Scorpion Trail

by Geoffrey Archer

  This was getting stupid.

  Back at the airfield, no sign of the boy. He barged into the old bi-plane hangar, where used parachutes were being tensioned on the floor for re-packing.

  ‘Experienced jumpers have their favourite packers,’ Jodie announced suddenly at his side. ‘Gives a sort of feel-good factor.’

  ‘Oh, there you are!’ Alex started. The boy grinned at him, clad in an orange jump suit. No fear in those eyes.

  ‘They pay three pounds a time. It’s worth learning how to do it. Pack five ‘chutes and you’ve earned enough for a jump.’

  ‘You mean you intend to make a habit of this?’

  ‘Most people get hooked,’ Claire announced, joining them. ‘I’ve only done five jumps, and it’s like a drug.’

  Alex eyed her. Older than Jodie. Early twenties perhaps. A broad face, eyes bright with single-mindedness. Not unattractive.

  They looked so at ease, the pair of them, Alex felt his anxiety lifting.

  ‘Oh by the way, Alex this is Claire,’ Jodie said awkwardly.

  He shook her hand.

  There were half a dozen getting ready for their first jump. Several Jodie’s age, but two in their thirties. They’d spent the last hour revising drills learned the day before. Jodie had driven himself here on Saturday.

  ‘Two days in which to learn how to survive, falling out of a plane,’ Alex mused. ‘It’d take two lifetimes if it were me.’

  ‘Time you got kitted up.’ The instructor took Jodie by the arm and led him to the racks of parachute packs.

  ‘This is when your stomach really gets going,’ Claire murmured to Alex. ‘But he’ll be okay.’

  ‘What . . . what exactly does he have to do?’ Alex wanted reassurance again.

  ‘He’ll be on a static line. You always are for the first few. It means there’s a line attached to the plane, and as you fall away it pulls your canopy open. You don’t have to do a thing.’

  ‘Supposing it doesn’t open?’

  ‘Always does. But just in case, you carry a reserve parachute on your front.’

  ‘And does that open by itself too?’

  ‘You have to pull a handle . . . Look, don’t worry. Everybody’s so safety conscious here, you just wouldn’t believe it. Haven’t had a fatality for five years.’

  It was her use of that word ‘fatality’. He sensed a hand on his shoulder. Kirsty’s hand. Not there of course. He shivered.

  Jodie waddled back across the hangar, parachute packs strapped to front and back. He pulled a soft leather helmet over his head and eased a pair of goggles into place.

  ‘Cheer up!’ he said. ‘It’s me doing the jump, not you!’

  ‘You look like a phantom rapist, in that gear,’ Alex joked, trying to disguise his anxiety.

  ‘Thanks. Found my métier at last.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  It was a stupid question. Jodie’s face was tense. Nerves, but excitement too.

  ‘They say it’s the fear that gives you the buzz . . .’ he answered. ‘If that’s true, then I should have a great jump!’

  The instructor strolled over.

  ‘Just come over here a minute Jodie,’ he said, with practised calm. ‘We’ll go through things one last time.’

  He led him onto the field.

  A new emotion now in Alex’s chest. Jealousy. He’d been father, brother, teacher and guardian to the boy. He’d been the one Jodie had trusted. Now there was someone else. Some jerk in a jump suit.

  ‘Are you excited for him?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Of course.’ His voice sounded husky.

  As excited as their first time together on the stands at a Murrayfield International. As excited as the day he took the twelve-year-old on a day-long crawl through the heather to stalk Red Deer on the Monadhliath Mountains. Landmarks in a life, all as exciting as this, but none so terrifying.

  Alex and Claire crossed to the fence separating the car park from the field.

  He pulled out his cigarettes again and offered her one. She shook her head.

  ‘Did your family come and watch first time?’ Alex asked, tugging the smoke down into his chest.

  Claire shook her head. ‘Didn’t even tell them I was doing it.’

  Better that way, maybe. Better if neither he nor Kirsty had known.

  Claire asked about his job.

  ‘Marketing. Radar. I’m an electrical engineer by trade.’

  But possibly for not much longer, he omitted to say. The company was being taken over and the work ‘rationalized’. That meant redundancy, probably. Looking for volunteers, and if they didn’t get enough, they’d start naming people. He’d not told the family yet.

  Maybe that explained his anxiety today. Fear about losing his job, twisted by his mind into fear for Jodie’s life. For a moment or two he almost believed it.

  An engine purred high in the sky. The club’s other aircraft was up with the free-fallers. He squinted at the even greyness above. One. Two. Three and then four tiny figures tumbled from the black ‘T’ shape. Claire counted aloud to five.

  ‘Five seconds delay! That’s my next step. I’ve done three seconds already.’

  One by one, the ‘chutes had popped open.

  ‘Great!’ Alex croaked. It all looked so easy. Nothing to fear. ‘Bloody great!’

  They watched the canopies glide and float towards the field, the bodies beneath tugging on the steering guides.

  ‘Ram-air canopies,’ Claire explained. ‘Like a wing. You can get twenty-five knots horizontal speed on them.’

  As they swooped to land gracefully a few feet in front of them, Claire detached herself from Alex’s side and went to greet one of the free-fallers. He only realized it was a girl when she removed her helmet and shook free a tress of chestnut hair. Claire grabbed her excitedly by the arms.

  Alex lived that moment with them. Faces aglow, the world their oyster. Make the most if it, he thought.

  For an instant he was Jodie’s age again. In a flash of memory, he recalled a noisy pub in Hampstead and a girl called Lorna Donohue.

  Lorna, who’d caught his eye and left him breathless. A golden-haired teenager. Someone who really had believed in clairvoyance. They’d been lovers for just a few weeks and she’d told him they’d never be parted. Then she’d dumped him and disappeared back to college in America.

  Lorna Donohue. Perhaps the only woman he’d ever truly loved. They’d met again in Belfast a decade later, quite by chance. Once more the chemistry had been instant, so explosive that time it had scarred their lives. The result for him – exile in Scotland. For her? He had no idea.

  The memory faded. All in the past. The past he never dared talk about.

  The pilot climbed into the little plane, followed by Jodie and the others.

  ‘Alex!’

  Jodie waved from beside the doorway.

  Alex stared back, unable to speak.

  ‘Alex?’

  The boy looked strained, wanting a response.

  ‘Yes!’ he managed to shout at last. ‘Good luck!’

  He clutched the fence, telling himself to be rational. Of course there was a risk. People had died, parachuting. But not beginners, not on a static line.

  The engine flicked into life. His last chance to run across and stop them . . .

  ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid!’ he growled to himself.

  It was Kirsty’s fault. Paranoia must be infectious.

  The aircraft began its take-off run. He waved again, a terrible, empty feeling.

  It was a tight squeeze in the back of the plane. No seats. Just a bare metal floor and a gaping hole to the slipstream. Jodie was to be first out and had to kneel, gripping a webbing handle.

  The Cessna banked and climbed to 2,200 feet. The instructor tapped Jodie’s shoulder, then ran his hand along the strap connecting his back-pack to a ring on the floor. All secure, all as it should be. Thumbs up.

  ‘Okay now,’ he yelled above the engine and the wind. ‘Into the door
way and take the bracing position.’ He gave a reassuring grin.

  Jodie’s heart pounded so hard, he couldn’t speak. His mind was blank. He’d forgotten everything. Everything he’d been taught in the last two days. Gone.

  Think.

  Legs over the edge. Strange how it didn’t affect him, looking down at the earth two thousand feet below. Couldn’t go more than two rungs up a ladder normally.

  Left hand on the sill, right on the door frame.

  Good.

  Turn to look at the instructor. The man grins again, gives thumbs up, his eyes asking for an acknowledgement. Jodie nods. No going back now.

  Go! The signal.

  Hesitation.

  Go! Go!

  Pushes off from the sill and the frame. Airstream hits like a gloved fist at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

  ‘Aaaah!’ The scream choked in his throat by the wind.

  Spread arms. Count. One thousand, two thousand, three thou . . .

  Bang. The straps jerk under his groin as the ‘chute opens.

  Shit!

  Now what. Check canopy. He strains his head back. That beautiful dome of blue and white.

  He feels sick. Doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘Hey! This is amazing!’

  He laughs.

  ‘Jodie!’ A man’s voice in his ear. ‘Don’t forget to steer.’

  The radio. He’d forgotten about it. Another instructor was on the ground, watching through binoculars, talking to him on the VHF.

  ‘Is that him?’ Alex asked, craning his neck up at the sky.

  ‘Should be,’ said Claire. ‘He told me he was first out.’

  ‘God! Isn’t that great?’ Alex’s voice cracked with relief.

  ‘Told you it was foolproof.’

  ‘Christ,’ thought Jodie. ‘Where am I?’

  The field was nowhere to be seen. He pulled a line to close a vent on the back of the canopy and began to swing.

  ‘Pull hard on your left.’ The metallic radio voice again.

  He did and swung the other way.

  ‘Now let go the guides. Straight ahead now.’

  At last he saw the hangar and the windsock, and then the orange cross on the grass which was his notional landing point. Miles away, and he was dropping fast. He looked straight down.

  Oh, no! That bloody clump of trees they were warned about.

  He willed the canopy towards the field. Eight miles an hour forward speed, that’s what he should have in still air. But looking at that bloody windsock, the wind was gusting too strongly. Wasn’t moving forward at all.

  Ground coming up fast.

  ‘If you go in the trees, remember legs together and cover your face. No problem.’

  So reassuring, the voice in his ear. All right for him. Done it a thousand times.

  O..oh! Here we go.

  From across the field, the man who’d spoken on the radio watched from his van as Jodie’s legs pierced the dome of green-black branches. Soon obscured by the pine foliage, all he could see was the blue and white canopy snagged and deflated above, and the vaguest hint of an orange suit close to the ground.

  ‘Remember. Don’t do anything now. Just wait for someone to come and help you down. Repeat. Don’t do anything.’

  He picked up the other handset and told the control room what had happened, just in case they hadn’t already seen.

  The radio in Jodie’s ears died when he hit the trees. Twigs snagged the wires. One foot twisted against a branch and he banged a knee. Then suddenly he stopped, a metre from the ground.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Heart pounding, he jigged in his harness, trying to shake himself free.

  ‘Hah!’ he shouted.

  He was stuck but ALIVE! Elation hit him.

  ‘I’ve bloody done it!’

  He looked up through the trees. The plane droned into position for its next drop.

  ‘Hah! Ha, Ha!’ He laughed out loud. He’d just come down from there! Jumped from that same little plane. From that little dot in the sky.

  Ten feet tall, that’s what he felt. A few more jumps and he’d be onto the square canopies, the ones that zipped around like autumn leaves.

  He looked down again. So close, yet so far. Except he wasn’t far. Three feet at the most. Easy. For heaven’s sake, he’d just jumped from two thousand feet all by himself. Couldn’t let the last few inches defeat him.

  He reached down to his groin and began to unbuckle the harness.

  ‘Shit! He’s in the trees!’ Alex had taken an involuntary step forward as Jodie disappeared from view.

  ‘That’s bad luck. On your first jump,’ Claire answered calmly.

  ‘Isn’t it dangerous?’ he asked, turning to her.

  ‘Should be okay. They tell us it’s the softest landing you can get . . .’

  ‘If you don’t get stabbed by a branch.’

  ‘See that van down the far end of the field?’

  He looked where Claire was pointing.

  ‘They’ve got ladders and stuff. If he’s caught in the trees, they’ll get him down in a wee while. He’ll just stay dangling until they come. That’s what they teach us.’

  Alex stared harder at the van. Motionless as a rock.

  ‘Why don’t they get a move on?’ he growled.

  ‘They have to wait until the others are down. The guy in there is talking to them on the radio as they drop.’

  That terrible sense of dread was back. He began to walk.

  ‘They won’t want you on the field,’ Claire called after him.

  Alex heard, but didn’t hear. The relief at seeing Jodie’s ‘chute open had evaporated. Something was wrong; something desperately wrong. He knew it, if no one else did.

  There was a little gate into the field. An instructor grabbed him as he ran through it.

  ‘Hang on, mister. You canna go through here. There’s students jumping.’

  ‘Jodie . . .!’ Alex panted, pointing. ‘He’s in the trees.’

  ‘We know. We know. He’ll be a’right. They’ll get to him in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘Now! You’ve got to get him now!’

  The jump-instructer saw the panic in his eyes.

  ‘Okay. Okay. We’ll go together. But if I tell you to do something – you do it fast. No questions asked, okay?’

  Alex nodded.

  ‘Come on then.’ They began to run towards the copse. ‘It’s your son, is it?’

  Alex felt a chill descend. Kirsty’s son, but his too in all but blood.

  ‘Yep. My boy.’

  The jump-instructor kept a hand on his arm and checked the sky as they ran. The last of the novices was on the way down. But they were well clear. No problem.

  They neared the trees. There was a smudge of orange between the trunks. Jodie’s jump suit. Feet almost touching the ground, but not quite.

  In the scrub at the edge of the wood the instructor faltered. There was something not quite right. Something about the head . . .

  ‘Jodie!’ Alex yelled, fighting his way through the saplings. ‘Oh, God . . .’

  Nothing. No response. No movement.

  They heard an engine revving. The van with the ladders was coming across.

  ‘Jodie?’ Alex croaked, the branches slashing his face. The instructor joined him as he broke through to where Jodie dangled.

  The boy’s body hung twisted in the straps, the harness half on, half off. In the struggle to free himself, a strap had slipped round his neck bending it to an angle that no neck should ever be.

  ‘Oh my Christ . . .’ murmured the instructor. ‘He’s tried to get himself down. You mustn’t do that – we tell them.’

  Alex stood transfixed by Jodie’s startled, indignant eyes, the nightmare image that had come to him on his walk.

  ‘Quick! Take his weight,’ the instructor ordered.

  Alex gripped the lifeless thighs and lifted. The instructor reached for Jodie’s wrist and felt for a pulse. There was none.

 
‘His neck’s broken,’ he said, but Alex didn’t hear him, deaf to the instructor’s words, and to those others who rushed to help. Jodie was dead. He’d seen it, and done nothing.

  Two

  Thursday 17th March

  KIRSTY’S BROTHER HELPED her from the first of the Daimlers. She wore a navy blue coat over a long, black skirt, her face wraithlike beneath a veil.

  Alex emerged from the second limousine and paused on the cobbled ground, watching his wife’s alabaster visage turn towards the tower of the kirk. He saw her legs threaten to buckle and her brother grip her more tightly. Eighteen years before, she’d made the same journey here to bury another part of her life.

  They stood to one side while the coffin was slid from the hearse. The distance between Alex and Kirsty was just a few metres on the stones, but emotionally a canyon now gaped between them.

  On Sunday, when Alex had returned to the house overlooking the Forth, Kirsty had known already, her sixth sense confirmed by seeing a stranger driving their car, with Alex in the passenger seat and a Range Rover pulling up behind.

  ‘You’ve killed him!’ she’d whispered as he opened the door.

  Ashen faced, he couldn’t meet her look. He’d thanked the people who’d helped him home and bade them leave. Then the dam of Kirsty’s feelings had broken.

  Her accusations had found their mark. He could have prevented Jodie’s death. He’d had the premonition after all.

  Why hadn’t he acted on it? Because he hadn’t believed in premonitions, that’s why. And anyway, it had been Jodie’s choice to jump, his decision. The boy was nineteen, not nine.

  Kirsty had railed at him, her charges growing wilder, beating him with her fists. She kept throwing out Dermot’s name. Accused Alex of trying to erase him from her memory. Said Dermot was angry at being forgotten, angry at the way Alex had taken his place as Jodie’s father. She’d even claimed Dermot had returned from the dead to take back his son.

  Nonsense. Madness. She’d needed help, of a sort he couldn’t give. He’d telephoned for the doctor to come, then called her brother to break the tragic news to the family.

  Her sobs had cut deep, the pain of her grief compounding his own. They’d been punished, she’d said. Punished for forgetting the past. It was Alex she blamed. No one else. He had brought this on them. Nothing would shake her from that belief.