It was more of a trunk than a box. Larger than he’d expected, but light for all the trouble it had caused him, and obscene in its ordinariness. Still on his knees, Murray turned to face Christie. His hair was plastered to his head, his hands and body coated in mud too clotted for the rain to wash away. His voice sounded old and rusty.
‘Please, don’t open it until I get you back to your cottage.’
Christie pursed her lips, like a woman trying not to laugh. She staggered from the doorway and put a hand on his shoulder. For an awful moment he thought she might kiss him, but she merely stood there, staring down at the makeshift coffin.
‘Thank you.’ The rain was slackening and Murray could hear her breath, harsh and ragged. ‘We should go.’ She danced the torch beam around the site of the exhumation, searching like a seasoned detective for evidence of their visit. ‘Perhaps you should fill that in, so no one wonders what’s been going on.’
Murray took his glasses from his pocket and held them under the rain, trying to wash the lenses free of the spangles of mud which decorated them. He replaced them, lifted the spade and started to shovel the earth back into the grave. Their visit would still be evident to anyone who cared to look, but he had lost all will to argue. He had no idea of how long they had been there, but the light was changing, the dawn creeping towards them much sooner than he would have expected. He wiped the mud from his watch — 02:54 — but even as he checked the time, Murray heard the grumble of an engine and realised that the sweep of light was no premature daybreak. He heard Christie’s gasp and saw her sickened expression a moment before he was blinded by the full beam of a car’s headlights.
Chapter Thirty-One
MURRAY THREW THE shovel to one side and put his hands up in the air. It was a ridiculous gesture born of the American cop shows he and Jack had been addicted to as boys, and he dropped them almost immediately. He shaded his eyes, squinting to see who had interrupted them, but the car’s full beams were still aiming at them from the mud track, and he could make out nothing beyond a blur of smur and bright light. The car door slammed.
‘You should have gone home, Murray.’
Fergus Baine’s voice was full of regret.
‘You’re right as usual, Fergus.’
‘This is between Christie and me. The best thing you can do is walk away and forget it ever happened.’
Christie gripped his elbow. She whispered, ‘Don’t leave me alone with him.’ It was more of an order than a plea, but he could hear the fear in her voice.
‘I’ll go, but I’m taking her with me.’
‘Fine. Did you find it?’
Fergus had stepped in front of the lights. His shadow stretched towards them, tall and thin. He’d abandoned his Barbour jacket for a long raincoat which fell in skirted folds to his ankles, giving him the outline of a Victorian hunter.
Christie’s voice was shrill.
‘You can’t take her from me, Fergus.’
The professor might have been at an overcrowded cocktail party where the hubbub required raised voices. His tones carried sleek and smooth across the grassy divide.
‘Don’t be silly, Christina.’
Murray shouted, ‘What happened to Rachel?’
‘Why don’t you come and see for yourself? She’s in the car.’
He leapt forward, but Christie had him by the arm, her grip tighter than he would have thought possible. She hissed, ‘Don’t. He’s lying.’
Murray shouted, ‘Rachel!’ But there was no reply. It would have been an easy thing to shake Christie free, but he stalled, hesitating, beside her.
‘She’s there, I promise you.’ Fergus advanced slowly towards them, his arms open, like a TV evangelist ready to embrace the world. ‘Let the boy go, Christie. It’s nothing to do with him.’
Murray said, ‘If you’ve hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you.’
Fergus laughed.
‘It’s me she loves, Murray, me she married. You were just a diversion. Look at you, crawling around in the mud on an old witch’s errand. You’re not really Rachel’s type.’
Christie kept her hand locked on Murray’s elbow and hauled herself in front of him.
‘She prefers old men who have to watch because they can’t manage it themselves any more.’
‘Your insults are almost as clichéd as your books.’
Murray heard Christie draw in a deep breath and then another.
‘We’re old friends, Fergus. Can’t we come to some arrangement?’
‘Of course.’ The professor had taken another slow step forward.
He was like a hunter, right enough, thought Murray. One that wanted to take his prey alive, or maybe simply get close enough to make certain his aim was true.
‘Give me the box and I’ll make sure she gets a decent burial.’
Her voice was plaintive.
‘Why can’t I have her?’
‘Because you can’t be trusted to keep her safe.’
‘I’m her mother.’
‘And her murderer.’
Christie tightened her grip on Murray’s arm and looked up into his eyes.
‘He’s lying.’
‘Come on, Christie.’ Fergus’s voice was reasonable. ‘I don’t know what you told young Dr Watson, but I was there, remember? We may be old, but neither of us is senile. You and Bobby used her for your little occult experiment.’
The box was still at Christie’s feet. She leaned down and touched it with her fingertips, as if reassuring whatever lay inside of her fidelity.
‘You lie.’
‘You know I don’t.’ Fergus was closer now, facing them through a curtain of soft drizzle. ‘You didn’t just kill her. You killed Archie too.’
‘No, he killed himself.’
‘Technically I suppose that’s true. But we both know he would never have taken that leaky sieve out into a storm if he and I hadn’t come back to the island and found a butcher’s shop.’ Fergus looked at Murray. ‘She didn’t tell you that did she?’
Murray said, ‘She gave me her version of events. Why don’t you give me yours?’
Christie spat, ‘Do you think he’s going to tell you the truth?’
Fergus sounded clear and rational against Christie’s passion.
‘Lunan and I had got fed up of our country idyll. He’d tried to persuade Christie to come back to the city with us, but she was adamant. The child wasn’t due for weeks, so we left her here. I thought she’d come trailing after us as usual. I didn’t see how anyone could stomach living alone with Bobby Robb for any length of time. But it seems I underestimated his charms. Lunan couldn’t drive, so a fortnight after we’d deserted, he persuaded me to bring him back. His excuse was he’d left his manuscript behind. If he had, it was deliberate.’
Christie started a soft, keening mantra: ‘You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying. .’
For the first time Fergus lost his cool.
‘I’m not bloody lying, and you know it. Who are you trying to fool? Him?’ He pointed at Murray. ‘Let’s see if he wants to help you after he’s heard the truth.’
‘You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying. .’
Christie continued her chant, and it seemed to Murray that the waving trees and still-falling rain picked up the rhythm of her words and carried it through the glen. Perhaps Fergus thought so too, because he paused for a moment and when he spoke next his voice wavered beneath its calm.
‘Archie was a chaotic drunk, but looking back I think he was desperate for that child. Maybe he thought being a father would help put some of his demons to rest. Who knows?’ The professor shrugged. ‘I had an interest in it too, of course, so I drove and he drank. By the time we reached the ferry, he was insensible. But when we reached the cottage, he’d sobered up enough to take in what had happened. The child had lived its whole life in the time we’d been gone. When you see something like that. .’ His voice trembled. ‘It’s as if your eyes refuse to let you witness it. We stood on that doorstep staring at Bobby and Christie, sky-clad in the middle of a charnel house. God knows what they’d taken while we’d been in Edinburgh, but all of Bobby Robb’s fantasies about purity and sacrifice had been realised. I’m not sure how long we were frozen there, trying to make sense of the scene. . all that redness. . Archie understood what had happened first. Suddenly he went wild. I thought he was going to murder them both, me too perhaps. I don’t know where I found the strength, but I bundled him out of the cottage. I thought I was preventing another death.’ Fergus took a deep breath. ‘The rest you know.’