Cold Grave by Craig Robertson Read Free Book Online Page A

gently, bringing a sad smile to the man’s face. His eyes were tired and lined, nervously darting from place to place.
    ‘I know I’m just being a bit stupid,’ he said quietly.
    She squeezed his hand again. ‘Of course you’re not, Bobby. You have been through a psychological ordeal. It’s not about being strong or “being a man”. It’s about getting help to deal with it.’
    Heneghan sighed.
    ‘Those . . . those buggers at the bar are always taking the piss out of me about it and maybe they’re right. Maybe I should be over it by now. It’s not funny though. They should try finding a young girl like that – see how they like it.’
    Narey’s head flash filled with thoughts of Tony, camera in hand, and the peculiar pleasure he would take in stumbling across such a scenario. He would like it and that still bothered her.
    ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t,’ she told Heneghan. ‘But how did it happen?’
    Heneghan sighed and lowered his voice further, his eyes slowly closing over.
    ‘It was late March and me and old Tam Conway, the bloke I worked with, were going to Inchmahome. The island is shut to visitors from October to April so before it opened up again we would go over and cut the grass, do weeding, repair work, whatever was needed. I remember it was cold because Tam was moaning all morning. That was old Tam though – he never stopped complaining.
    ‘Anyhow, we got the boat over to the island, just the two of us. I always liked the old place. Full of history: Mary Queen of Scots stayed there for three weeks back in fifteen forty something; Robert the Bruce before that as well. And there was the wildlife and all – ospreys and merlins and swans and geese. Brilliant so it was.
    ‘So this day, me and Tam get to Inchmahome. It was raining but not very hard. We got the gear out of the old boathouse by the jetty and split up the way we always did. He’d start at the chapter house and I’d begin at the priory. Suited me fine – meant I didnae have to listen to his moaning. There wasnae much in the way of growth because of the winter having been so harsh, like. The island had been under snow for most of it. So we figured we wouldnae need to be there too long. We could spin it out for a few hours but that would include at least three fag breaks.
    ‘It was that quiet. No like working in here. When Tam was away working on the other side it was like you could be back in Mary’s days, ye ken? Just you and the priory and the ghosts. The most peaceful place you could imagine – till I heard Tam shouting, roaring in fact. So I went running to see what was up with him. He’d been working when something had caught his eye, something that shouldnae have been there. It’s because it was red, ye see. Everything else was all browns and greens and stone so this red thing stuck out like a sore thumb.
    ‘So Tam goes over and he told me that the closer he got, the stranger it looked. It was half-hidden by the wall and the undergrowth and he reckoned he would only have seen it from the angle where he was standing. Then he could smell it. Says he’d never smelled anything like it in his life. He went right over to it and moved the grass back till he saw the thing properly. I think he nearly died on the spot himself when he saw what it was. That’s when he shouted on me.
    ‘Christ, what a mess the lassie was in. I’ve never seen anything like it – not even on the telly. She’d obviously been there for months and the animals had got at her. Tam threw up and I wasn’t far behind him, I don’t mind telling you. They’d eaten her face and her eyes and her skin. Black the skin was, this terrible black colour. She had less than half a face and what there was wasn’t much like human. Her body was hardly there either, all shrivelled away inside the red waterproof jacket she had on. You got the feeling it was only the jacket that was keeping her bones together.’
    Narey shuddered but, unlike at the bar when her reaction