The Missing Years Read online

  “Does she work there?”

  “Yep, right from when they started it up, on and off. I don’t think it’s great pay, but she loves working with horses. When she heard I used to ride a bit, she invited me.” The pasta has made it to the plates now; she ladles the spicy tomato sauce and prawns on top. “God, I can’t actually remember the last time I was on a horse,” she says reflectively, standing momentarily still. Her expression is uncharacteristically anxious. “I’ll probably make a complete fool of myself. And it sounds like Fiona was practically born in the saddle.”

  “Isn’t it like riding a bike?”

  “Oh, sure, absolutely, if the bike has a mind of its own and is stronger than you to boot.” She grins ruefully, and the anxiety is gone from her face. “Oh! I almost forgot the garlic bread.”

  We eat in silence for a while. It’s not quite companionable silence; it’s more that each of us is lost in her own thoughts. I’m thinking about the newspaper, and the bin bag, and Jonathan, and ashtrays full of cigarette butts, and what Glen McCue might or might not be able to tell me; I’m thinking about the Manse and how it feels without Carrie and whether or not I saw an intruder in the box room. I realize I don’t have the slightest idea what Carrie is thinking about, but for once her gray eyes are unfocused, without their usual forensic bent.

  Carrie’s pasta is delicious, but I’m eating mechanically. I put down my fork. “You know, I was thinking perhaps I should talk to Glen McCue myself. Maybe you could ask Fiona if she could give him my number.” It feels like asking for a favor, and the last thing, the absolute last thing that I want to be is beholden to Fiona. But the destination of my train has changed, and I can’t seem to climb off it. “If he’s happy to speak with me, that is.”

  She looks over the table at me, and the focus has returned to her gaze. “Are you sure you want to—”

  “No.” It comes out a little harsher than I’d intended. I try again. “No. But it seems like I’m going to.”

  “Dad was a bit worried this might happen.”

  “Really.” For once she can’t hold my gaze. They’ve talked about me, Carrie and Pete. I bet she told him about my “delusions” of last night. I wonder if she also mentioned the lights I keep leaving on. If she knew about me also checking the rooms and the locks, too, then they’d really have something to chew on together.

  “He’s just worried being here would stir things up for you.” She waves a hand and somehow conveys that “things” mean the Manse, my father’s disappearance, even my relationship with my mother. Though perhaps I’m overinterpreting. There’s an uncharacteristic anxiousness around her eyes. She doesn’t want to upset me, I realize; she’s choosing her words carefully, and the thought warms me. “Maybe it’s not healthy to revisit it. What’s done is done and cannot be undone and all that.”

  “Macbeth,” I say reflexively.

  “Mmm. And look how that turned out.”

  “You’re right. Absolutely right. Most likely any minute the wood outside is going to up and march and overthrow our dear monarch.”

  We’re both laughing now. “Yeah, okay, it’s not the best analogy,” she admits.

  “Nope.” I’m still smiling as I start to wash up the pans in the kitchen sink, looking out over the back garden. It’s twilight again, the same strange light in which I saw the cat. And the figure at the window upstairs. And in fact I can see the cat again. She’s on the wall, just like before, padding softly along the top, circumnavigating the garden. Her head is turned like before, too, to focus on the same spot, but this time I can see that there’s something there: a small bird, something like a jay perhaps, though I can’t really tell in this light. It’s far away, but from its jagged movements I get the impression that it’s injured. It keeps hopping as if trying to take flight, but doesn’t seem able to actually take off.

  I start to turn to Carrie, to point out the peril that the bird is in, then I’m suddenly gripped with a fear that I’m imagining the entire tableau. But I must have grown still enough to catch her attention. “Is there something out there?” asks Carrie.

  “I’m not sure . . . I thought I saw—”

  “Look, a cat! There on the wall.”

  The relief is unexpectedly staggering. Carrie can see it. There is a cat and she can see it. “Yes! That’s it. I guess it’s stalking the bird.”

  “What bird?”

  “At the end, not far from the gate. Look.” I’m pointing and she’s following my finger with her gaze, but she shakes her head.

  “Your eyes must be keener than mine; I can’t see anything.” She turns away, then adds slyly, “I expect you’re going long-sighted in your old age.”

  “Fuck off.” She laughs. “Maybe if I go out there I’ll scare the cat away.” I’m already unlocking the back door. Even though I know it’s coming, the chill still feels like a surprise. I’ve left my slippers inside, so I have to gingerly navigate the short stretch of gravel in bare feet before I reach the damp, cold grass of the lawn, lit only by the light from the kitchen window and open door. The cat is still on the wall; it hasn’t pounced yet. “Shoo,” I call. It regards me unblinking. “Shoo!” I try again louder and add a sudden sweeping movement, but the cat is undeterred.

  It’s getting darker by the second, but I can still see the bird. Perhaps I ought to pick it up, take it inside or something . . . I’m not at all sure what one is supposed to do with an injured bird. City living hasn’t equipped me to deal with this. I move toward it slowly, hoping not to scare it even more. It’s still trying to fly, but its attempts are becoming more feeble. I’m perhaps ten meters from it now, on an exceptionally soggy patch of grass that is surely soaking the hems of my jeans. The damp cold squelching beneath my naked feet is deeply unpleasant.

  Suddenly there’s a long shadow in the rectangle of light cast from the kitchen door. I look back to see Carrie framed in it. “Is it still there?”

  “Yes,” I say, but then I turn back to the bird . . . and it isn’t. “Wait,” I say in confusion. “Did you see it fly off?”

  “I couldn’t see it in the first place, let alone see it flying off.”

  Surely in its weakened state it couldn’t have gone far. I look around, but there’s no sign of it. To be fair, I can no longer see the cat either.

  “It must have hopped away,” I say, more to myself than Carrie. The darkness is becoming complete; there are no stars in the sky tonight. I look around a little more and then yield to the cold and the advancing black and head back toward the welcoming light of the kitchen. I see the glow of inhuman eyes and realize the cat is still on the wall, still focused on where the bird was. It’s only because I’m looking at the cat that I catch a glimpse of the missile that’s hurtling through the air toward me, and duck sideways in time for it to glance harmlessly off my arm.

  “Fuck!”

  “What was that?” Carrie calls.

  I pick up the object, which is in fact a stone that has rolled harmlessly across the lawn to lie in the rectangle of light from the back door, throwing a shadow much larger than its own self. It’s flattish, not even the size of an egg, and not terribly heavy, though I daresay I’d have felt its impact well enough if it had hit my head. It’s almost certainly a piece from the drystone wall. “Who’s there?” I call out, trying to peer through the darkness, trying to triangulate the source, fighting the instinct to run for the safety of the kitchen. It must have come from behind the cat, beyond the garden wall. “I’m warning you, I’ll call the police.” My words are immediately swallowed by the darkness. The cat’s inhuman eyes blink at me once, and then she chooses to disappear. Without conscious decision, my legs are backing me slowly toward the light that Carrie is standing in. I daren’t turn my back on the pitch black. “I’ll call the police,” I shout again, even as I continue to retreat. I’m on the gravel now, crunching awkwardly backward over it in my bare feet. The darkness mocks me w
ith its silence.

  “Jesus. Did it hit you?” asks Carrie, ushering me inside. She’s locking the back door and shooting the dead bolt for good measure. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I show her the stone I’m still holding, rubbing my thumb over its rough surface. “It’s too small to do much damage. I don’t think it was really meant to hurt me.” Just scare me. I take another look out the kitchen window, but the pitch black of the night has a firm hold.

  “But who the hell is out there throwing stones?” Carrie’s eyebrows are pinched together in concern. “Is there a teenage delinquent problem here that I don’t know about?”

  “If there is, I haven’t heard of it either.” A thought occurs to me. “I suppose it could be the person who delivered the newspaper.” Though the vicious scarlet circles around the article suggested a stronger intent than throwing little more than a pebble. That person would have thrown a boulder.

  “Should we report it?” asks Carrie as I try to wipe off my feet with kitchen roll.

  “I don’t know what the police could do. I didn’t see anything.”

  “I suppose.” I can see she doesn’t like the feeling of helplessness. That makes two of us.

  My father is dead. He was mugged in Antwerp for the money in his wallet, but the thieves got rather more than they bargained for when they discovered the diamonds on him. They were minor criminals, nothing major-league yet, but the oldest of them—a hard-faced youth not yet turned twenty—had aspirations. He knew that a theft of gemstones would attract rather more police time and effort than a stolen wallet, and therefore their choices were to either eliminate the crime, by returning everything to my father, or eliminate the witness of the crime. He didn’t find it a difficult choice, which is how my father’s body came to be tossed into the Albert Canal, where it currently lies beneath layers of silt and detritus. That same hard-faced youth has killed many times since, but he remembers my father’s murder with particular fondness on account of the extraordinary stroke of luck that led him to that unexpected windfall.

  TWELVE

  Fortified by scrambled eggs, I enter the box room the next morning armed with damp kitchen roll with which to attack the dust, and with a marker pen and a plan: I will check the contents of every box, without sorting them through; the sorting can come later (I stomp firmly on the question of when that later might be). I start by scribbling Charity on the boxes of books, wondering as I do so whether a charity shop will even want them—after all, isn’t everyone reading on a Kindle these days? The box of floral scrapbooks gets the label Albums and no further scrutiny, and another box gets the same treatment. Two boxes are full of dated household items: a clock, a couple of ornaments, a random collection of utensils and a lamp base that might go with the beige tasseled lampshade. I scrawl Dump.

  There’s a white A4 envelope on top of one of the boxes, marked PHOTOS, DO NOT BEND, that was sandwiched in between two boxes and exposed when I lifted down the lampshade and the box it was on, though I was in no mood to take a look at the time. The envelope is addressed to M. Calder, but the flap is still sealed. I slide my finger under the corner of the flap and tear the envelope open to pull out the contents, which comprise several aerial photos, standard eight-inch by ten-inch size. I take them over to the window in search of more light. It’s the relative position of the oak tree to the house that I recognize first: three of the photos contain the Manse. In one, the Manse is in the center. In another, a much smaller Manse is at the bottom of the frame, and the shot also comprises the wood and a portion of the loch. In the last, the Manse is at the top and the frame captures the road and a stretch of the side of the valley, down to the river. The other two don’t show the Manse at all; I’m not sure, but I think they might be of farther up the valley. I look in the envelope again. There’s no note, or indication of who sent this, or why. I wonder if it arrived after he disappeared. I suppose my mother must have had to deal with a lot of his correspondence. Perhaps she didn’t care to open something that was so obviously not administrative.

  I straighten up then stretch, looking out of the dormer window toward the trees that are gathered at the end of the garden, as if waiting for a chance to enter. Suddenly a flash of movement off to the left catches my eye: a red and black football. It sails through the air then lands only a few meters short of the stone wall that encircles the garden. The ball is followed in short order by a small dark-haired boy, perhaps six or seven, in navy blue tracksuit bottoms and red jumper; he runs to the ball, picks it up, then looks hesitantly at the stone wall. Even at this distance I can tell he’s warring with himself. A sleek black Labrador bounds into view and looks up at him expectantly. As I watch, the boy visibly makes a decision and his face clears: he drop-kicks the ball over the wall. It bounces twice in the garden—my garden—before rolling to a stop beside the leg of a bench that rests on the opposite side. There’s no question that the kick was deliberate. He begins to purposefully scramble over the garden wall. A burst of laughter escapes me.

  I get to the back door only moments after he has rapped on it, but it takes a good ten seconds of fumbling with the still stiff new dead bolt before I get the door open. “Hello.” I’m cautious with children, as they’re not my natural milieu. I’m never entirely sure how to pitch my approach, but smiling seems a good start. He’s a stocky little mite, this one; thoroughly robust looking, with ruddy cheeks on his otherwise pale skin, and inquisitive dark eyes to match the dark hair.

  “I’m awfy sorry but my ball accidentally landed in your back garden,” he says. Very much a local boy. Awfy, not awfully. Ball pronounced like baw.

  “Accidentally, of course.” My lips are twitching. “Could happen to anyone, I suppose.” He looks at me warily but relaxes when he sees my smile. I stick my hand out. “I’m Ailsa.”

  He shakes it solemnly. “I’m Callum. I stay across the field.” He waves nonspecifically behind him. The phrases of my early childhood are coming back to me. Not Where do you live? but Where do you stay?

  “We’re neighbors then. I would love to invite you in, but I don’t think your parents would like you to enter a stranger’s house all on your own.” I pause. “Are you meant to be out alone?”

  “I have Toast,” he says defensively.

  I look at him blankly. “Toast?”

  “My dog.” He steps back, looking around for the Labrador and frowning. It’s fascinating to watch him, every thought and emotion writ clear on his little face. “Oh, I forgot, she willnae come in here.” Before I can ask what he means, he rushes on. “And anyway, Mum’s friend is looking after me. He’ll be along in a minute. He wants to see you anyway.”

  Right on cue I hear a deep voice calling exasperatedly, “Callum! Callum! What did I tell you—” I’m fairly certain I know who owns that voice.

  “It’s all right,” Callum calls back. “She’s here.”

  I lean out of the doorway, holding on to the frame with one hand, and am confronted by the sight of Ben placing one hand on the wall then athletically vaulting over the entire thing. “Hi, Ben,” I call, with a wry smile.

  He’s smiling back at me ruefully. “Hey there. I did tell Callum that it would be much more polite for me to call ahead and see if you were amenable to visitors, but apparently he couldn’t wait—”

  Callum is shaking his head in vociferous denial. “I could wait, but my ball landed in the garden—see?” He points over at the football.

  “I do see. I see that you’re shamelessly beyond redemption.” His words are stern but he reaches out a hand to tousle Callum’s hair, and the boy’s face splits into a grin.

  “Seeing as you’re both here now, would you like to come in for a drink and a biscuit?” If we have biscuits . . . I’m mentally reviewing the shopping haul—I think I saw some Hobnobs in there. Carrie’s choice; I don’t buy biscuits for myself.

  Callum looks up at Ben, and Ben nods his approval, dropping a han
d on Callum’s shoulder. It’s not overbearing, or proprietorial; it’s more a gesture of solidarity. “Yes, please,” Callum says eagerly, and I step back into the kitchen, holding open the door and ushering them both in. Callum bounds in, then stops abruptly. “But . . . but it shouldnae look like this,” he says uncertainly.

  “Callum!” admonishes Ben. Once again I’m reminded of how tall he is. It’s more apparent in the close confines of the kitchen than it was in the garden.

  “It’s okay, I totally agree. Rather . . . yellow, isn’t it? The decor doesn’t really fit the outside.” I smile at the boy, and he smiles back, relieved not to have offended. “Go ahead, sit down. We’re not really set up for small people, I’m afraid. I can do milk, water or fresh apple juice, but no squash or anything more exciting.” I start to hunt down the biscuits. “We do have . . . yep, here we go. Hobnobs.” Carrie has obviously had a go at these already; the packet is at least a third gone. I place it on the table and Callum looks at Ben questioningly.

  “It’s okay,” Ben says. “You can have a couple.” The boy’s hand snakes out, whip fast. “A couple is two, by the way,” he adds drolly, looking pointedly at the boy, who wrinkles his nose, then thanks me through a mouthful of biscuit.

  Mum’s friend. What does that translate to in adult vernacular? They certainly seem unrelated, with Callum’s dark hair and eyes in clear contrast to Ben’s pale blue eyes and much fairer hair. And whereas I already know that Ben tans well, without even freckling, Callum possesses milk-pale skin.

  “Thanks again for the other night,” I tell Ben, pulling out a chair to join them at the table. “Did you do much damage to the whisky in the end?”