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Excerpt from Chapter 1

For many years, certainly since I was very young, I had erected, stage by stage, a reinforced concrete wall, behind which I could hide, whenever the need arose. When threatened I could scurry away, over its strong drawbridge, and take refuge in the lee of this giant structure. And from the relative safety of my powerful bastion, I could keep my silent watch for the enemies whom I knew were hell-bent on my destruction. Neurotic? Probably. Paranoid? Certainly. But the knowing of these facts did little to help me in my headlong rush for asylum.
      I use that word in its broadest context, for, apart from my gentle soul being greatly in need of protection, there were many, and still are a few, who, I know, believe me to be utterly insane and well worthy of being placed in the tender mercies of teams of psychiatrists and placed under lock and key to protect society from me. Paradoxical, since these walls were raised to protect me from them, and not the other way round.
      In recent years, however, and for unfathomable reasons, these barriers have somehow - I don't know how - been dissolved in a heavy rain of compassion; been bowled over by a veritable avalanche of a grand opening of self, that has taken me completely by surprise. This event has also opened a Pandora's Box of unresolved feelings, unspoken truths, and unasked, and therefore unanswered, questions.
      My name is Jonathon … Jonathon. A new name for a new life. Although I was christened Jon Tomas, and am still called Jon T at home, I wanted a more mature sounding name to reflect the growing I felt coming into my own life. I wanted a man's name for a man's life. I had read that Native Americans, whose sensitivity to nature and life I shared, changed their names with arriving manhood. I wanted to be like them. Since the age of seventeen, I told everyone my new name because everyone I knew was new to me. Teachers at school asked me by what name I was commonly known. I lied; I told them I was Jonathon.
      I am twenty-four years old and I am not gay. I was born on April 3rd, 1983 on the Hebridean Isle of Arnasay. Seven years ago, following my father's death, we moved away from the island … But this is no place to begin my story.

It is only since coming to Edinburgh I have become able, so I'm told, to communicate. That is, I was thought by many to be utterly bereft of any viable social skills. I know this to be both untrue and unfair, although I have to agree it is an opinion completely justifiable if one examines the facts. My father was a native Gaelic speaker and my mother was not. She is from Edinburgh. So I was raised in a house, number twelve Main Street, Arndaig on the Isle of Arnasay, in which English was the more prominent of the two languages.
      I grew up with the sound of both tongues being very familiar. The challenging Edinburgh tones with their questioning semi-octave jump at the end of each sentence compared with the more lyrical, sing-song tone of the Gaelic. I always think of it as the Edinburgh accent imitating the growling of cars and buses as they make their way, slowly on most days, along Princes Street, while the soft poetic-sounding Gaelic rolls gently over the ears, but usually has a sting in its tail. One harsh, yet straightforward and the other, tender, yet not entirely honest. In Edinburgh, what you see is what you get while on the island, the beautiful ocean holds hidden dangers. People seem to reflect the ways of nature observable in their eco-environs. In Edinburgh, the people are 'in your face', brash even, while on the island, folk seem open, on the face of it, but broodingly keep their real feelings to themselves. When visitors come to Edinburgh, they can easily see it all; on Arnasay one has to dig deep and remain very patient for some time before the seductress will remove a first, small piece of clothing, revealing an outstanding beauty and, at the same time, a revolting ugliness, that will simultaneously enchant and repel. What the two have in common is a universal character trait: in times when disaster strikes, they instantly display their true nature.
      So why do I think people's analysis of me, as apparent in their reactions to me, did not truly reflect the reality of me? As I see it, there were two reasons why most folks regarded me as something of an odd-ball. Firstly, as my grandmother used to say, from a young age I seemed to have 'the gift' of second sight or, to put it another way, I was able to foretell, often quite accurately, events that lay in the future. Secondly, my father didn't like me - or so I thought. I didn't find out otherwise until the day before his death. So, I spent my formative years believing my father hated me. My younger sister, Madeline, or Maddie Og meaning young Maddie, told me of a conversation she had overheard some time earlier between my parents: Mother had spoken of my father having cried tears of joy and gratitude when I, his first born, entered into this life. Apparently he was unable to speak for several minutes so overcome was he with emotion at seeing his new son lying there all bloody and wet. It was a portent of things to come.
      Og is Gaelic for young and, as my grandmother was also named Maddie, the arrangement of Og, for my sister, as opposed to Cailleach - meaning old woman - seemed quite appropriate, not to mention useful when identifying which Maddie one was referring to. For some, less kind, folk the looser translation of crazy old woman was the preferred inference.
      Maddie Og was, to put it simply, an utterly brilliant sister. She was beautiful, I can see her wild auburn hair catching fire in the Hebridean sunset, and she was so smart. Her smartness verged on wisdom. And so it was that she, unfortunately a little late, alerted me to my father's particular fondness for me. She told me that of all the children, I was the most like my father. This explains my perception of his disappointment with me, in spite of Maddie Og's assurances. If I was so like my father, it had been his assumption I was destined to become a fisherman. As I grew up, it became obvious to my father he would never be able to make a fisherman out of me. Nevertheless, my sister insisted I was his favourite.
      As for me, I just couldn't see it. He would chastise me for nothing and seemed overjoyed to have the opportunity to criticise or judge me; he seemed to ignore me; as if he, somehow, was impervious to my existence; he would talk to David, his youngest child, and to Maddie Og; he would take David out to the fishing. But me … well, as far as I could make out, he only seemed to notice me when I had done something that was, at least in his eyes, wrong. Then he would appear to derive great joy in being able to put me down, discount me, and inform me of my unsuitableness for anything he could deem useful.
      I remember one incident in particular. He and MacAuley were returning from a fishing trip with a boatload of creels. It had been blowing a gale, gusting to storm force. David and I, together with some other boys from the village had been watching them from afar as the little boat, the Soirbheas, meaning Favourable Wind, had made her approaches to the harbour. The boat had been thrown all over the place by a maelstrom of angry water. When she finally managed to get alongside and started to get made fast to the quay, MacAulay had handed a bow line up to David and had shouted to him they would make fishermen of us all yet. Dad didn't know it, but I saw a look of utter derision on his face when he glanced first at the skipper, MacAuley, then at me. He didn't believe anything useful could be made out of me, unless there was need of a soothsayer, or perhaps even a shaman, on the Isle of Arnasay.
      Did this influence my life? I am not sure exactly how his attitude affected me, but I do know, and only in retrospect and from the saturated sophistry of the city of Edinburgh, that I had become very withdrawn and rather silent. I had become, I remember thinking, 'a man of few words'. But how I loved the island!
      Its wildness and rugged beauty had held me entranced since I first opened my eyes and gazed out on the turquoise sea of tranquillity that surrounded our life. The rivers, lochs, and hills too were where I truly found my self. When I was twelve years old, I remember my grandmother calling me to sit with her at a Christmas gathering. I really liked old Maddie so I was always happy to oblige her. She pulled me roughly towards her and made me sit on her knee even though I was taller than she.
      She looked me right in the eye and said: "This boy has the gift of roimh-shealladh! Can you not see it? He is a sensitive."
      She had shouted out these words so loudly that the entire room had become silent. I can remember seeing men with their whisky glasses half raised to drink, stop in mid-flight and woman with crumb-dripping scones in position ready and eager to eat, pause, as if Time itself had stopped while all eyes turned to examine me as if I was a curiosity in a museum, which, as a quiet and large lump sitting on my wee grandmother's knee, I suppose I was.
      But my mind was on other things. I recall tickling trout in the outfall river from Loch Rainic, Sìthiche River, or Fairy River, as it was called because of all the stories that had reached the hotel public bar regarding sightings of fairies. I remember, too, watching the white-tailed sea eagles floating around on the wind in search of prey. I think I was the only human being alive who knew such creatures existed on our little island home. I had heard they had been sighted on the Isle of Mull, but I am sure nobody knew we had a nesting pair right here on Arnasay.
      They say nobody knew the island like the MacNeils, but that surely wasn't true. In fact, I'm not sure some of the MacNeils were even aware they lived on an island, such was their intake of uisge-beatha. Even though they would gather with us all to watch the once-weekly service ferry dock and unload, I'm not certain their collective awareness extended much beyond the croft and, of course, the public bar of the Arndaig Hotel.

Excerpt from Chapter 3

I looked around and saw white-capped rollers. White streaks of spray were whipping over the starboard bow.
      "We're going to turn and run back up before the wind. I'm going to get the spinnaker. Keep her on this course."
      I nodded and smiled at Elliot for the second time in my life. I had smiled at him when we were introduced and then had been stung by his very personal form of mockery. He paused, for a moment, and placed a hand on my shoulder.
      "You're doing well, Jonathon," he said and my heart lifted and swelled with pride. The blood of my ancestors coursed through my body and I felt alive for the first time since leaving Arnasay. Things are going to be fine now, I thought. Just fine. I gave a loud hoot and then laughed, rolling my head back as I had seen Hamish doing back at home so many times before as he stood with my father at the bar at the hotel in Arndaig village.
      Elliot appeared back in the cockpit and went forward with the spinnaker. He worked there for several minutes before rejoining me in the cockpit.
      "We're going to let her fall away from the wind, raise the spinnaker and let the sails fill and then run straight back for the bridges." He smiled at me again. I smiled back. "Okay?"
      I nodded vigorously. The wind was now quite strong and there was a good swell running upriver, driven by the wind, which had backed to the east. I looked up at heavy grey clouds and gazed out to the east where I thought I saw a flash of lightning under a black cloud well to the east of our position.
      I looked at Elliot. He looked at me and said, "Yes. Weather's coming, but we'll beat it if we make good enough time running back to Port Edgar. Stand by to come about."
      I turned the tiller to windward and the bow fell off until our compass heading approximated to west and we felt a sudden lurch as the wind picked us up and we began to head for home.
      "How fast are we going, Elliot?"
      "I think we're doing over fifteen knots now," he replied laughing. "Great, isn't it?"
      I nodded again and grinned as our boat carried us homewards.
      It seemed like no time had passed and the rail bridge loomed massive over our heads. I glanced at Elliot and noticed a strange expression on his face. My intuition began working overtime, but I managed to quell the images entering my head.
      Elliot had taken over steering as the following swell had increased to around a metre and our boat seemed to be lifting as each swell caught up to us and rolled under the keel.
      "Got to watch we don't get broached with this wind and swell," he said light-heartedly as he gently took hold of my hand and moved it away from the tiller. This was a completely different Elliot from the one I had known and come to hate.
      I noticed he was steering us very close to one of the massive stone foundations of the rail bridge.
      "We'll pass a bit close to the brick work, will we not, Elliot?" I said.
      He didn't answer me, but shook his head from side to side. I thought I could detect tension in his body. As we passed feet away from the bridge support Elliot shouted, "Tide's going out. Tide against the swell and wind. Look." He pointed and my gaze followed his hand. I felt fear tightening my chest as I saw the object, a standing wave, immediately to starboard and thirty yards ahead. It was a frightening sight. A ten foot high, unmoving pyramid of water loomed over us.
      "Better reef the mainsail," said Elliot.
      I stood to reach for the reef lines and turned to see an awful sneer covering Elliot's face.
      "See ya, Mu," he said in my face, his leering expression arousing old familiar feelings, as he elbowed me roughly causing me to loose my footing. A knife appeared in Elliot's hand from nowhere and sliced neatly through my life-vest harness as I toppled over falling, headlong, under the standing wave.

Excerpt from Chapter 11

"Very well, Mr Waters," said McKendrick. "If that's all you have to say, we'll bid you good night. We'll come back tomorrow. Perhaps a new day will refresh your memory."
      "And perhaps a new day will teach you to have a civil tongue in your head, gentlemen," said Maddie who had been fidgeting uneasily on the bedside. She stood up. "Good night to you," she said, her fiery eyes filled with defiance.
      The detectives left and stopped to talk to the constable at the door for several seconds.
      "Maddie!" I whispered urgently. "I've got to get out of here."
      "But, Jon T," Maddie spoke in a low voice. "You're innocent - I know you are - but it'll make you look guilty in their eyes if you try to run off. Anyway, where could you hide where they wouldn't find you?"
      Tears again flowed from my eyes.
      "I don't know," I said. "But I'm not staying here to be falsely accused any more. What if they somehow manage to prove that it was a case of murder? They might lock me up for God knows how long. I couldn't stand that, Maddie. It would kill me."
      Maddie took a long, hard look at me and said, "Well, that's true. Okay listen …"
      After talking in whispers for several minutes, Maddie walked out of the room.
      "Just going for a cup of tea, constable," I heard her say. "Would you like anything to drink?"
      "No, Miss." He smiled. He was very young and couldn't have been in the force for long.
      Maddie walked off.
      Five minutes later one of the duty nurses came to speak the constable.
      "Your office has just called," she said. "They asked if you would call in. You can use the phone at ward reception along the hallway."
      She pointed towards the ward duty station. The constable hesitated, fingering his shoulder strapped radio which had to be switched off in hospital, and looked round at me.
      "Och, he'll be okay. He's been sedated and we're just going to give him something to make him sleep. He's had a bit of a shock one way or the other."
      The constable shrugged and walked off in the direction of the phone. I knew Maddie had called reception and had posed as a clerk from the police station and had left a message for the young constable to call in to the station. I also knew this was my only chance for escape. At the time, it didn't occur to me the risk Maddie was taking. I was afraid, still sleepy from the sedative and overcome with shock and grief at the incidents of the day. My grief and fear, in the space of an evening, had turned me into some kind of criminally minded person who was a complete stranger to me.
      I jumped out of bed, staggered and slipped to the floor, dragged myself up and opened the room locker from where I retrieved the clothes my mother had brought, dressed and moved quickly towards the door. Carefully, I looked round and into the corridor in time to see the constable scratching his head and walking back towards my room. I stepped backwards, my heart gripped by suddenly intensified fear.
      "Oh Constable!" That was Maddie's voice. "I bought you a bar of chocolate. Gives you more energy. It must be tiring standing in a hospital ward."
      "Thanks Miss …" I heard the policeman saying and as he turned away, I slipped out of the door and padded swiftly and silently in the other direction and towards a door marked exit. It took me several minutes to find my way from the stairs through a maze of corridors to the emergency entrance.

When the cold evening air and wind-blown drizzle hit me as I stepped out from the front of the hospital, I knew I was in trouble. My sense of danger increased and my fear was driven to panic when I saw the blue flash of a police car approaching the hospital, its siren screaming rage at the night. I stepped back into the shadow of the building and behind a thin upright construction beam, as the police car skidded to a halt yards from where I stood. I knew the policemen jumping out of the car wouldn't have been able to see me if I kept perfectly still. The young constable whose duty it had been to guard me rushed from the hospital entrance to meet them.
      "Got ourselves a runner," he gasped. "Must be guilty as hell."
      "Just calm down, son, and tell us what happened."
      "Well I got a call from the station and when I came back from the ward reception, he was gone. His sister was still there. She told me was wearing white trousers, yellow trainers and a red
      jacket …"
      I looked down at my blue jeans and dark grey jumper to my navy trainers.
      One of the newly arrived policemen called in the incident on his radio together with a description.
      "Okay, he may still be in the building so we'll start there. My report's in and there's another car on the way. Let's go."
      The three policemen entered the hospital building.
      And I started running.

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