Thin Air

Chapter Thirty-One

On the hill near the small loch where Eleanor Longstaff’s body had been found, George Malcolmson stopped for a moment to watch what was happening in Meoness. This was a part of his daily routine. Every afternoon he’d walk the hill to check his sheep. Always in the same direction, quartering the hill in the same way, and always counting. It seemed there’d been another man killed. Another outsider. George couldn’t pretend to be upset by that. He’d met the man a few times in the bar at the Springfield House, but didn’t really know him. It wasn’t like losing a family member. It wasn’t enough to keep him away from the hill.

Now he looked down at Utra. He wasn’t old enough to remember anyone living there, but when he’d been a boy the house was much as it had been left when the last inhabitant died. There’d been scraps of furniture inside and a couple of sheepskins. George’s father had finally taken them to Voxter when it became clear that the roof was letting in water, and now one of the chairs stood in his and Grusche’s bedroom. A car pulled up and two people climbed out: Jimmy Perez and the female detective who dressed a bit like a scarecrow. George thought professional people should be tidy. He’d enjoyed wearing his lightkeeper’s uniform and it still hung in the cupboard at home. The two detectives stood in the door of Utra and looked about to go in, then stopped for a moment. He couldn’t see why they hadn’t just gone inside.

Then they disappeared into the house and the settlement was empty. George was about to continue walking when he saw a car pull up outside Spindrift, the new house built by Vaila’s man. Neil was driving and then the kids got out of the back and chased round the house and started to swing on the climbing frame. Neil let himself into the kitchen. After a while the bairns went inside too – perhaps Vaila had called them in for their tea.

George thought back to the time when Lowrie was young. He’d never been a boy for shouting and chasing. Whenever George remembered him he was sitting at the kitchen table, doing his school work. He’d always been fascinated by numbers and had shouted for Grusche to give him sums to do, just in his head, as if the quiz was the best kind of game there was. Sometimes when George came home from the lighthouse he felt like an outsider in his own house, because Lowrie and Grusche understood each other so well. They shared silly jokes that George couldn’t understand. Then Grusche had told him that Lowrie had got his love of numbers from his father. ‘I was always stupid about maths,’ she’d said. ‘He certainly didn’t get that from me.’ And that had made George feel better. Proud.

He shifted his gaze to Voxter. Caroline was in the garden, carrying a small wicker basket. She opened the door into the hen house and, though George was too far away to see, when she came out again he thought that the basket must now hold a few eggs. He wasn’t sure what he made of his new daughter-in-law. Grusche said she was a clever woman and that she’d be good for Lowrie. George was just pleased that his son hadn’t married Eleanor, with her long, dark hair and her secret witch’s smile. He thought now it was a good thing that the woman was dead. She wouldn’t be able to trouble the boy again.