Pig Island by Mo Hayder

Dying vegetation? Or the community’s septic tank? It was unmistakable—the smell that is the purest distillation of sickness and death. I thought about the rotting meat clotted behind the outlet pipe.
    At the tables one or two of the women had pushed away their plates, others sat with unhappy expressions, trying to eat their potato salad. One pulled out a handkerchief and covered her nose.
    “Hey,” said Blake, leaning over to them, using his knife to indicate their plates. He continued chewing, giving them a meaningful nod. They hesitated, and after a few seconds, wan expressions on their faces, bravely picked up their forks and pushed some food into their mouths, looking down at their plates as they chewed.
    “What can you smell?” I said, leaning past Garrick so I could see his wife.
    She shook her head and pinched her nose, glancing at Blake and muttering, “Nothing, absolutely nothing,” under her breath.
    “What is it?” I asked again, my eyes straying up to the clifftop where the sun was so strong it cut out the shapes of individual leaves, like cacti in the desert. “Tell me.”
    “All in good time,” Blake said, flashing me his reassuring smile. He lifted a carafe. “More wine? We want you to enjoy yourself.”
    “What’s at the top of the cliff?” I said. “I’ll enjoy myself more if you tell me what you’re all staring at.”
    “You see ?” Susan Garrick said abruptly, pushing back her chair and standing, her eyes locked on Blake. “I told you he’d interfere. That’s what journalists do. He’s just going to tempt the—‘
    ‘ That’s enough, Susan ,“ said Blake. ”Hold your counsel.“
    Benjamin put a hand on his wife’s arm, drew her back to her seat. Slowly she subsided into the chair, staring red-faced at Blake as if she hated him more than anything in the world.
    “Now,” Blake said with a smile, taking my arm and raising me kind of forcefully to my feet, “come along, Joe. Let’s show you the rest of our Paradise.”
     
     
     

Chapter 7
     
     
    As the afternoon wore on all my questions were answered the same way. Malachi is gone. Gone. He’s left us. Blake will tell you everything in God’s good time . While the meal was cleared away by two elderly men in blue cambric aprons, I was treated to a tour of the community. You know the kind of thing: the generator, the sewage system, the orchards and the bean rows. I was handed unripe plums from the trees and a fresh oyster shucked off the rocks near the jetty. I was dragged into a giant barn and made to watch while slate was passed through cutting equipment, turned, polished and rubbed with linseed oil to make the Celtic crosses the community sold on the mainland for an income. A contingent of people came with me everywhere, hovering at my elbow, eagerly pointing out how well they took care of the place. But wherever we went we stuck to the slopes at the bottom of the cliffs.
    “Where are the pigs?” I asked Blake, as we entered a small forest and at last started to climb a path in the direction of the cliffs. By now we’d been going for over two hours and the welcome party had dwindled to him and a sullen teenage girl with toothpick-thin arms who’d offered to hold my camera bag while I took photos. “It’s called Pig Island, but I haven’t seen any pigs.”
    “Yes,” he said, taking my arm with a smile, “but that’s just a nickname. The real name is Cuagach Eilean. ”Limping Island.“ Nothing to do with pigs.”
    “So there are no pigs here?”
    He paused—seemed about to answer. After a moment’s thought his face cleared and he said cheerily, “Look at this!” He headed off along a path that led away from the one we stood on, off into the dark of the woods. “Here we are! We’re coming to the real heart of our community.”
    I followed him, and a few yards along the path we came to a weathered clapboard church half hidden in the trees ahead, only picked out by patches of sunlight. It had a