32 Cyrus

32

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'.'

‘How many trips?' I ask.

‘Five, no six. Angus had other skippers who helped him. I only agreed to carry the satellite transponder and to fish Dogger Bank – giving them an alibi while they went to Spain or France or Belgium to pick up migrants. On that last voyage, the Arianna II went to Spain and returned. We rendezvoused at Dogger Bank and swapped the AIS transponder, before separating for the journey home.'

‘How were they going to explain having no fish on board?' I ask.

‘Angus was going to say the Arianna's ice machine had broken or the nets had been torn. I had a full hold and we could share the catch.'

Murdoch closes his eyes and opens them again like a man who's hoping he might have finished his story, but there is more to come.

‘Everything had gone to plan until the storm. When fire broke out in the engine room, Angus called me on the radio. He said Cam was dead and the boat was sinking. We were sixteen miles away. Whatever happened after that, I knew we were all in a load o' trouble.

‘Angus had delayed making the mayday call, because he wanted me to reach the Arianna before anyone else. Ah thought we'd be picking up everyone on board and we'd keep them safe until the coastguard and RNLI boats reached us. Even when he radioed, saying they were abandoning ship, I thought he'd found a way to save the migrants. I didnae realise . . .' He swallows the rest of the statement.

‘How did Agnesa escape?' asks Evie.

‘She was in the wheelhouse. Cam used to sometimes collect her from the hold when he was on watch. I guess he wanted company. The fire alarm sounded. He went to investigate, and the explosion killed him. Angus and Finn dragged his body into the galley. They put out the fire, and opened the hatches, but the hold was full of smoke. You know the rest.'

Murdoch pushes a ball of spit around his mouth and swallows. ‘Agnesa was still in the wheelhouse when Finn found you alive. Angus was going to dump both of you overboard if the chopper arrived before the Neetha Dawn, but we reached you before then, and took you on board, hiding you in the crew quarters. When the coastguard chopper arrived, they winched Angus and Iain Collie off the deck, and transferred them to Aberdeen Hospital. We didnae tell the coastguard about you.'

‘But she needed medical attention,' says Cyrus.

‘Border Force would have investigated. They would have salvaged the Arianna and found the bodies. We couldn't take that risk.' His eyes are pleading with Evie. ‘We arrived in St Claire early the next morning. You were still unconscious. I told Agnesa that we were taking you to hospital. She begged to stay with you. I promised her that you'd be safe. I'm sorry.'

Evie doesn't answer. She is still holding the photograph of Agnesa, sitting in the same chair in front of the same window in the same house where the image was taken.

‘Why didn't Agnesa come looking for me?' she asks, her voice wavering.

‘Ah told her that you died at the hospital. That you never woke up from the coma.'

I hear the soft gasping of the sea, but realise the sound comes from Evie.

‘I even brought home a ceramic urn, full of ashes, and said they belonged to you,' says Murdoch. ‘That were a terrible thing to do, but you were gone by then.'

‘Sold off,' I say.

‘They didn't tell me the details.'

With three quick, stiff steps, Evie is on him again, pounding his chest, screaming, ‘You knew! You knew!'

I pull her away, pinning her arms. She collapses against me, weeping. Murdoch keeps muttering, ‘Ah'm sorry. Ah'm sorry.' His eyes are shining.

I take Evie to the sofa and we sit together. Murdoch leaves the room and returns with a box of tissues which he offers to Evie. He takes one for himself and blows his nose.

‘Is this where you brought Agnesa?' I ask.

‘Aye. It was somewhere quiet. None of us knew she was pregnant. Not then.'

‘You kept her prisoner?'

‘For a while, aye, but after a time she stopped trying to escape. I offered to look after her and the wee bairn. I'd never been married – never found any woman who would say yes. Ah'm not stupid. I know she didn't love me the way that I loved her, but Agnesa had nowhere else to go. After a while, I think she grew to like me, or trust me at least.'

He addresses Evie. ‘She never stopped talking about you. It was Adina this and Adina that. And when the baby was born, there wasn't any question about what she was going to be called.'

It's only then that I realise what he's saying. The photographs. This house. The names. The girl with the pink hair and ear piercings.

Evie whispers, ‘Addie?'

He nods.

‘Does she know?' I ask.

‘I told her last night – the whole story – just like I'm telling you.'

Evie looks around, eyes wide, caught between panic and joy and grief. ‘Is she here?'

‘She's waiting to see you.'

Murdoch kneels on the floor as though praying for forgiveness.

‘After Addie was born, Agnesa got a job at a local primary school, working as a teacher's assistant. She had better English than most of the teachers. She was learning how to drive and I promised to buy her a car when she got her full licence.

‘What ah'm trying to say is that she made a good life for herself here. And she was happy in her own way. She sewed. She tended the garden. She read books. She wrote diaries. Ah've kept them. They're yours.'

Opening a drawer in a dark bureau, he removes a photograph album and several notebooks. Each has a famous painting on the cover: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Hans Heyerdahl and Woman with a Parasol by Monet. I think back to what I told Derek Posniak. Follow the stationery.

I open the album because Evie doesn't look like she has the strength to turn the pages. The ten-by-eight prints are neatly laid out, held in place by photo corners. In one Agnesa is dangling her feet over the side of a dinghy. In the next she's pushing a toddler on a tricycle, or feeding ducks at a pond, or standing in front of the ruins of a castle, dressed in a man's winter coat that is two sizes too big for her.

The past and present are at war in Evie's mind, but her smile and her tears tell me which one is winning the battle. She is looking at her sister and seeing her for the first and last time.