It’s not a house anymore. Blackened bones, tumbled rubble. All burned down.
No one alive to be seen.
She wants to turn and run, but she can’t. She needs to keep going. Incomprehensible as it seems, this must be the place. Perhaps she’s too late.
She’s nearly upon it, and over the tang of heather, the whiff of sheep droppings, Anna is picking up another scent. Like that of Tom’s house, though fainter, less biting. It’s there, though, traces of an earlier fire, only recently extinguished.
Another fire; Tom’s house, now this. Her nerves are tingling, a pricking in her thumbs. Something wicked . . .
She’s at the house now. The ruin. The first floor and roof are extensively damaged, the ground floor less so, the door still in one piece. She’d better check the rooms to see what else she can discover, but every instinct is telling her to keep out, to stay away. But she’s faced worse things than this. She takes a deep breath and puts her hand up to the blue painted door, the paint cracked and blistered, pushing it open. For a moment, she hangs in that liminal place, before taking one step, then another, moving forward into the remains of the house.
Much of the inside has been destroyed. No one could be living here. Only the external walls are still standing, their solid stone sturdy enough to withstand what must have been intense heat, the insides scorched. She looks overhead to see skeleton beams, all that remains of the first floor. What’s left of them are stumps, flamed to uneven points. There are great gaps in the devastated roof through which she can see straight up to the sky.
The stairs are partly intact. It’s too dangerous – she should get straight out of there. But she needs to see. Staying close to the wall she creeps up one step at a time, high enough that she can see the total devastation in the floor above. If anyone were up here, there’s no way they could have survived.
The smell of smoke is overwhelming in here. And another smell, though maybe it’s her imagination. Barbecue. As from the wreck of Tom’s house. Whether it’s real or not, she needs to get away from it. She retreats down the stairs as fast as possible, running out of the ruins, gulping in deep breaths of the fresh air. There’s no sign of anyone in the vicinity. Once she’s recovered her breath, Anna walks around the building, alert to any signs of habitation. But there’s nothing.
She’s too late.
54
The beauty of the view’s been tarnished. Its isolation has been abused, the remote austerity a prison for these poor women. It might beat any prison that Anna’s been inside, but she imagines trying to find her way out of here on her own, without any reliable supplies, and her heart quails at the thought.
She’s nearly at the jetty now, and to her relief the boat is still in place, Robert smoking a cigarette and looking out to the water. He doesn’t even raise his head as she approaches, not until she’s upon him, getting into the boat.
‘We need to get back.’
He nods, starting the engine.Don’t rock the boat, Anna tells herself.Don’t rock the boat. Leave it.She bites her lip.
But why the fuck didn’t this man question what was happening more? How has he let this situation continue, delivering box after box of food, taking in the money, never stopping to ask why or what he was doing?
He won’t make eye contact, staring resolutely away from her. He’s not going to help them beyond this, Anna’s sure of it. She needs to ask, though. ‘When I get back to Gairloch, I need to borrow a car. For at least a week, if not longer. Is there any way you can help?’
He doesn’t reply.
She pushes on. ‘You told me you were curious.’
He still doesn’t reply.
‘There are going to be a lot of questions to be asked soon about what the hell has been happening over there. I’ll be informing the police about what I’ve seen. How much do you want me to tell them about your role in all of this?’
A long silence. An unspoken negotiation: threat meets fear. At the mention of the police, the man twitches. ‘I’ll help as much as I can,’ he says. ‘As I’ve always done. My wife has a wee car that she doesn’t use much – we can sort you out with that.’
Anna mutters her thanks. No more argument. She just wants out of this place. The beauty’s worn off now. It’s sinister, a crow cawing on the side of the road, the clouds looming over them, grey and threatening. It’s going to rain any minute. At least they’re off the hills now, off the loch, safe under the cover of a hulking four-by-four.
They don’t talk for the rest of the drive. Anna welcomes the silence, trying to displace the fear that’s growing in her. Maybe both women died in the fire. She’d think that, were it not for the fire at Tom’s house. There’s a pattern emerging, a flickering of flames in the front of her mind.
She’s going to have to call Rachel to tell her what she’s found. The burned wreckage of the house, in which the devastated bodies of both Janice and Marie might be lying. There’s no certainty for this, though. Marie could be on the loose. She could have torched this house in the wilderness.
She could have torched Tom’s house, too.
Anna’s not sure if her fear is misplaced, but she knows that if she’d been treated in the way that these women have been, she’d be out for revenge. She needs to warn Rachel. But the tiny phone is dead, its battery finally exhausted.
They pull up outside a bungalow on the outskirts of the town, very similar to the bed and breakfast in which she stayed the night before. There’s a small silver car parked in front of it, its windscreen covered in bird droppings. The man wasn’t lying when he said that it wasn’t used much. He hurries into the house while Anna gets out of the four-by-four. Her legs have seized up despite the short journey. She bends forward and touches her toes, stretches from side to side as she tries to loosen her limbs, stiff not only from all the travelling but also some residual pain from the accident on Friday.
The man returns from the house and thrusts a car key into her hand.
‘You’ve got forty-eight hours, then I’m reporting this vehicle stolen. I don’t care about what you do with it. I never want to see you again.’
