“Bram was stationed in Inverness, apparently made a big fuss until he got stationed out here and made chief inspector. And you know all Isla’s crew are shamans and witches and what have you?”
“And?”
“Professional obligation is one thing. But when you have a small community, especially one that’s cut off from everywhere else, you have another set of obligations. And I’m telling you now, law and order works differently when everyone’s related to each other. And speaking of Isla . . .”
I wondered whether I should tell him what Isla had revealed about her brother. “What about her?”
He pulled a face. “You must have worked out for yourself what Isla’s about.”
“Which is?”
“Self-appointed queen of the island. Knows everything about everyone, stretching back centuries. I’m not kidding. It’s the only reason she runs the café, and her cleaning business. Has to keep tabs on everything. Knowledge is power, as they say.”
“Plenty of people are nosy,” I said carefully. “Is that the only thing she’s about?”
He grabbed a cloth from the wallpaper table and wiped his trowel. “She’s a spin doctor.”
I looked up. “What?”
“Whatever info she has on folk, she uses for her own agenda.”
“You mean, she spreads lies?” This made sense. I hoped that the story of her brother wasn’t true. Just a lie she’d told to scare me.
“More like, she suppresses information,” Finn said. “There’s an unofficial wildling committee on the island. Did you know that?”
“Shut up,” I said, aghast.
He chuckled. “Serious. Not kidding. I’m pretty sure Isla is the chairperson, or vice-chairperson of said committee. What I do know is that over the last ten years, there have been sightings of at least two wildlings.” He pointed his trowel at me. “And you’ll know by now what you’re meant to do to a wildling.”
I took a deep breath. “If I tell you something, you promise not to tell anyone?”
He nodded. “I promise.”
“Isla said her mother killed her baby brother. That he turned up a year after he went missing and her parents believed he was a wildling. So they killed him.”
“Fucking hell.” He stared, appalled. “That’s a new one.”
“You didn’t hear about it?”
He shook his head grimly. “I’m not part of the insider group when it comes to those things. My family never got involved with that stuff. And I’ve lived here long enough to avoid it being too much of an issue.”
He filled his bucket with fresh water from a barrel and scrubbed it out. “There’s this guy I worked with, Malcolm—he was having an affair. Not an easy thing to do in a place like this. Definitely not a smart move, either. He swore he saw Isla and her crew taking a child to the woods. Says he heard screaming.” He lifted his eyes to mine in a meaningful glance, and I pressed a hand to my mouth, horrified. I wanted so badly to believe that Isla would never do that. Maybe she believed her mother was right, but to think she was capable of doing the same thing . . .
“What happened?” I asked.
“Malc went to the police about it. Next thing, Isla’s on his doorstep, all friendly neighbor, your average smiling assassin. Basically she told him if he wasn’t careful, his wife would hear all about his affair.”
I wondered what would happen if the boy I’d seen turned up. Would she kill him, too?
“Anyway, that’s me done now,” Finn said after a while, stretching his arms.