None but the Dead Read online

  ‘Long time no see.’

  ‘That’s because you’re all so well behaved in the northern isles,’ Erling countered.

  ‘Or we police ourselves, with no need for interference from Kirkwall,’ Derek said in his matter-of-fact manner.

  Erling settled himself in the passenger seat.

  ‘So we’re off to view old bones?’ Derek said as he reversed, then turned onto the main road.

  ‘If that’s what they are,’ Erling said.

  En route, he asked a few questions about the new owner of the schoolhouse.

  ‘Keeps himself very busy with his renovations. Occasionally to be seen in the Kettletoft Hotel. Nice enough chap. Not sure if he’ll survive the winter.’

  ‘What did he do before coming to Sanday? Do you know?’

  ‘He was an art teacher. Early retirement, I believe.’

  ‘Why here?’

  Derek shrugged. ‘A house in the south can buy four up here. Fancied a chance to make a new life. Or escape.’

  ‘Escape?’

  ‘They all come here to escape something. Even folk from Kirkwall,’ Derek said with a knowing smile. ‘It’s just you can never escape the weather.’

  As if on cue, a sudden squall hit the side of the jeep.

  ‘You won’t be flying back,’ Derek offered.

  The schoolhouse looked like the one Erling had spent his primary-school days in. L-shaped, the backbone of it had housed the big classroom where they’d all sat at desks according to age. A second room had served as a dining room and occasional second classroom where the bigger folk went for more grown-up lessons such as maths.

  How Erling had envied the older pupils that privilege. He remembered going into the room after such a lesson and finding strange shapes on the blackboard, which seemed to symbolize a world he could not yet access. A world the younger Erling had wished to join as soon as possible.

  Eventually he had, and the magic of the world of mathematics had lasted through secondary school in Kirkwall. Even as far as university. That the complexity of life might be depicted symbolically had fascinated him. One thing though had spoiled that concept.

  Maths could describe the physical world, but it couldn’t describe a human thought. There was no formula for that. Nor a formula to work out why people made the decisions they did. So he hadn’t become a maths teacher after all, but a police officer. Quite why, he wasn’t sure, although he was certain that he had made the right decision. Both in his profession and the fact that he had chosen to return to his native Orkney to live and work.

  His mobile rang as they approached the schoolhouse. Erling glanced at the screen and was pleased to find Rory’s name.

  ‘Can you talk?’

  ‘Not really,’ Erling admitted.

  ‘I’ll be back tonight. Will you be there?’

  ‘If I get back from Sanday.’

  ‘I’ll cook us something.’

  ‘Good,’ Erling said and hung up as Derek swung the jeep in between the old-style school gates and drew up at what had obviously been the main entrance. As Erling climbed out, a figure appeared in the doorway. Tall, sandy-haired, the man looked to be in his forties.

  Erling introduced himself. The handclasp was firm and the man kept eye contact.

  ‘Thank you for coming out, Inspector.’

  ‘Is Hugh still here?’

  ‘He had to go to another job. He says to give him a ring if you want him back.’ He gestured that they should enter. ‘It’s quicker if we go through the house.’

  Erling followed him inside.

  The entrance fed on to a narrow hall. Mike immediately turned left and they were into the big room that Erling remembered from his own schooldays. High rafters, wooden wainscotting, big windows to let in the light. No school desks here, but a comfortable living space and heat radiating from a stove on one wall.

  In his classroom there had also been a stove, fed by coal by the pupils. Everyone wanted a seat next to the heat, especially in the dark days of winter. It was worth working hard and getting good marks just to be awarded a desk next to it.

  Mike led them out through a door at the rear area of the big room, which also housed his kitchen. Functional, organized, the man had, Erling thought, made a really good job of the conversion. The door open now, Mike ushered them outside, his expression worried by what lay before them.

  Erling surveyed the scene.

  This, he decided, had definitely been the playground, although the field beyond the fence had probably been used too. In Erling’s schooldays on the Orkney mainland, the pupils hadn’t been permitted to go beyond the perimeter fence. Despite the prospect of punishment, they’d all disobeyed. The fields and, in his case, a neighbouring shoreline were a much more enticing prospect than the confined tarred surface. The secret was always to be back before the bell rang for the end of break.

  The tar here was pitted, weeds pushing up through cracks, the surface gradually attempting to return to soil. Several feet from the back door was a mound and what Erling assumed was the hole covered by a tarpaulin, weighted down by four stones. Mike stayed by the door, his expression suggesting he had no wish to view again what lay beneath that cover.

  Erling indicated that Derek should free the corner nearest the door and together they set about folding back the tarpaulin. A gust of wind intervened as they lifted it, whipping it like a sail. A swift move on Derek’s part saw it caught and secured behind the mound.

  And there it was. The reason for Erling’s visit.

  The skull sat atop the loose earth, the empty eye sockets directed towards them. Erling heard an intake of breath as, behind them, Mike Jones revisited that image. It wasn’t the first skull Erling had seen dug up, but the impact was always the same.

  He recognized it as human, but was completely unable to picture the owner of the bony structure. From a skull it was impossible to tell if someone’s nose turned up, or if they had tiny delicate ears, or dinner plates sticking out on either side. The area around the eyes was likewise lacking in bony structures, so that feature, the most expressive and individual of a real face, had to be estimated. Something only those artists who would aim to put a face on the skull staring at him now could imagine.

  It wasn’t large, nor was it very small.

  Beside it lay a bone, which at a guess might have been a shin bone, or maybe an upper arm. Erling wasn’t familiar enough with the human skeleton to say which.

  He took a step closer. As he did so, the topsoil shifted a little, sending a small shower of stones into the hole. Erling followed their path down and something caught his eye. Poking out from the soil was a shape that just might be part of a ribcage.

  Derek had joined him.

  ‘How long do you think it’s been here?’ Erling asked him.

  ‘You’ll have to get in a real expert to tell you that,’ he said honestly.

  Mike was standing at the door. The wind, chill now, seemed to meet his tall thin body with force. It was better not to be too tall on these islands. Those closer to the earth were less troubled by the wind.

  Erling used his mobile to take a photograph, then pulled over the tarpaulin and secured it, adding another couple of stones.

  They re-entered the house in silence.

  ‘What will happen?’ Mike said, once he’d shut the door.

  ‘I’ll get a forensic specialist to take a look. Then we should know how old the grave is. If it’s a hundred years or more, the police won’t be interested.’

  ‘But someone else might?’

  ‘This entire archipelago is a wonderland for archaeologists. What were your plans for the playground?’

  ‘Vegetables, but not until spring.’

  Erling nodded. ‘Okay, now show me what you found in the loft.’

  He had painted the image with a swiftness and sureness of hand he’d never experienced before. The intricacy of the magic flower still astonished him. He’d intended keeping the grey colour of the strip of muslin, but had found shades a
nd hues dropping from his paintbrush. Even now, gazing on his attempts at painting one, Mike wanted to paint them all, although he would have to remove them from the loft to do that. A thought that made him uneasy.

  Perhaps I could take photographs of them in situ and work from that.

  The policeman’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  ‘Did you paint this?’ He was observing the canvas with an appreciative eye.

  ‘Yes,’ Mike said, almost shyly, because he thought it was better work than he’d done for some time. ‘The original is here.’ He lifted the bagged flower from the table and offered it over.

  The detective immediately tipped the flower into his hand, causing Mike’s heart to speed up. He didn’t regard himself as superstitious, but since he’d found out what the magic flowers represented, he hadn’t handled them again.

  The detective spent some moments examining it before passing it to the Ranger.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Derek whistled between his teeth.

  ‘I’ve heard of these but never actually seen one.’

  ‘What is it exactly?’

  ‘The hem of a muslin smock torn off and made into what was known as a magic flower. The story goes they were fashioned to represent the soul of the child who’d worn the smock.’

  The detective looked thoughtful at this explanation, but there appeared no unease at the Ranger’s words.

  He checked with Mike. ‘And you said on the phone there were others?’

  ‘Twelve,’ Mike said, hearing a catch in his throat. ‘In the loft of the unrenovated section.’

  ‘Thirteen deaths in one school?’ The detective posed this question to the Ranger.

  ‘The deaths could have been over a long period. Maybe the flowers weren’t all made for pupils at the school. Maybe they were for younger siblings or even for different parishes.’

  ‘How long has this building been here?’

  ‘The one-teacher schools were closed in the late forties and the pupils centralized. This building’s been here for at least a century.’

  ‘What about registering the deaths?’ Erling said.

  ‘Registration became compulsory on 1 January 1855. Before that, deaths may have been written in old parish records but not necessarily,’ the Ranger explained.

  ‘Could these have anything to do with what we found out there?’

  ‘I couldn’t see the children, whoever they were, being buried next to the schoolhouse. More likely they’d be laid to rest in a cemetery or on their own croft ground.’

  Mike found himself momentarily relieved by that thought, then realized why he shouldn’t be.

  ‘Then who’s buried out there?’ he said worriedly.

  3

  The wind that had buffeted the cottage throughout the night had gone, although evidence of it was there on the salt-streaked windows. She’d been wakened by its howl in the dark middle of the night. Lying there in the warm cocoon of her bed, Rhona had watched the rain lash at the dormer window, a defiant moon forcing its way through the dark mass of cloud to gaze down on her as though in sympathy at the onslaught.

  Last night, and the three that had gone before, had all brought back sweeping memories of her childhood. This had always been her room. The view to the stars, when they were visible, her window on the heavens. Back then, she’d taken comfort in the knowledge that her parents slept next door and there was nothing to fear from the sound and fury of the elements that beat at the three-foot-thick stone walls, at times as though some mad god wanted to sweep her, her parents and the stones that sheltered them off the face of the earth.

  Now all was still, the silence broken only by the soft sound of waves on the nearby shore.

  Rhona dressed and, grabbing her jacket, opened the front door and stepped outside.

  Her breath caught in her throat as it always did as she took in the sight that lay before her. Some said that the view from the Gaelic college Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Sleat peninsula across to Knoydart on the mainland was one of the world’s best.

  Rhona was inclined to agree.

  At moments like this, the idea that she should move back here and live in the family cottage always resurfaced. As it did when she was particularly stressed by work or emotional relationships. Then the recurring dream of opening this door to see what lay before her now was her brain’s way of escape. But how to be a forensic expert resident on Skye? Rhona smiled at the thought, although her expertise had been required here on at least one occasion, or more particularly on the neighbouring island of Raasay.

  Her survey of the bay was rewarded by the sight of two black silky heads bobbing on the surface, observing her.

  They’re back.

  Rhona made an instant decision. It might be the last time this year she could do this without dying of hypothermia. She went inside, grabbed her wetsuit from where it hung in the back kitchen, stripped off and prepared for her swim.

  The whiskered faces observed her with interest as she made her way across the strip of sandy shore. The touch of the water as it seeped into the legs of her wetsuit made her gasp. Determined, she pulled on the hood. Five minutes. No more than ten. After which she would have a very hot shower.

  As she stepped deeper, the sand shifted to accommodate her weight, the ripples caused by waves reflected on the surface of the water. Her own image as she determinedly moved deeper was as clear as though she looked in a mirror.

  In the hooded wetsuit I look like one of them, although maybe not so plump and thankfully minus the whiskers.

  Rhona braced herself, then did a dive, the shock of the cold water on her head seeming momentarily to stop her heart. When she broke surface, gasping, she found the two seals watching her with avid interest. As Rhona approached them in a steady crawl, they parted company, to each take up a place alongside her, as they had done two days ago.

  Then began the performance that had characterized their previous encounter. If she stopped, they stopped, and viewed her. If she didn’t immediately begin swimming again, they ducked and dived as though to encourage her, or maybe simply to show off their skills. If she swam away from them, they followed, trying to keep her, it seemed, from going ashore. She was their plaything which they didn’t want to relinquish.

  But they had the layers of fat required to survive in a winter sea. She did not.

  Ten minutes later, Rhona reluctantly turned and headed for shore. The rule of cold-water swimming was to stop when your skin went from bristling cold to downright painful, and she had now reached that point. She headed swiftly up the beach to the bright-blue kitchen door. By the time she reached it, she was chittering. Getting the wetsuit off with shivering hands was harder than putting it on. Eventually she succeeded and headed for the shower, turning it on at full power and as hot as she could manage without scalding herself. A glance in the mirror over the sink as she stepped in registered blue lips and pale skin.

  I look like a mortuary specimen.

  This time her gasp was more from pleasure than pain as the hot water met her head and shoulders. As a feeling other than cold took over her body, she laughed.

  ‘That was great,’ she shouted, as she soaped her tingling skin.

  Dressed again, she checked on the fire in the small sitting room to find it had lasted the night banked up by peat. She stirred and replenished it, then set about making breakfast. Back in Glasgow, breakfast would have consisted of a couple of cups of coffee. Once at the lab, she would eat whatever Chrissy, her forensic assistant, had brought in for them, which could be anything from a traditional filled morning roll (egg, sausage, bacon or all three) to a simple croissant. Rhona always accepted whatever was on offer.

  Here, things were different. No Chrissy to supply breakfast, no calling out for home delivery or Sean to cook an evening meal. On Skye she had to be self-sufficient. She had to shop and cook.

  Rhona set up the frying pan and loaded it with square sausage, tattie scones, a slice of bacon and some mushrooms, then poured
herself a coffee to warm her inside as well as out.

  Scooping the cooked food onto a plate and slipping it in the oven, she fried two eggs from the supply left at her door by her nearest neighbour, Tam Evans, who had come to Skye from northern England to keep goats and hens.

  Fifteen minutes later she had surprised herself by wolfing down everything she had cooked.

  Chrissy and Sean would be proud of me.

  The fire had re-caught and was bringing a warm glow to the room. It seemed a shame to leave it, but leave it she must. It was a long drive back to Glasgow, and she was keen to set out as soon now as possible. As she began her packing, the room darkened as a sudden squall came in from the west, splattering thick drops of rain on the window. The bay she’d swum in earlier and the distant outline of Knoydart were both shrouded in mist. Her playmates too had gone.

  Packed and ready to leave, Rhona fetched her mobile and made a call. With luck she would be back in the city by early afternoon.

  4

  The cat was eyeing him with what McNab decided was a malicious green stare. It stood at the bedroom door, tail upright, the tip swishing the air in what looked like a warning. McNab wasn’t fond of cats in general. This one he positively disliked.

  And the feeling is definitely mutual.

  Since Freya had brought the cat back to stay at her flat, there was now no avoiding it. Smart, it ignored McNab when Freya was about, lavishing its affection on her, so that it appeared docile and lovable. McNab knew the opposite to be the truth.

  He had been the one to find the cat standing guard over the body of its former mistress, Leila Hardy. He had seen the cat defend her remains with the ferocity of a panther. He knew the cat’s past and its true character. He also knew that it didn’t want him around. It had made that quite plain, to McNab at least.

  McNab had made a joke of it at first, then declared outright that the cat didn’t like him.

  Freya had observed him with those thoughtful eyes, then said, ‘I owe it to Leila to give him a home.’