my hair,” she said.
Sam charged across the room and snatched up the receiver.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello, Sam.”
The voice was female, husky, pronouncing his name with an overtly sexual drawl.
“It’s Kelly.”
He tensed, turned away from Rachel, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Sam? Are you going to talk to me, Sam?”
He was paralysed by a sudden irrational fear: that if he said the girl’s name out loud he would invoke her like some angry djinn, causing her to materialise in the room, and in so doing reveal the secret he had fought so hard to conceal. For those few protracted moments he didn’t know what to say or do; but if he continued to remain silent, that would raise even more suspicion. He drew in a deep breath, composed his face, and turned to his wife. Rachel had frozen mid-plait, an inquisitive look on her face.
“Who is it?” she asked.
He clamped his hand down tighter on the mouthpiece. “It’s Ronnie,” he told her. “Ronnie Gibson from the publishers.”
He told himself that, as Kelly worked for his publisher, it was only half a lie. Rachel resumed her hair maintenance, her expression unreadable.
“I’ll take it in the study,” Sam said. He transferred the call and then hung up the receiver before walking briskly out of the room. He felt Rachel’s eyes watching him all the way.
In the relative solace of his study, with the door firmly shut, Sam spoke with an angry hiss: “Jesus, Kelly, what the hell do you think you’re doing calling me here?”
Her sing-song voice drifted out of the phone like a phantom. “Oh, Sam, I know I promised not to contact you anymore, but . . .” She sighed. “Something’s come up. I need to see you.”
Sam crouched low over the phone, trying to project his anger into the mouthpiece without having to shout. “No! No way! That’s a really bad idea. What happened between us . . . It was a mistake, Kelly. A big mistake.”
Kelly said nothing for a long time, as if his stinging words had stunned her into silence. When she spoke again, it was in a flat, humourless monotone: “Sam, it’s about your next book.”
Sam sat up straight, thrown momentarily by this unexpected curve ball. “What?” he said.
“Hayden-Mills sent me. There are some issues we need to discuss with you.”
“Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place, Kelly?” He felt like such an asshole jumping on the offensive so quickly.
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“And this can’t be done over the phone?”
“No, it can’t.”
He sighed. “And where’s Ronnie? I thought he was my personal advisor now?”
“Ronnie’s off work sick. Stress.”
Sam sat in silence for a long time, allowing his head to droop, as Kelly’s voice continued in his ear:
“Sam, I wish it were possible to erase the past, but sometimes that's just not possible. I really don't want to upset you, honestly I don't. If you’ll agree to see me, then maybe we can settle this quickly and painlessly.”
Sam shook his head, the hot, sick sensation in his chest rising to fill his head. He felt delirious.
“If I catch the next ferry I can be on Scalasay in about three hours–”
“No!” he barked, louder than he’d intended. “No. Not on the island. Please.”
“Sam, why ever not?”
“You know why, Kelly.”
There was a deep silence. Eventually, she said: “Rachel?”
“Yes, Rachel,” he said, bitterly. “Now listen to me. Don’t come here. I’ll come to you.” He ran his free hand over his face, shocked at the layer of sweat covering his palm. “Where are you now?”
“Oban. I’m at the Station Hotel.”
“Right, listen to me,” he said, his tone businesslike. “I’ll meet you there in the lobby at noon. Okay?”
Silence.
“Okay?”
“Yes, Sam.” After a pause, she said, “Sam, I am looking forward to seeing you again.”
“I wish I could say the same.” He slammed the phone back in its cradle and hung his head in his hands. He had barely a moment alone before the door to his study rattled open and Becky came bounding into the room. She was holding a tiny plant pot, cupped in both hands, and the expression of pure glee on her face lit up the room. She fell into his embrace, planting a big kiss on his stubbly cheek.
“Daddy, look! My geranium has three leaves.”
Sam appraised the tiny pink petals. “Wow, sweetheart, that’s very impressive.”
“Mummy says you’re looking after me today,” she said excitedly. “Can we go to the lighthouse again? I love the lighthouse!”
Sam stared at her for a long time, everything crashing together in his mind like a motorway pileup. He’d already agreed to have Becky for the day; Rachel would not let him wriggle out of that one. If he tried, there would be a row. A big one. And he couldn’t cancel his meeting with Kelly in Oban. He knew that if he didn’t meet her where he’d arranged to, she would simply come to the island, and that would be worse for everybody. He felt like a man standing in quicksand, whose only escape route was through a field of broken glass.
“Not the lighthouse, today, sweetheart,” he said, his voice deliberately low so as to avoid being overheard.
Becky’s eyebrows arched in disappointment, and her mouth stretched into a little ‘O’ as she prepared to voice her unhappiness.
“But,” he said, silencing her with a finger over her lips. “But we will be going somewhere else, somewhere just as exciting.” He put his mouth to her ear. “On the ferry.”
Her eyes bulged. “Where we going, Daddy?”
He shushed her again, whispering in that conspiratorial tone. “It’s a mystery tour,” he said. “But you have to promise not to tell Mummy where we went.”
Later, when the initial shock of the tragedy had finally begun to fade, he would look back over the events of that morning, turning over every word, every decision, every change of circumstance, in a desperate bid to find some meaning in what was to become the darkest day of his life.
3
Scalasay was an island community of one hundred and twenty-three inhabitants, most of them second or third-generation Scots, with a healthy sprinkling of newcomers who were either adventurous or affluent or both. Unlike some island communities, Scalasay was renowned for welcoming new blood with open arms. Many of the newcomers were retired couples who had worked hard and made their money and were seeking out a quiet, peaceful refuge in which to enjoy their golden years. Needless to say, they never caused any trouble. Young families were much rarer, and therefore welcomed with even greater enthusiasm. Without new blood, the residents were fond of saying, communities died; and there was nothing ‘dead’ or dying about Scalasay. Far from it.
Nestled in the cup of the island’s natural valley were fifty rows of uniformly white houses lining the five streets that made up the ‘Town’, as it was known. The houses had to be repainted every winter after the gulls and puffins and cormorants had done their worst during the summer months; although this was not such a bad thing as it gave the islanders a common grievance with which to while away the long winters, when the summer people had dwindled to a memory and the bitter winds began to roll in from the North sea.
A long esplanade dominated the valley, where retail trades old and new sat side by side: the grocer next door to the internet café, the butcher next door to the mobile phone shop, an unusually easy alliance which gave the impression that the island was one big, busy shopping precinct. It wasn’t, but the islanders were happy with the impression.
At the eastern end of the esplanade a wide flight of a dozen stone steps rose to a town square bordered by facades around an ornate fountain with a stone representation of a Viking boat resting at its summit. This was not unusual. The Vikings laid claim to Scalasay back in the dark ages, when they ruled most of the Hebrides, and almost everywhere you look one can still find signs of their legacy.
Overlooking the fountain was the town hall, the biggest building on the island. It had been designed and built for the sole purpose of town meetings, but as these gatherings had become less and less frequent, the building had been used to accommodate other things such as the bridge club, the annual summer fete, countless dinner and dance events for the golden years set; anything to prevent the building falling into disuse and disrepair. As the islanders were quick to point out, nothing on Scalasay was allowed to die. The unofficial motto of Scalasay was that it was ‘the most vibrant of all the Hebridean islands’, a claim no one had ever disputed.
The mayor was Richard Ashworth. Forty-six years old, large and round with fine black eyes and a Roman profile, Richard was undoubtedly the wealthiest man on the island, although this was not the reason the islanders had elected him mayor for three consecutive terms. His grandfather was Earl Ashworth, the man who had done more for Scalasay in the last century than any other. People on the island liked the sense of continuity and tradition that Richard’s position as mayor brought. And, to a point, he was good at it, although the community mostly ran itself, leaving Richard with very little to do on a daily basis, an arrangement he liked just fine.
On the morning of October fifteenth, as the sun climbed steadily into the eastern sky, the town hall doors rolled open, and a great procession of people streamed into the main hall. The call had gone out: there was an emergency meeting, a meeting which required every islander to attend. But there were few surprised faces in the gathering crowd. Everyone knew what this meeting was about. The horror which had ripped the island apart ten years earlier was returning and, as mayor of Scalasay, Richard Ashworth wanted to know what the islanders intended to do about it.
© Copyright 2011 by Lee Moan
