The Sound of Whales (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

H
ayley Risso stood on the beach and faced the Atlantic Ocean, let the wind thrash her body and grains of sand sting her face. She was all alone, on a dark and stormy beach, thousands of miles from home. Her heart thumped in her chest, it was wild and frightening and thrilling too. Like nothing she had ever experienced. In Texas, at the first hint of a thundercloud, it was into the cellar in case a tornado should form.

It was crazy to be out so late and in such a storm but she wasn't going back to the cottage, no way. Not until her mom had calmed down and hopefully gone to bed.

Hayley turned and looked back towards the harbour. At the far edge sat their tiny rented cottage; a light shone from the living room where she slept on a pull-down bed. Her mom was still up, still fuming probably. It had been another dinger of a fight.

The cottage had a painfully slow Wi-Fi connection, there was no cable television, cell-phone reception came and went. It was sleep or read a book. The jetlag still hadn't lifted, so she couldn't sleep, and reading a book was boring. She'd finally managed to get an internet connection to chat with her friends back in the States but her mom had discovered her on the laptop. They were the wrong friends. Her new ones. OK, most of the boys were jerks and some of the girls could be nasty, but she was fifteen now and could be friends with whoever she liked. It was fun picking ones her mom hated.

Hayley set off along the beach in the opposite direction to the cottage. It was hard to walk in a straight line with the battering wind and her eyes half shut against the rain. At least she had dressed in her heavy boots and jacket before storming out into the storm. She'd tried to bang the door behind her but it was an old house and the door was too stiff to slam. So annoying.

High cliffs loomed ahead. She could just make out a narrow path that climbed upwards. The sensible move was to stay on the beach and avoid steep drops in gusting gales. Hayley paused, then bent into the wind and forced herself up, her expensive boots slipping on the muddy path.

‘This could have been London,' she shouted into the driving rain. ‘This could have been Paris. I get
Scotland
!'

If she had to go to Europe, she had pleaded to her mother, why not somewhere much more interesting? Her mother had simply told her there was research to be done for the book she was writing. Hayley knew there was more to it than that. Scotland was a long way from the United States, which meant a long way from Hayley's father. And her new friends.

A gust of wind grabbed her by the ankles, sending her to her knees with a squish. She scrambled a few metres on all fours before straightening up and flicking mud from her hands, pulling her long, blonde, bedraggled hair away from her face.

Stretching her long legs, arms pumping, she crested the slope and stood on the clifftop. The path was only a couple of metres from the edge and the gale battered her body as if trying to push her over the drop.
Why am I up here?
she thought. Her legs ached from staying attached to the ground.
Where am I going?

Up ahead was the outline of something big, a structure of some sort. As she drew closer it took shape: a high tower, a curved archway
 . . . 
It was an old ruined castle, with high stone walls, dark doorways and empty windows. Grey clouds scudded behind the outline of its crumbling turrets.

But there was something, a shadow, between her and those old stones. As the clouds briefly parted, in a glimmer of moonlight, the shadow became a silhouette. It was a figure teetering on the cliff edge. And from this figure came a sound, an eerie wailing, above the wind. The pitch rose and fell and it sounded almost like a melody.

Hayley moved forward, trying to breathe.

It was a boy. He stood close to the edge, high above the surging waves spilling up the beach with a boom. He was young and thin and pale, and soaked to the skin. He stared out across the water, his arms outstretched as if he was trying to grasp the wind, head raised to the black clouds. Water dripped from hair that was white.

Hayley couldn't begin to imagine what he was he doing up here alone in the dark. Was he stuck? Was he planning to jump? Did he realize how close he was to falling?

She took a few steps closer, heard him give another wail that was almost like a sob and a song together. She was desperate to grab him but scared to move any closer. Her stomach rolled like the breakers on the beach below.

She was about to shout when he took a step away from the cliff edge, then another. He twisted his shoulder back then flung his arm forward and launched something into the night sky. It spun in the air as it arced over the clifftop and was swallowed by the dark and the rain.

‘Hello,' she shouted, the word snatched away in the wind. Louder, ‘Hello!'

The boy slowly turned his head and she could see he was crying.

‘Are you OK?'

He didn't reply.

‘What's your name?'

She moved slowly towards him and remembered something her mom had told her their first night on the island. It was a warning really, about the son of the people who owned the cottage.
A little different
, was her mom's description,
be nice
, her instruction
 . . . 
He doesn't speak
.

The family were called Dunbar, there were two brothers, the younger one had a strange name. A blast of wind and it came to her as if blown in from across the sea.

‘Are you Dunny?' she asked. He gave the slightest of nods. ‘I'm Hayley. I'm staying in your cottage.'

The boy wiped rain from his face and slowly turned away from the sea, swaying slightly. Another blast of wind hit the clifftop and made him stumble and suddenly he was falling. Hayley leapt forward and grabbed his arm, her foot touched the nothingness of air over the drop, then she lurched backwards, clutching the boy, and they fell together on to the sodden grass. She lay there holding him with shaking hands, taking deep breaths of the wet wind.

‘That was close,' she said, picking herself up.

Dunny stood and backed away, kept watching her with the saddest, darkest eyes she had ever seen. Then he smiled, only for a moment, and his face changed and he looked grateful at least, if not happy.

‘We should go home,' Hayley said.

The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out something, stepped forward and handed it to her.

It was a scallop shell. It was pale cream in colour with darker banding, its fan shape perfect, not a chip or crack across its surface.

‘Thank you,' she said, wondering what to do with it. Was this the award you received on the island when you saved a life? She put it in her pocket, realizing it was a shell he had thrown from the cliff. She didn't understand this place.

Dunny had already set off down the path. She hurried after him, no longer wanting to be alone in the dark and the storm. She took a last look out across the ocean and was surprised to see the faint lights of a small boat close to shore. It was battling the waves, bouncing around in the swell. She wished those on board a safe sail back to harbour. She smiled at the thought that there might actually be someone on the island crazy enough to be worth meeting.

CHAPTER 3

T
he morning after the storm. Fraser sat on the stern of Ben McCaig's boat, his legs hanging over the edge. The glare of the sun made him squint and he rubbed his tired eyes and pulled a hand through his dark hair that was needing a cut. The sky was clear blue and the air was warm; in the first week of July it was the first hint that good weather had finally arrived. Fraser yawned; what little sleep he had had the night before was broken by dreams of drowning men crying for help. In the sunlight now, with the ocean calm, he was almost convinced that it had been his imagination and nothing more. Almost.

Ben pulled himself up from his position dangling over the hull and dipped a brush in the paint pot Fraser was holding.

‘That's
Moby
done,' Ben said, ‘Now for
Dick
.'

The boat that saved them from the storm was getting a new name in black letters that would stand out against the rusty white.
Moby Dick
, an appropriate name for the vessel of a whale scientist. Beneath the paint could be seen the faded port registration number, SK712, a Skulavaig vessel. The old lobster boat was twelve metres in length, the fishing gear removed but not the smell.

Fraser took a breath and asked his question. ‘So any reports of a body washed ashore?'

Ben sighed. ‘No bodies, no shipwrecks.' He pulled himself upright. ‘There was no one in the water, Fraser, there was no one swimming. Let it go.' He leant back down and asked as he painted, ‘So what did your dad say last night when you finally got home? You obviously escaped the killing.'

‘He didn't even notice I was gone.'

‘That was a bit of luck.'

‘Aye, I suppose.'

It
was
luck; it would have been a grounding if not a killing. Fraser had hurried home to face his father's wrath and found the house empty. He'd thought with growing anxiety that they were all out looking for him and had slid beneath the bed covers to await his fate. But when his parents arrived home they had a wet Dunny in tow. This was a first for his brother: he was always wandering the beach or sitting up on the cliffs, but never at night.

Dunny had crept out of the house and quickly been missed.

Fraser had done the same thing and no one had noticed.

As always, it had been his mute brother who had somehow gained the last word.

Back in bed, in the dark, Fraser had thought,
I'm really starting to hate him
. And then he had heard a muffled conversation between his parents, had learnt it was the American girl staying in their cottage who had found his brother, high on the cliffs beside the castle. No one had explained what
she
was doing up there.

The sound of feet made him turn and he saw Willie McGregor walking towards them down the jetty. The tide was in and the boat sat high on the water, moored against the lowest section of harbour wall. Willie hopped the gap between the jetty and the boat, landing unsteadily on the deck. In his sixties but fitter than most, he was one of the few fishermen left in town and the old boat had once been his. He seemed to think he could still come and go whenever he pleased.

Willie pulled a face when he saw Ben painting a new name. ‘You survived, then?' he asked.

Ben hauled himself on to his feet and handed the paintbrush to Fraser. ‘Just about. She's a tough wee boat.'

‘Oh, aye. She's been in worse than last night.'

Fraser said, ‘I can't imagine worse than last night.'

Willie shook his head. ‘Laddie, you've not been in a storm until below deck is full of water up to your waist and St Elmo's fire is dancing round the wheelhouse. Did I tell you about the time I caught the tail of a hurricane off St Kilda?'

Ben laughed. ‘You told me that story when you were selling me this rust bucket.'

‘And did she not get you home last night in much the same kind of storm?'

‘She did. And made a fine job of it.'

‘Aye.' Willie McGregor moved across the deck and stood at the rail beside Ben and Fraser. ‘Next time you might not be so lucky.' He looked sternly at the boy. ‘I dinnae suppose your father knew you were out on the water last night?'

Fraser shook his head. ‘Don't tell him, please.'

Willie turned to Ben. ‘You, lad, you should know better.'

Ben McCaig smiled and shrugged. ‘It was fine, there was nothing to worry about.' He nodded towards Fraser. ‘Fraze brought up his dinner, that's all.'

Fraser forced a smile, looked out across the harbour wall to a sea that was tranquil and sunlit. It was a completely different place from the previous night but there was still the nagging memory of a shadow in the water and a cry for help.

Willie ran a hand across the stained wood of the wheelhouse. ‘Look,' he said to Ben, ‘next time the sky's a bit gloomy, dinnae go anywhere, eh? She's strong but she's old.'

‘If there's so much as a breeze, I will stay in harbour.'

‘And you, laddie,' he said to Fraser, ‘you stay in your bed.'

Fraser nodded, having told himself that next time he would absolutely stay in his bed.

‘One last thing,' Willie said as he turned to go, ‘I hear there's a whale been washed up on the beach.' He paused then added, ‘But dinnae get excited. The beast is dead.'

Five minutes later Fraser was walking fast along the sand, trying to keep up with the purposeful stride of Ben McCaig, the straps of Ben's backpack cutting into his skin. He didn't mind, this was his job: seasonal voluntary assistant researcher.

The ocean sparkled in the morning sun, not a breath of wind to ruffle the water. The storm had cleared the sky of clouds, the pummelling waves had washed the beach clean, it felt like summer had finally arrived and everything was fresh and new. Almost everything.

The dead whale was high on the beach, pushed there by the storm, out of reach now of the tide. It lay partly on its side, a glassy eye staring at the sky as if wondering what in heavens it was doing there. Big gulls wheeled in the air above.

‘Isn't that your brother?' Ben asked.

Dunny was standing by the whale, a hand stretched out, fingers gently touching its flank. His face was lifted to the sky, his pale hair shone in the sun.

‘What's he doing?' Ben asked.

‘Something weird no doubt.'

‘Is he singing?'

There was a noise coming from the boy, a hum without a tune, a series of random notes, high and low.

‘I wouldn't call that singing,' said Fraser. As they arrived at the whale he asked, ‘What are you doing, Dunny?'

The boy turned, his humming abruptly ending. He looked at Fraser for a moment, an intense sadness on his face, then walked away. He was barefoot and he moved so lightly along the beach that the sand barely rippled.

Fraser returned his attention to the whale.

It was smaller than he had imagined, its mouth slightly open, a line of jagged teeth glinting in the sun. It was also a little bit sad – the whale seemed out of place and abandoned. Ben walked slowly around the carcass.

On top of the whale Fraser saw something else that caught the sunlight. He lifted it off and saw that it was a scallop shell. Dunny must have placed it there. In recent weeks his brother had started collecting shells and writing messages on them. Fraser had no idea why. He thought sometimes his brother faked the strangeness, that it was a bit of an act, but then again, maybe his brother
was
just weird. There was a message written on this shell in very small writing. Fraser refused to pander to Dunny's nonsense by reading it. He took the scallop shell in both hands, snapped it in half, then tossed both bits down the sand towards the breaking waves.

‘So what kind of whale is it?' he asked.

‘It's a pilot whale,' Ben said. ‘You can tell from the dark skin, its round head and this triangular dorsal fin. We need to measure it first.'

Ben pulled a tape measure out of the backpack. With Fraser holding it at the head of the whale, he pulled the tape slowly to the tail.

‘Three point two metres,' he said, scribbling in his notebook. ‘It's a juvenile, only half the length it would have reached in maturity.'

He dropped to his knees and placed both hands on the carcass. ‘Help me push it over.'

The animal was cold to the touch and dry, covered in a sprinkling of sand. Together they pushed on the body and Ben examined the underside.

‘It's almost impossible to tell the sex of a whale when they're swimming,' he said, ‘but this close there are some clues.'

He pointed to a thin slit on the belly towards the tail. ‘This is the genital slit. If it was female, there would be two corresponding mammary slits. There are none, so it's a male.'

They let the carcass fall back on to the sand and Ben noted this information in the notebook. Fraser was on his knees, stroking the rough skin. It was an amazing thing to touch a whale. And such a shame it could only be done when it lay dead on the beach.

Ben said, ‘Your brother's back.'

Fraser's heart sank at the sight of Dunny standing on the grass at the top of the beach, watching. And then something funny happened in Fraser's stomach as he noticed the pretty blonde girl striding towards them from the same direction.

‘Hi,' she said as she arrived. ‘What you doing?'

Fraser had yet to meet the American visitors but the girl's accent gave her away.

She stared curiously at the whale then asked, ‘Is it dead?'

‘I'm afraid so,' Ben replied.

The girl looked into the eye of the animal. ‘What kind of whale is it?'

‘It's a pilot whale. They're quite common in these waters. This is a young male.'

She took two steps towards the tail. ‘How do you know all this?'

‘I'm a scientist, I study whales. This part of the world has recently become a whale hotspot. I'm Ben.'

The girl gave a quick smile but didn't offer her name.

‘You're American?' Ben asked.

‘That's right.'

‘Are you here on holiday?'

‘Not really. Kind of. My mom is over here researching some book she's writing.'

‘Interesting. What's the book about?'

The girl shrugged. ‘No idea. Scotland, I suppose.'

‘Then I guess you've come to the right place.'

The girl said, ‘This is never the right place.'

‘Have you met Fraser and Dunny?' Ben pointed to the brothers in turn.

Dunny's eyes were fixed on the whale. Fraser noticed that his fists were clenched and his back stiff, as if the whale was his and they were messing with it without permission.

‘I've met Dunny, yes,' the girl said. ‘Last night.'

‘This is Fraser, Dunny's older brother. Fraser's helping me with my whale research.'

There was a twinkle in Ben's eye that Fraser didn't like, as if he was trying his hand at matchmaking.

Reluctantly, it seemed, the girl said, ‘Hello.'

Both she and Ben looked at Fraser and he realized that it was his turn to say something. His mind went blank. His experience of making conversation with pretty girls was just about zero. In the silence that followed Fraser heard the breaking of the waves and the pounding of his heart.

‘And don't you speak either?' the girl asked after a pause.

Her rudeness broke the spell. ‘Not a word,' Fraser said. ‘Mute as a brush.' He gave her a withering look.

‘What does that mean?' she said, rolling her eyes. She turned back to Ben. ‘So what will happen to the whale?'

‘The council will have to remove it or bury the thing before it starts to smell.'

‘That'll be a big hole.' She surveyed the three of them as if deciding whether they were worth her company. ‘Well, I have to go. Nice meeting you, Ben,' she said, pointedly missing out Fraser. She turned and headed up the beach away from the town.

Dunny lingered at the top of the beach, watching, keeping guard, it seemed.

Fraser kicked the dead whale and dry sand fell from the carcass.

‘Way to go, Fraze,' Ben said with a smile. ‘That's how to impress the ladies.'

‘She wasn't worth impressing,' Fraser said, peeved.

‘No? A pretty American girl. How many of them do you see in Skulavaig?'

‘One too many.' He had been away at school the previous week when the American visitors arrived. His first encounter had not gone well.

‘What's her name?' Ben asked.

‘Hayley, I think.'

‘What's she doing with your brother?'

‘Who knows. Who cares.' Fraser did care, he cared a lot. He moved around the whale and looked at its back, which was more exposed now that they had turned it slightly. Three large grooves caught his eye.

‘Look at these.'

Ben joined him. He caught his breath and stared for a long moment, then exhaled slowly through pursed lips, shaking his head. ‘God,' he said.

‘What are they?'