tap of a close neighbour. This is someone demanding entrance. My heart starts to thud in my chest. Queenie’s frantic barking doesn’t help.
There he is, Callum Murray, right there on my doorstep, claiming my attention in person just as he does, so much of the time, in my head. He has the grace to look embarrassed.
‘Sorry, I know it’s late, but I think someone should search the wrecks. We should start with the Endeavour, that’s the most likely, then the Sanningham. ’
Remembering this afternoon, seeing him in the café, I want to hit him, but that would require too much in the way of an explanation. ‘What are you talking about?’ I say, instead.
‘I’ve been thinking about places he could have been taken.’ Callum steps back, as though not to crowd me. ‘Everyone’s checked their outhouses and their barns and their peat sheds. He isn’t anywhere obvious. He’s where no one would think to look.’
‘He’s at the bottom of a bog. He’ll float in a few days when his body fills up with gases.’ I know I sound heartless, but the last time I saw this man, he was grinning at the woman who killed my children.
‘The Endeavour, ’ he repeats. ‘Catrin, are you listening to me?’
The Endeavour was an Antarctic supply ship that sits now on the seabed off the coast of Fitzroy. It will be the small hours before we’re back.
‘He can’t be on a wreck.’
‘Ask yourself where you’d hide a three-year-old,’ Callum says. ‘Somewhere he’ll be safe until you need him again, but with no possible way of escape and where no one else would think to look.’
There’s a time lag in our conversation. He speaks, but it takes me a second or two to process the content.
He doesn’t wait for me to answer. ‘The Endeavour isn’t much more than an hour’s drive from where he went missing. It’s largely out of the water, but too far out for wading or even swimming to shore to be a possibility.’
‘You’re saying someone grabbed him, drove him to the coast, put him in a dinghy, motored or rowed out to the Endeavour and stowed him in the wheelhouse?’
‘Or the Sanningham, but the Endeavour is more likely because you wouldn’t have to drive close to Stanley to get him there. Are you saying it’s impossible?’
I want to. Except … ‘Have you shared this with Stopford?’
‘He’s still tied up at the harbour with the cruise ship.’
I know about the police activity at the harbour. My own boat was searched earlier. The constable who stopped by the office to collect the keys told me that no boat, skippered by resident or visitor, will be allowed to leave harbour without police permission while Archie West is still missing. It is very much in my interests that the child is found quickly.
I give in to the inevitable and find my jacket and keys.
‘You can drive,’ I tell Callum as Queenie follows us to his Toyota. ‘I’m wrecked.’
He jumps in and starts the engine. ‘Yeah, I imagine Archie West’s feeling pretty jaded right now. Not to mention his mum and dad.’
There’s no real answer to that, so we head for the harbour in silence.
The town is busier than it should be, people on the streets, beer bottles in hand. We have a mild problem with alcohol abuse on the islands. Noise, skirmishes, minor vandalism. In all fairness, there isn’t a lot else for the younger people to do in the evenings, but it’s usually, if not reasonably good-natured, then basically harmless. Not tonight, though. I don’t like the purpose I can see in these groups. I don’t like the way people stop talking and watch us drive past.
We explain ourselves to the constable on duty who agrees to let Chief Superintendent Stopford know our plans. The boat is searched, quickly, once again and then we’re on our way out towards The Narrows.
Normally, there’s something rather magical about harbours at night-time. Even I’m not immune to the beauty of coloured light dancing on water, the playful sounds of water
There he is, Callum Murray, right there on my doorstep, claiming my attention in person just as he does, so much of the time, in my head. He has the grace to look embarrassed.
‘Sorry, I know it’s late, but I think someone should search the wrecks. We should start with the Endeavour, that’s the most likely, then the Sanningham. ’
Remembering this afternoon, seeing him in the café, I want to hit him, but that would require too much in the way of an explanation. ‘What are you talking about?’ I say, instead.
‘I’ve been thinking about places he could have been taken.’ Callum steps back, as though not to crowd me. ‘Everyone’s checked their outhouses and their barns and their peat sheds. He isn’t anywhere obvious. He’s where no one would think to look.’
‘He’s at the bottom of a bog. He’ll float in a few days when his body fills up with gases.’ I know I sound heartless, but the last time I saw this man, he was grinning at the woman who killed my children.
‘The Endeavour, ’ he repeats. ‘Catrin, are you listening to me?’
The Endeavour was an Antarctic supply ship that sits now on the seabed off the coast of Fitzroy. It will be the small hours before we’re back.
‘He can’t be on a wreck.’
‘Ask yourself where you’d hide a three-year-old,’ Callum says. ‘Somewhere he’ll be safe until you need him again, but with no possible way of escape and where no one else would think to look.’
There’s a time lag in our conversation. He speaks, but it takes me a second or two to process the content.
He doesn’t wait for me to answer. ‘The Endeavour isn’t much more than an hour’s drive from where he went missing. It’s largely out of the water, but too far out for wading or even swimming to shore to be a possibility.’
‘You’re saying someone grabbed him, drove him to the coast, put him in a dinghy, motored or rowed out to the Endeavour and stowed him in the wheelhouse?’
‘Or the Sanningham, but the Endeavour is more likely because you wouldn’t have to drive close to Stanley to get him there. Are you saying it’s impossible?’
I want to. Except … ‘Have you shared this with Stopford?’
‘He’s still tied up at the harbour with the cruise ship.’
I know about the police activity at the harbour. My own boat was searched earlier. The constable who stopped by the office to collect the keys told me that no boat, skippered by resident or visitor, will be allowed to leave harbour without police permission while Archie West is still missing. It is very much in my interests that the child is found quickly.
I give in to the inevitable and find my jacket and keys.
‘You can drive,’ I tell Callum as Queenie follows us to his Toyota. ‘I’m wrecked.’
He jumps in and starts the engine. ‘Yeah, I imagine Archie West’s feeling pretty jaded right now. Not to mention his mum and dad.’
There’s no real answer to that, so we head for the harbour in silence.
The town is busier than it should be, people on the streets, beer bottles in hand. We have a mild problem with alcohol abuse on the islands. Noise, skirmishes, minor vandalism. In all fairness, there isn’t a lot else for the younger people to do in the evenings, but it’s usually, if not reasonably good-natured, then basically harmless. Not tonight, though. I don’t like the purpose I can see in these groups. I don’t like the way people stop talking and watch us drive past.
We explain ourselves to the constable on duty who agrees to let Chief Superintendent Stopford know our plans. The boat is searched, quickly, once again and then we’re on our way out towards The Narrows.
Normally, there’s something rather magical about harbours at night-time. Even I’m not immune to the beauty of coloured light dancing on water, the playful sounds of water
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