11 Cyrus

11

Outside, the sky has turned dense blue, and sunlight glitters off glass and chrome. Days like today make you wonder if rain and clouds actually exist. We walk towards the harbour, Evie jogging to keep up with me.

‘I want you to meet Finn Radford,' I say.

‘Why?'

‘Because if you remember him – he might remember you – we'll know you were on board the same trawler.'

Evie stops moving.

‘What's wrong?' I ask.

‘He'll know what happened to the others.'

‘Yes,' I say, remembering the ghosts that haunted Finn Radford.

At the Fisherman's Hostel I go upstairs to the same room as before but find it empty. This time, the two old guys are playing backgammon at a table in the lounge, ignoring the bright commentary of the morning TV hosts.

‘I'm looking for Finn Radford,' I say.

They answer in unison. ‘You're too early.'

‘Where would I find him?'

‘Home,' says one.

‘Where's home?'

He finally looks up. ‘Rattray Head.' He pronounces it ‘rattery'. ‘Last place before you reach the lighthouse.'

Evie googles the location on her phone and we drive north out of St Claire, along the A90, which cuts through ploughed fields and summer crops. The road runs ahead of us, curving and cat's-eyed, patched in places with fresh tar. We pass a makeshift shrine of flowers and a small white cross beside the road – a memorial to someone who died away from home.

Two miles past the St Fergus Gas Terminal we turn right at a signpost for Rattray and follow a single-lane blacktop between overgrown hedges and thickets of trees and open farmland. We pass a ruined church and whitewashed farmhouses, shadowed in places by clouds that have interrupted the solid blue, sweeping in from the sea. Silhouetted against the skyline, I see the ruins of a long grey building, now partially collapsed with the charred roof beams exposed and three remaining walls canted at different angles.

The road narrows again as we reach a cluster of buildings with a sign saying ‘Lighthouse Cottages'. The tarmac is crumbling in places, or barely visible beneath weeds and muddy puddles. We weave along the track, avoiding the potholes, heading towards the dunes. More ruins are just visible in the fields, poking up through the breeze-riffled grass. They could be gravestones or the remnants of ancient dwellings.

‘I don't think there is another house,' says Evie, as the dunes get nearer. ‘We must have missed it.'

At that moment a bus rumbles over a rise, taking up the entire track. I'm so surprised to meet another vehicle that I almost steer us straight into a hedge. At the last moment, I hammer the brakes and the bus driver does the same, skidding sideways and putting one front wheel into a ditch.

Both of us get out. He examines the sunken wheel and I apologise, even though it's nobody's fault. The bus is full of people, who I assume are sightseers coming back from the lighthouse, although nobody gets off.

‘It's not stuck,' says the driver, who gets back behind the wheel and reverses. I do the same, pulling over at the next farm gate, allowing him room to pass.

‘I've seen that bus before,' says Evie. ‘At a factory in town.'

‘What factory?'

She tells me about Polaris Pelagic, sounding out the name, one syllable at a time.

‘It must be a fishing company,' I say. ‘Pelagic means living in the open sea.'

The family I met on my first morning in St Claire told me that Willie Radford owned a fish processing plant, one of the town's biggest employers.

‘Polaris means North Star, doesn't it?' says Evie.

‘How do you know that?'

‘A friend taught me about stars. He knew all the names of the constellations. Ursa Major. Cassiopeia. Cepheus. The Big Dipper. Orion's Belt. He said that shooting stars aren't stars at all, but meteors falling through the darkness.'

The bus edges past us, inches from my mirror. I catch a glimpse of the passengers, some leaning against the windows, as though trying to sleep. Others make eye contact. Unsmiling. Uninterested.

Steering back onto the track, I look for a place to turn around. At the next break in the hedge, there is an open gate and fresh tyre tracks. I turn off and we splash through puddles, crossing a narrow bridge with no safety rails.

Cresting a small rise, the nose of the Fiat dips and offers a sudden view across open grassland and sandhills. Caravans and tents are clustered beside a grove of trees that mark the line of a water course. At first glance it could be the camping area at the fringes of a music festival, but the sound stages and food stalls are missing. These tents are crude. Some are little more than sheets of tarpaulin, strung over branches and held down at the edges by pegs and rocks. Campfires are smouldering and women are hanging washing or carrying water from a tank. Children chase after a lame dog who wags a limp tail and lopes ahead of them.

‘Are they gypsies?' asks Evie.

‘I don't think you can call them that.'

‘What do we call them?'

‘Travellers. Roma. Itinerants.'

‘My best friend Mina was Romany,' she says. ‘I met her on my first day at school and we sat together. Mina's father drove a horse and cart and collected scrap metal and had a horse called Mother Teresa. That's the name of a famous nun who was born in Albania. I learned about her at school.'

Evie stops talking and notices that I'm smiling.

‘What?' she asks, self-consciously. ‘Did I say something wrong?'

‘No.'

‘Why the stupid grin?'

‘You just told me more about your childhood in one breath than you've told me in a year of living together.'

‘So?'

‘It's good.'

One of the children notices our car and raises the alarm. Suddenly, the occupants of the camp begin scattering through the hedges and towards the sandhills or into the scrubby trees. Women are picking up toddlers and babies, pulling veils over their faces, leaving their belongings behind.

‘They're frightened of us,' says Evie.

‘They think we're the authorities.'

‘The police?'

‘The Home Office. Border Force.'

We continue driving down the track. As we near the camp, I notice that one woman has remained. She is sitting on a small wooden crate beside a fire. As the car approaches, she raises her eyes, pushing hair under the veil that is slipping off her forehead. Her right arm is supported by a blue sling knotted around her neck.

‘I know her,' says Evie. ‘She was outside the factory. They wouldn't let her work.'

Leaving the car, we walk towards the woman, who turns back to the fire, using a twig to push coals beneath a blackened pot. The lame dog barks but doesn't come closer.

‘Hello,' says Evie. ‘Remember me?'

The woman looks up, waving smoke from her eyes.

‘How is your arm?' asks Evie.

‘I can work. They won't let me.'

‘Who won't let you?' I ask.

‘The one in charge.' Dipping a spoon into the pot, she lifts it to her lips, tasting, adding a pinch of salt, stirring.

‘Where are you from?' I ask.

‘Afghanistan.'

‘How did you get here?'

She nods towards the sea and eyes me suspiciously. ‘Are you here to arrest us?'

‘We don't work for Border Force,' I say.

‘It's true,' says Evie.

The woman breaks up twigs and feeds the fire.

‘How long have you lived out here?' I ask.

‘Me? Four months. We work to pay off our debts, but the boss man charges us for food and for these tents.'

‘What happens if you don't pay?'

‘We taste the coin of Charon.'

I think of Arben's death and the coin placed in his mouth. ‘Have you ever met the Ferryman?' I ask.

She shakes her head.

‘How do you know he exists?'

‘I have seen what happens when people don't believe in him.'

Evie has stepped away, moving closer to the lame dog, which has fallen silent, flattening its ears and lying on its belly.

‘Be careful. He bites,' says the woman.

Evie crouches and slowly holds out her hand, palm down, fingers curled, waiting. The dog edges closer, sniffing at her. His tail begins to sway. Evie whispers something and scratches the dog's chin. It rolls over, wanting a tummy rub.

‘That dog has a better life than we do,' says the woman. ‘More rights.'

‘Who runs this place?' I ask.

She nods towards the grove of trees. Through the thinner, lower branches, I notice the ruins of a wooden fishing hut with boarded-up windows and paint peeling from the planks. It looks abandoned apart from a newer plastic rainwater tank squatting under the eaves.

Evie follows me as I walk towards the hut along a compacted dirt track weaving through the trees. We emerge into an unmown yard where a bleached wooden dinghy is resting in a metal cradle. A goat is tethered to a post. Chickens wander through the yard. Odd objects stick up through the grass – the rim of a tyre, a rusting mangle, a beer keg, an old fridge without a door . . . Wire lobster pots are rusting in a clump of weeds near the open front door and a thin stream of smoke curls from the pipe chimney.

A figure emerges. Finn Radford is dressed in baggy track pants and a stained sweater. Unshaven. Hollow-eyed. Spying us, he croaks, ‘You can't be here. I can't talk to you.'

‘This is Evie,' I say.

Finn shifts his attention, but his bloodshot eyes don't seem to focus. Alcohol is oozing from his pores, forming a sheen on his face, which is alive with tics and twitches. Evie has stopped moving. Sunlight and recognition flare in her eyes.

‘Who are your neighbours?' I ask.

‘Holidaymakers,' says Finn.

‘That's an illegal campground.'

‘We give them permission to stay.'

‘And you give them work?'

Finn doesn't answer. Instead, he walks to the nearby wood pile and picks up an axe. For a moment, I think he's going to threaten us, but he takes a log and balances it upright on a sawn-off stump. The axe swings, cleaving the wood in half.

‘We want to know what happened to the Arianna,' I say.

‘It sank.'

‘You weren't fishing.'

‘On our way home.'

The axe swings again and again, until his Medusa-head of tangled hair is wet with sweat. Exhausted, he sits on the stump and lights a cigarette, sucking so heavily the filter collapses between his lips. He squints into the smoke.

‘You were smuggling people,' I say.

His eyes are slitted against the smoke. ‘Yeah. Who says?'

‘I say,' says Evie.

Finn regards her again, more closely this time. His sallow face has the depth of a pie plate and I wonder if the alcohol has damaged his brain. He twists his neck as though releasing a crick.

‘They gave us no choice,' he mutters, as though talking to himself.

‘Who?'

‘The Government, Brussels, Marine Scotland – all the lying duplicitous bastards who told us where to fish and what to fish and how many fish we could catch and what we had to throw back. You know how soul-destroying it is to toss dead fish back into the sea because of quotas that no other bastard country in Europe is abiding by?'

He doesn't expect an answer. ‘We had families. Children. Mortgages. Debts. The politicians didn't care. Not down south. We were Scottish scum. They hated us as much as we hated them, but we wouldn't go quietly. We fought back. We found a way to survive.'

‘By smuggling.'

‘I prefer to call it free trade. The open exchange of goods and services.'

‘You were trafficking human beings.'

He looks again at Evie, cocking his head to one side. A soggy stub of cigarette hangs from his lips. ‘Do ah know you?'

‘She was on board the Arianna,' I say.

He shakes his head. ‘They're all ghosts.'

‘I'm real,' says Evie.

Raising his right hand, he reaches towards her, as if he can touch the past with his fingertips. Then he rocks his head from side to side, saying, ‘No. No.'

He gets to his feet and picks up the axe, swinging it a final time, driving the blade into the stump. Turning, he shuffles slowly towards the hut. I call after him. ‘Why are they ghosts?'

Ignoring me, he disappears inside and I can hear him rummaging, opening drawers and cupboards.

Evie has gone quiet. ‘Something is wrong,' she whispers.

‘Was he telling the truth?'

She nods.

When he reappears, there is a dark object in his right hand. It takes me a moment to recognise the shape. He holds up a semi-automatic pistol, running his finger along the barrel, treating it like an artefact.

‘The Russians smuggle these,' he says. ‘This one cost me a case of whisky.'

He slides off the safety catch and closes one eye, checking the chamber of the pistol. A fly lands on his forehead. I expect him to brush it away, but it crawls across his nose and pauses at his left nostril. He doesn't seem bothered.

I push Evie behind me. ‘Put the gun down, Finn.'

He looks at the weapon and back to me, running his tongue across his lips.

‘We only want to talk,' I say.

‘Ah'm done talking.'

Evie steps out, giving him a clear shot. The gun moves from pointing at my chest to Evie and back again to me.

‘What happened to my mother and sister?' asks Evie. ‘Agnesa was the pretty one. She cooked for you.'

‘All ghosts,' groans Finn, raising one hand and slapping his face, cursing, ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!'

‘Finn, listen to me. Put down the gun,' I say.

‘Leave me alone. Please?' he begs, but I don't think he's talking to us. His eyes are peering into the distance.

‘What happened to the others?' asks Evie.

‘They're here,' he mutters. ‘They watch me. They talk to me.'

‘What do they say?'

Raising the gun, he presses the barrel under his chin.

‘No!' I cry.

He pulls the trigger. Instead of an explosion, I hear a dull click. The round has jammed, or the chamber is empty. Finn moans and lowers the gun, looking at it traitorously. He bangs it against the heel of his other hand, as though trying to dislodge an impediment. Then he pulls the slide, poking his finger into the ejection port, breathing hard in frustration.

I move towards him. Just as quickly, he aims the pistol at me. I stop. Evie grabs my arm, pulling me away. We retreat past the ramshackle hut and the tethered goat and the abandoned dinghy. With each step, I expect to hear the bullet sliding into the chamber. The trigger. The explosion.

We're almost at the Fiat when the sound comes – a sharp crack that echoes off the sand dunes and the low hills. Evie throws herself to the ground. I fall with her, shielding her with my body. My face is pressed against her back. I can feel her heart beating.

‘Are you hurt?' I whisper.

‘Nuh. You?'

‘No.'

‘We have to help him,' she says.

I get up and begin walking slowly back towards the hut. Even the birds and insects have gone quiet.

‘Finn?' I yell. ‘Are you OK?'

Nothing.

Crouching low, I use the dinghy and old machinery as cover. A breeze bends the grasses. The goat bleats. A chicken flies to the top of the water tank. Finn Radford is lying on his back, his legs twisted beneath him, the pistol still in his hand. The bullet had entered through the roof of his mouth and exited from the back of his head, spilling teeth and bone and brain matter across the newly chopped wood.

I take out my phone and call 999, speaking calmly to the operator, requesting the police. ‘A gunshot victim,' I say. ‘His name is Finn Radford. He's dead.'

‘Who fired the weapon?'

‘He did.'

‘Has the gun been secured?'

‘It's safe. Nobody has touched it.'

I give her my name and details and tell her that I'll wait for the police on the road.

When I next look up, I see Evie standing over the body. I want to shield her and to get her away from here, but she ignores my words and continues staring at Finn. The bright day remains, the sun-struck sea, the white wispy clouds, the pecking chickens and tethered goat. The smell of woodsmoke and salt. And a silence to end all silences.