Today was calmer than the day before and the sky was cloudless, but no matter. Yesterday, until the heat brought the mist up from seaward, she had concentrated her enchanted pencil on capturing the highlights from the dancing wavelets, the perfect arrangement of the clouds and their shadows on the hills of Fife. Now she hurried to get the rest of the details firmed in with the minimum of deft pencil strokes. The purposeful rigging of the boats lying off the yacht club. The gaunt lines of the two bridges. The fading recession of the distant hills and the crisp skyline of the city.
It was cool in the shade of the caravan but she was half expecting a change and was alerted as soon as the temperature dropped. Behind her the embankment, where the road climbed to cross the railway line, cut off Broughty Ferry and her view towards the lighthouses of Buddon Ness, but by leaning backwards almost to toppling point she could see diagonally across the river and downstream. That damned midsummer haar was rolling in again from the sea. Already Tentsmuir Point was gone and Tayport was about to vanish. Soon she would be forced to quit, as she had the day before. Tomorrow might be overcast or lost in a downpour. Please, God, let her remember the colours. She had taken transparencies with her old Zenith, but a photograph was never quite the same. Her pencil danced on.
With minutes to spare, she thought that she had it all. Half closing her eyes, she studied the whole. It was far and away the best that she had ever done. She had always had the knack of the small drawing, capturing a likeness or expressing a mood. But now, at last, formal training and natural talent had come together. This . . . this was a picture. And yet . . .
Vacillating between elation and despair, she saw that it was a panorama of scenery, competently executed but nothing more. It was a backcloth, a perfect backcloth for foreground figures. About . . . there! She could add them later, making use of the art school models or her fellow-students. But the lighting and the mood would be different. And just what should the scale be, to fit the perspective that had poured off her pencil? The next few lines would make or mar.
A man was walking towards her at the very edge of the water. If he were quick and reached the chosen place before the mist arrived, she could at least mark his height on the paper. She glanced behind her again. Tayport was hidden and the fog-bank was very near.
With her eraser she took out a small length of the shoreline. When she looked again, another miracle had been granted. The man had been joined by a woman and they were perfectly posed on the perfect spot. But more, much more: there was about them a suppressed furtiveness in total contrast with the cleanliness of the scene beyond. They were almost caricatures and yet they were real, neither young lovers nor a stodgy married couple but something indefinably different. Partners in evil, perhaps. She slashed them onto the paper just as they were, the man paunchy and slightly bow-legged; the woman stout and past middle age, standing carefully in her thick brogues on the uneven shingle. All this went down in a rush lest they move as much as an inch. The woman had a case which she was handing to the man, an unusual case, and of its own accord Sheila’s pencil caught the act. She might not yet be an artist, but for once her innate talent had lifted her far above mediocrity. The scenery, which had seemed so perfect in its own right, was now a background to a pair of figures which made her give an involuntary shiver. When she showed this to her tutor, he would flip.
The two figures parted. Sheila kept her head down, putting in the last lines and shadings from memory and touching in the shadows which had lain across the shingle. There! It was finished. Any more would risk ruination.
When she looked up, the man was walking towards her. He did not notice Sheila, sitting motionless in shadow, until he was almost on top of her. Then he checked in his stride, set down the case carefully and clenched a pair of fists which more nearly expressed brute power than any that she had ever seen. She was tempted to turn the page and draw those fists.
‘What are you doing there?’ he demanded. Seen close to, he was still paunchy but he had the power of self-confidence and she could see that his bulk was more muscle than fat.
‘Nothing,’ she said dully. ‘I’m just going. I haven’t touched anything.’
‘What were you doing, then?’ His voice was deep and hoarse and faintly accented. American, she thought. Perhaps Canadian or even Australian.
‘Just a sketch. You parked your caravan exactly where I was sitting yesterday when I started it. So I sat on your tow-bar for a minute. Just to finish it off. I haven’t done any damage.’ She knew that she was babbling but she could not stop herself. Aggressive people always had that effect on her. She stood up and began to collect her odds and ends, hastily, hoping to put an end to the clash.
‘Let me see that.’ He took two more steps and snatched the block out of her hands before she could drop it into her satchel. One glance was enough. ‘Shit!’ he said.
He put two fingers into his mouth and produced a piercing whistle. Then, before she could utter more than a startled squeak, he snatched up his case and gripped her wrist with the other hand, swinging her around the corner of the caravan with such energy that her feet almost left the sand. The door was open and he bundled her inside and pushed her down on one of the bunks, laying the case more gently on the other.
If this was to be rape, she thought that she would submit with apparent willingness rather than be forced and then strangled. She tried to speak.
‘Shut up.’
Sheila heard footsteps and then the woman’s broad figure appeared in the narrow doorway. She had to push to get through; the size of her bust would have made turning sideways a useless gesture. ‘What’s the noise about?’ she asked. Her voice was metallic and piercing. The accent could only have originated in Glasgow.
‘She was watching us. Look what she’s drawn.’
The woman picked up the sketching block from the worktop where he had dropped it and ripped off the top sheet. After a moment, she lifted her eyes. Sheila realised that the two pairs of eyes studying her might differ in size and shape and colour – the man’s were narrow and brown and the woman’s were a washed-out blue – but they were identical in expression, dispassionate and pitiless. It was at that moment that she knew how deep was the trouble into which she had fallen.
She opened her mouth to scream. The man had been waiting for that moment. He still held her wrist in one hand, but in the other he had been holding, behind his back, a damp dishcloth. Her attempt at a scream died to a nasal groan as he forced the wadded cloth between her teeth. He gathered both her wrists into one big hand.
The woman put her head out of the door and called loudly but, to Sheila, unintelligibly. She turned back and spoke to the man. ‘She’ll have to go. A casual passer-by might not have mattered. But this one drew us. Even if we took it away from her, she could draw it again. And that’s the kind of evidence which stands up in a court of law.’
The man nodded, carelessly, as though what the woman had said was too obvious to be worth stating. The two were still standing, but neither had to stoop for the caravan’s roof. ‘How and where?’ he said. ‘What do you think?’
‘Here and now. Keep the body in the van and drop it off after dark.’
‘Now, hold your horses, Dora!’ the man said. ‘You’re leaving me stuck all day with a dead body? You’re the one with the organisation.’
‘You’re the one with the caravan. And the package. And you’ve more to lose. There’s no evidence against me except her word.’
The man seemed to find some logic in this argument. ‘I won’t argue with that. Got something to tie her with?’ he asked.
The woman opened a handbag, fat like herself, and produced a short length of cord. ‘I was a Girl Guide once,’ she said with macabre humour.
‘What I had in mind,’ he said, ‘was an accidental drowning.’
Dora thought it over and then nodded. ‘Tie her tight, then,’ she said. ‘By the time she floats again, a few marks won’t show. We’ll need salt water. Where’s your bucket?’
/> Terror, more than the cloth, choked Sheila as she realised but refused to accept that to them she was no longer a person. She had lost her identity and become no more than an inconvenient piece of meat awaiting the attention of the butcher. But to herself she was still the hub of the universe. It could not, must not, end like this, just when she had begun to find her talents.
Struggling only made the man tighten his grip until she thought that the bones in her wrists would break. She could not even get her weight forward and try to stand. There were curtains over the caravan’s windows so that nobody could see her plight. She wanted to plead, to promise a silence as total as they would achieve by killing her, but she could not get her tongue behind the sour-tasting cloth to push it forward and out. Her brain raced but, finding no answers, raced on until, like an engine running wild, she thought that it would burst. One part of her mind realised, with surprise, that another part was praying. She had not taken refuge in prayer since the day, soon after her twelfth birthday, when she had decided that the concepts of religion were an insult to her budding intelligence.
When Dora’s squat figure vanished suddenly from the doorway, Sheila thought that the woman had gone for water and wondered desperately whether she could kick over the bucket or cause some other delay during which her prayers might be answered. Even to be raped would be to live a little longer before being drowned in a bucket like a surplus kitten.
A new figure took the woman’s place, a man’s figure. Sheila took him for another of the enemy and only realised that an answer to her prayers might already have arrived when she was jerked to her feet as her captor swung round.
There was no time for more than an instant of violence, but an instant which lasted for ever in her mind. One blow was struck. Sheila, being of a different build, could only vaguely comprehend how vicious was that blow, but her captor was down on the caravan’s floor and making the sound of a whistling kettle approaching the boil.
The newcomer pulled at her elbow. ‘Out and run!’
The blaze of hope through her black despair was so blinding that if he had told her to jump off a cliff Sheila would have saved her questions for later. Happily, he had told her to take the action which she most desperately wanted to take. Unbalanced by the cord at her wrists, she stumbled through the doorway into a wall of mist. During her few minutes inside the caravan the haar had arrived, densest at its front.
Clumsy and disoriented, Sheila stepped down onto the woman Dora, who was lying on her back, purple-faced, kicking her legs in the air and showing directoire underwear. When Sheila landed on her stomach, the breath that the woman was struggling to recover was expelled again with a grunt like an antique bulb motor-horn. The sound was repeated after a few seconds as her rescuer followed Sheila into the fog.
Help had arrived before the first man had time to knot the cord on her wrists. The cord was already unwinding and Sheila was managing to shed the last turn of it when her rescuer overtook her and swung her round by the arm. ‘This way,’ he said. ‘I left a van on the main road.’
They seemed to be heading towards the sound of traffic. But there were footfalls ahead, running. Behind was a confusion of shouts. A voice answered from close on their left. They swung away. More voices and another swerve. She thought that they were heading back past the caravan and towards the yacht club. Her companion stopped dead and Sheila bumped into him, winding herself. A figure ran past their front, pale at the limit of visibility; she thought that it carried a pistol but it might have been no more than a pointing finger. More shouting, four voices at least, seeming to come from all around.
Sheila followed her companion with blind trust. He had taken the place of the God whom she had forsworn nearly twenty years before. If she could have seen his face she might have seen, but never believed, that he was as frightened as herself, as lost and as disoriented. But he was always ahead, always leading, dragging her along with apparent confidence.
Just when she was sure that they were about to reach the hard ground in front of the clubhouse, water lapped at their ankles. They stopped.
Shingle was crunching, not far away.
‘Can you swim?’ he whispered.
Sheila nodded violently. Swimming and drawing were her only talents.
‘Follow me. Quietly.’
He waded into the water and she followed. The slope was gradual and the chill of the water rose with agonising slowness. When it reached her body, the shock quenched her rising hysteria. And she thought that there was taking place another cleansing. She was sure that at some stage she must have been incontinent, but the salt water was removing any traces. The current was trying to push her to her left, towards the sea.
When the water reached her bosom she lifted her feet and struck out, but before she found her rhythm she made one clumsy splash and the voices broke out again on the shore behind them.
*
Ian Fellowes had led the way into the water unthinkingly, as a blind retreat from the dangers ashore and out of an atavistic instinct to cover his scent. If he had not been subjected to as terrifying an ordeal as had Sheila, he was more aware than she of the nature of the opposition. He was prepared to swim across to Tayport, or at least to try, or to let the tide carry them down to Barry Sands. Almost certainly, he would have drowned them both. But a small yacht appeared out of the mist, one of the many which lie off the yacht club in summer. It was moored, but as the ebb carried them down it seemed to be forging ahead.
He hauled himself over the stern, using the rudder as a step and the small outboard motor which was canted at the transom as a handhold. Sheila was almost swept past, but he grabbed her wrist and hauled her after him. He hoped that any sound they had made had been covered by the noise of the traffic still moving, although gropingly, along the Dundee road.
Sheila collapsed wetly onto one of the cockpit seats, rubbing her arms. Strong men had been dragging her around by the wrists all day, it seemed. She tried to speak but nothing came out and she thought that her vocal cords must be frozen with fear.
Ian had thought that he would never smile again; or not, at least, until he was safely home and in his own bed with the blankets over his head. But he smiled now. He put a finger to his lips and then leaned down and pulled the dishcloth out of her mouth.
She forgot to feel stupid in the relief of getting her voice back. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘Fellowes. Ian Fellowes. I was under the caravan when you were grabbed. Keep your voice down.’
‘Who are those people? They’re . . . evil,’ she whispered.
‘I know it. Talk later. I think we’d better get out of here. I heard somebody say “boat”. If they’ve gone to steal or borrow an inflatable from the Royal Tay, we could find ourselves back in deep trouble. Well, one thing about sail, it’s quiet.’
‘There’s hardly any wind,’ she said.
‘There’ll be more. Trust me.’
She sat and shivered while he went forward. He seemed to blur as he got further away and it was not only the effect of the mist. She put her hand up and realised that, somewhere along the way, she had lost her glasses.
Ian Fellowes stripped the cover off the mainsail. He studied the halliards for a few seconds and then, slowly and as quietly as he could manage, he raised the sail. The blocks were well greased and there was hardly a rattle but the sail slatted gently in the faint breeze. He had expected a gaff rig and the high peak of the gunter mainsail puzzled him for a moment, but he solved the geometric problem and hauled the sail tight and flat. It filled and the boat began to forge slowly ahead. He moved to the bow and took the loop of the mooring off the sampson-post. As he lowered it towards the water the boat’s movement brought it taut and he had to let it drop with a small splash.
‘Hear that?’ snapped a voice from the shore, muffled but discernible.
Ian padded back to the cockpit in his wet socks. He had kicked off his shoes. Sheila looked down and realised that she had done the sa
me, unconsciously. Ian put the helm down and looked at his watch. Sheila felt the promised breeze on her cheek. Ian held the tiller with his knee and sheeted the boom in, inch by inch. Water began to chuckle softly under the bow. To Sheila, the few degrees of heel felt precarious yet vaguely exciting.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked. ‘Tayport?’
He hesitated and used the moment to trim the sail again. ‘We’re going as far away as I can manage and as quickly as we can. I’ve only seen pistols so far, but I’ve reason to believe that they have some heavier armament. Do you happen to know when high tide is? Or was?’
Sheila was pleased to be helpful for once. ‘About an hour ago.’ She noticed for the first time that her watch had stopped.
‘You’re sure?’
‘I noticed, because I drew the boats the way they were lying and then the things went and turned round. It was nearly an hour later than yesterday.’
‘That sounds about right,’ Ian said, reassured. He looked at his watch again. ‘In which case, we couldn’t make Tayport even if we could find it. I used to sail this coast, years ago, in my uncle’s yacht. The whole of the Tay basin has to empty through the bottleneck between Tayport and Broughty Ferry.’
Such considerations were beyond Sheila’s experience, but it seemed to be a good time for rational discussion. ‘The wind seems to be the other way. Wouldn’t it push us against the tide? Or have I lost my sense of direction?’
He looked up at the swell of the mainsail. ‘Half this breeze only exists because the tide’s carrying us down through the air. If we turned, it would drop. We could anchor, but I don’t much fancy having the fog blow away suddenly and expose us. They’ll have laid hands on a boat by now. And the public can be amazingly blind to what’s happening out on the water.’
He fell silent. Sheila could see that he was thinking hard, so she waited. ‘We could try to slip ashore further down,’ he said at last. ‘But that’s what they’d expect us to do. And from what I remember, it’s mud-banks all the way. For the moment, we’ll go all the way down with the tide.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘Time to go about now, or we’ll run aground where the Pile Light used to be.’
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