S Bolton: Sacrifice

He sat up, startling me, and glanced around. Our audience had all returned to their own conversations but he lowered his voice all the same.

'Tora, think about what we saw in there. This is no ordinary murder. If you just want someone dead, you slit their throat or put a pillow over their face. Maybe you blow their brains out with a shotgun. You don't do what was done to that poor lass. Now, I'm no policeman but the whole business smacks of some sort of weird ceremonial killing.'

'Some sort of cult thing?' I asked, remembering my taunts to Dana Tulloch about witchcraft.

'Who knows? It's not my place to speculate. Do you remember the child abuse scandal on the Orkneys some years ago?'

I nodded. 'Vaguely. Satanism and some stuff.'

'Satanism codswallop! No evidence of wrongdoing or abuse was ever discovered. Yet we had family homes broken into at dawn and young children dragged screaming out of their parents' arms. Have you any idea what the impact of all that was on the islands and the island people? Of the impact it's still having? I've seen what happens on remote islands when rumour and hysteria get out of hand. I don't want a repeat of that here.'

I stiffened. Put my drink down. 'Is that really what's important right now?'

Gifford leaned towards me until I could smell the alcohol on his breath. 'Too right it's important,' he said. 'The woman in Dr Renney's tender care is none of our concern. Let the police do their job. Andy Dunn is no fool and DS Tulloch is the brightest button I've seen in the local police for a long time. My job, on the other hand, and yours, is to make sure the hospital continues to function calmly and that a ridiculous panic does not get a hold on these islands.'

I could see the first prickles of a beard jutting through his chin. The hairs were mostly fair but some were red, some grey. I made myself look back up into his eyes, but looking directly at him was making me uncomfortable; his stare was just a little too intense. Green, his eyes were, a deep, olive green.

'You've had a terrible experience, but I need you to put it behind you now. Can you do that?'

'Of course,' I said, because I didn't have a choice. He was my boss, after all, and it was hardly a request. I knew, though, that it wasn't going to be that easy.

He sat back in his chair and I felt a sense of relief, although he hadn't been anywhere close to touching me. 'Tora,' he said. 'Unusual name. Sounds like it should be an island name, but I can't say I've heard it before.'

'I was christened Thora,' I said, telling the truth for the first time in years. 'As in Thora Hird. When I got brave enough I dropped the H.'

'Damnedest thing I ever saw,' he said. 'I wonder what happened to the heart.'

I sat back too. 'Damnedest thing I ever saw,' I muttered. 'I wonder what happened to the baby.'

TORA, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING OF?'

Our sitting room was gloomy. The sun appeared to have called it a day and Duncan hadn't bothered with the light switch. He was sitting in a battered old leather chair, one of our 'finds' from our bargain-hunting days around Camden market when we were first married. I stood in the doorway, looking at his outline, not seeing his face properly in the shadows.

'Trying to bury a horse by yourself,' he went on. 'Do you know how much those animals weigh? You could have been killed.'

I'd already thought of that. A moment's carelessness, a tumbling earth-mover and I could have become the body in the peat. It could have been me lying on the steel trolley today, being probed and measured and weighed by the good Dr Renney.

'And it's illegal,' he added.

Oh, give me a break. It had been illegal in Wiltshire too, but when had that ever stopped a Hamilton woman? Mum and I had buried dozens of horses over the years. I wasn't about to stop now.

'You're home early,' I said, pointing out the obvious.

Andy Dunn phoned me. Thought I should get back here. Jesus! Have you seen the state of the field?'

I turned my back on Duncan and walked through to the kitchen. I tested the weight of the kettle and flicked the switch. Beside it stood our bottle of Talisker. The level seemed to have gone down considerably. But then again, I'd just come from the pub myself, hadn't I? Who was I to get preachy?

A movement behind me made me jump. Duncan had followed me into the kitchen.

'Sorry,' he said, putting his arms around me. 'It was a bit of a shock. Not quite the welcome home I'd expected.'

Suddenly, it all seemed more manageable. Duncan, after all, was supposed to be on my side. I turned round so that I could put my arms around his waist and drop my head against his chest. The skin of his neck smelled warm, musty; like paper fresh off the mill.

'I tried to phone,' I said lamely.

He let his chin drop so that it rested on the top of my head. It was our favourite hug pose, familiar, comforting.

'I'm sorry about Jamie,' he said.

'You hated Jamie,' I replied, nuzzling into his neck and thinking that one of the best things about Duncan was that he was so much taller than I. (One of the worst was that his jeans were two sizes smaller than mine.)

'Did not.'

'Did too. You called him the Horse from Hades.'

'Only because he repeatedly tried to bring about my demise.'

I leaned back to look him in the face and was struck, for the millionth time, by how bright blue his eyes were. And by how gorgeous a contrast they made with his pale skin and spiky black hair. 'What are you talking about?'

'Well, let me think. How about the time he got spooked by some cyclists on Hazledown Hill, leaped into the air, spun a 180-degree turn, shot across the road in front of the vicar's new convertible, and took off down the hill with you yelling "Pull him up, pull the fucker up!" at the top of your voice.'

'He didn't like bikes.'

'Wasn't too keen on them myself after that.'

I laughed, something I couldn't have imagined myself doing just half an hour earlier. Nobody, my whole life, has ever been able to make me laugh the way Duncan can. I fell in love with Duncan for a whole host of reasons: the way his grin seems just a little too wide for his face; the speed at which he can run; his complete refusal to take himself seriously; the fact that everyone likes him and he likes everyone, but me most of all. As I say, there were a whole load of reasons why it all started, but it was the laughing that kept me in there.

'And what about that time we were crossing the Kennet and he decided to roll?'

'He was hot.'

'So he gave me a cold bath. Oh, and-'

'OK, OK, you've made your point.'

He tightened his arms around me. 'I'm still sorry.'

'I know. Thanks.'

He pushed me away from him and we made eye contact. He ran the side of his hand down my cheek.

'Are you OK?' He wasn't talking about Jamie any more.

I nodded. 'I think so.'

'Want to talk about it?'

'I don't think I can. What they did to her, Dunc… I can't.' I couldn't go on, couldn't talk about what I'd seen. But that didn't mean I could stop thinking about it. I wasn't sure I would ever be able to stop thinking about it.

Women in the first few days after childbirth – especially their first childbirth – are intensely vulnerable, often physical and emotional wrecks. Their bodies are weakened, thrown into confusion by the trauma of delivery and by rampant hormones, racing round all over the place. Feeding at all hours, they soon become exhausted. Plus, they're often reeling from the shock of the overwhelming connection they feel to the tiny life they've just produced.

There are good reasons why new mothers look and act like zombies, why they burst into tears at the drop of a hat, why they so often think normal life will be, for ever more, beyond them. To take a woman in this state, pin her down and carve up her flesh was the most unspeakable act of callousness I'd ever imagined.