Mo Hayder - Pig Island

I stared for a long time, not knowing what to do or say. I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out in a long sigh, shook my head. 'My God,' I muttered, lowering the cutters to my side. 'What the fuck is going on in this place?'

'I don't know — Idon't know. Please let me sit down — please!'

I nodded to the bed. 'Go on.'

She dropped down, pulling the coat over her. She arranged the duvet hurriedly, so that whatever the growth was, it was squashed out of view just behind her left leg, making her sit slightly tilted to one side. I stared at the place it was hidden, my mind racing. When I looked up I found her staring back at me, like she was saying, 'I can't do anything about it. It's not my fault.'

'Oh, Christ,' I said, a wave of tiredness taking my feet out from under me. I sat on the floor with a bump, rubbing my eyes. 'What is going on? Who are you?'

'Angeline,' she said. 'Angeline. I can't help it.'

'Angeline?' I said the name distantly, like it was the strangest name I'd ever heard. 'Angeline?' I frowned. There was an odd, muffled quality to her voice — something sticky about the consonants, something I couldn't place — like she wasn't used to speaking.

'Angeline?'

'Yes?'

'Are you deaf, Angeline?'

She shook her head.

'Not deaf?'

'No. I can hear you.'

I narrowed my eyes. 'And what the fuck have you been doing today? Eh?' I nodded to the window. 'What did you do to Sovereign? And to Blake? What was that all about then?'

She dropped her hands and blinked at me. 'What have I been doing?' she said, wiping her nose. 'No — not me. I haven't done anything.'

'Someone has.'

'Dad,' she said, hurriedly rubbing at the tears on her cheeks. 'My dad. He's gone crazy. There was an explosion and-'

'Dad?'

'I followed him. He waited until they were in the chapel and then he-' She wiped her nose with her shirt sleeve. 'He nailed them inside. He knows about explosives. He's always known how to blow things up. I saw it. I saw it all.'

'And who the fuck's your — Jesus Christ.' I dropped my hands disbelievingly. It was all coming straight now. What a mangled fucking truth. 'No shit,' I muttered. 'No shit. Malachi? He's your father?'

She stared back at me, her face closed and defensive. 'They couldn't get out. Are they going to think it was me?'

Dear Mr Taranici

I certainly hope you are coming to understand why I had to cancel last week. Apparently you said I didn't give you enough warning to waive the fee and, of course, I apologize for that, but I really think you should try, as a professional, to understand just what things are like up here. They are so… I don't even know how to say it… so completely awful that I have absolutely no idea when I'll be back in London. So maybe you can see why one cancelled appointment doesn't seem all that catastrophic to me. (By the way, just for the record, being nagged by your receptionist didn't help. I mean yes, surprisingly, I do know I've got to pay you. Haven't I always paid on time? And don't you remember why I'm here in Scotland in the first place? To find a way to tell Oakesy about it all, my job and everything? I've told you I'm going to get him to help me with my bills, but your secretary rubbing it in that I haven't got any money is just making my anxiety levels rocket.)

Do you recall saying if I hit an anxiety barrier a good coping mechanism would be to write things down? Remember? To soothe myself? Well, that's what I'm doing now. Writing it all out. How about we treat this letter as my session? Then I won't be paying for empty time after all and we'll both be happy. The other thing I've been doing is reading the chart you gave me (filling it in religiously every day, actually) and trying to identify the 'life/situation/relationship/practical problem' that triggered this catastrophic anxiety. And what do I find? Surprise surprise, at the very root of it all is the usual thing: you-know-who, and his *#%*$* job and his total inability to take me seriously or even notice me. God knows how I'll ever get him on to the subject of money. Especially with all that's happened to him.

You remember I told you we were up here for him to cover a story on Cuagach Eilean? Pig Island? Well, yes, I can just see your face now because you must have heard that name in the news this week. I assume you've already put two and two together and guessed who has managed to get himself caught up in the whole dreadful thing. And now he's the centre of attention and I'll never get listened to or my needs met.

Honestly, it's been horrible, just horrible, from the moment we got here. I'd spent ages choosing my wardrobe for this holiday — I mean, the attention I paid to detail. I bought three sets of shorts, quite shorty ones. Yes, I can hear you saying, 'Alex, are you sure you should be sexualizing another negotiation?' Well, you'd be very pleased with yourself in this instance, because the shorts didn't work. He just spent the whole time on his computer, hardly noticing I was there. And to cap it all he left me on my own in this horrible bungalow with water that's piped down through peat so it's an awful brown colour and makes the toilet look dirty, and this huge picture-window, which lets the sun come in and bake everything until you can't breathe. You couldn't imagine it in your worst nightmares. Fake beams, squares of cardboard daubed with pink ant-killer in every corner, not a soul for miles around.

How long do you think he was gone for? One day? Two days? Ha! No. Try again. Three. Three days I was there, miles from the nearest house, with nothing to do but go back through my credit-card statements for the zillionth time, or stare out at the clouds of midges in the trees. Just when I was really panicking, when I'd gone through nearly all the money he'd left and was thinking there was no point in hanging around in Scotland at all because he wasn't going to be interested in talking to me anyway, suddenly he turns up on the doorstep.

Well, that was almost the end for me. He'd been in a fight. He was totally unrecognizable — half paralysed and bloody, half his hair missing where it had been pulled out. I really had to struggle to keep my temper with him. Oh, I put him to bed and did the devoted-wife number, but I was furious. It turns out that Malachi Dove (you've heard that name in the papers a few times this week, I bet), Oakesy's nemesis for years, is alive and kicking and living on Pig Island. And, typical of Oakesy, he's gone out of his way to provoke a confrontation with him. Honestly. He could have been killed.

It's a class thing, Mummy says. Remember I told you she's got this bee in her bonnet about Oakesy being my rebellion against her? That marrying outside my class is a guarantee cracks will come to the surface sooner rather than later? Well, I've got to the point where I'm almost agreeing with her. I mean, why does he have to drink so much? Where are his social graces? (Incidentally, I'm convinced this is why there were such sparks between me and Christophe — and whatever you say there's no doubt there were sparks. It's a simple fact of life. We looked at each other and recognized someone from the same class, and that's all there is to it.)

It took Oakesy two weeks to get back on his feet. And then he was straight back out there, hiring a boat to take him to Cuagach. But if I thought that put me on edge, sent my stress hormones into overdrive, I had no idea of the nightmare that was about to start. Early Sunday it was, and I was asleep when the phone rang. It was you-know-who calling from his mobile, shouting above the noise of a boat engine, saying something about getting dressed because we were going out when he got back. I propped myself up on the pillow and looked at the clock. It was four in the morning.