The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine Page B

collection of low houses, clustered together like the encampment of a primitive race, with smoke rising from thatched roofs. At one side, only half in shot, was the wall of a larger stone building. She shook her head.
    â€œThen try this.” He handed her another photograph. No mystery there. It was Muirlan House, newly completed, raw and pristine, the encircling wall intact, the gravel on the drive raked smooth. And to one side was the wall of the same stone building. The factor’s house. “Got it?”
    She nodded slowly.
    â€œThat’s what island lore remembers. Theo Blake’s father, who flattened their forebears’ houses to build Muirlan House, giving them the choice of poor land elsewhere, or emigration. And they remember his son, who came to paint or fish or shoot, and entertain wealthy guests. A man who demanded rents and had the power of God over them.” He nodded towards the sketches of the girl. “And maybe even seduced their daughters. Who knows.”
    She handed the photographs back and he rehung them on the wall. Was that it ? “And so you don’t want to see his house restored. Is this some sort of delayed revenge served, in this case, very cold indeed?”
    He gave her a straight look back and answered quietly, “You asked for island lore, not my views.”
    â€œBut you—” The phone rang again and he went to get it. Saved by the bell, she thought, as she looked again at the two photographs. There was something appalling about them, seen together like that, a depiction of unbridled power and wealth descending like a giant boot to obliterate the simple dwellings. But for goodness’ sake, it wasn’t even Theo Blake’s doing; it was his father’s, and well over a century ago. Surely—
    â€œAye.” James came back into the living area, the phone clamped to his ear. “I know exactly where she is,” he said, looking across at her. “I found her outside here, trespassing.” He raised a mocking eyebrow. “Hang on.” He lowered the receiver. “Ruairidh wants to know how long you’re staying.”
    â€œUntil the weekend, at least,” she told him, and he relayed the message.
    â€œAye. Right.” He hung up. “The forensic team was on the ferry, and by the time they got back to Skye something else had cropped up. It’ll be a day or two before they get back here.”
    Later that afternoon, as soon as the tide allowed her, she walked back across the strand to the island, wrestling with this new angle on the past, unsettled by the thought of the cluster of low dwellings in the photograph, the homely drift of peat smoke. A vanished community.
    She had glimpsed other ruins on the island the day before, and when she reached the other side she set off along the shoreline away from Muirlan House to find them. But there was little enough to see when she got there: tumbled walls and empty doorways, cobbled thresholds and fallen lintels, and a light snowfall of daisies tracing the outline of old lazy beds amongst the clover. The choice of poor land elsewhere , James had said, or emigration. Had these places been abandoned at the same time, or later, as the population on the island declined?
    Down by the shore she saw low mounds marking ancient graves, a cross covered with moss and yellow lichen fallen in the corner of another ruin, which was eroding onto the beach. Some graves were more recent and a few had headstones. She studied them, seeing the same family names repeated over and over, generation succeeding generation, marking the passing of time. Amongst childbed deaths, losses at sea, and fallen soldiers, there were others whose lives had spanned eight or nine decades and seen the world change around them. Some had been scraped clear of mosses, andshe traced an almost unbroken sequence of MacPhails, the earliest stone bearing a date of 1698 carved in irregular letters. Those graves had been