Simon Beckett - Written in Bone

‘If it hasn’t been chucked off a cliff by now,’ Brody said.

The drive to Strachan’s house passed in subdued silence. When we turned up the long driveway leading to the house we saw that Grace’s Porsche Cayenne had gone, but Strachan’s Saab was parked outside.

I couldn’t see Strachan’s house being without its own generator, but despite the day’s gloom there were no lights in any of the windows. Rain dripped from Fraser’s fist as he banged the cast-iron door knocker. We could hear Strachan’s dog barking inside, but there was no other sign of life. Fraser gave the heavy door a thump, hard enough to rattle it on its hinges.

‘Come on, where the fuck are you?’ he snarled.

‘Probably off on one of his walkabouts,’ Brody said, standing back to look up at the house. ‘I suppose we could always just go down to the yacht ourselves. It’s an emergency.’

‘Aye, and what if it’s locked?’ Fraser asked. ‘We can’t just break in.’

‘People here don’t usually lock their doors. There’s no cause.’

There might be now, I thought. But I was against it for another reason.

‘If we get down there and find it’s locked we’ve wasted even more time,’ I said. ‘And does anyone know how to use a satellite radio anyway? Or a ship-to-shore, come to that?’

The silence that greeted the question told me neither of them did.

Fraser slammed his hand against the door. ‘Shit!’

‘Let’s go and find Kinross. We’ll use the ferry’s,’ Brody said.

Kinross lived by the harbour. When we reached the outskirts of the village, Brody told Fraser to take a shortcut down a narrow cobbled street that bypassed the main road. The ferry captain’s bungalow had a prefabricated look to it, and like most of the other houses on Runa it had new uPVC doors and windows.

But the rest of the building had a run-down, uncared-for look. The gate was missing from the bottom of the path, and the small garden was overgrown and strewn with rusting boat parts. A fibreglass dinghy lay overgrown with dune grass, its bottom holed and splintered. Brody had told me Kinross was a widower who lived alone with his son. It showed.

Brody and I left Fraser brooding in the car while we went up the path. The door bell chimed with a cheery electronic melody. No one answered. Brody rang it again, then hammered on the door for good measure.

The muted sounds of movement came from inside, then the door was opened. Kevin, Kinross’s teenage son, stood in the hallway, eyes briefly making contact before darting off again. The angry red mounds of acne scarred his face in a cruel topography.

‘Is your father in?’ Brody asked.

The teenager gave a shake of his head, not looking at us.

‘Know where he is?’

He shuffled uncomfortably, narrowing the gap in the doorway until only a thin strip the width of his face remained open.

‘Down at the boatyard,’ he mumbled. ‘In the workshop.’

The door snicked shut.

We went back to the car. The harbour was a turmoil of crashing waves and churning boats. Out on the jetty, the ferry pitched and rolled at its berth. The sea churned wildly, the spume so thick it was indistinguishable from the rain.

Fraser drove down to the corrugated shack on the seafront that I’d passed on my way to Brody’s the previous day. It was set close to the foot of the tall cliffs that encircled the harbour, and which protected it from the worst of the weather.

‘The yard’s communal,’ Brody said as we climbed out of the car and hurried over, having to fight against the wind. ‘Everybody with a boat chips in to the running costs, and if they need repairs everyone pitches in.’

‘Is that Guthrie’s?’ I asked, indicating the dilapidated fishing boat hauled up on blocks that I’d noticed the day before. It appeared in even worse condition up close. Half of its timber hull was missing, giving it the skeletal look of some long-dead prehistoric animal.

‘Aye. Supposed to be making it seaworthy again, but he doesn’t seem in any hurry.’ Brody shook his head in disapproval. ‘Rather spend his money in the bar.’

Skirting the covered piles of building supplies stacked nearby, we hurried for the workshop entrance. The wind threatened to wrench the door from its hinges when we opened it. Inside, the workshop was stiflingly hot, thick with the smell of machine oil and sawdust. Lathes, welding torches and cutting gear littered the floor, while the walls were covered with shelves of tools, stained black with ancient grease. A radio was playing, the tinny melody fighting against the chug of a generator.

About half a dozen men were inside. Guthrie and a smaller man were crouched over the dismembered remains of an engine that was spread out on the concrete floor. Kinross and the others were playing cards at an old Formica table, on which stood half-drunk mugs of tea. A tin foil pie case doubled as an ashtray, overflowing with cigarette stubs.

They had all broken off what they were doing to stare at us. Their expressions weren’t exactly hostile, but neither were they friendly. They regarded us blankly. Waiting.

Brody stopped in front of Kinross. ‘Can we have a word, Iain?’

Kinross shrugged. ‘I’m not stopping you.’

‘I mean in private.’

‘It’s private enough here.’ To emphasise his point he opened a pouch of tobacco and began rolling a cigarette with oil-stained fingers.

Brody didn’t bother to argue. ‘We need to use the ferry’s radio.’

Kinross ran the tip of his tongue along the edge of the cigarette paper, then smoothed it down. He nodded towards Fraser.

‘What’s wrong with his? Don’t the police have radios these days?’

Fraser glared back without answering.

Kinross plucked a piece of tobacco from his mouth. ‘Fucked, are they?’

I could hear the sergeant’s heavy adenoidal breathing, like an angry bull’s, as he started forward. ‘Aye, and so will you be if-’

‘We’re asking for your help,’ Brody cut in, laying a restraining hand on Fraser’s shoulder. ‘We need to get in touch with the mainland. It’s important, or we wouldn’t ask.’

Kinross unhurriedly lit the roll-up. He shook out the match and tossed it into the overflowing ashtray, then considered Brody through a plume of blue smoke.

‘You can try, for what it’s worth.’

‘Meaning what?’ Fraser demanded.

‘You won’t be able to transmit from the harbour. The radio’s VHF. Has to have line-of-sight, and the cliffs block the signal to the mainland.’

‘What if you need to send a Mayday?’ Brody asked, incredulous.

Kinross shrugged. ‘If you’re in the harbour, you wouldn’t need to.’

Fraser had bunched his fists. ‘So take the bloody boat out to sea, where you can transmit.’

‘You want to try going out in this, go ahead. But not on my ferry.’

Brody kneaded the bridge of his nose. ‘How about the other boats?’

‘All VHF, the same.’

‘There’s Mr Strachan’s yacht,’ one of the card players suggested.

Guthrie laughed. ‘Aye, that’s got communications coming out of its arse.’

I saw Brody’s face close down. ‘Look, can we try the ferry anyway?’

Kinross took an indifferent drag of his roll-up. ‘If you want to waste your time, it’s up to you.’ He nipped out the glowing end of his cigarette and put it in his tobacco pouch as he rose to his feet. ‘Sorry, lads.’

‘I was losing, anyway,’ one of the card players said, throwing in his cards. ‘Time I went home.’

Guthrie wiped his hands on an oily cloth. ‘Aye. I’m off for something to eat.’

The other card players were already throwing their cards down on the table, reaching for their own coats as Kinross pulled on an oilskin and went out, letting the doors swing back on us as we followed. Rain and spray filled the air with an iodine tang as he strode bareheaded along the harbour to the jetty, oblivious to the breaking waves. The ferry was bucking against its moorings, but he walked up the gangplank without hesitation.