Simon Beckett - Written in Bone

When I woke the hotel room was dark. The only light came from the window, where the street light outside lit the drawn curtains with a diffuse glow. There was an unnatural hush. The wind and rain seemed to have stopped, leaving not a whisper in their wake. The only sound was my own breathing, a steady rise and fall that could almost have been coming from someone else.

I don’t know when I realized I wasn’t alone. It was more a dawning awareness of another presence than a sudden shock. In the dim light from the window, I looked at the foot of my bed and saw someone sitting there.

Although all I could make out was a dark shape, somehow I knew it was a woman. She was looking at me, but for some reason I felt neither surprise nor fear. Only the weight of her mute expectation.

Kara?

But the hope had been nothing more than a waking reflex. Whoever this was, it wasn’t my dead wife.

Who are you? I said, or thought I said. The words didn’t seem to disturb the cold air of the room.

The figure didn’t answer. Just continued its patient vigil, as though all the answers I would ever need were already laid out for me. I stared, trying to fathom either its features or its intent. But I could make out neither.

I jumped as a gust of wind shook the window. Startled, I looked round, then turned back, expecting the shadowy figure to be still at the foot of the bed. But even in the darkness I could see the room was empty. And always had been, I realized. I’d been dreaming. A disturbingly realistic one, but a dream none the less.

For a long time after my wife and daughter had been killed, I’d been no stranger to those.

Another gust shook the window in its frame, driving rain against the glass like handfuls of gravel. I heard what sounded like a cry from outside. It could have been an owl or some other night bird. Or something else. Wide awake now, I got out of bed and went to the window. The street lamp below was visibly shaking in the wind. I caught a flash of something pale flitting on the edge of its yellow corona, then it was gone.

Just something blown on the wind, I told myself, when it didn’t reappear. But I continued to stare into the dark outside the window until the cold air sent me shivering back to bed.

WHILE I WAS wondering what I’d seen outside my bedroom window, out at the cottage Duncan wasn’t happy. The wind had picked up, buffeting the camper van like a boat in a high sea. He’d already taken the precaution of putting the paraffin heater in a corner to stop it from tipping over. Its blue flame hissed only a few feet from where he sat wedged behind the camper’s small table. Still, even though the cabin was cramped, it was better than spending the night either in the Range Rover or huddled in the cottage doorway. Which was where Fraser would probably have put him, he reflected. No, it wasn’t having to stay in the van that bothered him.

He just couldn’t stop thinking about what lay in the cottage.

It was all well and good Fraser laughing, but he wasn’t the one having to stay here. And Duncan had noticed the sergeant hadn’t offered to linger after he’d brought out his supper. No doubt in a hurry to get back to the bar, because judging by his breath he’d already made a start on the whisky. Duncan had watched the Range Rover’s lights disappear with a feeling he’d not had since he was a kid.

Not that he was afraid of being out here. Not as such, anyway. He lived on an island, and once you were out of Stornoway town there were plenty of places on Lewis where there was no sign of a living soul. He’d just never had to stay out in the middle of nowhere by himself before.

Not with an incinerated corpse lying no more than twenty yards away.

Duncan couldn’t get the image of those unburned limbs and baked bones out of his mind. However it had happened, they’d once been a person. A woman, according to Dr Hunter. That was what was so shocking about it, that someone who’d once laughed and cried and all the rest could end up reduced to that. The thought was enough to give him the creeps.

Too much imagination, that’s your trouble. Always had been. He wasn’t sure if it would make him a better or worse police officer. It wasn’t enough for him to note down the facts, he always had to get lost in ‘what if’s. Couldn’t help it, it was just the way his mind worked. Like what if the woman had been burned by something science didn’t know about yet? What if she had been murdered?

What if the killer was still here on the island?

Aye, and what if you stopped trying to scare yourself? Duncan sighed and picked up the criminology textbook he’d brought out with him. Fraser could laugh at that as well, but he intended to make detective some day. And if he was going to do something, he wanted to do it as well as he was able. Learn as much about it as possible, and if that meant making a few sacrifices, then so be it. Unlike some people he could mention, Duncan didn’t mind hard work.

Tonight, though, he found it hard to concentrate. After a while he pushed the textbook away, restlessly. Stick the kettle on. At least you can make a cuppa. Duncan thought he would be sick of tea by the time he’d finished here.

As he got up to fill the kettle at the tiny sink, there was a sudden quietening as the wind dropped, gathering itself for its next assault. In the brief lull Duncan heard another sound from outside. It was drowned out a second later as the gale struck the van again with renewed force, but he was sure he hadn’t imagined it.

The sound of a car engine.

He looked out of the window, waiting for the dazzle of headlights that would announce the Range Rover’s arrival. But the darkness outside remained unbroken.

Duncan thought for a moment. Even if the sound had come from a car passing on the road, its lights would have been visible. Which meant he’d either imagined hearing an engine…

Or someone had turned off their headlights to conceal their approach.

Bit of fresh air will do me good, anyway. He pulled on his coat, then picked up his heavy Maglite and climbed out of the camper van. He nearly switched on the torch, but at the last second decided against it. If there was anyone creeping around here, that would only warn them he was coming. He made his way slowly towards the cottage, depending on the fleeting breaks in the cloud cover to see where he was going. The Maglite’s weight was comforting as the black outline of the cottage loomed in front of him. At a foot long, the torch could also double as a substantial club. Not that he’d need it, he told himself, and as he did so there was a flash of light from behind the cottage.

Duncan froze, heart thumping. He reached for his radio to call Fraser, then stopped. There was too much chance that the trespasser would hear him. He started forward again. He could see that the tape sealing the door hadn’t been tampered with. Staying close to the wall, he made his way to the corner of the cottage.

He paused, listening. There was a scrape of something brushing against stone, then a swish of movement through the long grass. No two ways about it.

Someone was definitely there.

Duncan gripped the Maglite, tensing himself. Stay calm. He took a deep breath, then another. OK, get ready…

Flinging himself round the corner, he turned the torch full on.

‘Police! Stay where you are!’

There was a startled curse, then a figure was sprinting away. Duncan set off after it, the wet grass threatening to snag his legs. He hadn’t gone far when the figure suddenly tripped and fell headlong. Seizing it by the shoulder, he pulled it over and shone the torch beam on its face.

Maggie Cassidy glared up at him, squinting against the bright light.

‘Get off me! O mo chreach, I think I’ve broken my leg!’