She opened the desk drawers one by one, not entirely sure what she was searching for. In the top drawer there was the same self-help book that they’d found among Alison’s possessions; she recognized the title and the publisher’s name. Sandy Sechrest, the owner of Tain, worked as an editor for the company in New York City. Willow was pondering the significance of this – excited, because in a small way it confirmed her theory – when she was aware of a change in the atmosphere. A slight draught. Somewhere a door had been opened. She turned quickly, preparing to leave, but she was too late. There was already someone else in the room, blocking the exit. Willow was about to smile apologetically and mumble an excuse; she felt embarrassed, but not in any danger. Then there was a brief moment of bewilderment and everything went black.
When Willow woke, she was outside. Her face felt wet: blood from the wound on her temple mixed with a gentle drizzle, and the damp was soaking through the back of her jeans. She was wearing the waterproof jacket she’d had on when she’d been hit, and that was keeping the top of her body dry. She shifted slightly and the pain in her head was so severe that she wanted to scream. She didn’t scream. That pride again, but also an instinct for survival because somewhere close by there was the sound of footsteps. Willow heard the suction of boots lifted out of mud and the splash of surface water. She knew she was in no state to take on her attacker, so she lay still.
Strong arms grabbed her under her shoulders and began to drag her along the ground. Willow tried to distract herself from the pain. She could do this. It was why she got up before work every morning and practised the discipline of yoga. She could keep her breathing even, control her muscles and force herself to relax. Her attacker had to believe that she was still unconscious, that she posed no danger. Willow imagined coming to the scene as the first officer present. Her heels would be making tracks in the mud, and any competent detective or CSI would work out what had happened here. The killer was panicking and getting careless. The movement stopped and Willow’s upper body was dropped on the ground. This time there was no need for pretence. The pain was so intolerable that she slipped back into unconsciousness.
When she woke once more she was lying on her back again. The rain on her face was heavier, sharper. It was still and dark. Thick black. Usually her eyes adjusted to the island dark and after a while she’d make out shades of grey, a house light in the distance, the beam of a lighthouse sweeping the horizon. Now there was nothing and it came to her that she must still be unconscious, dreaming or dead. But her other senses were working. She felt cold and wet, and a heaviness on her lower limbs and her torso, as if something or someone was lying on top of her. There was a smell of damp earth. And a sound. Rhythmic, repetitive and oddly familiar.
At once Willow was a child again, at home in the commune in North Uist. It was the heyday of the establishment; three families and assorted hangers-on were living in the big laird’s house and the surrounding farm buildings. She was outside on a blowy spring day. Golden light broken up by cloud shadows that raced across the headland. Her father was turning the sandy soil in the vegetable garden so it would be ready for planting. That was the sound she could hear now. A spade slicing into the earth and then the thud of soil landing in the previously dug trench. Except that now the soil was being tipped onto her. It wasn’t rain on her face, but the wet earth that had already covered her body, trapping her legs and arms and making movement impossible.
She tried to scream, but as she opened her mouth, it was filled with mud. She spat it out and began to yell for help. The cry seemed to disappear into the dark, and all the time above her she heard the sound of the spade cutting and lifting and felt the soil as it rained down on her body and her face.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jane walked with Perez and Andy back towards Gilsetter. Perez’s appearance had shocked her, but she was pleased that he was there. It was easier than being on her own with Andy, who was trailing behind them like a recalcitrant toddler. Perez had lost phone reception again once they’d left Tain and she could tell that he was preoccupied. There’d been a message that had disturbed him and he’d said he would walk with her back to the house, so that he could use their landline. She knew he’d have questions for Andy too, though. He’d have questions for them all. She still wasn’t sure where it would all end.
The Lerwick bus drove along the main road, lighting their path so that for a moment there was no need for her torch. It stopped to let off a passenger, and briefly the land around Gilsetter could be seen clearly in its headlights. Glancing up, Jane caught sight of a figure in the field beyond the house, a silhouette. And a reflected gleam. Then the bus drove on towards town and everything was dark again.
‘What’s your father doing out at this time of night?’ Because she’d seen that the figure had been standing next to Kevin’s new drainage ditch. It was her husband’s pride and joy, and who else would be standing in the rain inspecting his handiwork? He’d said he’d line the ditch with concrete, so there’d be no chance of floodwater seeping into the ground and drowning the polytunnels. ‘He told me he was taking the evening off.’
Andy gave a non-committal grunt, but Perez had already started to run, with a speed and lack of concern for his own safety and comfort that seemed like panic. Or desperation. The evening flights must just have come into Sumburgh, because now there was a steady stream of cars and taxis heading north, their headlights passing over the scene and then disappearing, so that the activity in the field had the jerky, flashlit appearance of an early cartoon. Every couple of seconds she caught sight of Perez. First he was vaulting over a wall, then sprinting across the open field towards the figure by the ditch.
There was no sound. He was too far away already for them to hear his laboured breathing or pounding feet. This was a silent movie. The person standing next to the ditch seemed oblivious to his approach. If it hadn’t been for Perez’s desperation, the scene would have been ridiculous. Then Jane thought she could hear something. The thin cry of an injured animal. She peered through the darkness, but the traffic had disappeared; other cars coming from the airport had probably been held by the traffic lights controlling the one-way system further south. Everything was quiet and dark once more.
Chapter Forty-Seven
All that Perez could think, as he started to run towards the ditch, was that he couldn’t let this happen again. He couldn’t see in detail what was happening on the hill, but he’d recognized the person standing there and he’d picked up Willow’s message explaining that she intended to visit. As he moved, time seemed to be working differently; it warped and stretched. In reality it must only have taken minutes to reach the field where the ditch had been dug, but in his head it took hours. In his head he wasn’t even in the present. He was back in Fair Isle, running to the loch where Fran – his love, the woman he would marry – was dying of a stab wound. He’d seen the knife that killed her as a flash of blue lightning at the same time as he’d caught the glint of a murderer’s spade reflected in a bus’s headlights. He was a crazy Time Lord trying to turn back the clock, to save this woman when he’d failed to save the other. As he forced himself to maintain the pace and his heart thudded with the effort, the same phrase pounded to the rhythm of his footsteps. Oh, please God, not again.