Simon Beckett - Written in Bone

She was.

I felt sick to think of how much time we’d wasted. The only faint source of hope was that Strachan had taken both sets of car keys with him, deliberately stranding Grace at the house after learning what she’d done to Maggie. If she wanted to go to the village, she would have to walk. Even so, she’d had time to get there by now. I tried to tell myself that she might not have gone to the hotel straight away, but I didn’t believe it. I’d seen how distraught she’d been when Brody and I had left her. It wouldn’t take long for that to transform to anger. All the unanswered questions would have to wait. Right now our priority was reaching Ellen and Anna before Grace did.

If we weren’t already too late.

We didn’t talk on the way down. We didn’t have the time, or the breath. Once we reached more level ground we broke into a stumbling jog, silent except for the laboured rasp of our breathing. Strachan was easily the fittest, but the way he ran with one arm clamped to his side made me think he might have cracked ribs to go with his other injuries.

Fraser had seen us coming. He was waiting in the Range Rover, engine running and the heater pumping out blessed hot air. He gave a savage smile when he saw Strachan’s bloodied face.

‘Somebody fell down the steps, did they?’

‘Get us back to the hotel. Fast,’ Brody gasped, hauling himself into the front passenger seat. ‘We need to find Ellen.’

‘Why, what-’

‘Just drive!’

Still breathless, Brody turned round to confront Strachan as Fraser banged the Range Rover into gear and roared off towards the village.

‘Talk.’

Strachan’s pulverised face looked almost unrecognisable. His broken nose was flattened, and the cheek under his nearly shut eye was dark and swollen. He must have been in considerable pain, yet he gave no sign.

‘Grace is ill. It’s my fault, not hers,’ he said, dully. ‘That’s why I wasn’t planning on coming back down from the mountain. With me dead, she wouldn’t be a threat any more.’

‘Why is she a threat anyway?’ Brody demanded. ‘You’re her brother, for Christ’s sake! Why’s she doing this?’

‘Her brother?’ Fraser exclaimed, throwing us against the side of the car as he swerved into a bend.

Neither of them answered him. Strachan looked like a man staring into an abyss of his own making.

‘Because she’s jealous.’

The barren landscape flashed by outside, but it was almost unnoticed now. I found my voice first.

‘She killed Maggie because she was jealous?’ I said, incredulously.

Strachan’s bloodied mouth twitched involuntarily. He swayed limply with the movement of the car, making no attempt to steady himself.

‘I didn’t know what she’d done until she came back, covered in blood. But Maggie had called to the house twice to see me. Grace might have overlooked the first time, but not the second. She pretended she’d seen a prowler to get me out of the way, and then slipped a note into Maggie’s coat arranging a meeting. She even took my car, so Maggie would think it was me.’

So the prowler had been a distraction after all, I thought. Except it had been Grace’s own, not Strachan’s.

‘You’ve got to understand how it was,’ Strachan said, and for the first time a hint of pleading had entered his voice. ‘When we were growing up, there were just the two of us. Our mother died when we were young, and our father was away most of the time on trips. We lived on an isolated estate, with security guards and private tutors. All we knew was each other.’

‘Get on with it,’ Brody told him.

Strachan lowered his head. The dankness of the broch still clung to him, mingling with the smell of stale sweat and blood.

‘When I was sixteen I got drunk one night, and went to Grace’s room. I’m not going to spell out what happened. It was wrong, and it was my fault. But neither of us wanted to stop it. It became…normal. As I got older I thought about ending it, but then…Grace got pregnant.’

‘The miscarriage,’ I said, remembering what he’d told me in his drawing room. It seemed an age ago now.

‘It wasn’t a miscarriage. I made her have an abortion.’ Now there was no mistaking there was pain as well as shame in his voice. ‘It was a backstreet clinic. There were complications. Grace almost died. She never admitted who the father was, even when they told her she could never have any more children. But she was changed after that. Unstable. She’d always been possessive, but now…When our father died I tried to finish it between us. I told Grace it was over and started seeing another girl. I thought she’d accept it. But she didn’t. She went to the girl’s flat and stabbed her to death.’

‘Jesus,’ Fraser said. The tyres skidded on the wet surface as he threw the car into another bend. He was driving as fast as he dared on the winding road, but it didn’t seem nearly fast enough.

Strachan passed a hand over his face, oblivious to his injuries. ‘No one suspected Grace, but she didn’t even try to deny it to me. She told me she didn’t want me to see anyone else. Ever.’

‘If you knew she was dangerous, why didn’t you tell the police?’ I asked, holding the grab rail for support as the car bumped over a sudden dip.

‘And let everyone know what had been going on?’ Strachan shook his head. ‘The dead are dead. You can’t bring them back. And it was my fault Grace was like she was. I couldn’t just abandon her.’

We were all jolted as Fraser braked suddenly. The road ahead was full of sheep. The car fishtailed, throwing up sheets of spray as he hammered on the horn, scattering them in front of us. There were panicked bleats as woolly bodies jostled outside the car windows, close enough to touch. Then we were clear and accelerating away again.

Strachan barely seemed to notice. ‘We left South Africa, travelled around the world to places where nobody knew us. Where everyone would assume we were married. I tried to limit the…physical aspect between us. I’d still see other women. Prostitutes, mainly. I can’t afford to be choosy.’ The self-loathing was plain in his voice. ‘But Grace isn’t just jealous, she’s cunning. She always seemed to find out, and when she did…’

He didn’t need to finish. I willed Fraser to go faster. We hadn’t even reached Strachan’s house yet. Too far. It’s still too far.

‘Each time it happened, we’d move on somewhere else,’ Strachan continued. ‘And each time she got that bit worse. That’s why we came here, to Runa. I liked this area, its wildness, and on an island like this Grace wouldn’t be able to just come and go. We started to feel we were really part of something here. I found myself really wanting to make something of the island!’

Brody regarded him with contempt. ‘So where did Janice Donaldson fit into your little paradise?’

A spasm of pain etched itself on to Strachan’s face. ‘She blackmailed me. I’d been seeing her for a while, but hadn’t told her my real name. Then one day Iain Kinross showed up at her flat while I was there. I’d no idea he was another of her clients. He didn’t see me, but my reaction tipped Janice off. She checked up, found out who I was. The next time I went she threatened to tell Grace. I paid her off-Christ, I even gave her more than she asked for. But it can’t have been enough.’

‘Did you know all along your sister had killed her?’ Brody asked, roughly.

‘Of course not! I’d no idea she’d come to Runa! Even when I heard a body had been found, I didn’t know it was anything to do with Grace. The whole burning thing, the fires, that was new. She just used a knife with the others. But when the constable was killed…I couldn’t kid myself any longer.’