I wake with my cheek pressed against the cold, tiled floor. My face is still near to the door, but the light is different now: brighter and harder. It must be nearly midday.
There is a scraping at the door – that is what woke me, I realize. I can hear the lock being pushed back. The door opens and a sudden burst of sun cuts through the dim glow from the light in the window. I am standing already, but I throw my arm up to shield my eyes against the moment of sun-dazzled blindness.
‘Hello, Con.’
John O’Farrell steps into the chapel.
‘Hello,’ I say, my voice creaky, as if I haven’t spoken in days. I wonder if he’s here as Mayor of Kirkwall, or as my family’s friend, but I can’t bring myself to ask.
Like Major Bates, John looks tired, his face drawn and his eyes spidered with tiny veins.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ he asks, and I give a polite smile, although the expression feels strange. And I wonder if I shouldn’t smile, even when someone tries to make a joke, because perhaps if I look happy after all that has happened, I will seem heartless. And perhaps that will make me seem guiltier.
John walks into the chapel, looking around in awe, as everyone does. I wonder if beauty ever becomes ordinary. I hope not.
‘Major Bates tells me you’ve lost your memory,’ John says.
‘Yes.’ I keep my eyes downcast, in case something in my expression gives me away.
‘But he tells me you’re certain that you’re to blame. And I have to say, Con, that doesn’t sound right. Is it possible you’re confused? Is it possible that it was all someone else’s idea, and you simply went along with it?’
I say nothing. John turns to look at the stained-glass window. The colours cast light and shadow in weird patterns on his face.
‘Could it have been Angus’s idea, for example? Or that prisoner, Cesare – could it have been his idea? Or Dot’s idea?’
‘Not Dot’s idea!’ I say. ‘She’s not to blame at all.’
A bird clatters onto the roof of the chapel. Then I hear it flitting away, its wingbeats like the thrum of a panicked heart.
He nods slowly, and walks along the back of the chapel, running his hand over the altar and tabernacle, brushing his hand across the font, which looks like stone, but is really an old car tyre and exhaust pipe, covered with cement.
Earlier, I had run my own hands over that font, remembering the feeling of cement between my fingers. And then something glinting at its base had caught my eye. And from under the font, I had pulled out a length of scrap metal. It is the size and width of my little finger, but as sharp as a knife. I’d hidden it in my sleeve.
John O’Farrell’s expression is still full of wonder as he looks at the chapel. And I remember how this makeshift building felt like safety, how it felt like home. I remember the sound of the prisoners’ laughter, echoing, as if we were in a high-ceilinged church.
My head throbs.
‘But you must understand,’ John says, ‘that this is a very serious matter, with serious consequences. You’re talking about . . . murder, Con.’
I think of long ropes tied around wooden beams. My body swinging. The pressure around my throat, like hands that won’t let go.
My breath comes in noisy rasps.
The people will gather and watch a hanging, the way they watch fish being dragged in or animals being slaughtered. Afterwards, they will return to their houses and talk about it over dinner. The story of my death will warm their bones.
I clutch at my neck, curling my body into a tight ball.
‘Breathe deeply,’ John says. ‘Slowly, now.’
But I can’t. My airway is narrowing, my vision contracting.
John puts his arm under my elbow and pulls me to my feet, walking me out of the chapel. A burst of brightness makes me shut my eyes. Vaguely, I’m aware of the guard objecting, of John shouting at him, of the guard recoiling.
He steers me down the hill, away from the chapel, away from the camp and the Punishment Hut, away from the barrier, and in the direction of the bay. I walk next to him blindly, my breaths loud and ragged, as he says to me time and again, ‘Slowly now. Steady. Easy now.’
It’s the voice you might use with a frightened animal, but gradually, my breathing slackens, and my senses come back.
The tingling in my hands and feet fades and I’m able to see the gulls bombing the ocean, the clouds muscling over the horizon. I fill my lungs and close my eyes and turn my face towards the sun so that everything is red.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I think I would be calmer if I could just see Dot.’
He turns away from me, shaking his head. ‘Not yet.’
And I wonder what I have to say to be able to see her. I wonder what she has to say about me. Do we need to tell the same story? I won’t do it: I won’t blame her, and I know she won’t blame me. Perhaps we will be stuck here for ever, telling opposite stories.
A peregrine falcon sweeps past in the direction of the cliffs. It will sit like a church gargoyle. When it sights its prey, it will launch silently and smash into the bird mid-flight. Burst of feathers, then blood and bone: fierce life and sudden death.
O’Farrell stops walking and tugs gently on my elbow. ‘I have something for you. I nearly forgot.’ He reaches into his pocket and I have a moment to brace myself before he places something in my hand. Cold metal with a weight
