by Lin Anderson
That they might lose Harry if he thought the police had anything to do with Galbraith’s death prompted McNab to tell him the truth, or the truth as they currently imagined it to be.
‘Private Galbraith was with a party of his fellow medics on Skye. He fell off a mountain.’ He stopped himself from admitting to the fact that Galbraith had not yet been formally identified.
Harry struggled to comprehend this. ‘The others were on Skye with him?’ he said as though he knew of their existence.
‘The girl, Seven, was there.’ McNab halted at this point, hoping Harry might fill in some of the other names.
When he didn’t, McNab said, ‘He was alone when the Mountain Rescue Team found him. They had split up to do survival stuff, Seven said.’
‘Seven knows Sugarboy’s dead?’
‘We can’t locate her or any of the others to tell them.’
‘Seven . . .’ Harry began, then halted, a catch in his throat. ‘They were mates. Good mates.’
Harry fell silent, which wasn’t what McNab wanted, so he tried another tack.
‘Did Sugarboy know Paul Watson, the Snowman, as the islanders called him?’
Harry glanced up at him. ‘That bastard’s inside.’
‘Not any more,’ McNab said. ‘His body was found at the foot of Kilt Rock on Skye four days ago. Looks like he fell off the cliff.’
Both relief and horror crossed Harry’s face at this news.
‘So it’s started,’ he said.
‘What’s started?’
‘The fucking war.’
Harry covered his head as though bombs were about to fall. Standing by his side, McNab spotted the saltire tattoo on the nape of his neck for the first time.
‘Why did you point me in Sugarboy’s direction?’ McNab said quietly.
‘They were after him. I wanted you to get to him first.’
DI Wilson laid the statement down. He had read it through twice already, and no doubt would again.
‘Will you share this with the MOD, sir?’
Harry’s treatise on how they’d got the consignments out of Helmand province and onto the streets of Glasgow made for interesting reading. Even writing it down would mean his death warrant from the Sandman side, although that warrant had, McNab suspected, already been issued. Hence Malky’s attack on Harry in the alleyway.
And the other thing Harry had told him . . .
‘It all began because they were sourcing the opiates locally to treat the Afghans caught up in the fighting. Sugarboy can . . . could speak the local lingo,’ Harry had said, ‘like a fucking native.
‘They’d officially run out of morphine when I came in, burning like a fucking candle. I wanted someone to shoot me. I begged them to shoot me. Sugarboy told me he was going to take the pain away, and he did.’
He’d looked at McNab then and given him a haunted smile. ‘I’m still taking that pain away.’
‘What happened to Sugarboy when he disappeared for a month?’
‘They all disappeared. Taken by the Taliban. It didn’t make the news. The MOD smothered it, but we knew. Story is, the girl, Seven, got them out.’
‘How?’
Harry had shaken his head. ‘I was back in Glasgow by then and out of the army. And I’m not the only Afghan veteran littering the streets. Then Sugarboy turns up. Said he’d been looking for me. Gave me money and some snow. Told me he was getting out of the arrangement. He had a plan.’
What that plan was, Harry didn’t know. ‘But he said it involved the Scorpion.’
‘Is that a person?’ McNab had said.
Harry had shrugged. ‘Some bastard’s nickname, I think. Sugarboy didn’t say. A link in the chain, I suppose. But definitely one he was afraid of.’
The boss had risen from his desk now and was at his customary thinking place by the window.
‘Is it possible that Private Galbraith didn’t fall from that mountain?’
‘Anything’s possible, sir. The PM’s this morning. Maybe the pathologist can interpret the wounds enough to give us a clearer picture of when and how he died.’
The boss shook his head. ‘The facial injuries on both Watson and the possible Galbraith, coupled with the fact neither men had identification on them, seems just a little convenient, don’t you think, Detective Sergeant?’
It had certainly delayed identification, and had given anyone involved a window to get well away before either body was found. McNab said so. ‘Plus the possible fall or suicide angle,’ he added.
‘Find out if Harry disclosed anything else to Ellie. He seems to have trusted her enough to agree to come in here. If they talked there could have been something said in the passing which turns out to be important.’
‘Will do, sir.’
The boss picked up the statement again. ‘So we find Malcolm Stevenson, bring him in and charge him for the knife attack on McArthur, and I tackle Her Majesty’s Ministry of Defence on their part of the proceedings.’
McNab didn’t say that the boss’s declaration sounded a bit like a wish list, but he thought it nonetheless.
66
Afghanistan
They bathe me, murmuring at the scratches and bruises that pepper my body. I am kept fed, given sweet tea to drink and urged to consume some of the milky liquid given to the new mother in her extremity. When I refuse, they point to a cushioned bed and mime sleep.
Eventually, to please, I accept the porcelain cup and drink.
I have lost track of how long I’ve been in what feels like an Afghan version of heaven. At least twice the father has come to the outer room and the older woman has spoken with him. I can make out only scattered words and phrases, but I suspect he’s being told that his wife and baby still need me, the nurse.
He accepts, I think, because he cannot bear to deny his wife and child anything that will aid their survival.
The sun finds the window and moves across the floor. I lie, eyes half open, enjoying its warmth. Unlike my cell, the dirt floor here is covered with brightly coloured rugs. I cannot imagine spiders or scorpions daring to enter this rainbow heaven filled with chatter and laughter.
It will end soon, I know, but perhaps I can store up the memory for when they take me back to my cell.
The women point to items in the room, requesting my words for them. They try them out, smiling when I correct them. I do the same and they smother laughter at my attempts to reproduce their sounds.
I ask about the others, all the time using the word ‘nurse’, but my questions only cause consternation, although I suspect the elderly woman knows what I’m asking. Her jet-black eyes seem to me to contain the entire world in their deep darkness.
I have finally decided that when they take me back to my prison, I will seek out my friend, the black scorpion, and accept the escape route he offers, because the sweet memories of being here with the women will be too hard to bear.
And eventually that time comes.
I am given a clean blue burka to put on over my undergarment and sandals for my feet. As this is done, I am patted and fussed over like a child. When they believe me ready, I am handed the baby to say goodbye.
I kiss the soft hair on his head and am happy that he is obviously thriving. The mother takes my hand. I know she is thanking me, but I cannot speak.
The older woman leads me to the doorway and, pulling back the curtain, takes me into the outer room. My fear threatens to overwhelm me, but I still allow myself to be steered outside.
When my eyes adjust to the bright light, through the mesh I view the empty compound. Which of the buildings is my jail? And where are the others being held?
As the baby’s father appears, the old woman is dismissed. Her final words tell me to praise Allah. I believe in that moment that I have been washed and dressed ahead of my execution.
But perhaps not.
I am led to a building larger than my previous cell, and encouraged to enter, after which the door is closed behind me. I wait for my eyes to adjust to the
dimness, but in the gloom I sense – no, smell – a presence other than my own.
‘Sugarboy?’ I say, searching for him among the shadows.
Then the other scents hit. Sugarboy, if he exists in here at all, is not alone.
‘Seven,’ a voice says.
Can this be real?
I make out the others now, emerging like wraiths from the darkness, and believe the opiate the women have encouraged me to drink is giving me hallucinations.
I catch all their scents now, even his.
He comes towards me, and though I recoil, he takes my hand.
‘They’re going to free us. The baby is the grandson of their leader. When you saved him, you saved us all.’
67
Blaze had accepted the sock, sniffing it eagerly, his excitement suggesting he relished the game beginning again. Running from side to side, he eventually found a match and set off with a determined air.
Initially there appeared to be a path, but Rhona knew that wouldn’t last. The mix of boggy ground, grass and heather involved finding your own route through to the closest hill.
And Rhona didn’t think Seven had come this way to conquer the Tables. It was more likely that she’d been intent on getting off the beaten track. This became obvious when Blaze’s trail began to bypass Healabhal Bheag.
They walked in silence, picking their way through the mix of energy-sapping bog and heather, swerving this way and that to avoid the worst patches. Blaze, on the other hand, seemed to have no problems in deciding where he should place his paws.
Eventually the dog led them to a hidden valley through which a burn ran rapidly towards the distant sea. A valley Rhona recognized from photographs only.
‘Do you know this place?’ Alvis said, taking in the striking image of lush pastureland after the rough moorland and bog they’d just crossed.
‘It’s called Lorgill. Once a thriving community as you can see by the number of buildings, until the local factor for the estate decided he wanted the land for himself and forced the people to leave. It was imprisonment or a ship to Nova Scotia. I know about it because distant relatives of my adopted parents came from here.’
‘You come across places like this all over the Highlands,’ Alvis said. ‘The sadness never seems to go away.’
Checking for Blaze, they noted he appeared to be working his way through the tumbledown ruins of the cottages, eventually focusing on an area behind a wall.
‘Looks like he’s found something,’ Alvis said.
Approaching, it was obvious by the flattened grass that someone had recently rested there. Provided Blaze was indeed following Seven’s scent, then his excitement at this point suggested it may well have been her.
The light was already beginning to fade, although it had just turned midday.
‘Shall we take a break or just keep going?’ Alvis said.
Rhona didn’t want to stop here and not only for reasons of time. Some of Skye’s cleared glens had found life enter them again, but not this one. Just as Alvis had said earlier, the broken hearts of the exiled inhabitants seemed to Rhona to linger here still.
‘Is rural Norway like this?’ she said as they followed Blaze through the abandoned township.
‘No. We have our own history of exile, but for different reasons, and the preservation and support for rural life are part of the government’s remit. Land is owned locally and most Norwegians have a rural hut they use to get back to nature. So no abandoned villages like this one.’
They followed Blaze and the river down to the shore, where he began running about trying to pick up Seven’s scent again.
Looking eastward, Rhona searched for MacLeod’s Maidens, the group of rocks that rose like teeth out of the grey waves.
‘I think we’d have to be higher to see them,’ Alvis said, anticipating her search. ‘Maybe from Hoe Point.’ He pointed in the opposite direction.
To the west were the highest cliffs on Skye, more spectacular than the much-visited and photographed Kilt Rock. The entire coastline, Rhona knew, was dotted with arches, caves and hidden bays.
‘If you wanted to hide, you’re spoilt for choice in either direction,’ Alvis said, consulting the map. ‘But it would likely involve descending a cliff face or finding a gorge.’
‘She’s an experienced soldier, and the group apparently came here to climb. If she’s capable of climbing a mountain, then she’s likely capable of scaling cliffs.’
Rhona was watching the dog who, having scoured the foreshore, now seemed perplexed as to where his quarry had ventured next.
‘There’s no chance she may have taken to the water?’ Alvis offered.
Rhona was already contemplating this possibility, and if Blaze failed to pick up Seven’s scent again on land, that might well be their conclusion. Or – and this dark thought was growing – Seven hadn’t left by boat, but simply continued walking into the sea.
Rhona turned to find Alvis studying her.
‘Do you have any reason to think that Seven may have been suicidal?’ he asked as though reading her mind.
‘You said she and Private Galbraith had a special rapport. If Seven found out that he was dead,’ Rhona said, ‘might that be why she abandoned her camp, leaving everything behind including the mementos?’
‘You think this walk might be a suicide mission?’ Alvis said.
Rhona didn’t want to think that, but it couldn’t be ruled out. If Seven had found out that Private Galbraith was dead, and that had happened shortly after they’d met her, how would she have reacted? And how was she told? By mobile or a visit to the camp? Both of which could only have happened if the other soldiers already knew their fellow soldier was dead.
Rhona thought of McNab’s theory that Galbraith hadn’t fallen from An Dorus, but had died elsewhere. Was that even a possibility?
Eventually Rhona registered that Alvis was calling her name and, coming out of her reverie, heard the flurry of barks from Blaze. Having retraced their steps, the collie had now apparently picked up Seven’s scent again, and was heading for the Hoe.
‘Looks like the cliffs won,’ Alvis said.
‘Or she’s heading for Ramasaig or Waterstein and civilization?’ Rhona said, her hopes rising.
‘There’s a lot of coastline before we get to there,’ Alvis said. He glanced at Blaze, now back on the job in earnest. ‘And we’ll be close to the cliff edge in places. What about the dog?’
‘I checked with Donald, he says Blaze is completely reliable near cliffs.’
‘Let’s hope we prove to be as well trained,’ Alvis said with a wry smile.
The two great precipices of Ramasaig Cliff and Waterstein Head dominated the view ahead as they made their way nearer to the beak-like cliffs of Gob na Hoe rising 600 feet from the sea. Bog had given way to grass underfoot and there was even the trace of a path, which Blaze was very interested in following.
Had they been there for any reason other than the one that drove them on, Rhona would have been constantly stopping to admire the views. The weather had remained cold but the sky was clear and the low light from a winter sun created an eerily beautiful landscape.
Looking back, they could now make out the sharp silhouette of MacLeod’s Maidens rising in jagged pinnacles from the sea and, beyond them, the snow-topped wonder of the Cuillin.
But the winter light would soon run out. The dog, Rhona knew, wouldn’t be put off by a lack of daylight, but she and Alvis increased their chances of an accident on the rough ground, even using their head torches.
‘We’ll have to make camp soon,’ Alvis suggested. ‘We should probably look for some shelter too. We’re pretty exposed up here.’
‘We’re not that far from Ramasaig,’ Rhona said. ‘If we don’t locate her before, we’ll camp in the bay.’
Her hopes of locating Seven today were fading, despite the efforts of Blaze. She checked her mobile, but there was still no signal, although there might be a chance of one when they reached the tiny township.
>
Somehow Rhona didn’t think Seven would have chosen to camp anywhere near the suggestion of civilization, however meagre it might be, so the fact she appeared to be heading in that direction seemed odd.
Her thoughts were proved correct shortly afterwards, when Blaze left the path and made his way towards the cliff edge.
Her heart skipped a beat and despite Donald’s assurances that Blaze was surefooted, she shouted, ‘Blaze, here to me.’
It was at this point that, instead of responding, Blaze suddenly dropped from sight.
68
The downtown traffic was light and, having chosen to visit the Harley shop by bike, easy to negotiate. McNab didn’t exactly have a smile on his face, but inside he was mightily pleased. Harry had come up trumps and maybe, just maybe, this whole business was beginning to unravel.
Plus, he and Ellie were bound to be back on good terms, if he managed to explain his stupid actions the other night.
Parking up, he stowed his helmet and entered the big glass-fronted building. The new Harley headquarters on the outskirts of Edinburgh he knew to be grand, but there was no matching the Glasgow shop. He entered and headed for the desk, but before he got a chance to ask for Ellie, he’d already been spotted and someone was ringing through to the customizing area where she worked.
‘Ellie says to go to the cafe and she’ll see you there.’
McNab didn’t need to be told twice to get himself a caffeine fix, so he headed for the cafe as ordered. Settled with a double espresso, he sent Rhona and Chrissy a message that Harry had given a full statement and that it looked like the medics were caught up in some way with the shipments of heroin from Afghanistan.
Harry’s in custody for his own safety, and we’re bringing in Malky and charging him with the knife attack . . . as soon as we find him.
Having sent the text, McNab looked up to find Ellie standing before him, causing, as usual, his heart to skip a couple of beats. He tried to read her expression, but it seemed neutral, which might be good, but then again, it might not be. He was never sure of his ability to read women, having failed on numerous occasions with Rhona, and now with Ellie.