Time for the Dead

by Lin Anderson

The foreshore had to all intents and purposes disappeared and before her stood an arch on its way to becoming a stack, like one of MacLeod’s Maidens. To get through the arch would involve getting wet, very wet. And with no knowledge of how deep the water was and how rough it would be underfoot.

  The dog, having arrived here some time before her, might well have found the going easier, with the ability to walk beneath the arch before the incoming tide had reached here. Alternatively, the sure-footed dog may have chosen a different route, and climbed over the rocky outcrop.

  Having studied both possible ways in the moonlight, Rhona had to admit that there was little chance of her being able to climb the rock and descend the other side. Her main option seemed therefore to lie in negotiating a passage through the arch, regardless of how wet that would make her.

  The one thing she could not imagine doing was giving up.

  In the end, however, the decision was made for her.

  A sound she thought she might never experience again, she now thought she’d heard. Rhona stood stock-still and strained to listen through the crash of the waves against the outer region of the arch.

  ‘Blaze?’ she said, hardly daring to hope.

  The bark was partially drowned out by the surge of the sea against the rocks, but it was definitely there. And it hadn’t come from above, but rather from further along the shore.

  Bracing herself, Rhona stepped under the arch and into the water.

  77

  The waterboarding had silenced him, perhaps even killed him. She considered this. How she felt about him being dead. She’d thought – no, imagined it for such a long time. The last breath he took symbolized for her the first breath she might take of her new life.

  Or so she had believed.

  Her previous life rushed up to meet these thoughts. She was a medic. She was there to save lives, not take them. All the bodies she had tended, all the terrified eyes that had looked into her own. All the trembling hands she had held.

  It’s okay, soldier. I’m here. Her internal voice reminded her of her words of comfort.

  But she and Sugarboy had decided that the only way to get out of this was for him to die. It was the only way to be free. He was the prison she carried with her. Even thinking of him brought back the smell and the horror of what had been done to her there.

  The problem was she’d always assumed that Sugarboy would be here with her. And Sugarboy was dead.

  The horror of that hit her again. Sugarboy was gone and that meant the decision had to be hers and hers alone.

  A spluttered cough from below brought her abruptly back to the present, and the reality that he wasn’t dead. Not yet. She took her torch and directed it into the hole. The sand had shifted and re-formed round him, just as it had done round their camp in Afghanistan. Running the torch over his hooded head, she saw him flinch, but he said nothing.

  She had vowed to shut him up, and it appeared she had. Where was his cajoling voice, his psychological manipulation of her thinking, her very being?

  Fear reappeared, surging through her like electricity.

  Her plan had worked up to this point, but what would happen now? Her imagined success, she acknowledged, had unnerved her, making her query her actions.

  That’s what always happened in his presence. He had been the unquestioned leader of their enterprise. How had that happened? Even Sugarboy, after they’d been released, had willingly gone along with the plan he put into action.

  But that was before I told Sugarboy what he’d done. Told him in detail. Every word, every time he’d forced me to do what he wanted.

  She was wet from the relentless creep of the incoming tide and the constant spray from the running water above. But she wasn’t shivering because she was cold, she was shivering because she was afraid. Afraid of what she was capable of. Of what she was incapable of.

  He moaned a little, as though in sympathy.

  Why had he not fought his way out of the net? Where was his knife and why had he not used it? One cough turned to three as he struggled to raise himself up.

  She thought she heard the word ‘please’, followed by her name. Her real name.

  This is his next move, she thought. His next attempt to soften me up. He’d done that in her prison. Called her by her real name, as though that meant he could pretend what was happening was consensual.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he called out suddenly. ‘What I did was wrong. They threatened to kill us if we didn’t. Even worse, they threatened to kill you.’

  ‘Sugarboy didn’t do it,’ she said. ‘They almost killed him, but he still wouldn’t. Ben and Charlie pretended to. But you . . .’

  The truth annoyed him. His wheedling tone changed to anger.

  ‘We were in a fucking war. Remember the helicopter? Remember the kid you took in? You never searched him and he had a grenade. He blew up our fucking friends because of you. But we never punished you for that. We forgave you.’

  Had they forgiven her? Had she forgiven herself?

  They were all unreliable narrators, she thought. We all have our versions of the same story, although in his there is never any doubt, because the route he chooses is always the right one. What he does, what he did, is always justified.

  ‘And remember, we will never give you up for Pete’s death. Never.’ He hurried on, sensing perhaps that she might be coming round to his way of thinking. ‘Just as we will never tell them that he killed Watson.’ He paused, but only briefly. ‘We can get out of this scot-free. Get back to being a team again.’

  At his words, she felt something collapse inside herself. There was no escape from all of this. How could Sugarboy have imagined there would be?

  Perhaps sensing this, he made his promise. ‘Let me out of here and we’ll go meet with the guys. We can be off this island and back out to Afghanistan, just as planned. Sugarboy was never going back. You know that, don’t you?’

  Unleashed now, the truth came flooding back. The reason why they’d come on this last trip together, pretending they were still one big happy team. They weren’t, because Sugarboy was never going back and neither was she.

  In that moment, she wanted nothing more of this – or him. Drawing her knife, she reached into his cell.

  78

  Alvis, having walked on until he could easily access the shore, spotted the dancing lights on the clifftop and instantly knew that a team had been sent out to look for them, which meant something had happened in their absence or else Donald had been too concerned for his dog to hang around until morning to check on their whereabouts.

  Four sets of lights dotted the hilltop close to where they’d pitched their tent. Shortly following this, two set off in the direction Alvis himself had followed and were, he thought, heading for the bay.

  The decision therefore had to be made as to whether he should await their arrival or keep going. Alvis made his mind up immediately. The likelihood was that if those approaching were part of the Mountain Rescue Team, then they would be equipped with radios, which meant what had happened up to now could be related back to headquarters.

  Alvis took off his head torch and waved it, indicating where he was. Being professionals, they would likely reach here much quicker than he had.

  He was right. In fact, according to his own estimate, they’d taken less than half the time he had in negotiating the route. As he waited on the beach, the two lights bounced towards him. He heard Donald’s voice first and it was Rhona’s name he called.

  Alvis answered in as positive a way as he dared.

  ‘She’s on ahead, with Blaze.’

  Donald’s face appeared in the light of his head torch. ‘Blaze is okay?’

  The last bark he’d heard suggested that was true, so Alvis answered in the positive.

  Alvis gestured to where he had come from. ‘Blaze followed Seven’s trail to a gully up there where we pitched our tent, and went down it.’ When Donald had seemingly absorbed this information, Alvis quickly added, ‘He gave us an answerin
g bark when he reached the bottom, so I lowered Rhona down when we had enough light.’

  ‘The northern lights sped us on our way,’ Donald said, obviously relieved by the news of Blaze’s well-being. ‘So the girl is somewhere east of here?’

  ‘Rhona followed Blaze, who she thought was headed that way.’

  ‘Okay.’ Donald nodded, then introduced Allan, the MRT member who’d accompanied him to the beach.

  ‘We’d better get a move on then, if we want to walk there. The tide isn’t on our side.’

  Alvis didn’t need to be reminded of that. He’d checked the tables the day before, but never imagined they would be down on the beach at this hour, if ever.

  ‘You know this part of the coast?’ Alvis asked as the three men walked together. Alvis expected Donald to respond but found that the answer came from Allan.

  ‘This is my part of the world. My family’s from Orbost. My father has a boat. We came round this coast often.’

  ‘Is there anywhere the girl might choose to hide?’

  ‘It depends how frightened she is and who’s after her.’

  They tramped on in silence apart from the crackling of the radio. At one point Alvis heard Chrissy’s voice on the line and her desperate desire to know what had happened to Rhona, but also her obvious concern for the dog, and Donald.

  Donald’s response had been positive, although Alvis wasn’t sure how honest he’d been. After discussing the coastline in some detail with Allan, all three men were aware of what Rhona and the dog had faced when they’d descended that gully earlier.

  And it wasn’t as straightforward as perhaps she’d hoped.

  ‘There’s an arch ahead,’ Allan told them. ‘We have maybe twenty minutes before high tide and the word from the coastguard is that the sea is choppy. We’ll have to be quick.’

  79

  ‘No, Seven, don’t do it!’

  He was frightened of her. The intensity of the feeling that brought almost overwhelmed her. She felt a rush of emotion, almost sexual in nature. It was both exhilarating and powerful. This was the feeling he’d experienced when he’d visited her in her cell, she realized. In the Taliban world where he controlled nothing, he could at least control her. Force her to his will.

  Did this mean, when given the opportunity, she was like him?

  Such a notion sickened her so much that she gagged. She thought of Sugarboy. What made the two men so different that Sugarboy would not rape her despite the torture that brought in return?

  Jack, in contrast, had ignored her calls when she’d asked – no, begged – him not to rape her. Why did he think she would respond differently if given power over him?

  Because we are not the same. What happened in the woods taught me that.

  Then again, if she weakened and spared him, he would play the role of winner, before he set about what he had really come here to do.

  And that, she suspected, was to dispense with her once and for all.

  He would put her in the hole. Let the rising tide flow over her, as she had planned for him.

  Or drown her out there in the ocean.

  He need only hold her head under the water long enough to give the impression of suicide. A troubled returning female veteran, captured by the Taliban. Abused and raped. He would have the story all worked out to tell the authorities. Her comrades had tried to help her, Sugarboy in particular, but in her traumatized situation, she had sadly killed him.

  She moved from his imagined explanation of her state of mind to that which he might not be able to explain so easily. How had Sugarboy’s body got onto the mountain? Perhaps the story Jack had concocted about that wasn’t as good as he’d thought. Would the forensic scientist who’d questioned her in the plantation buy the story of the wounds on Sugarboy’s face having come from a fall?

  She wasn’t as sure as Jack was about that.

  He was talking again, trying to focus her decision on his plan.

  ‘So,’ he was saying, ‘we’ll stay here until it’s light, then meet up with the guys and leave Skye together.’

  There was a moment’s silence before she responded.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  The certainty in her voice surprised her even more than him.

  ‘No,’ she repeated for emphasis.

  She stood up as the next wave entered the cave, climbing the rock wall as it did so, pouring into the pit.

  ‘Seven,’ he tried to shout through the waterlogged canvas.

  ‘My name isn’t Seven,’ she repeated like a mantra as she waited for the surge of water to retreat.

  ‘That’s enough, Seven. Cut me fucking free. That’s an order.’

  There were so many orders that he had issued and all of them she had carried out. But not this one.

  ‘You’re a soldier. Cut yourself free . . . sir,’ she spat back at him.

  The explosion of anger that followed her as she waded towards the entrance made her smile. Much like she had done with Sugarboy in their darkest moments.

  Hearing his frantic attempts to free himself, she fought back the pity that threatened to engulf her.

  She couldn’t soften now.

  Outside, she registered that they were fast approaching high tide, when the cave would be almost fully underwater, judging by the marks on the wall. The earlier aurora show had disappeared, leaving only the brightness of the moon and stars. She thought how often she had stargazed from the tiny opening of her cell in Afghanistan, imagining herself back somewhere in Scotland, where the air was sharp and clean.

  Trying not to think about Jack, she focused instead on her memory of what had happened that night in the woods and on the headland.

  Watson had been fit, but he’d been unprepared. He thought they were on the same side. Soldiers in the pay of his governor, the Sandman. Making money together via Afghanistan’s bounty.

  ‘The fucking MOD don’t care if you die or not out there. We do,’ he’d told them.

  As long as we delivered the goods.

  Any thought that the supply chain might come to an end, or cost more, had changed his mind.

  Jack had outlined exactly what was required for them to keep working together. Watson hadn’t liked that. Not one little bit.

  Take it or leave it, Jack had told him. There are plenty of others keen to get our supply line.

  Watson had made a big mistake when he’d pulled the gun. Never threaten a serving soldier. Watson thought he was a tough guy, but he’d never served in a war. A real war. Nor did he know that you never challenged a black scorpion. Not if you wanted to live.

  She had learned that at least.

  And so had Watson. And, it appeared, the other two members of the team who had apparently come to Skye with him.

  Jack had declared the war over, and the safest place for the four of them remaining was back in that other war.

  Only there weren’t going to be four of them to go back.

  Seven slid to the ground and set herself against the rock face, knowing it would all soon be over. The nightmares, the fear, the hate that had filled her very soul.

  Closing her eyes, she prepared herself. In that moment, she recalled Sugarboy’s explanation for the war and its deaths. For the cruelties, big and small. And for the love such as she’d experienced among the women of Afghanistan as they’d washed and fed her and made her tea.

  Surely Sugarboy had been right: All the Gods, the Heavens and the Hells are within us.

  ‘Get the fuck up,’ Jack ordered, dragging her to her feet.

  His anger broke over her like a menacing wave. Grabbing her hair, he yanked her through the rising water.

  ‘Thought you would fucking drown me?’ He caught her arm and twisted it hard. The snap of breaking bone was unmistakable and she screamed in pain.

  ‘I’ll do worse than that, you evil slut.’

  He dragged her along what was left of the foreshore.

  ‘You fucking tried to kill me. You little shit. You started all of this. The explosi
on was your fault. Mitch and Gordo would be alive today but for you. Sugarboy too.’

  He was right about the grenade, but not about Pete. She knew that now. Was sure of it.

  ‘You killed Pete,’ she said. ‘Not me. I hit him, but it was an accident. You were the one who killed him.’

  He laughed at that and a deep sense of the end of everything came over her.

  She had made the choice to sit on the beach and let the sea take her. She had been ready for that, because he would go too. But he wasn’t going to die. The bastard wasn’t going to die.

  Seven fought back now, twisting in his arms, trying to break free of him. They had sparred in training and she knew his moves, but out here, with one arm useless, she didn’t stand a chance, not unless she got him into the water.

  The next wave reached them. Knocked slightly off balance, he loosened his grip for a second and Seven launched herself into the undertow of the retreating wave.

  Righting himself, he saw her go and threw himself into the water to follow her.

  If I go down, so does he, Seven promised herself.

  80

  Rhona clawed at the rock face as the water tried to drag her feet from under her. The insistent barking of the dog, suggesting that Blaze had found something, served to spur her on. That and the bobbing lights behind her which had to be Alvis and hopefully members of a search team.

  Having timed the waves, she’d tried to estimate how long she had before the next one hit. If she was lucky, chances were she could reach halfway through the arch and cling on to what looked like a good handhold before the retreating wave could drag her out to sea.

  She had discarded her gloves, keen to get a better grip on the rock’s surface. In the poor light, she could make out the battered remnants of her fight with the tree in the plantation, which seemed a lifetime ago.

  As the wave retracted, Rhona stumbled her way across the seaweed-strewn boulders and launched herself at the handhold, which wasn’t as solid as she’d assumed. Grabbing it dislodged a shower of loose gravel before she found a part firm enough to hang on to.