Time for the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  Time ticked past, second by what seemed endless second. The wind hurtled around them, plucking at the tent, which thankfully stayed anchored there in a shallow dip, only, she thought, because of Alvis’s bulk and weight.

  If I’d been alone, I would have been plucked off the grass by now and tossed over the cliff to meet Blaze at the bottom.

  She shook her head to dispel that thought, not because of her own possible demise, but of what she might encounter at the foot of the gully.

  She must have eventually dozed off, because Alvis’s voice woke her.

  ‘Rhona. Come out here and see this.’

  Opening her eyes, Rhona found the tent dancing with light. It was extraordinary. She’d experienced the northern lights before now, but by the brightness in the tent, they must be filling the sky.

  Crawling out of the tent to join Alvis, Rhona realized that the snow had ceased, leaving a white reflective film over the landscape. Above her the dancing lights vied with countless stars for attention, with the moon’s creamy colour adding to the show.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Alvis said. ‘With our torches and this display, I think we can see well enough to get you down to the shore.’

  As they crept towards the gully, the sky above them continued its display of greens and pinks, the colours swirling like the skirts of an exotic dancer. Skye had always seemed like a fairy tale to Rhona with its strange rock formations, its dark demonic moods and shining beauty. Now it was putting on its best display just when they needed it.

  ‘There’s a big rock here where we can secure the rope,’ Alvis said. He tossed Rhona the other end. ‘But first we need to attach it to you.’

  Once he was happy she was secure, he explained once again the path she should take.

  ‘I’ll be watching you all the way, and remember, I can see what’s coming up whereas you’ll be facing the rock. So take your time and listen.’

  Rhona could sense his disquiet that she should be the one to descend and he be the one to wait behind. Alvis had, she suspected, more experience than she had on the hills. And he’d had to watch Marita fall, and hadn’t been able to save her.

  Letting Rhona go down the gully was going to be as hard on him as it was on her. Or even worse.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Rhona assured him. ‘Jamie and I scrambled about Skye when we were teenagers.’

  They had, and they hadn’t always been roped up, she recalled. But back then death had never seemed a possibility.

  Turning onto her front, Rhona eased herself over the edge, feeling for and finding the first foothold Alvis had described for her.

  Here goes, she thought, wishing she was back safely ensconced in Jamie’s safe grip on Kilt Rock. Having done that descent once she’d had no wish to do it again.

  Yet here she was and without the safety of Jamie’s arms about her.

  But I do have a harness of sorts, and Alvis as my anchor.

  Alvis’s concise and repeated instructions eventually brought her safely to the ledge they believed the dog had jumped down to.

  Finding herself breathless with exertion and the rush of adrenaline that had fed her determination, Rhona heeded Alvis’s shouted advice that she take a rest before tackling the lower slope. She settled her back against the rock and took steady breaths, still hearing the fast beat of her heart in her ears. Having turned now to face the sea, she watched as the fairy dance played out over the water, its reflection like the lights of Atlantis below the waves.

  ‘You okay to go?’ Alvis’s voice came from above.

  Rhona shouted in the affirmative, then instead of turning back towards the rock, she decided instead to ease her way down by the seat of her pants. That way if she slipped surely she would just slide on down.

  ‘Rhona. I think you should turn and keep looking up at me. I’ve got you, so you don’t need to worry about falling.’

  The ground had been getting wetter. Her walking trousers were supposedly waterproof but there was only so much wet they could cope with, and a sudden spring appearing from the rock wasn’t helping.

  As Rhona turned to follow Alvis’s orders, she began to slide. It happened so quickly that she could do nothing to prevent it, despite grabbing at the nearby tufts of grass.

  Her sudden and rapid descent had also caught Alvis off guard and literally pulled the rope from his grasp. Then her boot met a rock, which momentarily halted her descent, before momentum propelled her over it head first and she rolled the rest of the way to land on soft wet sand that sunk beneath her weight like a cushion.

  Winded but essentially unhurt, Rhona called up to a no-doubt horrified Alvis, ‘I’m okay, Alvis, and I’m on the beach.’

  Alvis mouthed words in Norwegian that Rhona interpreted as ‘Thank God’.

  As she detached the rope, the dancing ladies ended their display and deserted her, leaving Rhona only the light of the moon and the stars.

  74

  ‘We can talk about this, Seven.’

  ‘My name isn’t Seven,’ she said just loud enough for him to hear.

  There was a moment’s silence while he considered how to deal with this aspect of her rebellion. Eventually he decided not to even acknowledge it.

  ‘We have the stash. Watson and his mates are dead. Ben and Charlie saw to that. The war’s over.’

  ‘My name isn’t Seven,’ she repeated.

  He tried a different tack. ‘That was Sugarboy’s name for you.’ He laughed. ‘A tidy Seven, he used to say after he came back from his visits. You served us all well in that hellhole. Kept us alive.’

  She knew what he was doing. She knew to ignore the words. But yet still they wormed their way into her brain. Just as they had always done, even before the attack on the camp. He knew how to play her. He knew how to play them all. He was the voice of reason, of common sense, or that’s what he had persuaded them to believe.

  But there was one weakness and she had to remember that. His lies were always believable as long as he didn’t go too far.

  Sensing her softening perhaps, and warming to his chosen theme, he couldn’t stop himself from embellishing. ‘We always talked about it when they brought us back. We told each other everything. That way we were all with you, not just one at a time.’

  Despite her best efforts, she could imagine that scene, listen to what they might have said about her.

  Sugarboy would never have done that, another voice told her. Sugarboy never touched you, even when they beat him to make him.

  When she didn’t respond, and unable to see her expression to read it, he now took a bigger step.

  ‘Sugarboy was the favourite though, wasn’t he? And yet you killed him. Remember? That night in the woods. The knife through the eye and into his brain. Why would you do that?’

  As he spoke the words, she relived the scene. She couldn’t stop herself, which was of course why he’d said it. The air fled her lungs and they filled with blood, Sugarboy’s blood.

  She coughed, choking on it.

  He waited, sensing he was winding his way into her psyche again, reclaiming it as his own, then after waiting for a response, which didn’t materialize, he came back with the next reminder.

  ‘But we took care of that, didn’t we, Seven, because the ones left alive, we’re a team, and we’ll do anything to help one another. Anything,’ he emphasized.

  The darkness swallowed his carefully considered words, while she imagined them buried forever, and not in her mind.

  Having played what he felt were the required cards, he was awaiting her response, just as he always had.

  She decided not to give him one, but thought again how this place reminded her of the stone-walled prison cell when he’d been in there with her. Only back then, she had been the powerless one.

  She smiled a little to herself, although a small shiver of fear had entered her brain.

  The deep hole she’d dug just inside the entrance had caught him unawares, but that alone wouldn’t have stopped him. It was the netting that had neu
tralized his initial attempts to climb out.

  He was immobilized for the moment, but how long that would last she had no idea. He would have his knife with him, and at this very moment might be cutting himself free.

  ‘I thought it was you in the woods,’ she said to stall for time. ‘It was you I was trying to kill.’

  ‘Where would you be now if it had been me? Trussed up somewhere in Glasgow with the fuckers all taking a shot at you. Sugarboy couldn’t save you in Afghanistan, and he couldn’t save you here.’

  He laughed then, and that sound drowned her in unbearable memories.

  She had heard enough.

  The net encased him but it didn’t shut out his voice, and that’s what she wanted to do now, more than anything.

  She snatched at the canvas bag she’d brought with her and, creeping towards him, dropped it over his head.

  ‘What the fuck, Seven!’

  He was writhing madly now like a spider caught in a giant web and she knew that he hadn’t freed his hands, hadn’t reached his knife, wherever it was.

  ‘Time to shut up, Jack.’

  She’d diverted her water source, giving it another escape route. Now she released it, hearing it return to its preferred path. To encourage what was about to happen, she upended the plastic container she’d already filled, over his hood. He must have anticipated what was about to come, because it took a few moments before he was forced to open his mouth and the coughing and choking began.

  Seven poured some more and felt a rush of pleasure at his increasingly frantic attempts at breathing in with his waterlogged lungs.

  The incoming tide had found the hole now and was rushing in to meet the running stream.

  She thought she heard a ‘Please, Seven’ among the ever-more strangled coughs.

  ‘My name isn’t Seven,’ she said quietly.

  75

  The conference room, she knew, was still heaving with people. Chrissy was beginning to wonder if the entire population of Portree was either in the police station or outside in the square.

  The weather had cleared but there had been no change on the plans to use the chopper. Looking for personnel, even if they were showing a light, was an almost impossible task. Better to wait for daylight, especially searching such a wild coastline.

  Chrissy knew all the sane and sensible reasons why Search and Rescue didn’t normally go out in the dark, but it didn’t make any difference. Their absence just felt like a failure.

  But Donald’s out there looking with Jamie, and they have radios. They’ll tell us as soon as they locate Rhona, she reminded herself.

  And what of Blaze?

  Donald would be worried sick. She knew that. He had been more than kind about loaning the services of his dog, but maybe, just maybe, Rhona had gone too far this time? The split loyalty of such a thought only served to increase Chrissy’s fears for both Rhona and the dog, forcing her to concentrate on what she could affect.

  Her samples from the burnt-out vehicle and her report and photographs were no doubt already being discussed in Glasgow. McNab would have seen to that. There was also, according to McNab, the likelihood that the body in the stolen jeep had been Malcolm Stevenson. The ring that might identify him was sitting before her in an evidence bag, ready to be sent in the morning.

  As if on cue, her mobile drilled, McNab’s name on the screen.

  When she answered, McNab immediately asked if there was any word on Rhona.

  ‘Not yet,’ Chrissy told him with a heavy heart. ‘But she’s with Alvis, so she’ll be all right.’

  ‘What about the other soldiers?’

  ‘Nothing there either.’

  They lapsed into silence at that point before McNab changed the subject, making Chrissy wonder if what he was about to say was the real reason for the call.

  ‘I plan to drop in on Maguire. Bring him up to date on what’s happening there with Rhona.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ Chrissy said.

  ‘Why? Has Rhona said something about being in touch with him herself?’ McNab asked.

  Chrissy only wished she had done.

  ‘Is she coming home when this is over?’ McNab asked the question that Chrissy realized probably lay behind all of this.

  Chrissy decided to tell him the truth. ‘She mentioned she might spend Christmas on Skye. Said she hadn’t had a Christmas here since she was a teenager.’

  When McNab didn’t immediately respond, Chrissy rushed on, ‘And she’s been invited to Jamie’s pal’s wedding. They’re having his stag do up at A.C.E Target Sports where this all began,’ she added, as though that explained it all.

  ‘And she’s going with Jamie boy, no doubt?’

  When Chrissy didn’t respond, another expletive was voiced.

  ‘She’ll have to come back for the sin-eater trial,’ Chrissy said. ‘And once Rhona comes home, she’ll stay.’

  An ominous silence followed her declaration.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.

  ‘He’s changed his plea to guilty, so there will be no trial,’ McNab said.

  Chrissy wondered if that was the news Rhona wanted to hear. Now she wouldn’t have to give evidence. Wouldn’t have to face her nemesis again in court. Yet, that would have brought her back. Chrissy realized she had been clinging to that thought, believing that once Rhona did return to Glasgow, she would be persuaded that she belonged there.

  Plus, Rhona may have feared her demons, but, knowing her, she would have also relished facing up to them during the trial, maybe finally conquering them, which would no longer happen.

  ‘He didn’t want his forensic knowledge disputed in court,’ Chrissy said. ‘This way it won’t be. He thinks he’s won already.’

  ‘So we can’t bring her back that way.’

  ‘Maybe it’s up to Sean now,’ Chrissy said.

  Ringing off, she found Janice at the open door of the production room.

  ‘They’ve found them?’ Chrissy asked eagerly.

  Janice shook her head. ‘They’ve found a tent near Ramasaig Bay, but it’s empty.’

  ‘Is it Rhona’s?’

  ‘Unconfirmed, although likely. There is some good news, though,’ she said, seeing Chrissy’s woeful expression. ‘Archie’s been sent home. The number that called here to implicate him has been traced. The owner said a guy asked to borrow his mobile, said his had run out, and he had some information for the police.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘He gave us a description. We ran it past Archie before we told him what it was about.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said it sounded like the guy who was looking for the female medic.’

  That made sense, Chrissy thought, if the soldiers were involved in Watson’s death – and knowing what they knew now, that looked increasingly likely.

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘The only thing we can do. We wait.’

  76

  Looking upwards, Rhona realized her view of the top was impeded, which more than likely meant Alvis couldn’t see her either. Even the waving light of her torch. She would have to rely on the hope that he had heard her shout that she’d reached the beach safely.

  Before he’d lowered her down, they’d made the decision that Alvis would go west, heading into the bay at the first opportunity. From there, he would attempt to make his way back along the shoreline to reach her.

  Rhona was already beginning to doubt that as a possibility, aware as she was of an encroaching tide. The sand at the foot of the gully had been wet, but more because of the stream that had helped her slide to the bottom. Alvis had checked the tide tables while they still had a signal. High tide along the Duirinish peninsula was scheduled for shortly after 4 a.m., and they were getting perilously close to that now.

  Like Kilt Rock, there would no doubt be areas of foreshore, but not necessarily the entire way along, and the cliffs here were peppered by caves, arches and stacks, which only served to illustrate the continuing force of the sea agains
t the basalt rocks.

  She was taking a chance even being down here. And yet Blaze, having been set the task of finding Seven, hadn’t hesitated. Rhona thought of Donald’s description of his dog’s sure-footedness: ‘He’s cautious too, though. He only attempts what he knows he can do.’

  Rhona prayed that Donald was right, while wishing she could claim the same for herself.

  So in what direction had the dog gone exactly?

  Any call she’d made to Blaze had remained unanswered, but the relief of not finding an injured dog at the bottom of the cliff face had given her a measure of hope at least.

  Training her head torch on the surrounding sand, Rhona searched for paw prints. Luckily, the tide had not yet reached the area she stood in. Blaze had barked to them from where she now stood at the foot of the gully. Where had he gone after that?

  Eventually she made her decision. Her tracing of what looked like paw prints in the damp sand, plus the thought that Seven was unlikely to have descended the gully only to head for the bay, prompted Rhona to begin to make her way in an easterly direction, keeping close to the rock face.

  The strip of foreshore moved between sand and rough stones. Sometimes wide, with the sea sufficiently far away. At other times too narrow for comfort, the rocks slippery underfoot with seaweed. Each time she picked her way across a stony part she swiftly searched for paw print evidence on reaching the other side. Those moments were the most frightening.

  The sea, when it reached here, if given the slightest chance, could sweep anyone off their feet, including the determined collie.

  On each of these occasions, Rhona called out the ‘here to me’ command Donald had taught her, then waited, hoping against hope that the collie would hear her and respond. He never did and eventually the stony foreshore took over completely, and with it the trail she was following.

  She stood for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. The dog had come this far, that she was certain of. So where had Blaze gone now?

  Standing there, she felt the first brush of the incoming tide around her feet like a warning of what was to come.