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‘Okay, Dan. Thanks, I will.’ She ended the call and stared for a moment at the handset. She would miss his company. She left the phone to charge. She’d call Murdo shortly, when she’d worked out what to say to him. From the office window the estuary was calm, the sky clear, and the temperature dropping. Later, a mist would come up and, in the morning, there would be a silver sheen of frost on the cars and pathways. She pinned a note of her new mobile number to the kitchen noticeboard for Rob and Becca, then took her fleece from the peg and closed the back door behind her. She would enjoy this beautiful place while she still could. They might not be here much longer.
Now the shock of her suspension was sinking in she felt an overwhelming sense of guilt that Murdo and her colleagues would suffer for her mistakes. It would be her sergeant who faced the questions tomorrow morning, standing up in the Dumfries CID and explaining to the frowning faces of her former team that they’d be carrying on without her. There would be a disruptive enquiry. Later, a disciplinary board might ask Murdo why he hadn’t questioned his DI’s maverick behaviour. She worried he’d stand up for her, talk of the values they shared; loyalty to the community, defending of the defenceless, the pursuit of justice for all. Murdo and his wife were churchgoers, steadfast in their beliefs. He would hold to his and pay the price with his own career. Dumfries shouldn’t lose a copper as good as Murdo.
She walked down to the water’s edge. The lifeboat station was dark. She hesitated by the door. Tommy must have gone home. She cupped her face against the shopfront glass. She could see the lifeboat asleep in its metal cradle. She thought of the original Margaret Wilson, the Solway Martyr, a woman tied to a stake and slowly drowned by the incoming tide for holding fast to her beliefs. As the water had reached her chin, the executioner and local church minister had given her the opportunity to recant and be saved. She’d refused. Shona hoped, in the face of this unstoppable tide of disaster that seemed to be racing towards her, her courage and resolution would be as strong. Pulling up her collar, she set off along the seafront path.
How did this all happen? What sign had she missed? Her marriage to Rob might not survive this, the burden of deceit and lies pulling it apart. There was a part of her that still loved him; they’d come so far together. Her anger at learning what he’d done was still fresh, but he was right about one thing, no one at Milton McConnell would want fraud rumours to get out. So, who told Baird? Maybe this wasn’t about Rob at all. More likely Baird was in contact with her old boss DSU Harry Delfont. Delfont was unscrupulous and corrupt enough to turn the knife. Either way, if it all came out, she was finished.
She stopped by the Wee Pier. The tide had not yet turned, slack water lay quietly against the lichen-covered granite, invitingly calm. She could just walk in. Walk until it covered her head. Walk until it took her away somewhere peaceful and still. But as soon as she thought this, she saw Becca. Her life would be blighted by the grief Shona knew took root in those left behind. Tommy and her RNLI colleagues hauling Shona’s lifeless body from the water. Professor Kitchen conducting the autopsy before Murdo’s bleak and uncomprehending stare. She saw all this in a fraction of a second and knew there was nothing to be done but face what was coming. She had failed Isla, Sami and Jamie Buckland. Their deaths would be listed as unfortunate but not unexpected. A junkie, a whore, an illegal immigrant; people would say they’d got what they deserved. A least she could tell Isla’s family she didn’t agree, and tomorrow she would do just that.
Chapter 31
On Saturday morning Shona drove to the Corr house in Dumfries. She didn’t have Marie’s number to call in advance and knocking brought no reply. Shona peered through the front window to a room unchanged in its neatness, but with Paddy Corr’s reclining chair no longer in fr
ont of the TV. In its place was a child-sized beanbag and a plastic toybox. A neighbour said Marie had taken the kids to Southerness beach where she had a caravan. Shona used her precious petrol on a trip that took her halfway back to where she’d started out an hour earlier.
There were few visitors despite the dry weather and the September Weekend holiday. She left her car in the village car park and headed towards the dense white block of Southerness lighthouse. The tide was low, the sky grey. Mudbanks and small islands floated in the pewter vista as if suspended between sea and sky. The lighthouse, the second oldest in Scotland, was a familiar landmark she’d seen often on journeys up the firth with the lifeboat.
Shona, in her off-duty uniform of jeans, trainers, and RNLI fleece, stood for a moment above the beach. She swept back her hair, which blew about her face in a dark mass of waves and curls, and scanned the sparse dogwalkers, fishermen and day trippers for a clue.
She spotted Marie about a hundred metres away looking out at the Solway Firth. As Shona set off towards the lone figure, she felt a renewed stab of guilt that she was bringing no fresh news and no real answers.
Two boys in bright anoraks and wellies played nearby. Shona recognised one of them as Isla’s six-year-old son Ryan and her courage nearly failed her. Did he miss his mother? Or had he become accustomed through her long absences to life with his grandmother? She supposed he had. Shona had been the same age when her mother went. She couldn’t recall missing her. That came later. Her wedding, Becca’s birth, Christmases and birthdays, a subtle gap in the family photos she was sure no one else noticed.
Ryan wheeled and swooped like a gull, intent on some game only he could see. The other boy, a little younger, moved with a listless boredom, hood up against the breeze, shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets. He dragged loose circles with the toe of his boot on the muddy sand. A ball lay untouched nearby. Marie might not welcome a conversation in front of either children, but the space and distraction of beach and rock pools was better than a stuffy front room for what Shona had to say.
Suddenly, Ryan ran to his grandmother, pulling at her sleeve, pointing out to sea. A row of bobbing heads just offshore looked back with interest. The grey seals, like bathers in swimming caps, studied the figures on shore before slipping back beneath the choppy water.
Shona understood how the stories of selkies, half-human, half-seal folk who lured young people away into the sea, had taken hold around the Scottish coast. A tale to comfort the loved ones of drowned souls. Did Marie come here to search the faces of these sea creatures in the hope she would catch a glimpse of Isla? Isla reborn, Isla free.
Marie turned and looked back at Shona’s approaching figure, shading her eyes from the wind to study her. Recognition followed by a flicker of hope. Then her jaw set firm in a frown. The police never brought good news to her door.
‘Hello, Marie.’ Shona smiled at the woman, who seemed to have grown younger since their last meeting. She wore a brightly patterned waterproof jacket and wellies, and her hair was subtly coloured with blonde streaks.
‘Youse got nothing better to do than hang about outside in this weather?’ Marie said with a habitual stab at aggression, but Shona could see her heart wasn’t in it.
‘Day off,’ Shona replied.
‘All right for some.’
‘My condolences for Paddy,’ said Shona.
Marie shrugged. ‘Good riddance.’ She glanced at Shona. ‘You don’t look shocked.’
‘I understand he wasn’t an easy man to live with,’ Shona said carefully.
‘Led us all a dog’s life, that’s for sure. Better off without him.’
Ryan studied Shona for a moment with serious blue eyes she recognised from Isla’s picture, then headed back to his game. The smaller child leaned against Marie.
‘Who’s this young man?’ Shona said.
‘Liam. One of the family. I look after him.’
‘Hi Liam.’ Shona crouched down and smiled at the child, but he looked past her, unwilling to meet her eyes.
‘Got problems. Doesnae talk,’ Marie said. Liam turned away and followed Ryan to where the older boy was dropping stones into a rock pool.
Shona nodded. ‘Must be hard for you.’ They watched him go then Shona cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t do more for Isla,’ she said. Marie looked surprised at this admission. ‘I think you need to prepare yourself,’ Shona continued, ‘for the possibility that we may not be able to determine how she met her death.’
