‘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.’
11
David peered over the dripping ferns.
It was a horse. A small, shaggy-maned horse.
‘Pottok,’ said Amy.
The little pony regarded them with an expression of ageing melancholy, then it clobbered away into the woods; mysterious and wild, and ancient and gone.
The relief spread through David’s tensed and aching muscles. He gazed through the trees. The car was surely far down the hill. They were OK. They had escaped. He reached for a rock, to haul himself to his feet.
Amy whispered, fiercely: ‘Wait.’
He felt the jarring fear return.
Amy hissed again. ‘What’s that?’
She was pointing. David squinted, and froze. About five hundred yards away a tall, thin, shadowy figure was treading slowly through the mist, looking this way and that; the drifting fog made it hard to identify, but not impossible.
‘Miguel?’
Her question was surely unnecessary. It was surely Miguel. The black wolf, stalking them through the woods.
He grabbed her hand again. ‘Come on…’
She nodded, saying nothing; together they backed away, slithering into the deeper darkness of the woods; slowly, agonizingly, they retreated and crawled over damp mossy logs, trying