‘Ah, yes. There’s a small table for you in the corner. Thank you, Nurse Croy, you can return to your patients. And you . . .’ He looks at Cesare. ‘I don’t suppose you can help much with this just yet.’ He bends and picks up a sheaf of papers and passes them to Cesare. ‘But if you can try to get at least some of the floor clear. The islanders are sending a man over with a list of jobs and then we can get started. Ah! This’ll be him.’
Cesare turns as the door opens, hoping that this local man will be able to explain something of what he is supposed to do, will be able to tell him how to make sure that he can do what is asked of him – whatever it is – so that he can stay in this draughty office, with its snow of paper and Major Bates, who seems such a different man from the one who had shouted threats and commands when they first arrived here. He needs to know how to do his job well, to be useful, to stay out of trouble.
In the flare of bright light from the open door, it takes him a moment to register that the figure is not a man at all. It is a woman, in a long, full skirt and a heavy fisherman’s jumper. She walks into the hut. The lamplight falls on her face.
His heart leaps. His breath catches. There she is, just as he’d remembered her.
The red hair, the pale skin, the firm mouth, the delicate hands. And those blue eyes. The eyes that meet his, then widen slightly as she stops and stares at him.
‘You!’ she says.Dorothy
‘You!’ I say, before I can stop myself, and the man stands in the shaft of golden light from the open doorway, squinting at me. It is as if, by thinking about him daily, I have summoned him. The hairs on my arms rise and I think about the stories they tell of this island, the stories I’ve tried not to believe, of selkies and curses and people who appear and vanish in the swirling mists.
The English commander steps forward, blocking my view of the office and the Italian man.
‘I think you are in the wrong place, young lady,’ he says sternly. ‘How did you get into the camp? I’ll be having words with the guard on the gate.’
‘Don’t!’ I say. ‘It’s not his fault. I told him I had a message for you.’
‘You can make an appointment to see me –’
‘It’s urgent.’ My mouth is dry, my blood thrumming. ‘Please, I . . . I’ve an important request.’
‘Ah.’ The commander folds his arms. ‘So you’ve a message from Kirkwall? I thought they were sending a man across. John O’Farrell.’
‘I . . .’ I can feel the Italian man’s eyes on me, like a touch. ‘I don’t live in Kirkwall –’
‘Well, then, you’ll have to go –’
‘Please,’ I say. ‘I live here, on the island, in a bothy – a shepherd’s hut. The roof is falling in and the weather has made it worse and I’d heard some of your men – they said, in Kirkwall – that some of the prisoners were going to help with jobs there. Repairing fences, and so on. I thought . . .’ I swallow.
Behind the commander, the Italian man is still watching me. It is searching, his stare, as if I am standing in the dark and he is holding a lamp close to my skin. I can feel the heat of it and my skin warms. Something in me wants to turn away, but the commander is watching me, too, frowning, and I can tell that he is going to refuse me, and he must not. He must say yes, because back in the bothy, the hole in the roof is growing with each passing day of wind and rain, and now Con has a cough that wakes us both at night. The sight of the tendons in her neck straining as she tries to breathe is terrifying.
‘Please,’ I say again to the commander, before he can speak.
He shakes his head. ‘You can’t simply barge in here asking for help. We’re only releasing prisoners for agricultural work, or related matters – lots of mouths to feed here, so our men will help to grow their own food. I’m sure there’s someone from Kirkwall who could mend your roof.’
‘No. They don’t like the island and they won’t come to the bothy. You must be paying well to persuade anyone to work here.’
‘I . . . Yes, well . . . I’m sorry I can’t help you.’ And he does look sorry, suddenly, this commander, in a uniform clustered with medals that he must have won for killing a man – or perhaps saving a man. Or both.
I nod, glance at the Italian, with his dark hair and his warm eyes, and I open the door to the frost-rimed yard. I’m suddenly desperate to get away. Away from the pitying expression on the commander’s face, away from the searching gaze of the Italian man.
The yard is cold and I hunch my shoulders, trying to ignore the hollow disappointment inside me, and the heat in my cheeks, which feel as though I’ve been slapped.
A shout from behind me.
I stop, turn.
There is the Italian – again, as if I have conjured him with my thoughts. He limps across the frozen compound and stops three paces away, resting his weight on one leg. He looks thinner than when I saw him last, his face sharper. On his cheekbone, the faint shadow of a fading bruise – something has struck him, hard.
‘You are injured,’ I say.
‘A rock falls on my foot. It is not bad – not broken. Your roof is broken.’
‘Yes,’ I say, still wondering about that bruise on his cheek.
‘You are cold. And is dangerous for you.’
‘A little, yes, but –’
‘I will like to mend.’ He gestures with his hands, lacing his fingers together. His hands are strong and
