Simon Beckett - Written in Bone

My head jerked up as there was a rap on the door. I’d started to drift off, I realized. I looked at my watch and saw it was after nine o’clock.

‘Just a second.’

Rubbing my eyes, I went to the door. I thought it might be Ellen, determined to feed me after all. But when I opened it I found Maggie Cassidy standing in the corridor.

She was holding a tray, on which was a bowl of soup and two thick chunks of home-made bread. ‘Ellen said if I was coming up anyway I had to bring you this. Said to tell you that you’d got to eat something.’

I took the tray and stepped back to let her in. ‘Thanks.’

She smiled, but there was a hesitancy about it. ‘Soup again. Been quite a day for it, eh?’

‘At least you didn’t drop it this time.’

I set the tray down on the cabinet. There was an awkwardness between us at finding ourselves alone in this context. Neither of us looked at the bed that dominated most of the room, but we were both conscious of its presence. I leaned against the windowsill while Maggie sat on the room’s only chair.

‘You look bloody awful,’ she said at last.

‘That makes me feel a lot better.’

‘You know what I mean.’ She gestured to the tray. ‘Go ahead, you might as well start.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘Ellen’ll kill me if you let it get cold.’

I didn’t have the energy to argue. I was still too tired to feel hungry, but the first mouthful changed that. Suddenly I was famished.

‘Quite a meeting tonight,’ Maggie said, as I tore off a hunk of bread. ‘I thought for a moment Iain Kinross was going to deck Cameron. Still, you can’t have everything, eh?’

‘You didn’t come here just to talk about that, did you?’

‘No.’ She toyed with the edge of the chair. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’

‘You know I can’t tell you anything.’

‘One question, that’s all.’

‘Maggie…’

She held up a finger. ‘Just one. And strictly off the record.’

‘Where’s your tape recorder?’

‘God, you’re a suspicious bugger, aren’t you?’ She reached into her bag and took out her dictaphone. ‘Turned off. See?’

She tucked it back into her bag. I sighed.

‘All right, one question. But I’m not promising anything.’

‘That’s all I ask,’ she said. She seemed nervous. ‘Brody said the dead woman was a prostitute from Stornoway. Do you know her name?’

‘Come on, Maggie, I can’t tell you that.’

‘I’m not asking what it is. Just if you know it.’

I tried to see the trap. But provided I didn’t give any specifics, there wasn’t any harm in answering.

‘Not officially.’

‘But you’ve a pretty good idea who she is, right?’

I let my silence answer that. Maggie bit her lip.

‘Her first name…It wouldn’t be Janice, would it?’

My face must have been confirmation enough. I put the tray aside, my appetite gone.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Sorry, I can’t reveal sources.’

‘This isn’t a game, Maggie! If you know something you’ve got to tell the police.’

‘You mean Sergeant Fraser? Aye, right, that’s going to happen.’

‘Andrew Brody, then! There’s more at stake than a newspaper story, you’re playing with people’s lives!’

‘I’m doing my job!’ she flashed back.

‘And if someone else gets killed, what then? Chalk it up as another exclusive?’

That hit home. Maggie looked away.

‘You said yourself you’re from Runa,’ I pushed. ‘Don’t you care what happens here?’

‘Of course I bloody do!’

‘Then tell me where you got the name from.’

I could see conflicting emotions warring in her. ‘Look, it’s not like it sounds. The person who told me…It was in confidence. And I don’t want to make trouble for them. They’re not involved.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I do.’ She looked at her watch, then stood up. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.’

‘But you did. You can’t just walk away.’

Maggie’s face was still uncertain, but she shook her head.

‘Give me till tomorrow. Even if the police still can’t get out, I promise I’ll tell either you or Brody then. But I need to think it through first.’

‘Don’t do this, Maggie.’

But she was already heading for the door.

‘Tomorrow, I promise.’ She gave me a quick, embarrassed smile. ‘’Night.’

After she’d gone I sat on the bed, wondering how the hell she could have known the dead woman’s name was Janice. I’d told only Brody and Fraser, and I couldn’t see either the dour ex-inspector or the police sergeant confiding anything to Maggie.

I tried to puzzle it out, but I was too tired to think straight. And there was nothing I could do about it tonight anyway. The soup had gone cold, but I was no longer hungry. I undressed and washed as much of the smoke stink from myself as I could. Perhaps tomorrow I would see if the hotel’s generator would run to a hot shower. For now, though, all I wanted to do was sleep.

This time unconsciousness came like flicking a switch.

I woke once, just before midnight, jerking, gasping from a dream where I was chasing something and being pursued myself at the same time. But I couldn’t remember what I was running to or from. All that remained was a lingering sense that, however fast I ran, it wouldn’t make any difference.

I lay in the darkened room, listening as my heart rate gradually returned to normal. It seemed that the wind didn’t sound quite so bad, and as I drifted off again I allowed myself a faint stirring of optimism that perhaps the storm had peaked, that tomorrow the police would finally be able to make it out here.

I should have known better. Because the weather, like Runa itself, was just saving the worst till last.

THREE O’CLOCK IN the morning is the dead time. It’s the time when the body is at its lowest ebb, physically and mentally. The time when defences are lowest, when the promise of morning seems impossibly distant. It’s when worst imaginings seem inescapable, darkest fears about to be realized. Usually it’s just a state of mind, a biorhythmic trough we emerge from with the first paling of dawn.

Usually.

I surfaced from unconsciousness reluctantly, knowing I would find it hard to sleep again once I was fully awake. But as soon as I thought that, of course, it was too late. The bed springs squeaked under me as I looked at the clock. Just after three. I could feel the night-silence of the hotel all around me. Sinister creaks and groans as the building shifted and settled, like an arthritic old man. Outside the wind still blustered. I lay staring up at the ceiling, feeling sleep retreat further without knowing why. Then I realized what was different.

I could see the ceiling.

The room wasn’t dark. A faint glow was coming through the curtain. My first thought was that it was from the street lamp outside the hotel, that the power must be back on. I felt a surge of relief, thinking that if the electricity had been restored, then perhaps the phones had been too.

But even as I was thinking that I noticed how the light coming through the window wasn’t constant. It had a febrile, flickering quality, and when I saw that my relief died.

I hurried to the window and pulled back the curtain. The rain had stopped, but the street lamp outside was dead and dark, quivering in the wind like a limbless tree. The light I’d seen was coming from the harbour, a sickly yellow glow that reflected from the wet rooftops of the houses, growing brighter every second.

Something was on fire.

I quickly pulled on my clothes, wincing as my injured shoulder complained. I hurried down the hall and banged on Fraser’s door.