(2006) Pig Island by Mo Hayder

Author:Mo Hayder [Hayder, Mo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143113607
Publisher: Penguin Group USA
Published: 2008-08-14T23:00:00+00:00

Danso and Struthers wanted Angeline to help them go through Dove's paperwork. I told Struthers he needed me to come too, to help with her, and he went for it without a thought. Somewhere over the last twenty-four hours I'd been appointed her minder. They put us into a police launch and took us to the south of the island.

It was fresh and chilly and the sky was a deep blue, a string of baby-dragon-breath clouds chugging across the horizon in the west – perfect light for photos, I thought, squinting up. The launch bounced across the waves, its engine echoing back to us from the granite cliff faces of Pig Island's eastern shoreline, making flocks of black-back gulls wheel and croak out of the clifftops. The south of the island looked more parched than I remembered, a scorched red-brown after the green of the village, like a drought had come across and touched only this side. Even with the armed officers at the jetty talking on their radios a weird silence hung over the place.

A forensics team had been out there yesterday and they'd worked fast, releasing the site this morning at eleven. They'd collected hairbrushes, toothbrushes and dirty underwear, anything that would help them build up Dove's DNA profile. While they were at it, they'd uncovered a collection of aged quarrying dynamite and drums of fertilizer in an outbuilding half a mile from the cottage. Dove's explosives arsenal. The army disposal team had been there since dawn, sealing off ten acres on the eastern flank. As we clambered off the boat we got glimpses of them in the distance, wearing flak jackets, leading dogs around on short leashes.

Angeline hadn't said a word since our conversation. She walked around with her arms wrapped across her chest, moodily chewing the inside of her mouth, not looking at anyone. From time to time I'd get the idea when my back was to her she'd looked up and was watching me, and I'd turn, just in time to see her attention scuttle away like nothing had happened. But mostly she was still upset and embarrassed by what Struthers had said. When he stopped next to one of the galvanized-steel fence posts, and said, 'So, pet, who put this up for Dad?' she shrugged. She put her hands into her pockets and dropped her chin. Dug her toe into the soil and glanced self-consciously over her shoulder, like a teenager checking she wasn't being watched by her mates.

'Angeline?'

'It was him,' she muttered. 'Did it himself. Wouldn't've let anyone else come out here.'

'Good with his hands, was he? Knew his explosives – knew how to put a hole in granite?'

She shrugged again and stared off into the distance, like she wasn't connected with the words coming out of her mouth. 'Yeah. S'pose.'

It was kind of embarrassing the way she kept up with these monosyllabic answers – Yes. No. Maybe – not offering any more information than she was asked. She led us round grudgingly,

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