Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

Niamh wandered away to the fence where a wooden bench provided a view across the beach. The crescent of sand was deserted, the sea thundering angrily over it in wave after wave of white breaking water. Off to her right she saw a lone figure standing watching from the far side of the cemetery. It took her a moment to realize that it was Iain Maciver. Peanut, as she had always known him. No longer the boy she remembered with his twisted, angry face as he sank his boot time and again into Ruairidh’s prone form on the ground. A man now, old before his time. Almost completely bald, a dark beard greying in streaks of silver. Strangely, he too was dressed in black, though he had not stood among the mourners.

Satisfied that Niamh had seen him, he turned and walked away, strangely bowed, hands plunged deep into his pockets. And she wondered why he had come. Not to mourn, she was sure.

Beyond, on the headland, stood two more figures, watching proceedings below. Even as she spotted them, they turned and headed back down the slope towards the car park. Only then did she recognize who they were. Detective Sergeant Gunn, and Lieutenant Braque of the Paris Police Judiciaire. What, if anything, could they possibly have gleaned from this sombre gathering in the rain? Somehow, she felt, it was not here that Ruairidh’s murder would be resolved.

A hand on her shoulder startled her, and she turned to find herself gazing into the rain-streaked face of Lee Blunt. She wondered if it was eyeliner he was wearing. Whatever it was had smudged all around his eyes in the rain, tears of black, creating the illusion of sunken sockets. The eyes at their centre had an oddly glazed quality, pupils dilated unnaturally, even in this light.

He slipped his arms around her and drew her tightly against him, turning her head to press it to his chest, and resting his chin lightly on top of it. ‘You don’t still think that Ruairidh was having an affair with Irina, do you?’

‘I don’t know that I ever did, Lee. In spite of evidence to the contrary. I’m even less inclined to believe it now. Back here with all my memories of him, and everything we shared.’

‘You’re quite right,’ he said. ‘I never believed it either. She was such a little nothing. Couldn’t hold a candle to my Niamh.’ He stepped back, still holding her by the shoulders. ‘Jake tells me he called at the house yesterday.’

She nodded.

‘So you know we’ve taken over Amhuinnsuidhe Castle for a couple of days? Me and everyone else on my plane.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re having a party tonight, Niamh. What do you Scots call it, a wake? A celebration of the life rather than a mourning of the death.’ Apparently he had given up numbering himself among the Scots . ‘I’d like you to come. We all would.’

Niamh shook her head. ‘I couldn’t, Lee. Honestly. I couldn’t.’

‘Of course you could. What else are you going to do? Go home alone and cry into your pillow? Too many tears already. You need to come and get drunk with us. Raise a glass or ten to Ruairidh and Ranish.’

‘Lee...’ she started to protest, but he placed a forefinger on her lips. ‘Shhhh. I’m not taking no for an answer. You’re coming with us girl. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.’

Braque and Gunn drove in thoughtful silence from Dalmore back up the west coast to Barvas before turning off to head across the moor to Stornoway. There wasn’t much to say. No one unexpected had turned up at the cemetery, except perhaps for Iain Peanut Maciver, and he certainly couldn’t be arrested for attending a funeral.

They were both drenched. Although Gunn’s anorak had protected him from the worst of the rain his trousers were clinging to his thighs. Braque’s sodden jacket lay across the back seat, filling the car with the smell of wet denim. Her jeans and boots were almost black with the rain, and even her T-shirt was soaked down the front, half-revealing her bra, which Gunn tried not to look at. She had come hopelessly ill-prepared for the island weather.

He said, ‘I checked with air traffic control. Lee Blunt’s plane is due for take-off at midday tomorrow — if you want to talk to him before they fly out.’

She nodded, and he seemed uncertain whether that was an affirmative or otherwise.

‘Have you booked a flight for yourself yet?’

‘No. I’ll do that when I get back to the hotel.’ A depression had fallen over her. Deep and penetrating. Hurrying back to the car park with Gunn, she had examined each and every face as the mourners returned to their vehicles, wondering which, if any of them, was capable of the murder of Ruairidh Macfarlane. Earlier she had watched Niamh from a distance, felt her grief in the tension of her shoulders. Her sense of isolation and loneliness. Even among the crowd of mourners she stood out on her own. Only now, really for the first time, did Braque fully empathize with her, identifying in her the sense of loss that she felt buried somewhere inside herself.

As they had stood watching her carry flowers across the cemetery, ahead of the coffin and the male bearers, Gunn had remarked with barely concealed incredulity how much it went against every convention of island funerals. And Braque had thought it was exactly what she would have done.

Off to their left, a tiny dwelling with a green tin roof sat in a fold of the moor, and the road climbed towards a plateau that would carry them south-east, descending eventually into Stornoway itself. Gunn said, ‘We can go straight to the police station and view that video, if you like.’

Braque held out her hands, palms up. ‘Look at me, Detective Sergeant. I am soaking wet. I think I need to go to the hotel and change first.’

‘No problem, Ma’am. I’ll drop you off, then go to the police station and get it all set up. I’ll give you, say, half an hour, then call back to pick you up.’

‘Perfect.’

It was mid-afternoon by the time they drove down through Newmarket and Laxdale, past the hospital, and along Bayhead to the harbour. The rain had increased in its intensity, and the sky lay black and bruised all across the land behind them. The wind was up, tearing leaves prematurely from trees. The air seemed filled with them, like large golden snowflakes, as Gunn pulled over at the top of Castle Street. ‘I’ll see you shortly, Ma’am.’ And he glanced up at the sky, pulling a face. It could hardly have been darker. ‘Looks like we’re in for a bad one.’

At reception the girl said to her, ‘Your husband has phoned several times, Madam Braque.’

Braque was startled. It was rare for Gilles ever to phone her. Why hadn’t he called her mobile? Then she remembered that she and Gunn had turned their mobile phones to airplane mode at the cemetery. She had forgotten to switch it back. On the stairs she fumbled with trembling fingers to restore it, and stood outside her door looking at the screen, waiting for the phone to find a signal. Immediately it did, it beeped and alerted her to the presence of messages. There were three.

She slipped into her room, shutting the door and leaning back against it to listen to the most recent.

‘Sylvie, where the hell are you? Call me as soon as you get this.’ She could hear the stress in Gilles’s voice, and it sent her own heart-rate skyrocketing. She tapped the Call Back button and stood listening, aware of her own breath quivering in her chest. ‘Jesus, Sylvie, I’ve been trying to get you for hours.’ There was anger now in his voice.

‘What’s wrong?’ She wasn’t interested in explanations, or excuses. She heard him sigh.

‘They think Claire has meningitis. She’s been taken into hospital.’

Braque’s hand flew to her chest. ‘Oh, God! What are they saying?’