The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea (16 page)

He checked the forward tide data: the New Moon was in three days. At 07.14 that morning there would be another high tide of 5.2 metres, the same as the one in 1983. He brought up the weather. The forecast was unchanged for the rest of the week, an Indian summer they were calling it: highs of 17 or 18 degrees in the middle of the day; long sunny periods; clearing skies at night, the temperature falling sharply after sunset; light winds, between 5-15mph; shifting from south to south-south-west and back again to south. If the forecast was right, there would be three days of similar conditions. If he needed to, he could test the currents again.

His phone rang.

‘Cal.’ Violet dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Mrs Anderson has just started making me lunch, I’m going to be here for ages. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Violet, I need some information from you.’

‘Ok.’ She sounded wary.

‘How did the hat and the bag get into the water?’

‘Someone put them there.’

‘How far out?’

‘I don’t know. Whoever it was probably went deep enough to swim.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’

‘Only that it was a woman…’ She hesitated. ‘Sorry Cal, I’ve got to go.’

Cal wasn’t sure if Mrs Anderson had come back into the room or if Violet was protecting her secrets.

On the map, North Bay resembled the profile of a human gargoyle. Its northern headland was ridged and hooked and had the appearance of a large, bony nose. The southern jutted out like a protruding and sharp chin, and the bay itself took the form of a toothless mouth which could no longer open wide. Standing on the hooked nose, Cal estimated the channel between the tip of the northern headland and the protrusion of the chin at less than 60 metres, a narrow opening for flotsam travelling north-east with the flow tide and returning on the ebb. In this and other respects, North Bay couldn’t have been more dissimilar to its southern neighbour. Not only was it sheltered, exposed only to westerlies, it had a small beach which sloped into the sea and was protected on the landward-side by a collar of boulders. South Bay, by contrast, was open to the elements, vulnerable to any wind between south-south-west to north-north-west, with a beach which was wide, flat and long. Instead of boulders, its sweep of sand was bordered by low-lying dunes.

A length of blue rope caught Cal’s attention. It was marooned in a stagnant pool among the rocks below him. He looked around for more debris. A section of white plastic piping protruded from a tangle of seaweed by the shore but otherwise the northern headland appeared to be almost flotsam and litter-free. He skirted the bay, followed the high water mark across the beach, treading on a blue and black mosaic of broken mussel shells, until he was among the boulders by the southern shore. He noticed a detergent bottle, some bleached wooden planks, sections of rope, the remains of a lobster pot, an orange buoy (which was half-buried under seaweed) as well as two white carrier bags. Considering Duncan Boyd only cleared the neighbouring beach, there was little enough. Still there was more debris at that part of North Bay than any other: support for Cal’s theory about the possibility of a slack water eddy spinning into the open mouth and of the breeze nudging flotsam ashore where the eddy’s tail brought it closest to land, near to where he was standing. He made a mental note to quiz Duncan about whether North Bay had altered much in the last 26 years; whether the headlands had eroded significantly; whether there had been any other changes affecting the flow of the tides; whether it would have been more likely for flotsam to wash up on the small beach then than it was now. (Now was unlikely in his opinion.)

He made his way up a chute of loose stones to the top of the south headland, a plateau of grass interspersed with grey slabs of rock. His new vantage point provided a view of South Bay, the dunes and the road-end where he had left his pickup. Another vehicle was parked there too and three men were walking from it. As he watched, they spread out. One stayed on the dune path, the other two on the beach but fifty metres apart. By the way they were walking – their intent – he knew they were coming for him. It was like watching the closing of a net. Rather than going to meet them or attempting an escape, he stayed where he was. It gave him an advantage of sorts, if only psychological. His inactivity seemed to unnerve the two beach-walkers. They came together and parted again; and the man on the path waved at them and shouted. At least Cal knew who gave the orders, who led this little gang. He crouched and picked at the grass, as if he didn’t really have a concern about the confrontation to come. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two from the beach climb the slope of the headland.

By then his only escape was the sea.

Cal kept pulling at the grass, and throwing it into the air as if he was still more interested in the strength of the wind than his uninvited companions. Only when the leader stopped ten metres away did Cal look up.

‘Mr Turnbull wants you out of Poltown,’ he said.

Cal glanced at the owner of the voice; then at his side-kicks who were drawing closer. They were all of similar age and appearance; Poltown’s version of rent-a-thug. Cal had seen similar at the public meeting. The two to his right sported muscled necks and sloping shoulders; the one in front of him, the leader, was taller, leaner and bow-legged. His hair was short, another feature of the breed, and his face was flushed. Not, Cal guessed, from exertion but from an adrenalin rush.

‘Mr Turnbull?’ Cal shrugged, as if to say
who
is
he to tell me whether I can stay or leave
?

The leader stared past Cal, out to sea. Cal wondered if it was a pose he’d been practising in the mirror: studied nonchalance. ‘You know who he is, and he knows who you are, Mr McGill.’

Cal tore at more grass. How had Turnbull discovered his name? Only Violet and Duncan Boyd knew anything about him. He’d heard triumph in the leader’s voice. Had someone checked out his vehicle number, someone with friends in the police? He thought of Davie at the shop. Had it been him?

‘Mr Turnbull knows the kind of work you do. He doesn’t want you here, doesn’t want you meddling in something that isn’t your business.’ He nodded to his side-kicks. ‘Tam, you tell him . . .’

The thug closest to Cal swaggered, as though he’d become a favoured son. ‘People do what Mr Turnbull tells them.’ He tried for menace but his light voice let him down.

The leader shouted again. ‘That’s it Tam. Now you show Mr McGill that we don’t want to come across him again.’ Tam screwed up his right fist and punched it into the palm of his left hand.

‘You’ve been watching too many bad films,’ Cal said. Tam took a step towards him.

‘Not now, Tam,’ the leader shouted. ‘Later. You’ll get your chance later.’

‘Violet, it’s Cal. Ring me when you leave Mrs Anderson’s.’ Should he warn her to stay away from the Poltown road, in case Turnbull was looking for her too? Perhaps he had already found her – had it been his thug who attacked her? It seemed to be Turnbull’s form.

He waited for Tam and Co to drive away before dropping down the flank of the headland to South Bay. Apart from worrying about Violet, he was also concerned about the pickup, whether his departing visitors had taken the opportunity to show him something of their capabilities. But, when he arrived at the road-end, the vehicle seemed to be untouched. Looking through the windows, his lap- top, cameras, binoculars and other equipment were as he’d left them on the back seat. He checked the tyres but none had been slashed or damaged. By now it was after 3pm. In less than half an hour the tide would be perfect.

Among the disorderly jumble in the pickup, he found a waterproof bag with a strap hanging from one corner. He filled it with the oranges he’d bought. By pressing them in, he managed to pack eight, leaving two behind. Stripped to his boxers, he crossed the beach to the sea. When he was in the shallows he stopped and put his right foot through the bag’s strap, pulled it above his knee, and made it tight. He removed two oranges, clipped it shut and carried on into the water until it was lapping his thighs. In case the woman discarded her hat and bag straight away, he dropped one orange there and the next in water a little deeper. The first gave an impression of a nervous child on a swimming lesson. It moved closer to Cal. The other orange was already drifting, parallel to the shore.

How far did she wade before swimming? How far did she swim? How strong was she? What distance could she have gone? The last two were questions he never asked his clients, not any more. When he used to, when he was new to missing body cases, they caused too much distress. As soon as he’d asked them, his clients imagined their son, daughter, husband or wife fighting for life, swimming until their strength was spent, dying from exhaustion and in despair. Now he tried to find out the answers in other ways. He asked if the missing person could swim and whether a life jacket had been worn. Other factors affecting the distance someone might travel before death he researched for himself: water temperature, weather and the strength of tidal currents. Also, he tended to avoid discussing what might happen after death. In his experience, his clients imagined the body floating, the water lapping round it: peace at last. When often it sank, and sometimes remained sunk. Mostly, it returned to the surface some days or weeks later, the gases of decomposition making it buoyant again. On this detail, Cal generally said nothing.

He swam breast stroke, then a slow crawl. He counted to 50 before stopping. Treading water, he reached for the bag and removed two more oranges. He released them one after the other, letting them bob to the surface. He drifted with them wondering at the woman, what she was doing, why she’d put her hat and bag into the sea. What was Violet’s interest?

He swam, counting once more to 50 before releasing two more oranges: one beside him, the other thrown a little way ahead of him. And counting to 50 again, he did the same. He turned and swam back to the beach, trying to recall when he’d last used oranges. A year or two before he’d studied oceanography at the Scottish Marine Institute near Oban, he thought. He’d been reading an American school text about ocean currents and a formula for measuring their speed by using oranges. They were cheap, biodegradable as well as visible, all of which appealed to him at that age and stage. And they worked.

Back ashore, he removed the bag from his leg, and walked up the sand. He was dry by the time he opened the pickup’s back door. Finding his binoculars, he scanned the bay. Despite the distance, he spotted two oranges: one close in, and in danger of beaching, another 100 metres offshore and drifting towards North Bay. He put on jeans, a cotton shirt and trainers. Clutching his binoculars, he went back towards North Bay. On the way he worked out how long the oranges should take to reach the gargoyle’s mouth.

The distance was about a kilometre. He estimated the tidal current at between two to four knots. In theory one of the oranges could be off North Bay in eight minutes or so. But there’d be eddies on the way and other invisible obstacles. Back on the headland he found a rock to sit against. He spotted two oranges, both a few hundred metres away, still off South Bay. He marked them against rocks at the end of the point and watched their progress. Another sweep with the binoculars located one more, nearer to the shore than the others. It looked as though it was on course to pass close by the headland. Cal checked the time. It was 16.47. He was hoping one orange would be off the point at 17.17, just after the tide had reached its peak and the volume of water piling up against the headland had reached its maximum. It was then an eddy might curl into the bay, carrying any flotsam with it. His phone beeped, his screen lit up. Violet had sent a text. She was on her way. Apologies, she added. She’d left Mrs Anderson and was calling on Duncan Boyd. She was crossing the field to his farm. Cal wondered why, but he was thankful she hadn’t run into Tam and the gang.

He messaged back, ‘I’m at North Bay. Text when you’re leaving Boyd’s Farm. I’ll look out for you.’

The lunch was still on the table; the spoon in the cottage pie, the gravy congealed on Violet’s dirty plate as well as Mrs Anderson’s; the glasses of water where they’d left them, one half-empty, the other hardly touched. The napkins too: Violet’s folded and placed beside her clean knife; Mrs Anderson’s sitting like a collapsed tent where she’d dropped it as Violet abruptly excused herself. Mrs Anderson watched her go and hadn’t moved since, apart from the tremor of a pulse in her neck, an occasional flicker of her eyelids and her left hand kneading its companion on her lap. Like good food, some things were best savoured slowly; the thought of Violet Wells claiming back her mother’s belongings, of her taking them from Duncan, being one.

So Mrs Anderson remained
in her seat while her mind fluttered restlessly, reviewing her
encounter with Violet, teasing at it for errors. Could she
have phrased things better? Had her tone been right? Had
she sounded sufficiently surprised at Violet’s interest in Megan
Bates; sufficiently credulous at Violet’s ‘mother’ being an ‘old
friend’ of Megan’s; appropriately reticent but yet matter-of-
fact about Mr William’s affair? Should she have broached
the subject of Megan’s clothes and her other possessions
in the way she had?

Violet had wondered what Megan Bates was like. What kind of woman was she? Mrs Anderson deflected the question. ‘Why don’t you ask Duncan about her?’

‘I have,’ Violet replied.

‘Did he show you her things?’ Mrs Anderson put on a disapproving frown, somewhere between shame at passing on tittle-tattle and an apology for being so dim-witted as not to have mentioned it earlier.

‘What things?’ Violet asked.

‘Her clothes, other possessions; furniture and some books I think.’ Mrs Anderson sounded unsure.

Violet looked shocked at this revelation.

‘Oh dear have I said something wrong?’

‘No, not at all . . .’ Violet said quickly. Then, after a pause, she asked in a puzzled voice, ‘Her clothes? Why would he have those?’

‘Apparently, Duncan cleared Orasaigh Cottage after Megan’s death,’ Mrs Anderson continued. ‘I don’t know whose idea that was. Diana’s I suppose.’ She pursed her lips in disapproval.

‘Go on,’ Violet urged.

Mrs Anderson sighed, as though Violet was dragging it out of her. ‘Well, you know Duncan was suspected of killing her?’

‘No, I didn’t!’ Violet had said.

‘That was before the police announced she’d committed suicide.’ Mrs Anderson made a face.

‘You don’t think she did.’

‘Oh, I don’t know if she did or not.’ Mrs Anderson stopped to stare out of the window, as though someone might be there, listening. ‘There were whispers about suicide being a convenient outcome for the Turnbulls. They didn’t want police taking Poltown apart in a murder inquiry, especially not police from out of the area, detectives from Inverness who wouldn’t have known the set-up here.’

‘Because the police would have found something?’

Mrs Anderson closed and opened her eyes. That’s what people were saying, the gesture meant.

‘Could Duncan have killed her?’ Violet asked.