Hilary Bonner: When the Dead Cry Out

It was a long time since Karen Meadows had smoked a joint. As she surveyed the scene being quietly played out before her, its melancholy made her head long for the escape that would bring.

Sean MacDonald, wearing a big iron-grey overcoat, was standing on the edge of the cliff, surrounded by a small group of dark-clad friends and relatives. In his hands he held a small cast-iron urn which Karen knew contained the ashes of the granddaughter he had never known. Not since she had been a very small child, anyway.

Months earlier Mac had tossed the cremated ashes of all that had remained of his beloved only daughter out over the water in the same place. It was where the old man so often came to fish, where he found peace. Now he was going to throw his granddaughter’s ashes to the winds.

A loan piper began to play, the notes of his bagpipes wafting eerily into the air, as Mac slowly removed the lid of the little urn with one hand and lifted it up high in front of him. The wind caught the ashes even as he began to tip the urn. A little cloud drifted out over the sea.

There was a lump in Karen’s throat. And when Mac turned around to face the small group standing behind him, she saw that there were tears coursing down his face. Throughout all the heartache of almost thirty years it was only the second time she had ever seen the Scotsman cry.

The big bearded man standing to her left, a fishing chum of Mac’s, touched her arm lightly and passed her a small silver flask. It contained a fine single malt, rich with the peaty taste for which the malts of that area of the Scottish Highlands are famous.

Gratefully, Karen took a deep drink. It didn’t change the world in quite the way that a joint would have done, but it sent a glow into her belly and somehow made her feel alive again.

This was one case she was not sure she would ever entirely get over. And she was not the only one. A week after finding Jennifer Roth dead, Kelly had resigned from the Evening Argus . He had been vague about what he was going to do with his life, and neither did he seem to know what he was going to live on.

“I do know that I don’t want to have anything to do with journalism anymore,” he’d told her. “I’m just too bloody good at it, that’s the problem. Always have been.”

He hadn’t been boasting. Far from it. Just stating a fact. And Karen knew exactly what he meant. Kelly was too good. That was why he was always getting entangled, that was why he was always getting sucked into other people’s lives. He couldn’t resist taking that one step further, like telling Jennifer Roth that Richard Marshall had confessed to murder.

Karen could barely imagine just how desperate Jennifer Roth must have been to do what she had done. DNA and forensic evidence had now proved beyond doubt that she had indeed killed her father and then taken her own life. Karen thought Jennifer had probably already been deeply disturbed by the traumas of her childhood and the half-formed memories which had always floated around her head. Then, when she finally came to know the truth, thanks largely to the interference of John Kelly, she had cracked.

Karen turned her attention back to the present as Mac began to walk towards the cars parked on the cliff road. The rest of the group automatically stood back to let him pass by. When he drew level with Karen he paused and looked directly at her.

“If only I hadn’t been so bitter,” he said. “If only I’d gone to her. I blamed her for speaking up for her father. I didn’t understand. I could have saved her, at least. But now I’ve lost them all.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mac,” she said, instinctively grasping the old man’s hand. “You weren’t to know.”

“I wanted Marshall dead.” Mac spat the words out. “I’ve wanted Marshall dead for so long. But I never imagined this. Never imagined her killing him. I just wish I’d found the courage to do it myself. I should have killed him. I should have done it myself.”

Mac spat out the last few sentences.

“At least it’s over,” Karen said, desperately seeking words of comfort, any words of comfort. “At least it’s finally over.”

Mac snatched his hand away. “No,” he said. “It’ll never be over for me. Not until I’m dead myself.”

He strode away from her, his powerful steps belying his age. The tears pricked at the back of Karen’s eyes.

Her mobile phone rang, cruelly breaking into the moment, as she watched him go. She hadn’t realized it was still switched on. Automatically she answered it.

The caller was Phil Cooper, who had recently been transferred to the Avon and Somerset force at Bristol — a transfer he had requested himself, just as he had indicated to Karen that he might. They had not been alone together since that ill-fated night in Bournemouth.

“Look, Karen, it’s no good, I can’t go on like this. It just isn’t working. I can’t carry on without you. I really have to see you...”

She dropped the mobile away from her ear, and as she held it loosely against her hip she could still hear his voice, but not what he was saying. After a few seconds she pushed the off button.

Then she turned to the big bearded fisherman still standing alongside her.

“Have you got any more of that malt?” she asked.

He passed her the flask. She took a deep long pull, relishing the burning sensation as the fine whisky trickled down her throat, and trying desperately to shut everything else out of her head.