Page 101 of The Midnight Secret

‘If anyone asks, just tell them Donald is no longer a person of interest in the investigation. There’s nothing more that needs to be added just yet.’ Jayne glanced across to check Norman was still out of earshot. Donald and Mhairi followed her gaze, understanding the implications for her husband – and for her, should he discover the change to his alibi status too soon.

‘I understand,’ Mhairi whispered solemnly. ‘We’ll not breathe a word.’

‘Donald?’ Fin MacQueen asked. ‘...Are my eyes playing tricks?’

The others came over too as word spread fast through the crowd. It was good news – and at the perfect time too.

Jayne looked for David, finding him standing with his father, hands in his pockets and nodding as Archie gave him instructions for something or other to do when he got back to the isle. Many of the villagers wanted something checked, replaced, repaired while they were over there. Mary Gillies had given Mad Annie some flowers to place on her babies’ graves.

Jayne watched as David scuffed at the ground. She wished she could go over and stand with him, talk easily as they once used to; but everything had changed now, and she didn’t think she could hide it. She couldn’t risk people seeing the breach that had opened up, lurking between them like a blood river.

Her eyes found Mhairi and Donald again, standing together as he was welcomed back into the fold, and it seemed to Jayne that no one found it strange to see him now with his arm around a woman who not his wife. It was as if they could see that the love that existed between them was truer than the false bonds of marriage that had trussed him.

She looked over at David again. Would the same have been true for them? Would their friends and neighbours have accepted their love, as well as that one? Or was there a limit to their forgiveness, to the amount of shame any one community could absorb?

With Mary back in the country now, there was at least hope that Donald could finally get the divorce he craved from his wife. If Mary’s motherhood could be bought, perhaps his freedom could be negotiated too. Or would it suit Mary to hold them hostage, casting Mhairi as the scarlet woman and staining their child with the slur of illegitimacy? That would be the spurned wife’s final act of revenge, wouldn’t it?

Not that it mattered now. Whatever Mary did or didn’t do, the dice had already been rolled, and everything would play out exactly as the fates decreed.

Jayne already knew it.

And soon everyone else would too.

Chapter Thirty

The water glittered sugar-pink as the rising sun nosed above the horizon. Jayne sat on deck, her knees tucked into her chest, feeling the wind ripple through her hair. She had untied her signature braid, wanting to feel free in the elements. Unbound.

She wasn’t alone. Most of the villagers were up here, too – David, Donald and Mhairi, Angus and Fin MacKinnon, Effie, Mad Annie – unable to sleep through the plunge and roll of the Atlantic, too excited to risk missing the first sighting of home. Only Norman remained below deck, sleeping in MacLeod’s feathered bed.

He had been displeased to find her on board. He’d been irritated enough by her absence at breakfast that morning, having woken from his drunken stupor to find nothing ready for him; but to miss two lots of wages, he had argued...Jayne had simply shrugged, saying that she wanted to see her home again too. It was a defiance that had not gone unnoticed, and she knew he intended to punish her for it at a later time. For now, at least, she was safe in company.

She watched the horizon, a line that never tilted although the boat cut and carved through the water in sweeping arcs, powered by billowing sails.

‘Is that...?’ Donald asked suddenly, getting to his knees to peer more closely. ‘Is that her?’

The villagers followed the direction of his pointed finger. Sure enough, a pale, indistinct haze could be just made out: a shadow in the distance, growing in density and form as they drew closer.

Jayne never took her eyes off it, her heart thudding faster, harder as they ploughed through the waves. Destiny was calling – she could feel it.

‘There she is!’ Mad Annie cried, pulling her handkerchief from her shirt pocket and waving it as if she expected St Kilda to wave back. Everyone else cheered and waved too. Even though they knew it was ridiculous, they had to do something with their hands. Like an old dog getting to its feet on its master’s return, their island home steadily reared up, blotting the horizon once more.

It took another two hours from that first tentative glimpse for their home to fully rise from the sea. Noble and majestic, St Kilda’s ragged stone walls emerged cathedral-like, a black diadem from the blue. Drawing closer still, they saw the stacks standing like sentries in the sea as the waves battered them with huge, heaving run-ups, the scattered landmasses of the archipelago – Dùn, Boreray and Soay – clustering around Hirta like huddling sheep. And as they slipped into the kelpy basin of the underwater caldera, the skies grew thick with seabirds, and the soundtrack of their past came to their ears. There were none of the lilting melodies of the songbirds on the mainland; rather a savage cacophony of strangled shrieks and murderous cries. The sounds of home.

Jayne saw Effie sitting erect, her rope looped around her waist as she eyed the cliffs that had once been her playground. Angus threw a cheeky comment her way – some kind of bet, it seemed – and in the next moment Effie was shaking his hand with an intense expression.

‘Norman, you’re awake!’ Angus cheered as a dark, tousled head appeared at the top of the steps.

‘How was I supposed to sleep over the racket y’re making?’ Norman muttered, coming to sit beside Jayne. His breath was sour and he looked rough – his black eye had yellowed, the cuts still crusted with scabs. ‘You’d think they’d never seen the place before.’

David glanced over at the two of them, looking away again before she could catch his eye.

‘If you’re so unmoved by coming back, Norman, why did you bother coming at all?’ she asked. It was provocative of her to be so direct. Confrontational, even. But she reminded herself that she had to be bold, brave and courageous, because she had to know – whywashe here?

Norman regarded her. ‘You’ve quite a mouth on y’ at the moment, Jayne,’ he said loudly. ‘Have y’ got your monthly curse?’

David’s head whipped around as she felt her cheeks flame. She quickly looked away and Norman chuckled, his objective achieved.

They were sailing past Boreray now and the crew began hauling in the sails, slowing their speed so that they curled into Village Bay at a declining clip. Immediately the waters calmed, the wind dropping as the cliffs encircled them with a loving embrace, welcoming them home. The villagers gathered at the bow rails and Jayne caught her breath as she had her first sight of the village, the stone cottages standing there just as they’d left them, forgotten foot-soldiers still in formation on the battlefield.

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