Mo Hayder - Pig Island

For almost thirty seconds I thought I was alone. The kitchen door at the far end was open a crack and I could see the plates all stacked, the tea-towels hanging in a line above the cooker to dry. I took a step forward, was heading towards it, when something made me stiffen. My hands tightened on the cutters. I turned, raising them, ready to defend myself. Blake was watching me from the shadows to my left.

He was sitting in his usual place at the head of one of the tables, his back to the big fireplace. Dressed in a neat polo shirt, with both hands placed flat on the table. His head was at a slight angle, a bit back and to the side. It took me a few thudding heartbeats to realize that he wasn't going to lurch at me, screaming and yelling. He was dead. His mouth was open, his neck sinews tightened up. The staring eyes were almost opaque and the bottom of his shirt was streaked with blood.

I didn't breathe. After a few moments, when I was sure that he wasn't going to snap his mouth closed and stand up, I lowered the bolt-cutters and approached, stopping about a foot away. I stared at him, hardly breathing. Then I bent to look at what he was sitting on, and I immediately saw how he had died. He was seated on a chair. The flesh of his stomach and half of his trousers were missing. I could see a splintered bone in the wound. Part of his pelvis? Something had ripped his stomach out. Your first thought: if this wasn't Cuagach, it would have been an accident with farm machinery.

I looked over my shoulder to the evening gathering on the grass outside the paned glass. Now I could see — Why didn't you notice that before? — a bloody trail that led here from the door, like Blake had been attacked outside and was already wounded when he staggered in here. Trying to escape from something… Unexpectedly my legs seemed to loosen in a way that I couldn't picture anatomically — I had to grab the table to get my balance and stop myself falling to the floor.

I blinked a few times, staring at my blurry reflection in the polished tabletop. What the fuck is going on here, old mate? What the fuck have you walked into? I wiped my forehead, raised my eyes to Blake again and across at the trail going to the door.

I pushed myself away from the table and went to the small window that opened on to the green. From here I had a clear view of the community, the landing-stage, the cottages, some with their curtains drawn. Everything was eerily still: nothing moved. The sea, which earlier had been white-capped, bouncing and alive, was calm now in the coppery evening light and I could just make out the mainland: a few lights coming on in a necklace strung out along the horizon, the sudden sweeping cone of car headlights on the coast road. Lower down, where the sea met the land, there was a pale smudge on the coast: Croabh Haven, where Lexie might even be sitting, watching the sun go down.

When there seemed nothing else to do I went to the kitchen. I put my face under the cold tap, rubbing myself clean of the leaves, dirt and sweat, drinking until I couldn't drink any more. Then I dried myself off with a tea-towel and went back into the refectory where Blake was sitting. I watched him for a moment, half expecting him to speak.

'Is there any way I can get out of this?' I said to him. 'Any way I can just fuck right off and not deal with it?'

I went to the sliding doors and stood there, something swooping helplessly in my chest, thinking about all the windows in the village that someone could watch me from. Is there any way you can just stay in here until it gets light? No. I closed the door behind me, took a deep breath, tightened my fingers round the bolt-cutters and stepped outside.

I walked. Controlled and in silence with the bolt-cutters at the ready, the only sounds the breaking of the tide on the rocks below and the creaky in-and-out of my own breath for company. I didn't look over my shoulder or away from the path. If I was being watched I was fucked if they were going to know I was scared. The lantern on the jetty wasn't lit as it usually was. I had to get very close to see that the boat was gone.

I stood for a while, staring down at the sea sloshing around under the trotline, my heart thumping deafeningly. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck. I turned, my back flat against one of the jetty piles, and looked back at the cottages. There were no lights on in any of the windows, no movement in the trees to my left: absolutely no sign of life. What now?

My choices were narrowing. I either had to get back to my boat on the other side of the island — through the gorge in the dark, not knowing what the fuck was wandering through the woods — or, and the idea was even worse, find somewhere in the village to lock myself up and stay there until daylight.

'Ha,' I said aloud, slithering down to sit with my back to a piling. I stared morosely at the freezing water. 'Or swim, old mate. Or swim.'

It was the cold that made me think of the chapel. I sat huddled on the jetty for a long time not knowing what to do, watching the sun go down over the cliff and pinprick stars sneak into the sky. The village was silent. Absolutely silent. What had been a chilly, sunny day, was turning into a freezing night, and a memory of that freezing cold chapel, locks on the big oak door, came to me. And I'd laughed when Sovereign told me they locked themselves in there to hide from something.

I got up awkwardly from my frozen position against the jetty piling and headed back up the path, going between the cottages like a shadow, slipping past windows. I could be silent when I wanted — even with my legs numb from the cold I could move like a cat. At a glance you'd say the community was totally undisturbed: through windows I got brief, half-lit glimpses of normality — stacked chairs, an old-fashioned computer, a bowl of fruit on the Garricks' kitchen table. All stood empty, perfectly preserved like dolls' houses with the furniture positioned only for appearance, not to be used. Behind the cottages the wheelie-bins were lined up in their usual places on the path, and in the maintenance shed the big ride-on mower sat as usual, its engine housing hinged open. Everything as normal. Until I got to the chapel. And that was when I began to learn about real fear.

A few yards up the path I came to an abrupt halt, my heart thudding noisily in my skull. The moon was sending flittery shadows of leaves across the clearing, and I knew instantly that something was dead wrong there. Instead of coming to safety I'd done the opposite: I'd stumbled into the heart of whatever had happened on Pig Island in my absence.

I slipped silently off the path, crept invisibly through the woods, and stopped, behind a tree, standing stock still, thinking I'd blend into the patches of moonlight. Twenty yards away the top of the spire hung crookedly against the stars, like a broken limb, like it had been hung on by something heavy. The crucifix next to the front door had toppled face first into the grass, one arm snapped off. There was a sound too. The sound of cave water plinking into the darkness.

When, after a long time, nothing had moved, I pushed myself away from the path and came so close to the chapel I could see the huge oak door. It had been destroyed, slashed and shredded, like a giant claw had been taken to it, nothing remaining but one or two lolling pieces of wood creaking outwards on the hinges. On the floor, half in and half out of the chapel, was a shape that some crude instinct in me recognized instantly, even in this low light. I breathed in and out a few times, my mouth open, flushing the shock out of my cells, waiting for my heart to stop hammering. I dropped my rucksack and fumbled out a torch. I wedged the bolt-cutters between my legs, took a deep breath and switched on the torch.

I aimed it at the open door, counting loudly in my head to keep myself steady, ready to dart back into the trees if the beam made something move. Nothing happened. I moved the light down on to the shape. A body. I could tell almost instantly that it was the Nigerian missionary. In his pyjamas — unmistakable with his tyre-like middle and his wedge-shaped limbs — he lay on his face, one of his legs turned out from the hip socket so it lay at a weird angle, the little toe snapped so it stood straight up like a finger pointing to the stars. His right arm was missing — ripped off just like Blake's belly. He looked like he'd been trying to crawl out of the chapel when he died.