Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

‘So what had he done?’

‘He’d covered the floor in writing.’

‘The entire floor?’

‘Not all of it, no. The bed was in the centre of the room and he’d made a kind of circle of words around it. When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be some major confession, where he’d hidden the bodies of hundreds of missing schoolgirls or something, but thank Christ it was just a load of crap.’

‘Can you remember any of it?’

‘I knew you were going to ask that, but no, I couldn’t really read it. He’d used some kind of indelible paint and written in this sort of old-fashioned curly script. There were numbers and symbols too, like a lot of algebra in a circle round the bed. Whatever it was it gave me the bloody heebies. I gave it a good hard scrub, tried turps, ammonia, everything I could think of, but it wasn’t for budging. In the end I had to hire a sander and take the surface off, then go down to B&Q, for deck varnish and seal it. I had to do the whole bloody floor or else the join would have shown. It was a fucking hellish job, dust everywhere.’

‘I don’t suppose you took a photo of it on your camera-phone or anything, just to show to your mates?’

‘Why would I want to show them sick stuff like that? I wanted it gone before Baine came round and took the job of managing the flat off me.’

Murray started at the familiar name.

‘Who?’

‘Baine, the guy who owns the place. He’s a university bloke like yourself. Oh, Christ.’ John Rathbone’s voice filled with sudden realisation. ‘Don’t say you know him.’

‘No, I don’t think so. What does he look like?’

‘I never met him. I just speak to him on the phone and send any paperwork to his uni office over in Glasgow. He talks like he’s got a boiled sweet in his mouth, but then a lot of them do.’

‘No.’ Murray hoped the lie didn’t sound in his voice. ‘I don’t know him.’

‘Thank fuck. Not that I’m saying you would have grassed me up.’

‘But it would have been a waste of your decorating skills if I had.’

Rathbone gave a bitter laugh.

‘That’s the funny thing. He phoned up, thanked me for my help over the years, and asked if I could show the estate agents round. End of story. Told me to take him off my books, he was putting the place on the market. I would have been as well not bothering. I’ll tell you something for nothing, though.’

‘What?’

‘I got the feeling he was relieved to get the place back. I think he’d rented it out to the old boy as a favour, a guy that’d done well helping out an old pal that was down on his uppers — kind of cool, when you think on it. Though why a professor would want to keep up with an old soak is beyond me. Maybe he had fond memories. Crippen told me that him and Baine went way back. I guess they were students together or something. He was an intelligent man, Crippen. Just pissed it up against the wall.’ The landlord sounded wistful. ‘It happens.’

MURRAY STOOD AT the top of the castle, gazing out to sea. He remembered Alan Garrett’s note, Interested in the beyond . Had Lunan had any interest in the occult? Some of his poetry held an atmosphere of the Celtic otherworld, and Christie’s novels were generally shelved in the bookshops’ horror section; but these were fictions while it seemed Bobby’s library had masqueraded as fact. He would need to visit the Geordie’s landlord. Buy him a whisky and see if he could remember any of the books’ titles. People sometimes recalled more when they had a drink in their hand.

Murray glanced at his watch. He would have to start walking if he were to be sure of catching the ferry home. He hopped down from the crag, thinking now about Fergus’s uncharacteristic kindness towards Bobby. Strange that a man’s charity should make him suspicious.

He felt his phone vibrate back into life, and then heard its irritating jingle. Murray glanced at the display and cursed as his fingers, clumsy with the cold, struggled to hit the right button to accept the call.

‘Murray?’

His stomach swooped at the sound of his name on her lips, but even with that one word he knew something was wrong. Rachel’s voice had lost its cool tone, the barrier of mockery she’d managed to preserve between them, even when he was inside her.

He asked, ‘Are you okay?’ and heard the answering note of concern in his own voice.

‘Yes, fine. Listen, have you checked your email?’

‘Not recently, no. Should I?’

There was a pause on the line. One of the horses grazing in the shelter of the castle looked at him with mild, brown eyes. He wondered where Rachel was. In the home he had never visited, or in her office, safe from prying ears. He listened for her breath, but couldn’t hear it beneath the sound of the wind.

‘Rachel?’

‘Yes, I’m still here. This is. .’ She paused again and this time he waited, following the curve of the horse’s sleek brown back with his eyes, amazed, as he always was when he saw them in the flesh, at how big the creature was.

Rachel came back on the line.

‘I wanted to ask if you could do me a favour.’

‘Anything.’

He was as obedient as Pete’s grinning dog, with none of its bite.

‘I think you might have received an email by mistake. You’ll be able to spot it, it’ll have been sent yesterday by someone you don’t know and will have a rather large document attached. Will you delete without opening, please?’

‘Is it a virus?’

‘Yes.’ Relief sounded in her voice. ‘A particularly ghastly one. It’s designed to leech onto every contact in your address book. Clever, but nasty. Apparently it wipes the hard drive of any computer it’s opened on. I’m frantically phoning everyone I can think of.’ Her laugh sounded strange. ‘It’s embarrassing, like chasing ex-partners to let them know you’ve got VD.’

‘Rachel, are you okay?’

‘Fine, just. .’ Her voice faltered. ‘Just a little overworked.’

‘And your computer’s wrecked. Did you lose much?’

‘I’m pretty good at backing-up, it could be worse.’ Her voice wavered again. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve an army of people to phone. But please, Murray, delete that email. I wouldn’t want you to lose all your research.’

He said, ‘I miss you.’

‘Don’t, there’s no point.’

The line went dead.

Murray stood there, the phone warm in his hand, watching the tide’s unstoppable shift. He supposed the view should give him a sense of proportion, but all he could think of was Rachel and Fergus, Fergus and Rachel. The wind flapped at his waterproof. He turned even though he knew no one was there. But there was something beyond the rustling noise of his hood. He could hear it. A distant pinprick of sound that rushed to a roar. His chest tightened and the thought, so this is how it goes , burst into his head, along with a vision of his father’s face. The herd of horses turned together and raced down into the glen, the thud of their hooves absorbed by the almighty surge of sound. Murray felt himself drop to his knees, and then had an abrupt flash of comprehension as he saw the Harrier Jump Jet screaming through the valley. He could have shouted his lungs empty, and no one would have heard. But he simply whispered fuck, fuck, fuck under his breath, then got to his feet, wiping the mud from his knees, and started to make his way down.

* * *

He hadn’t reached Everest when he heard the rumble of Pete’s tractor behind him. Murray waited for it to stop, knowing the man had come to offer him something and hoping he was right about what it would be.

Pete climbed from the cab, the terrier at his heels. This time his smile was shyer, as if he was already embarrassed at what he was about to say.