I lean back against the wall, look up at the ceiling. The rain sounds like hail, hard and echoless. El has gone. Everyone has gone. And that’s when I finally start to cry. I curl up small enough that I can wrap my arms around myself as I sob. As all my grief, my regret, my horror, and my shame spills out of me and into the heavy dark corners of Mirrorland, leaving me nothing but empty.
CHAPTER 29
Logan finds me first. Though his shake is gentle, I come awake with a scream. Just as well then that I have no voice. He’s inside the cupboard, crouched down over the threshold into Mirrorland. His hair is soaking wet, plastered to his skull. He doesn’t touch me again, for which I’m grateful, but his expression is not one of a detective sergeant. I’m even more grateful for that.
‘Cat. Are you all right? Can you get up?’
The answer is probably yes, but I don’t really want to. I feel bone-weary. Maybe now that the adrenaline has worn off, whatever was in the Shiraz is kicking in again.
Light floods the cupboard as Rafiq pulls back the door, elbows Logan aside. I wonder if they had to break down the big red front door to get in. I hope so.
‘Catriona?’ She gives me a long assessing stare, head to toe. Never once stops looking like a detective inspector. And I find that I’m most grateful of all for that. ‘Where’s Ross?’
I swallow. It hurts even more than I expect it to. ‘Are you here to arrest him?’
She points at my neck. ‘He do that to you?’
I nod.
‘Where is he?’
I look down into the darkness of the staircase.
‘All right, we need to get you out of here, and then we can go take care of Ross. Logan, take her to the front room, get a uniform to sit with her.’
But I’ve no intention at all of limping quietly away. When I manage to stand, I don’t take Logan’s arm; instead I start stepping back down into Mirrorland.
‘Shit, stop her, Logan!’
He tries to. It’s too awkward in the confined space, and he’s too focused on not hurting me. Evading him is easy, until he stops trying to manhandle me and takes my hand instead.
‘Okay. You can come down with us. But we go first. All right?’
I hear Rafiq’s tut, but she doesn’t object.
I press myself up against the wall, let them both shuffle down past me. It’s something of a relief. I don’t know what we’re going to find at the bottom.
‘What the hell is this place?’ Rafiq mutters, as we go down through the gloom towards the gold circle of Ross’s hurricane lantern. She momentarily stops, turns to me. ‘Is this where—’
I nod once, quickly, and her expression sharpens.
At the bottom, Logan picks up the lantern.
‘Left.’ My voice is whisper-thin.
We pass the armoire, the Silver Cross pram. Our feet sink down into the floorboards of the washhouse. My heart is beating faster, but only a little. I don’t know what I want to find. I don’t know whether I want Ross to be alive or dead.
The lanternlight swings left, finds him. He’s crawled from the stern – as far as the gun deck and El’s chalk scrawls of Rum and Water Stores HERE!! – but he isn’t moving now. And then he flinches against the light, moans loud enough to kick-start my heart again. He looks up, tries to rise. His left eye is completely shut, the wound above it scabbed over with blood.
Rafiq turns back around to me. ‘You do that to him?’
I nod.
‘What’s going on?’
I recoil from his voice, I can’t help it. He still sounds like Ross, and I don’t see how that’s possible.
Rafiq moves around Logan, drops down to her haunches. ‘Can you stand?’
Ross looks up at her with his one good eye. ‘I think so.’
‘We’ll get those head wounds seen to down at the Royal,’ Rafiq says. ‘Logan, give us a hand.’
I stand there on deck as they both haul him to his feet. He sways for a few seconds, leans heavily against the washhouse wall of sea and sky. He looks at me.
‘What … what’s going on? Cat?’
Rafiq takes one short step away from him. ‘Ross MacAuley, I am arresting you on suspicion of common-law assault to injury. You’re not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say can and will be used against you. Do you understand?’
Ross’s mouth opens and closes twice. He shakes his head. ‘I haven’t done anything.’ He pushes off the wall, and only Logan’s grip on his arm keeps him from lurching towards me. ‘Cat, tell them! Nothing’s happened. It was just a disagreement and it got out of hand, that’s all. I haven’t done anything!’
I touch my still-burning throat out of little more than reflex, and he inhales sharply, as if he’s only just noticed the marks there. He looks horrified. I wonder if he’s as practised in forgetting what he doesn’t want to remember as I am.
‘I think you have, Ross. In fact, I think you’ve been pretty busy.’ There’s something quite dangerous about Rafiq down here. Her crust is much thinner. She’s angry, but more than that, she’s excited. ‘We were coming here today to detain you for wasting police time and hindering an investigation. We believe the statement you gave us regarding your whereabouts on the day of your wife’s disappearance is false.’
Ross says nothing.
‘I’ve had a very interesting conversation with a Professor Catherine Ward.’ Rafiq gives me a sidelong look. ‘She
