by V M Knox
‘You may well yet, Reg.’
‘I know this will sound bad, Clement, but I’m looking forward to this punch up. I also managed to get them to part with a few grenades. They wanted to be involved, of course, but I suggested they man the big forty-seven incher deck gun that’s mounted at the west end of Dunnet Bay and await that submarine. As much as they seem good lads, we cannot have them interfering now. The two of us can handle things this end. Unfortunately, there isn’t a large amount of ammunition. Neither did they have any sniper rifles with them, but I’m happy with the Stens.’
Clement looked up at Reg. The man was beaming. Reg had always been inclined to impetuosity but Clement held no concerns now. Reg would take his orders.
‘Is there a view of the pier from the front rooms?’ Clement asked.
‘Yes. There’s a boat tied up there. The old girl says it’s been there all day. I suspect she knows whose it is, but she isn’t saying.’
Leaving the rear bedroom, they walked along the corridor to the northern end of the house. Clement went to the window overlooking Dunnet Bay and peered through the lace weave curtain. ‘That’s Tom Harris’s boat.’
‘Your smugglers?’
‘Have you seen them?’
‘Haven’t seen anyone.’
Clement checked his watch. ‘Well, we will soon enough. The high tide is in half an hour. Let’s see those Stens, Reg.’
The woman reappeared. ‘There’s a pot of tea on the kitchen table.’
Clement smiled. ‘Thank you, Mrs Ferguson.’
She left the room, her annoyance barely disguised.
They walked into the kitchen. While Reg retrieved the Sten Guns from behind the wood heap, Clement checked the scene from the window above the sink. The view beyond was of the intersection and the other cottage. Clement focused his telescope on the window at the western end of the cottage. The gap was still noticeable but he couldn’t see inside and nothing appeared to have changed.
Returning the telescope to its pouch, he poured the tea. It was hot and welcoming. Reg put the Sten guns on the table alongside two grenades and a magazine of ammunition for each weapon.
Finishing the tea, Clement reached for his Welrod pistol and tucked it into his belt. Then he put the magazine of ammunition for the Sten gun into his right coat pocket and a grenade into his left. He flicked a glance at Reg. He thought his old comrade had more weaponry than was needed, but Clement didn’t say anything. He knew what lay ahead. He had cheated death twice before and he didn’t believe it could be avoided again.
‘Do you remember the hand signals, Reg?’
‘As well as riding a bicycle.’
The woman re-entered the room.
‘Once we leave, Mrs Ferguson, please stay indoors. And keep your door locked. Admit no one. Thank you for the tea.’
The woman nodded.
Checking the view of the intersection again, Clement and Reg left the cottage by the rear window and ran along the western side of the house, on the Dunnet Bay side, crouching at the north-western corner. Off his left shoulder he could hear low breakers crashing onto the rocks below. In front, Tom’s boat was tied up at Dwarwick Pier, but no one appeared to be aboard. Taking his telescope from his webbing, Clement focused it on the vessel. The door to the wheel-house was shut and he could see the padlock in the closed position. Returning the instrument to its pouch, Clement inched forward and peered around the building, his eye on the other cottage. Nothing moved.
Signalling to Reg, they crawled forward over the grass to a low flagstone fence. Clement reached for his telescope again and scanned the immediate area. Twenty feet in front of them, and slightly down the hill, was a dry-stone wall about waist height. Up to his right, the low-lying cottage near the intersection was still quiet. His gaze lingered over it and its curtains. Already the distinctive light of dusk was beginning to settle. He scanned the scene again from Dwarwick Pier and out to sea across Dunnet Bay, the sun now low in the sky. With the onset of evening the wind had picked up. Taking his woollen balaclava from his pocket, Clement pulled it on, the warming prickle of the coarse wool rubbing his unshaven stubble. In the failing light, they crawled forward and Clement lifted himself over the wall and dropped to the ground on the far side. Reg was beside him in seconds.
Clement lay in the grass, taking in his surroundings. Beside the pier was the flat, cleared area bounded by a steeply rising hill on the eastern side, flattening out to the south where the road led away from the jetty and up to the cottages. Nestled into the hill and off to one side was the padlocked fishermen’s hut. Clement reached for his telescope once more and focused the instrument on the shed. A dim glow was just visible under the door. He lowered the telescope. With the increasing darkness, the lamp would be a beacon. He pondered Tom’s whereabouts, but there was no time now to search for the fisherman.
Using hand signals, Clement and Reg descended to the flat ground where, on their left side, two overturned dinghies sat on a grassy knoll adjacent to the ramp. Advancing over the sloping ground, they took up a position behind the small boats.
‘I want a closer view of the shed. Keep your eye on me, Reg.’
Hunching low, Clement ran across the road and upwards to the grassy hill, circling the flat area and approaching the shed from behind. To the rear of the hut, the hill rose up steeply. Keeping to the higher ground, and approaching it from above, Clement slid down the bank towards the building, wedging his foot between a rock and the shed wall and pressed his ear to the wooden walls. Inside, he heard scuffling.
He wondered who was inside. The ambulance drivers were his guess. At least they were conscious and able to breathe. But why would his enemy want hostages?
He heard footsteps.
Distinctive on the gravel, and more than one person.
He checked his watch. Just before four o’clock. Edging himself forward, he peered around the shed wall. Two men and a woman were walking across the flat open area heading towards the pier. Even in the diminishing light he saw the red tam o’shanter, the long coat and knee-high boots. She walked between two men, both of whom he recognised by their clothing as Tom Harris and Ian McAllister.
Clement breathed hard. Their presence complicated things. If the killer suddenly arrived there could be a blood bath.
He stared at them as they walked onto the pier, cursing himself for allowing them one last trip. Climbing back up the hill, he signalled for Reg to join him. Clement crouched near a low shrub and trained his telescope on the group.
Less than three minutes later Reg was beside him, the Sten in his grip.
In the early dusk light, Clement watched the trio below him, but something about the group troubled him.
Reg signalled “What’s happening?”
‘Call it gut,’ he mouthed the near-silent words. ‘But two things aren’t right. The tam o’shanter. I once told her not to wear it and after what happened in the kirk, I don’t believe she would do that willingly.’
‘And?’
‘Where is Tom’s dog, Flip?’
‘You saying these are not the smugglers?’
Clement stared at the group. He swallowed hard, wondering if it was what he wanted to believe.
‘I am,’ he said at length. How sure was he that the two men were not Ian McAllister and Tom Harris? And who was the woman wearing the red tam o’shanter, if not Sarah Crawford? He watched them climb onto Tom’s boat, but McAllister remained on the pier.
‘Reg, could you shoot just one of them from here?’
‘Easy.’ Reg raised the Sten.
‘Climb higher and circle around. Get as close as you can without being seen. And Reg, be ready. If I am right, the dog is tied up in the shed. Once I release him, he will identify his master. As soon as I’ve checked the shed, I’ll signal one flash of my torch. Take out the man the dog does not run to. If you see two flashes it means take the woman as well. Three means all of them.’
‘Understood.�
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As the twilight descended, Reg scrambled higher up the hillside and disappeared behind several clumps of low beech hedge. In the low light, Clement could no longer see him. Sliding down the damp, grassy hillside, Clement squatted beside the shed and listened. The scuffling was more energetic now. Reaching for the grenade in his pocket, Clement pulled the pin and hurled it as far as he could towards the ground on the other side of the clearing, near the two upturned dinghies. He had four seconds. Running around the shed to the front, he slammed the butt of the Sten into the padlock, broke it and threw open the door.
A sudden but intensely loud detonation exploded twenty yards away and shards of broken timber flew into the air.
In that instant he saw Flip tied to an anchor chain, the little animal’s jaws bound together with tape. He glanced up through the open shed door at Tom Harris’s vessel. With the explosion, everyone had jumped onto the boat, their attention diverted. He had seconds only. Using his knife, he cut the animal free. Flip burst through the door and ran along the pier, making straight for Tom. Within seconds, the dog was beside his master. Grabbing his torch, Clement flashed it twice. Immediately, two short bursts of rapid gunfire ripped through the dusk.
One body fell.
The other went backwards into the water.
Running from the shed, Clement leapt onto the stone pier his feet pounding along the uneven paving towards Tom Harris.
Harris was standing, anchored to the spot, fear and shock on his face. ‘Thank God it’s you. How did you know?’
But Clement couldn’t wait. Before him, on the stone pier, a prostrate body lay face down. The clothes told him it was McAllister, but he knew by the size of the torso that it couldn’t be the coal delivery man. As much as Clement wanted to know who lay dead, it would have to wait. The woman was below him, somewhere in the waves, but Clement knew it wasn’t Sarah. He’d seen the woman walk to the pier and jump onto the boat when the grenade detonated.
No one with a sprained ankle could do such a thing.
In the shadow of Dunnet Head and the darkening landscape around him, Clement jumped from the pier onto the sloping ramp. The light was diminishing and the water and land were merging into a dark mass. His eyes frantically searched the area, but he couldn’t see the woman. With his ears straining, he listened for footsteps, but the waves hitting the timber ramp were blanketing all other sound.
Out of the darkness, he felt a knife slice into his already wounded left forearm. He winced; the salt water stinging the raw flesh. Clement reeled backwards. Slipping the catch on the Sten gun, he let off a volley of shots, but he knew the strobing yellow flashes from the muzzle pinpointed his location. He threw the Sten upwards towards the pier and lunged sideways into the waves and grabbed his knife, his ears straining over the noise of the crashing waves for his enemy’s location. Edging forward and with his knife poised, he moved his way up the ramp on the land side.
With the submarine rendezvous imminent, Clement calculated that his enemy had only minutes to be aboard Tom’s boat and be heading for the open sea. Standing at the water’s edge, Clement waited and braced himself, ready for attack or the tell-tale sounds of splashing or running feet.
Out of the darkness, his attacker lunged again, the blade slicing through the air in front of him. Clement jumped away to his right, to higher ground. He stood on the timber ramp, his knife poised.
A volley of shots splintered the night. Clement swung around uncertain of the direction. But there was no sound of the bullets hitting or spitting across the water. A diversion? Reg. He heard the sound of someone in the water in front of him. Clement lunged forward. In the darkness he felt whoever was before him fall backwards. He grabbed at his adversary, catching an arm. But his attacker broke free, disappearing again into the waves. In that second, Clement knew his enemy was no woman. Clement waited, swinging the blade in front of him. He stood, his senses alert, his eyes wide, the blade slicing the air. Without warming, he felt a vice-like grip on his collar, dragging him backwards, the fabric of his coat twisted and tightening around his throat. Swinging his uninjured right arm backwards, Clement stabbed his blade into his attacker’s thigh. The stranglehold released and Clement fell forwards. Gulping air, he turned, his blade poised, his knife swinging right and left, his ears straining.
From behind and off to Clement’s right the man lunged again, a massive hand grasping and pushing him under the crashing waves. Gulping water, Clement thrust his knife forward at the man’s legs. He saw the man step sideways, away from his blade, and then there he was, in front of him, ready to strike the final blow. Clement’s eyes widened; he saw the blade lifted high. He swung his wounded left arm up to block his opponent’s thrust, at the same time he punched his right knee high, into the man’s groin. Above the sound of the sea he heard the breath leave his assailant as he staggered back.
Clement rushed forward, his knife slicing through the air, the man no longer before him.
Bracing himself against a further attack Clement twisted around in widening circles, his ears straining.
Then the sound of someone running through shallow water.
Silence.
Out of the night the man fell on him from the pier above, pushing him down into the water. In that second, Clement reversed his grip on his knife and swung the blade backwards, plunging it into the soft flesh of the man’s thigh and wrenching the knife upwards.
The man reeled backwards. As he fell screaming into the cold waves, Clement saw his hand move inside his saturated coat. Clement threw himself sideways into the deeper water of the bay and rolled beneath the waves, submerging into the freezing water as, off to his left, a shot rang out, the noise hard against the stone walls of the pier behind. Lifting his head above the waves, Clement heard two more shots. Then a light.
‘Drop it or you’re dead,’ Reg called from the pier.
Three seconds later the man dropped the gun into the waves.
Clement reached for his Welrod and pointed it directly at the man’s head. The glare of Reg’s torch cut through the night, lighting up the face of Clement’s attacker.
Chapter 26
Clement watched Reg jump from the pier. Within seconds he had disarmed the man and was holding his Sten gun against his back.
Clement lowered his Welrod. ‘Stratton, you are not only a traitor but a coward!’
As he walked out of the water clutching his left arm, Clement saw Tom with Flip in his arms walk to the edge of the ramp. He met the fisherman’s gaze. ‘Who is it, Tom, on the pier?’
‘Jean Buchanan.’
A myriad of questions bubbled in Clement’s mind, but they would have to wait. He turned to face a killer. At Clement’s feet Sarah’s red tam o’shanter floated at the water’s edge. He bent to pick it up. ‘You are contemptible and the worst, the lowest form of life. What is Jean Buchanan to you?’
‘My ex-wife.’
Clement glared at Stratton. He wasn’t sure if he believed it. Not that Clement believed Stratton would tell him the truth anyway. ‘Did you kill the Frew ladies as well as Donald Crawford and Malcolm McCrea?’
‘That’s for me to know and you to find out, Hope. Hopeless!’ Stratton’s grin spread across his face.
Clement stared into the cold eyes. What he saw was maniacal ruthlessness, but what he felt was anger at a deception that had lasted years and from a man held in high regard. Clement looked away. Perhaps Stratton was trying to provoke him. Regardless, death by the hangman’s noose was unavoidable for Stratton.
‘Don’t take your eyes off him for a moment, Reg. Tie his hands and feet and gag him.’
Clement turned to face Tom. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Tied up in the cottage. The one near the intersection. But don’t go in. The door is wired! They expected you.’
Reg pulled the gag tight around Stratton’s mouth. ‘I’ll deal with it, Clement.’ He tied Stratton’s hands and feet together then pushed him down on the hard
ground. ‘Take my coat, Clement.’ He shrugged it off. ‘You can’t stay wet in this temperature.’
Clement removed his sodden greatcoat. ‘I’m grateful. Thank you, Reg.’
Tom stood beside Clement, stroking Flip’s fur. ‘They were planning to use me and my ship to take them to a rendezvous off the coast, you know, Vicar. They would have killed me, wouldn’t they?’
‘Without blinking an eye.’
‘What about the submarine?’
But it was Reg who answered. ‘The authorities already know about it, so it won’t be the rendezvous the Jerries are expecting.’
Clement withdrew his Welrod and held it on Stratton. ‘Before you go and check on the hostages, Reg, would you retrieve the other Sten from the pier? And could you and Tom carry Mrs Buchanan’s body to the shed? I’d rather she wasn’t seen until this whole matter is resolved.’
Reg and Tom walked back towards the pier and together lifted the corpse of Jean Buchanan. The woman’s death was tragic, but he hoped his pity was not just because she was female. He thought back on the few times he had spoken to the woman. Although her manner had, for the most part been brusque, she had shown kindness to him in providing food and a place to rest. He thought about Room Ten and its expansive views over Canisbay. Had she been trying to tell him something? He would never know. She had become entangled with her former husband and, Clement believed, had been used and manipulated in the cruellest way.
Clement heard the shed door close.
‘I’ll go now and check on the hostages,’ Reg said, joining him.
Clement watched Reg disappear into the night.
Tom appeared at his side. ‘Can he do it, Vicar, without setting off the explosives? Who is he anyway? I had no idea, you know!’
‘To answer your questions in order, Tom; yes, a friend, and I believe you.’
‘Did you suspect her?’
‘No.’
Clement had surmised there were two people involved but he had not expected either of them to be Allan Stratton or Jean Buchanan. He had realised, too late, his mistake that the accomplice was local and the killer distant. A long sigh escaped his lips. The adrenaline of the night was wearing off. His arm felt heavy and he was cold and weary. Despite the warmth and thickness of Reg’s heavy greatcoat, his arm was throbbing painfully. His injuries would wait. He wasn’t taking his attention from Stratton.