And then I saw it.
A blow forceful enough to break the cranium will cause lightning-like fractures to radiate from the point of contact. Normally they’re hard to miss, and I’d seen no evidence of them here. But I’d been looking in the wrong place. The fragments had joined together to reveal a ragged spider’s web of cracks. Distinctive, zigzag lines that could only have been caused by a heavy impact, strong enough to fracture the bone without actually breaking it.
The skull had burst in the fire, all right, but in an area where it had been already weakened.
I carefully laid the bone fragments back on the ground. Brody had been right all along. This was no accident.
The woman had been murdered.
CHAPTER 8
I BARELY NOTICED the wind and rain as I went back to the camper van. It was pitch dark outside, and the light from its window shone out like a beacon. There was a sour taste in my mouth. Someone had killed a young woman and then set fire to her body. Whether Wallace liked it or not, he hadn’t any choice now but to escalate this to a full-scale murder inquiry.
I was angry with the superintendent, but far more so with myself. It was no consolation that fire deaths are notoriously difficult; I should have taken notice of my instincts. And there was also something else to consider. It would be a mistake to assume that, just because the dead woman wasn’t local, her killer wasn’t either. We didn’t know what the victim had been doing on Runa, but according to Brody few outsiders came here at this time of year. So the likelihood was that she’d come over either with, or to see, someone who lived here.
Which would mean her killer was still on the island.
That thought stayed with me as I hurried to the camper van. It was almost stiflingly warm after the icy cottage, the air heavy with the fumes from the paraffin heater.
‘How’s it going?’ Duncan asked, getting to his feet.
‘I need to talk to Wallace. Can I use your radio?’
‘Uh, sure,’ he said, surprised. He handed it across. ‘I’ll er, I’ll be outside, then.’
The police radio was one of the new digital sets, which allowed calls to either landlines or mobiles. But Wallace didn’t answer any of his numbers. Great. I left messages telling him to call me and started struggling out of my overalls.
‘Everything all right?’ Duncan asked, coming back in.
‘Fine.’ He would find out soon enough, but I wanted to speak to Wallace before I told anyone else. ‘I’m going back to the village.’
There was no point my staying at the cottage any longer. I wasn’t touching anything else till SOC got here, and I needed to calm down and think through the implications of what I’d found. But as I started to go out I hesitated.
‘Look, keep an eye out, OK? Anything suspicious, anyone comes out here, call Fraser straight away.’
He looked puzzled and a little offended. ‘Aye, of course.’
I went out to the car. It was raining heavily now, and the windows on Ellen’s old VW fogged as soon as I got in. Turning the heater on to clear them, I struggled with the unwieldy gear lever and bumped down the track to the road. The wipers screeched as they smeared rain across the windscreen. I sat forward in my seat, peering through the steamed glass. Hardly any cars seemed to use the road, but I’d no desire to hit a sheep that had strayed on to the tarmac.
I was about halfway to the village when a pale shape suddenly darted into the road in front of me. There was just time to see the reflective eyes of a dog gleam in the headlights as I stamped on the brake, and then the car spun out of control. The VW slewed crazily, flinging me against the seatbelt as it lurched to a halt.
The impact took my breath away. I sat back, shaken, rubbing my chest where the seatbelt had bruised it. But I wasn’t badly hurt, and the VW’s engine was still running. The car had gone off the road and was angled down into a ditch, its headlights shining on to thick hummocks of grass rather than tarmac.
At least I hadn’t hit the dog. I’d seen it bounding off as I lost control. It had been a golden retriever, so unless there were two on the island it must have been Strachan’s, although God knew what it was doing out here.
The thought that it had all of the island to choose from, yet had managed to run out in front of me, didn’t help my temper as I put the gears into reverse and tried to back up on to the road. The wheels churned and skidded, but the car didn’t move. I shifted into first and tried to go forward, with the same result.
I switched off the engine and got out to take a look. The car didn’t appear to be damaged, but the rear wheels were bogged down in muddy ruts. Putting up my hood, I went to the boot to try to find something to give the tyres purchase. But there was nothing. I got back in the car, the rain glistening like white wires in the headlights as I considered my options. There was no point going back to the camper van, so that left two choices. I could either stay with the car until someone came along, or walk the rest of the way to the village. If I stayed I could be waiting hours. And at least walking would keep me warm.
I swore as I realized that I’d left my torch in my flight case back at the van. I turned on the overhead light and checked the glove compartment, hoping to find one there. But apart from some old maps and scraps of paper it was empty.
I turned off the headlights and waited for my eyes to adjust to the sudden dark. After a while I accepted they were as acclimatised as they were going to get. Night had fallen on Runa, and it was only going to get darker. Still, I felt reluctant to leave the car. I’d just found out there was probably a killer on the island. It was an unsettling thought to find yourself stranded with on an isolated road.
But that was stupid. Even if he was still on Runa, the young woman’s killer would hardly be out here. Come on. No point waiting any longer.
I got out of the car. As I did, the moon appeared through a break in the clouds. It gave the moors and hills a stark but ethereal beauty, picking out the road with a silvery illumination. My spirits rose as I started walking. Not so bad after all. And just as I thought that, clouds shrouded the moon again, and the light was abruptly cut off.
The utter blackness shocked me. I’d lived in the country, and thought I knew how dark a night could be. But this was of a different order to anything I’d experienced before. Runa was a tiny island, miles from the mainland and with no towns or cities to cast even a distant glow. I looked up, hoping to see at least some evidence of lightening in the sky. There was nothing. The cloud bank extinguished any glimpse of stars or moon as effectively as a blanket.
I looked back, hoping to see some reassuring sign of the VW. But the darkness was absolute. Only the sound of my footsteps told me I was still on the road. It’s only the dark. It won’t hurt you. Provided I didn’t stray from the road, there was nothing to worry about. Sooner or later it would lead me back to the village.
Even so, as I started walking again my confidence ebbed with every step. The rain was freezing and the wind whittled away at my body heat, making me virtually deaf as well as blind.
But not so deaf that I didn’t hear a scuff on the road behind me.
I spun round, heart thumping. I couldn’t see a thing except blackness. Probably just a sheep, or something blown by the wind. Or Strachan’s bloody dog. Turning my back on it, I started walking again. But all my senses were attuned to what might be out there with me, and I was still straining to hear it when I suddenly stepped out into nothing.
I pitched forward, arms windmilling before the ground smacked into me. I tumbled downhill, all sense of up or down lost. Rough grass scratched at my face, and then I jolted to a stop.
Dazed and winded, I lay in the muddy grass, rain bouncing on my upturned face. I knew what had happened. I’d wandered from the centre of the road without realizing it and walked off the edge into a gully. Idiot! I started to push myself upright, and cried out as pain exploded in my left shoulder. When it had subsided to a dull ache, I gingerly moved my arm again. The pain lanced back, not quite as severe as before but bad enough to make me gasp out loud.