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‘I never went there.’
‘Not good enough.’
‘OK, OK, let me think. It was called St Mary of the Field or St Margaret of the Field. That’s all I know. I swear. And it was years ago. Might not even exist any more.’
Cyrus looks at me. I nod. It’s the truth.
Florence bought Cyrus a new phone. He calls DI Carlson, passing on the information. In the meantime, I’m left with Murdoch, who fidgets and shuffles, still holding the cap in his hands.
‘Ah’m not trying to wash my hands of this,’ he says. ‘Ah know I’ve done terrible things, but I want to make amends.’
‘How?’
‘That’s why I’m here . . . to explain.’ He glances behind him to his car, an old Land Rover, patched and repainted to deal with rust. ‘If you come with me, I can show you everything. I promise you nothing bad is going to happen.’
He’s telling me the truth. I wait for Cyrus to finish his call. ‘It’s your decision,’ he says.
I hang back, staring at the open car door. I have lived in darkness for so long that I’ve grown scared of the light. Cyrus is always telling me that I can change things; that everything I want is on the other side of fear.
The Land Rover smells of wet dog and a Christmas tree air freshener. Murdoch apologises for the mess, saying he should have cleaned it up first. He doesn’t talk as he drives out of St Claire along the coast road, past factories, car yards and a new housing estate. A roadside stall is selling eggs, jam and fresh strawberries, a payment-by-honour system. Soon we’re in the open countryside where the fields are stitched together in a patchwork of squares. After a few miles we turn off onto a narrow road, leading towards the sea.
A village appears. Oyster-coloured dwellings are surrounded by stunted trees and dry-stone walls and small gardens, growing vegetables or flowers. The road twists back and forth, descending to the shoreline, where the shingle beach is partially blanketed by seaweed. There is a pub, a post office, a phone box and a row of brightly painted cottages, some of them with bed and breakfast signs.
Murdoch parks the car at the base of a steep cliff and we walk up a set of wooden stairs weathered by salt and wind. At the top is a small whitewashed cottage with a pitched slate roof surrounded by a neat garden. Below us, a concrete seawall juts into the ocean, protecting a quiet, underused stretch of beach. The North Sea is grey, the sky is blue, and a freighter inches north on the horizon.
Murdoch takes off his boots in the entrance hall. His big toe pokes through a hole in his left sock. We enter a sitting room with a picture window filled with the view.
‘Is this your place?’ asks Cyrus.
‘It’s where I grew up. My parents left it to me,’ says Murdoch.
There are family photographs on the mantelpiece. A child in them. Addie as a toddler. Addie starting school. Addie flying a kite. Playing with a dog. Sailing a dinghy. Riding a carousel horse.
There is a lone photograph lying face down on a side table. Murdoch turns it over and hands it to me. Everything stops and the room falls away. I’m staring at Agnesa, who is smiling back at me. The light is behind her, creating a golden halo around her head; and strands of her hair have pulled free from a tortoiseshell clip, framing her face.
I study everything about the photograph, her eyes, her nose, her lips, the window behind her. It’s only then that I realise the picture was taken in this same room, with light from the same window. How is that possible?
‘Where is she?’ I whisper.
‘She died nine years ago.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘A drunk driver ran a red light. Agnesa was in the passenger seat. The car hit us on her side, and threw her onto my lap, crushing her chest, trapping us in the wreckage.’ His voice chokes. ‘She died in my arms.’
I’m staring at the picture. ‘But she died on the Arianna II.’
‘That’s what I wanted to tell you. She lived.’
32
Cyrus
Evie launches herself at Murdoch, pounding his chest with her fists, screaming insults and profanities into his face. She calls him a liar but knows everything he’s told her is the truth. He takes the punches without flinching, almost leaning into the blows as though he deserves every one of them.
Growing tired, Evie slumps in an armchair, clutching the photograph of Agnesa to her chest. Murdoch crosses the room awkwardly, skirting Evie, and takes up a position beside a potbellied wood heater, summer cold. He begins talking slowly, pausing occasionally to take an extra breath and find the right words.
‘When Angus and Willie Radford came to me with the idea of smuggling people, I could have said no. Nobody put a gun to my head.’ He glances at Evie as if to apologise for his poor choice of words. ‘Ah’m not going to make excuses about owing money to the bank or worrying about losing my boat. I knew what I was doin’.’
