Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

He asked, ‘Did Fergus do away with Bobby?’

‘No.’ In all the long evening it was the first time she’d sounded shocked. ‘Fergus is an exploiter of women, but he’s not a murderer. Bobby was an old man who had a heart attack.’

‘He was a drain on resources. Fergus looked after him, gave him a flat and who knows what else.’

Christie was back in this world. She said, ‘I’d been sending the old fool money for years. Giving in to bribery doesn’t incriminate you in murder. Bobby contacted Fergus after he moved back up to Scotland. There was a piece in the newspaper referring to Professor Baine and Bobby came across it. I can just picture him.’ There was something unseemly in her laughter. ‘Sitting in some horrid bar, ringing the article with a pen borrowed from the barmaid, ordering a whisky and knowing that his ship had come in.’

‘He was scared. He’d made a circle of protection around his bed.’

‘He was always scared. The day we arrived on the island he made a circle of protection around the cottage. Much good it did us.’

‘Did Archie believe in all that stuff?’

‘What stuff?’

‘The occult. Spells.’

‘Archie didn’t believe in anything much, certainly not in himself.’

‘He believed in poetry.’

‘That’s the kind of meaningless statement I’d have thought an academic would avoid.’

Murray stole a glance at Christie. Her head was resting against the rain-streaked window, her expression hidden.

‘He believed in you and your child. I found a list of names among his papers in the library. He was trying to decide what to call it, wasn’t he?’

Christie’s voice was gentle.

‘He talked to her. Laid his head on my belly, recited poetry, sang songs and told her his dreams. A jealous woman might have grown bitter, but I understood. Archie had never had anything much to look forward to before. This baby was to be all the Christmases he never had.’ She sighed. ‘It was more than that. He thought the child would save him. The reality was rather different.’

‘And Fergus?’

‘He worshipped Fergus.’

‘Was he worthy of Archie’s faith?’

Christie lifted her head from the glass and straightened her spine against the passenger seat. Her profile looked brittle.

‘Neither Fergus nor the child turned out to be Jesus Christ.’

‘I’m beginning to think Professor Baine bears more of a resemblance to Judas Iscariot.’

Christie snorted.

‘Archie would have hated that kind of melodrama.’

Murray kept his tone mild, though Christie’s words had hit their mark.

‘If Fergus can supply you with the means to kill yourself, he could do the same for Bobby.’

‘That was one of Fergus’s few truly altruistic gestures.’ Christie’s voice was a monotone and it was hard to tell if she was being sincere or sarcastic. ‘He went to Switzerland with his mother. He’d promised to make sure she didn’t suffer too horribly at the end. I think it was a transformative experience. He came back convinced of the individual’s right to die.’

Murray remembered the death of the professor’s mother. Fergus had been absent from the university for an appropriate period, but perhaps it was unsurprising that no mention had been made of trips to Swiss clinics. He recalled Baine’s stoicism, his dignified receipt of condolence, and the new house that had followed. Rachel had moved in soon after.

‘He isn’t here with you tonight.’

‘Fergus doesn’t know about the dig.’

‘And you didn’t enlighten him?’

‘He would exhume her body, but he wouldn’t give it to me. The one thing I’m worried about is the possibility he did it years ago, but I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’

‘Fergus has a talent for forgetting. All sensationalists do. The rest of us sustain ourselves on memories and police ourselves with obligations. Men like Fergus can set these things aside. Oh, he can make a plan and see it through, you only need to look at his career to know that. But Fergus lives largely in the moment. As long as he’s getting his own way, he forgets. He doesn’t have a conscience to remind him.’

Murray thought about Rachel. His sadness was shot through with guilt. He’d believed hers the guiding hand, but could he have unwittingly exploited her, too dazzled by her zest for sex to interrogate her motives? Had he been like Fergus, unquestioning as long as he was getting his own way? He wondered what she had done to herself, and if Fergus was taking good care of her.

The car heater was on full blast, but the windscreen was fogging. Murray reached forward and wiped it with his palm. The makeshift road seemed to be getting narrower and he suspected that before long they would have to abandon the car and make their way on foot. He asked, ‘Do you know where we are?’

‘Almost there.’ Christie didn’t seem to be looking, but her voice was sure. ‘We should see the first of the lime-workers’ cottages in a moment. Be careful, the ground will be softer here.’

Murray dropped their speed to crawl. They drove on in silence. Soon he saw a shape up ahead, blacker than the darkness that surrounded them. A ruined cottage came into focus, the shadowy forms of the derelict village behind it. He stopped the car, turned off the engine and pulled on the handbrake. ‘What now?’

‘Can you drive any further?’

Murray opened his door. Outside it sounded the way he supposed a rainforest removed of wildlife might, the steady slap and drip of rain against leaves and puddles, accompanied by the white-noise hiss of the downpour. He looked at the ground in the glow of the interior light. Water was pooling into miniature streams and gullies, the earth turning to sludge.

‘I don’t think so. We’re taking a chance as it is.’

Christie leaned into the glove compartment and handed him a rubberised torch. He felt the weight of it in his hand and thought what a good weapon it would make.

‘It won’t take long.’ He saw her profile in silhouette, the set of her jaw, her half-open lips. ‘Just think of the poems and forget everything else.’

She pulled up the hood of her jacket, then opened the door and stepped into the dark. Murray jogged round to the boot of the car and took out the spade they’d stashed there earlier. He had to shout to make himself heard.

‘Are you sure you can manage?’

Christie wrestled her walking stick from the car, then linked her free arm through his. ‘If I can lean on you.’ She pointed her stick straight ahead. ‘It’s this way.’

Murray clicked on the torch, aiming its beam at the path’s greasy surface. Christie skidded and he hauled her to her feet.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. Let’s keep moving.’

But Murray could feel her already flagging. He put his arm around Christie’s waist, holding her close. She was so light her bones might have been hollow. But still her body weighed on him. Murray swung the shovel, using it like a staff. Hill-walking had taught him that when weather and conditions conspired against you, the trick was to think of nothing, not the distance that remained, nor what would follow once you reached home, nothing but the next step, then the one after and the one after that.

They were almost in the heart of the tiny hamlet now. The trees had grown denser, but instead of sheltering them from the rain they seemed to add to its force, shedding their own hoarded load as they passed. Murray kept the torch aimed at the treacherous ground beneath their feet, but he could feel the stares of empty windows and gaping doors on either side. Christie tugged his arm and pointed towards one of the houses. She said something that was carried away by the sound of the rain. Murray swung the torch in the direction she’d indicated. An abandoned cottage glared at him.