The Visitors (5 page)

We pulled away from my house. I fished in my bag for headphones, but we lurched to a stop almost right away. I looked up. The girl from Dog Rock had hailed the bus. The doors slid open.

‘Morning,’ said Bev. ‘Are you for the school?’

I couldn’t hear the response over the noise of the engine.

‘Right enough,’ she said. ‘Hop on. Mind you get yourself a pass from the secretary.’

The girl stepped onto the shaking bus and looked along the aisle. I watched her eyes drift over the schoolkids and empty seats and wheezing pensioners, resting for a moment on each person. When she looked at me, she offered the same weird half-smile from the day before. With one hand on the rail, she nodded apologetically, walked two steps down the aisle and swung into an empty seat by the window, just across the aisle. The automatic door huffed shut and Bev turned the minibus back onto the single-track road.

From the window, I glimpsed the man in the dinghy. The inflatable raced across Still Bay, leaving a wake of froth on the waves. The girl must have brought it over in time for the bus, and left it for him to get home. The bay heaved grey and fizzing.

Outside the village, the road climbed steeply along the coast. I watched the girl from Dog Rock. I could only see the side of her face. Her skin was stark against such dark hair, tied as before away from her face. Her cheekbone shadowed harsh against the light of the window, and she sat wrapped up in a thick coat. She put on headphones and didn’t look at anything except the window. I wondered what sort of numpty
would move to Dog Rock. If I’d been one of the island biddies, I’d have crossed the aisle to interrogate her for information. I’d decided long ago never to be an island biddy, but that didn’t stop me wanting to know. I turned up the volume on my player instead, and set it to shuffle. Through the window opposite, trees flickered in a kaleidoscope of green and brown and grey.

The road weaved a nauseating zigzag between the hills. The outskirts of the town emerged from the crests of hills like ships on a heaving sea. Isolated crofts gathered steadily towards the larger settlement. There wasn’t much to the island’s only town. Tighna was built around its harbour. A natural breakwater provided shelter from the Bancree Sound, allowing the harbour to house half a dozen battered fishing boats and a broad concrete slipway. The long, whitewashed side of Clachnabhan gleamed above the water. Situated right beside the slip, the distillery was the first building anyone noticed when they came to visit. The ferry was the heart of Tighna, beating half a dozen times a day. There was no other way to live on the island. Without the ferry, Tighna would be another coastal ghost town. On the rugged northern coast, ancient crofting townsteads had fallen in on themselves. Without the ferry, Tighna would go the same way.

The bus jolted to a halt in the harbour car park, and I knocked my head on the window. Dog Rock girl was already disembarking. She was small and neat and I was jealous of her Doc Martens. She looked around, getting her bearings, then strode towards the slip and the waiting ferry. The other island schoolkids pushed each other down the aisle, hooting and joking. I gathered my things and followed. The girl was well ahead by the time she reached the ferry. She peered into the passenger lounge, then stepped inside. I said a quick hello
to Jow, the captain. He grunted a vague reply and waved me on. I climbed straight to the exposed upper deck.

I’d known this ferry all my life. She was called the
Island Queen
, like a dozen other island ferries. I could just about remember my first day at secondary school, when Mum rode across with me. It was thrashing with rain, and we sat in the lounge. Our breath condensed on the windows and we drew pictures in the fog.

The reek of petrol clung heady to the lower deck, but up top, the sea breeze stripped it clean. The last car inched onto the ferry, and Jow pushed buttons to raise the loading ramp. With a clank that shook the boat, it closed. He clambered up the stairs to his cabin. A moment later, the boat started trembling, sending thin vibrations into the soles of my feet, and the ferry lurched as he engaged the engines. Foam churned from the stern.

This was my routine. I knew which corner of the lounge was the warmest, and which toilet seat tried to tip you off. I knew the spot where kids from Spain and Greece had chipped their names into the green gloss. Yannis, Stefanie, Pablo, Esme. They came for a week’s holiday, graffitied their names everywhere, and then they left.

If I ever went to Spain or Greece, I’d carve my name onto everything I saw.

The Sound was fairly calm, despite the breeze, with only a few white horses cresting distant waves. In places, the sun was trying to break through, glowing blinding white behind the banks of cloud. The mainland crawled closer, its ochre fields and grey-green plantations gaining definition as we approached, divided by long lines of drystone walling and the whitewashed dots of scattered crofts. Sprawling back from the sea, like it had washed up on the shore, lay the harbour town of Tanno, by far the biggest on this stretch of coast. People
travelled hours from the smaller islands to come for shopping and cheaper petrol or a big night out, or for appointments with the doctor or the travelling dentist.

A sharp whine cut across the thunder of the ferry’s engines. I turned my head to either side, focusing the sound, trying to work out what it was. After a few moments, I knew the noise.

‘Lachlan,’ I muttered.

Even as I spoke, a motor launch roared in front of us, the noise clarifying as it drew closer to the ferry. Froth rocked a trail of spume behind it. Three or four men hooted and called from the boat, their music thumping loud. Lachlan Crane was steering the launch, his shirt unbuttoned and flapping loose despite the cloud, sunglasses gleaming like a jet pilot.

‘Dippit playboy,’ I said.

Lachlan was the only child of old Munzie Crane, the distillery owner, and he was next in line to the throne at Clachnabhan. Dozens of islanders worked there, and loads of the Tanno townsfolk, and they all hated Lachlan. He was a bully and a womaniser. He’d tried it on with every girl I knew, including me. Somehow, he’d made it to the age of twenty-five without killing himself through a combination of motorbikes, boats, drugs, drink and fights. He carried a knife. Everybody knew it.

One of Lachie’s posse yelled and flung a bottle out behind him, the glass flashing green before it sank into the foam. The others laughed. The motorboat thrashed across the ferry’s wake, engines yowling. The noise turned tinny as it raced back into the Sound. The bottle spun madly, bobbed and sank.

I watched the launch out of sight, eyes narrowed, glad to see them go. Lachlan Crane spent half his time abroad, and half at home, where he lived with his father in a vast, empty house on the hill behind Tighna. When he was around, the
whole island twitched with trouble. He also had it in for Ronny. I’d have to tell him Lachlan was back in town.

It depressed me beyond words to think of that green bottle, thrown so carelessly, sinking to the bottom of the Sound. It would break and disintegrate, and the pieces would be tugged on the tides, scattered over miles.

The sun had threatened to break through, but now the clouds gathered weight and oozed menace. The air felt too thick. It was intangible and impossible to frame, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to happen.

The feeling underfoot changed as we chugged into the harbour. Jow slowed the ferry to a crawl, and the deck rattled with engine vibration. The shuddering boat churned up water, dredging fragments of weed and wood from the harbour bottom. I leaned over the rail, looking down into the foam. This is me, I thought. Thrashing at nothing. Empty energy, melting back into the sea.

Dark movement flitted through the froth. I frowned and looked again, trying to identify the shape. It crested once more in the agitated water. At first I thought it was a piece of wood, caught in the turbulence, but then I laughed out loud. There was a seal in Tanno harbour.

Seals were common on Bancree, but even then they were shy animals, and it was rare to see them in such a populated place. It was even stranger to see one so close to the ferry. It must have been a very confident animal. I watched for minutes as the speckled seal crisscrossed through the foam. It would have been chasing after crabs, disturbed by the juddering wake. The churning subsided as we approached the harbour wall, and the seal vanished in a wink. I scoured the water in widening circles, but it was gone. Outside the expanding ring of foam, the harbour was still and clear.

The ferry crawled and bobbed up to the slipway, resting against the concrete with the slightest of bumps. Jow left his
cabin, and threw down a rope. Onshore, the harbourmaster moored
Island Queen
to a post, then slunk back to his porta-cabin office. Routine, routine. Jow unshackled the ramp and lowered it to the slipway. The few cars drove off and about their business. Sales, appointments, holidays. They drove south in a convoy on the main road out of town. Some of the island’s younger kids disembarked and moved towards the school. Across the road, a gaggle of foreigners laughed and drank coffee from polystyrene cups. They were mostly Poles, and some Lithuanians, tall, broad men working long shifts at the fish farm. Dodging between them, a postie juggled parcels.

I gathered my bag and took the stairs to the lower deck, footsteps ringing on the metal. I nodded goodbye to Jow and drudged up the slipway into Tanno, wondering what it must be like to be a seal, to tumble in the water, to flit and soar and drift, cushioned always by the sea. At the top of the slope, the town opened into a panorama. Pretty houses painted in pinks and pastel yellows lined the harbour on three sides.

Another snow globe. It felt so small.

I inhaled the rank weedy air, and pulled my hair into a ponytail.

‘Excuse me,’ said a voice.

I turned. Dog Rock girl stood at the top of the slipway. She looked miserable, her dark, neat features bound in reluctance.

‘Oh, hello.’

Only then, facing each other, did it seem suddenly ridiculous not to have spoken sooner. My brand-new neighbour, the only other person my age on Bancree, and we’d travelled the entire way to the mainland without saying a word.

‘Sorry,’ she said, looking as awkward as I felt, ‘but could you show me where the school is? I don’t know this place at all.’

‘Sure. I’m going too.’ I hesitated. ‘What’s your name?’

She looked briefly at me, then the sky. ‘Ailsa,’ she said. ‘My name is Ailsa Dobie.’

‘I’m still Flora. Or Flo. Well, school’s just up the road here.’

We left the slipway and walked along the harbourfront. There were some chuckles and jokes when we passed the fish farm work gang. I ignored them, but Ailsa blushed.

‘It’s only a few minutes,’ I said. ‘And the kids on the island can only get here by ferry, so there’s no big drama if we’re late. What year are you in?’

‘Sixth.’

‘Me too.’

An ugly part of myself lapsed into old biddy mode, craving gossip for handing door-to-door. I choked it down.

‘What are you studying?’

‘Nothing interesting. Art. Graphic Communication. French.’

‘I’m in English,’ I said, though it sounded just as bland, ‘and Spanish. And History.’

‘Right,’ she said. She seemed nervous, but I would be too. Her voice was soft and quiet, only tinged with an island accent. ‘So what’s this place like?’

‘Probably about the same as your last spot, I suppose. There’s good teachers and bad ones. There’s some decent kids and a bunch of neds.’

I thought this would settle her. If anything, her frown creased even deeper.

‘Where was your last school? Are you from the islands?’

‘Aye. All over, really. Dad moves around for his work. We moved from Islay, like I said. Just outside a wee village called Portnahaven. I went to school in Bowmore.’

‘Bit weird for you, moving here just for sixth year.’

‘I’m used to moving every year,’ she said, glumly. ‘But I’m
not exactly looking forward to it, no. I don’t know anyone. Except you, now.’

‘Well, if it helps, I’m hardly Miss Scotland when it comes to popularity. Most of my pals were my boyfriend’s pals. They were in the year above. They’re all gone now.’

‘Was that your boyfriend yesterday? The boy with the cigarettes?’

‘Aye, Richard,’ I said, then reconsidered. ‘Well, he was. He’s gone to uni. In Bristol. I’m not sure he’ll be my boyfriend for much longer.’

‘I hate smoking. Do you smoke?’

‘No. Never have,’ I told her, surprised at the reaction.

‘That’s good.’

I stopped short as we passed the post office. In grainy black and white, Doug MacLeod grinned from the plastic-fronted notice board. It had been carefully cropped, but I still recognised the Bull Hotel behind him. Even in his own poster, he was pissed. Above his mugshot, the headline said:
MISSING
. There weren’t any more details, just a request to contact the constabulary. I scanned the other cards, then turned away. We fell into step at the bottom of the hill.

‘Who was that?’ said Ailsa.

‘A drunken old fart called Dougie. He’s been missing for a week or so. He’s pals with a lot of folk round here.’

‘What happened?’

‘No one knows,’ I shrugged. ‘He’s gone, that’s all. He never turned up to work. He used to stay with folk all over the place, in Tighna and Tanno, but now he can’t be found, and he’s not in any of the pubs. He’s vanished.’

We walked a moment in silence.

‘Has this happened before?’ she asked.

‘Not really. Well. This is the second time, I suppose. Another islander vanished a few months ago, a man called Billy
Wright. But he often goes travelling by himself. Some folk think they’re connected. Personally, I don’t think it’s a big deal.’

Her frown deepened, lines stark on her white skin.

‘Why do you ask?’ I said.

‘Nothing. It’s my dad.’

‘Your dad?’

I remembered my glimpse through the binoculars, his face as he’d walked past. I formed the words carefully, but my heart kicked a sudden drum.