The Marks of Cain

10

The old women were singing through their noses, a rising carol of weird sounds; the tremulous voice of the dark-suited man at the front – warbling and waving his hands – led and yet followed the intense humming from the choir of ululating women.

They were still in Foula, about three hundred miles from Glasgow.

Simon and Sanderson and Tomasky had spent an uncomfortable night in Foula’s only B &B, waiting for a chance to interview Edith Tait. The B &B owner, a middle-aged widower from Edinburgh, had been all too excited by the influx of glamorous tourists – of new people to talk to – and he had kept them up, over tots of whisky, with bloodcurdling tales of Foula’s weirdness and danger.

He told them of the German birdwatcher who had slipped on some lamb’s afterbirth, banged his head on a rock, and had his brains devoured by Arctic skuas; he mentioned a tourist couple who had gone to the highest cliff, the Kame, and been swept over the precipice when one of them sneezed.

All this Simon absorbed with a suppressed smile; Sanderson was openly sarcastic: ‘So the tourist death rate, is what, about fifty percent?’

But there was one thing the journalist found truly and deeply interesting: the Gaelic heritage of the isle. As the hostel owner explained, Foula was so isolated it had maintained Norse-Gaelic cultural characteristics that had almost disappeared elsewhere. They used their own Gregorian calendar, they celebrated Christmas on January 6th, and some of the locals still spoke authentic Scots Gaelic.

They did this especially at church, where the services were, apparently, some of the very last of their kind: notable for a capella nose singing, known as ‘Dissonant Gaelic Psalmody’, as the B &B owner explained – with loving relish.

So now they were actually in the kirk listening to the Nasal Celtic Heterophony, waiting for a chance to talk to Edith. Simon was distinctly drawn to this authentic, ancient, possibly pagan tradition; DCI Sanderson was less impressed.

‘They sound like a bunch of mad Irish bumblebees in the shower.’

His sidelong remark was loud. One woman turned around and gave the DCI a stare; she was singing through her nonagenarian nostrils, even as she glared.

DCI Sanderson blushed, stood up, and edged along the pew, and bumbled out of the kirk. Feeling exposed and conspicuous, Simon swiftly followed. He found Sanderson dragging on a cigarette by the graveyard.

Sanderson dropped the cigarette, crushed it under his shoe, and gazed at the Sneck o’ da Smaalie, a great ravine hard by the kirk that led all the way down to the roiling sea, which writhed like a fallen epileptic in a blue straitjacket; the earlier rain had dropped and the sky had cleared.

‘Not religious then, Detective?’

‘You guessed?’ Sanderson’s smile was sarcastic. ‘Went to a church school, because my parents were real believers. Guaranteed to put you off.’

Simon nodded. ‘My experience was absolutely the opposite, my folks were…atheists. Scientists and architects.’ An unwarranted thought ran through his mind: das Helium und das Hydrogen. He hurried the conversation along. ‘So they never forced any belief system on me at all. Now I do have…rather vague beliefs.’

‘Nice for you.’ The DCI was glaring at a white shape. A sheep had wandered into the graveyard. ‘Jesus, what a place. All these sheep everywhere. Sheep. What are they about. Stupid woolly fuckers.’

Sanderson put a hand on the journalist’s shoulder, and looked him in the eye.

‘Quinn. There’s something you should know. If you still wanna write up this case.’

‘Yes?’

‘There was another murder. This morning. Heard on the wire. We’re certain it’s related.’ He frowned. ‘So I can tell you.’

‘Where?’

‘Near Windsor. An old man named Jean Mendia. That’s why Tomasky flew home this morning. To do some knock-ups.’

The nasal singing in the church had stopped.

‘Let me guess, the victim is Southern French? Deformed?’

Sanderson shook his head.

‘French Basque, yes. From Gascony. But no, not deformed. And not tortured.’

Before he could ask the obvious question, Sanderson added, ‘The reasons we’re sure it’s connected are: his age, very old; and the fact he was Basque; and there was no robbery. An apparently pointless killing.’

‘So that’s three…’

‘Yep.’

‘Who on earth is doing it? And why?’

‘God knows. So maybe we could ask Him.’ He turned.

The service was concluded. The church door had swung open, and bonneted old ladies were parading out of the kirk into the daylight, chattering in English and Gaelic.

They quickly located Edith Tait. She was spryer than Simon had expected: despite being sixty-seven, she could have passed for fifty. But the twinkle in her eye soon dulled as they told her who they were: and their reason for tracking her down.

Edith actually looked, for a moment, as if she might burst into tears. But then she buttoned her tweed coat even tighter and ushered them back into the empty church, where they sat on a pew and conversed.

She was not the witness they’d hoped for. She admitted she had heard the odd sound on the fateful night – but she couldn’t be sure. She might have heard the whirr of a small boat in the wee small hours – but she couldn’t be sure.

Edith Tait wasn’t sure about anything – but that was hardly her fault. She was doing her best – and the process obviously wasn’t easy for her. At the end of her testimony, Edith emitted a tiny sob, which she hid with her pale hands. Then she unmasked herself, and gazed at the journalist.

‘I am so sorry, I cannae help any more. She was a very good friend to me, you know. My very good friend. I am so sorry, Mister…gentlemen. You have come all this way to see me. But I didnae see what I didnae see.’

Simon swapped a knowing glance with Sanderson. This was a sweet old lady, doing her damnedest, they’d gone almost as far as they could. There was just one more question that maybe needed asking.

‘When and why did Julie come to Foula, Edith? It’s a pretty remote place.’

‘She arrived in the late 1940s, I do believe.’ Edith frowned. ‘Aye. The 1940s. We became friends later, when my mammy died and I inherited the croft next door.’

‘So you don’t know why she emigrated to Foula, of all places, from France?’

‘Noo.’ Edith shook her head. ‘She would never talk about that, so I never asked her. Perhaps there was some family secret. Perhaps she just liked the loneliness and the quiet, just now. Some people do, you know…And now I really must go. My friend is expecting me.’

‘Of course.’

The interview was done. He closed his notebook.

However, as she walked to the exit, Edith slowed, and tilted her head. Engaging with the question.

‘Actually. There is one more thing. One more thing you maybe should know. A wee peculiarity.’

Simon opened the notepad.

‘Yes?’

‘A little while ago…She was being bothered by a young man, a young scientist…She found it most upsetting.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Angus Nairn, he was called.’ The old lady closed her eyes – and opened them once again. ‘That was it. Good Scotsname. Yes. He was bothering her with phone calls, the scientist chappie.’

‘What do you mean, “bothering”?’

‘He wanted to examine her. He said she was a unique case. A Basque, I think. Is that right? I don’t know. Basque maybe. Aye.’

‘And this upset her?’

‘Very much so. Much more than you would expect. She was greeting for a week. That man Nairn truly upset her. There now, my friend is waving.’

Simon pressed on: ‘But Mrs Tait?’

She nodded.

‘When you say this man wanted to use her in a test, what did he mean? What did he want to test?’ Edith calmly replied:

‘Her blood.’