The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea (27 page)

‘Where did you get this?’ Alexandra barked.

Violet shook her head and appeared unable to carry on.
Hilary took the letter and phone from her.

‘Should I
predecease my wife,’ she continued in a more triumphal tone
than Violet’s, ‘the use of my properties will be
rightfully hers for her lifetime. On her death, they will
be the child’s to dispose of as he or
she wishes.’ Hilary interjected, ‘that’s Violet, by the way,’
before carrying on to the conclusion. ‘I will provide you
with a house for you to choose within the financial
limits I mentioned and a monthly allowance of £1,000. I
apologise for the distress I have caused you. Sincerely yours,
William.’

‘So what do you think of
your
father now?’
Hilary sneered.

‘Don’t.’ Violet snatched back the phone.

‘What’
s wrong?’

Violet cut the call. ‘I don’t want
this.’

The children were in their sleeping bags chattering, and
Hilary was going to join them since Izzy wouldn’t
settle without her.

‘And anyway Violet will stay out there
all night.’ Hilary looked beyond the fading glow of the
fire into the darkness. ‘If she thinks I’m waiting
up to give her a talking to . . .’ She sighed. Of
course she wouldn’t. She was sorry about the flare-
up. It was the first they’d had. ‘But I
don’t want her to regret anything. Do you know
what I mean?’ She made Cal promise to talk to
Violet. ‘Just what I’ve said
to you. Tell her I’m worried about her making the wrong decision. That’s all.’

Once Hilary had gone Cal went to fetch more planks from the driftwood pile. On his return, Violet was standing at the edge of the fire’s glow. ‘So, not a good day,’ he said, putting the planks into the embers.

‘No.’

‘Would you like coffee or anything? The fire’s still hot enough.’

‘What should I do?’ She folded her arms.

‘You don’t have to do anything.’

‘I just want her to be found. That’s all.’ She glanced at Cal hoping he would understand.

He nodded. ‘I know.’

The driftwood began to burn and crackle. They watched the flames until Cal said, ‘Hilary thinks you’re planning to go back to Glasgow, to your flat, your waitressing job.’ He glanced at her. ‘She’s worried you’ll wake up one morning and realise how much more you could have given Anna, if only you’d fought for it.’

Violet kicked at the sand. ‘I know.’
It had been playing on her mind too. ‘But it’
s wrong. My mother didn’t want William Ritchie’s
money, she wanted him and, at the end, she told
him she would go away, make it impossible for him
to find her. She didn’t choose his money. Why
should I?’

‘He’s your father, I guess.’

‘He’s a name on a gravestone. I don’t have a father.’ She sounded hurt and angry.

‘Yeah.’

The fire again held their attention, until Violet touched his arm brushing the back of her fingers against the sleeve of his shirt. ‘I’m sorry.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, I know.’ Should he say more? He looked at her again. Her skin had turned rosy with the fire. He thought about kissing her. Instead, he said, ‘Hilary thinks you should go for a long walk in the morning. Climb to the ridge above Brae. Go to Orasaigh. Walk round the loch. Explore. Take your time. Then come back and tell her you and Anna are better off in Glasgow.’

‘She doesn’t want me to say that.’

‘No, but she won’t mention it again if you do.’

Violet closed her eyes. She was tired. She would sleep on it. She kissed him on the cheek and walked towards her tent. ‘Good night.’

Cal said, ‘And if you do go . . .’ She looked round. ‘Take your backpack. I’ve put a bottle of water in it and some chocolate. The phone I gave you is there too. In case . . .’ he shrugged, ‘you get lost. Stick it in your pocket.’

Hilary struck a bargain with Anna and Izzy. If they would entertain themselves while she slept for a little while longer, she
might
make sandcastles with them later. She said it so longingly that they’d said ‘oh, all right’ in bored voices and went to sit by Cal who was building up the fire and boiling water for coffee. At his suggestion, the girls rested against a log he’d found and stretched out their legs, making a table on which to rest Anna’s painting book.

‘That’s Violet, when she was tired,’ Izzy said, turning a page.

‘That’s our flat in Glasgow,’ Anna said wistfully, turning another. ‘Lovely flat . . .’ She patted at the picture with the open palm of her hand. ‘How long is Mummy going to be?’ Anna looked perplexed. She was gazing along the beach road.

‘I don’t really know,’ Cal replied, looking too. ‘Couple of hours, I imagine, maybe more. She’s just gone for a walk.’

‘Why did she go without telling me?’

‘You were asleep.’

Izzy raised her hand to Anna’s face, forcing her to look at the book again. ‘That’s me,’ Izzy said, ‘sitting at Mummy’s mirror.’

‘And that’s Ginger,’ Anna said.

Ginger was the cat Izzy had adopted, or Izzy was the child Ginger had adopted. Anna wasn’t sure which way round it was.

‘That’s your granny’s house,’ Izzy said.

‘And that’s the beach house mummy and me are going to have,’ Anna said.

Izzy frowned, jealous. She turned the page quickly.

‘That’s Violet when she was a baby.’

Izzy glanced at Cal to check he was paying attention. ‘Did you know that Violet had fair hair like me when she was a baby?’

Cal considered Izzy’s question with a doubtful expression. ‘She has dark hair now.’

‘But she
was
fair wasn’t she?’ Izzy called for Anna’s support.

‘Mrs Anderson said so.’ Anna said it in her most definite voice.

Cal leaned over and looked at the picture, a pink baby with a big round body, short legs and arms, a small face on top of which was a scribble of yellow crayon. ‘When did she say that?’

‘Yesterday, when we were doing the dishes,’ Izzy said.

‘What did Mrs Anderson say?’ Cal asked. ‘Can you remember? Her exact words?’

Anna and Izzy looked at each other and then at Cal, detecting the difference in his tone, wondering what they’d done wrong.

‘I got some soap in my hair,’ Anna said uncertainly.

‘Some bubbles from the washing up,’ Izzy explained.

‘And
she
said . . .’ Anna continued.

‘Mrs Anderson, you mean?’ Cal asked.

Anna nodded. ‘
She
said it was funny my hair being so curly and dark because Violet’s was the opposite when she was a baby. Hers had been blonde and fine, like silk.’

‘She said that? Are you sure?’

Anna and Izzy looked at each other. They nodded in unison. ‘Like silk,’ they echoed.

‘Did she say anything else?’

The girls shook their head.

‘Are you sure? Nothing about
when
she’d seen her,
how
she had?’

In the blurry transition from unconsciousness Mrs Anderson thought she
had been in the past again, remembering the baby and
Diana banging on the door. She reached for her clock,
expecting it to be almost 7.15, the time for her
alarm to go off. To her surprise it was later,
7.50. She couldn’t decide what had happened, whether she’
d omitted to set it or whether she’d woken
as usual and had gone back to sleep. She chided
herself for being so forgetful when the banging started again;
the pounding of a fist on the door; someone calling
her name. Her hands went to her mouth. Not a
dream. Not Diana. A man’s voice. ‘Mrs Anderson? Mrs
Anderson?’ The voice boomed in the stillness of early morning.

‘Who is that?’ she croaked. ‘What do you want?’ The sound she made was feeble, hardly loud enough to escape her bedroom, let alone travel downstairs to the front door. Yet, it was as if he had heard her. ‘Open the door. It’s Cal McGill, I’m Violet’s friend.’

She found herself standing by her bed, her feet seeking slippers, the visitor, no, the
drama
, drawing her on. ‘I’ve got to speak to you,’ he shouted and struck the door a single heavy blow. Mrs Anderson felt the shock of it as she shuffled from her bedroom. She carried on down the stairs and across the hall, until only the thickness of the front door separated them.

Did he sense her? His sudden quiet made her think so. ‘Go away,’ she croaked, the silence unnerving her. And again, ‘Go away.’

‘Not until you open the door,’ Cal replied. ‘Not until you speak to me.’

She felt the air stir, as if the door was no barrier at all. ‘Go away, or I’ll ring for the police.’

‘Why don’t you?’

Mrs Anderson backed away, her slippered feet retreating silently on the hall floor. Cal banged again and swore, as if he knew he was losing her. ‘What colour was Violet’s hair when she was a baby?’ he shouted. ‘Was it fair or dark Mrs Anderson? Was it blonde or brown?’

‘Mrs Anderson.’ He banged on the door. ‘Mrs Anderson, what colour was it?’

‘Blonde,’ she whispered. Her finger tips pressed at the place where she still felt the sticky imprint of Anna lips, her cheeks turning alabaster white as she realised the error she had made.

A progression of tiny red dots led from the beach to the road and along the track to Boyd’s Farm. At the steading and farm-house the dotted line became circular and jumbled. Cal enlarged the aerial map on his laptop screen until he had a clearer view of the buildings, until he could see which dots fell on the farmhouse. The first, inside the back porch, was timed at 06.53, ten minutes after Violet had left the beach. The last was at 08.14, two minutes ago. To begin with Violet had been moving around, probably going from the ground floor to the first, Cal guessed. Then she had spent 16 minutes towards the front of the house, roughly where Megan’s room would be. But for the last 23 minutes, since 07.53, she had been in the same place, towards the back of the house, and she hadn’t moved.

He stared at the last dot. She ought to be told about Mrs Anderson. Should he ring her? Should he go to the farmhouse? Or should he leave her undisturbed, let her work things out on her own as Hilary suggested the night before? A thought nagged at him. The last dot was more or less where the attic room would be. Why would Violet go there, to the place where her mother’s killer had died? Why would she stay there for so long? He’d heard of one suicide leading to another but no sooner had he reassured himself of the impossibility of Violet doing the same – she would never abandon Anna – the worry returned. She had been distressed. Who knows what she might do, what she might have done? He stared at the dot. He called the phone. ‘Pick up, Violet, pick up.’ It went to answer, Cal’s voice. Then he tried Violet’s own phone. It rang out.

Accelerating along Brae’s back drive, he shouted ‘fuck, fuck, fuck.’ His foot was flat to the floor, but the pickup’s response was sluggish. Suddenly every second, every fraction of a second, counted. From the beach road, he went along the track to Boyd’s Farm, swerving left and right to avoid the grooves and gouges left by the trucks and police vehicles. He stopped by the steading entrance, at the blue and white police tape with ‘Do Not Cross’ on it. Ducking underneath, he ran into the steading courtyard and to the back door. He pushed it open and a cat ran past him into the house. Going along the corridor to the hall, Cal recalled Duncan’s hanging body, only it changed to Violet’s in his imagination. Spurred on by it, he ran through the hallway, up the staircase and across the landing, stopping at the small flight up to the attic.

‘Violet, are you there?’

The door to the room was as open as it had been before. Enough to see in. Not enough to see if a body was hanging from the hook Duncan had used.

‘Violet, are you there?’

He climbed the stairs and went along the short passageway. He pushed open the door with his foot. There was no hanging body; there was nobody at all. Propped against the skirting board on the far wall, below the graffiti left by Poltown’s teenagers on their night-time forays, was his own phone. He crossed the room to pick it up and suddenly saw his name on the wall. It was written in sparkly nail varnish, a message beside it. ‘Forgive me. I thought you might try to stop me. Love Violet.’ An arrow pointed to the right, to a heart with two names and a date inside it. Ross + Alexandra. September 9 1983. The day that Violet was born. Cal looked from one name to the other. Who would she have gone to first?

Maybe he should have separated Mrs A from the rest of the flock. If he had, Jim could have driven slowly along the road, Mrs A bleating in the trailer, the other blackface sheep following on and Tommy, the collie, bringing up the rear. He took a swig from the bottle, and another. The whisky dropped into his stomach and he waited for the hit; the sensation of bobbing around above a sea of worry and depression instead of sinking into it.

‘Aah,’ he sighed. ‘That’s grand.’

He wiped his hand across his mouth and propped the bottle against the passenger seat. ‘Better get moving,’ he mumbled. ‘Tommy will be waiting on me.’ A grin creased Jim’s face as he imagined the dog lying flat, his ears pricked, his flanks quivering in anticipation of Jim’s whistle. The sheep would be milling about in front of him, Mrs A stamping her feet in truculence, the others taking their cue from her. Jim grabbed his stick and hauled himself out of the van, leaving the engine running in case of trouble. He checked whether his parking had blocked off the culvert, where Mrs A had led the blackies astray the last time. ‘Good enough,’ he reckoned and wandered the fifty metres back to the bend to watch for Tommy bringing the flock. He whistled, a long blast. Tommy barked in response. ‘Good lad,’ Jim said, his habit of talking to the dog so ingrained it made no difference whether Tommy was within earshot or not. ‘Good lad. Nice and slow now.’

Jim heard the rattle of hooves on the tarmac, his ears telling him that everything was under control. Rounding the corner and coming into view, the sheep also seemed to be nicely bunched, Tommy showing restraint, hanging ten or fifteen metres behind, working from one side of the road to the other, letting Mrs A know where he was. As Jim expected, she was at the front but trotting calmly in the middle of the road.

‘Good lad,’ he shouted and the dog pricked its ears. ‘Easy now . . .’

Jim let the sheep come close. Then he walked ahead of them until he was by the van and the culvert. When he stopped to deter another attempted break-out that way, they halted too. ‘Bring them on,’ Jim shouted to Tommy. The dog chivvied the sheep as Jim had asked but Mrs A refused to budge. Her nostrils flared and her eyes had that wild look which Jim recognised, a look that signalled trouble.

‘Damn, damn.’

As soon as Jim had seen the danger Mrs A took off, her hooves slipping and sliding on the road. She leapt the far ditch and started to climb the bank, the rest of the flock in noisy pursuit. On Jim’s command, the dog raced uphill to stop Mrs A from doubling back to the field the sheep had just left, which was what she had done the last time. But Mrs A appeared to have a different plan. She wheeled round and started off in the opposite direction.

‘Damn,’ Jim repeated. If Mrs A made it to the forestry high up on the hill, he and Tommy would be spending the rest of the day rounding them up. The deer fence had long since fallen down. The place was a jumble of fallen timber; every winter the wind dropped some more trees. If the sheep got in there, there’d be no easy way of getting them out again. Damn, Jim said again. He should have put Mrs A in the trailer after all.

As the last of the sheep disappeared from view, Tommy in pursuit, Jim jumped in the van. Swallowing a mouthful of whisky, he went through the gears, first, second, third: if he was smart about it he should be able to reach the top of the hill track before Mrs A and cut her off. Changing up to fourth, he gulped another swig of whisky and tucked the bottle between his thighs. The road swung left and entered a tunnel of overhanging trees. Crossing from bright sunlight into shadow, Jim was temporarily blinded. The van hit something, a glancing blow. He gripped at the wheel and braked. Whisky spilt on his trousers. He swore and checked in his mirror, expecting to see a stone which the sheep had sent rolling down the bank on to the road, or a fallen branch. But the bend was now between him and whatever he’d hit. The noise of the impact rankled too: it reminded him of the time he’d collided with a deer. Flesh and bone against metal made a different thud. Perhaps one of the sheep had toppled from the bank and he’d hit it, not a stone. ‘Damn.’

He retrieved the bottle of whisky from the floor by his seat. Most of it had spilled out. He gulped what was left and got out unsteadily to check the damage. There was a dent on the van’s front offside, a curved impression made by something softer than stone or wood. A sheep after all, Jim thought, or a deer flushed on to the road by all the commotion. At the speed he was going – less than 40mph – the impact of a glancing blow might not have killed it. More than likely it’d have crawled away somewhere.

‘Damn.’

Tommy yelped in pursuit of the runaways. He was some distance off, half way at least to the forestry. As Jim feared, Mrs A was heading for the high hill. He had no chance of cutting her off now. Leaving the empty whisky bottle on the roof of the van, he walked back along the road. At the bend, he was alarmed to see the contents of a backpack strewn across the tarmac: alarmed as well as suddenly apprehensive.

‘Damn,’ he said again under his breath, becoming more agitated as he drew closer. He went from object to object, picking up each one; a pair of sunglasses, a packet of hair-clips, keys, a receipt, roller-ball pen, a bottle of nail varnish, a packet of tissues. As he bent to gather up the backpack he heard a noise.