Cry of the Panther
Page 28
Imogen looked through the rain fragmenting the windscreen. ‘I do know, Andy. And I think he’s alive.’ But even as she said it, the breath died in her chest and the image of him pressed against the cliff fogged in her head.
They were almost at Loch Loyne and the freshness of her time with him was with her again. The gun made no sense. The lies made no sense. She remembered him as a boy, and of course now she could see the resemblance. ‘I knew him before, Andy,’ she said. ‘That’s why he’s important to me.’
‘McAdam?’
‘Yes. It was thirty years ago. I didn’t recognize him when he turned up here. When I was a kid I lived in America for a while.’ This was hard, but she felt she owed McKewan something. ‘We lived in the same town. He was my brother’s friend.’
‘I never knew you had a brother.’
‘I don’t. He died years ago.’
The radio crackled again, and a voice came over the receiver; it was Smitty, one of McKewan’s crew who was ahead of them. McKewan responded, then looked across at Imogen. ‘Smitty’s at Peel Point,’ he said.
‘Tell him to wait there. That’s where we parked the Land-Rovers.’
‘We can’t drive much further anyway.’
She nodded. ‘Is there no way you can get the helicopter up?’
He shook his head. ‘As far as the authorities are concerned this is a wild-goose chase. McAdam’s long gone, Imogen. You ought to let it be.’
‘No.’ She said it quickly, sharply. ‘Listen. Thank you for coming, for doing this. I really appreciate it.’
Six of them walked in, leaving Smitty behind as control. The radio signal was good for the distance they were going to cover, and if they did find anything, he could summon any outside help they required. McKewan led the way, striding out on long legs, with heavy walking boots and rubber-valanced gaiters. Imogen walked alongside him, her pack on her back, watching the line of the horizon and cutting a path towards it. She didn’t need a compass or a map; she knew this part of the country as well as anyone.
After an hour of walking they were strung out in a long line, keeping together only by radio contact. Imogen walked with McKewan just behind her. They kept to the gorge, running a thin line in the lee of the Maol Chinn-dearg, Gleouraich rising over 3,000 feet to the south. Imogen retraced the steps she had taken with Connla. She saw his face in her mind, his eyes, skin and hair. She saw the shape of his mouth, his lips, and then she thought of the lies that had spilled so freely from them. But was it all lies? His identity, yes; the past, yes; but all of it? Their intimate moments—making gentle love, then lying naked in the night out here with the northern lights above them; the way he’d watched her when she was bathing, the passion deep in his eyes. She pushed the thoughts away again. Too many questions and no answers to any of them.
He was out there somewhere; the further they walked the more she could feel it. She was aware of his passing, their passing, rock and stone, tree and shrub. He hadn’t come back alone, at least not this way; she would have been able to sense it. She amazed herself then, wondering at her inexplicable arrogance. But it was not arrogance, if he had come back alone she knew she would have felt it.
Another day dawned. Was it four or five, three maybe, Connla could not remember. It rained again, though, hard this time, and he was flat on his back, mouth open, able to draw some moisture onto his swelling tongue. His hair was soaked, plastered against the rock, and his clothing stuck to him. It was colder now, very much colder. If this had been anything other than the height of summer he would be dead already. He still might die. No-one had come. The chopper had made umpteen passes and hadn’t spotted him. He had waved his arm and done the best he could to attract their attention, but they had not seen him. The gully he was in was partly obscured by the rest of the mountain and any helicopter pilot would have to come in really low to spot him, and then he would have a problem with down draught and his rotors being so near the side of the rock. The panther, if he had actually seen it, had not come back again.
He watched crows circling and thought they were vultures waiting for him to die. No, he told himself, there weren’t any vultures in Scotland; they were just big black crows waiting for him to die. He drifted again, semi-sleep, semi-conscious, and he knew, even in his remoteness from it all, that this was hypothermia. Blood loss, probably concussion, lying on cold stone and getting soaked. Hypothermia would kill him before the lack of water.
Imogen stopped and McKewan almost bumped into her. They had reached the final camp, where she and Connla had packed up the tent, kissed for the last time and separated. All kinds of thoughts ran through her head and seemed to clog and congeal, like so much dirt in a drain. She needed clarity, hope, desire; all those things she could remember from thirty years ago, as if it were only yesterday. McKewan looked at her, then beyond her to the grim height of Devil’s Rigg, partly shrouded in cloud.
‘It’s raining hard up there,’ he said. ‘If we have to climb it’s not going to be easy.’ Imogen was not listening to him. She stood where she was and gazed across the valley, hazy and grey now, where the sheets of rain were falling. She couldn’t feel anything and she wondered if she hadn’t just imagined it after all. Maybe finding Ewan had just been luck, coincidence. Maybe this was nothing to do with any of that. Maybe Connla was just the liar that everyone thought he was.
‘Imogen?’
She looked at McKewan, his face earnest and bent towards hers. ‘Devil’s Rigg. Where would he have gone?’
‘We saw a pair of eagles,’ she said and pointed into the cloud. ‘I only glimpsed them for a second, so I don’t know where they came from. But I assumed they’d be nesting somewhere on the Rigg. He watched them for longer than I did. Maybe he saw where they went.’
‘From here?’ McKewan shook his head. ‘I doubt it.’ He looked back at the mountain. ‘The Rigg goes on for ever. You could climb all day. There’s a million and one gullies, and he could be lying in any one of them, if he’s there at all.’ He was talking more to himself than to her. The radio crackled then and he spoke to Smitty, who was checking in from the control point. Nobody had seen anything.
McKewan shifted his pack between his shoulder blades and spoke to the team over their radios. ‘Rescue Unit from Rescue One. We’re heading directly for the north face of the Rigg. Spread out and concentrate the search on that area. Nobody climbs without telling me and no risks are to be taken. Maintain radio contact.’ As if to emphasize the point, he rolled his thumb over the volume wheel and the radio crackled with static.
They moved off once more, the seven of them spread out across the approaches to the mountain. Imogen walked with McKewan alongside her, aware of the rasp of his breathing, as if his nose was permanently blocked. She kept her eyes ahead, trying to pierce the weight of the cloud and spot something familiar. The ground was boggy now and sucking at the soles of their boots. Imogen’s trouser legs were damp and mud-spattered and she wished she had worn gaiters. McKewan’s pace was brisk and they made it to the lowest level of the hills quite quickly, where black shiny rocks pushed out from the bracken like bald patches on a dozen heads. McKewan glanced sideways at her every now and again, as if he was looking for a prompt of some kind. Imogen could not give him one. She could feel nothing; her mind was blank and she was beginning to believe that this was a fool’s errand after all. Thirty years was thirty years and nothing was quite how you remembered it.
They walked for three hours, following a path through the foothills, looking for the easier routes up. Imogen was reluctant to just start climbing because they could be hundreds of yards out, and every lost second might be precious. At last McKewan stopped and looked at her. ‘Are you following some kind of a trail, Imogen?’
She looked at him and sighed. ‘I don’t know, Andy. I might be.’
He scratched his head. ‘You’re a weird one and no mistake.’ He pointed to the rocks. ‘Why don’t we just climb, eh? If he was looking for eagles, you can guarantee he went up.’
McKewan followed her, staring at her back as she picked her way up the great slabs of stone like a semi-reluctant spider. The slabs were interspersed with sections of shale and bracken, loose soil and grass. Imogen slowed, her grip much less firm. She went on, though, knees straining, gaining height all the time. She did not look down, did not look back at McKewan, but kept her eyes ahead and her body close to the rising wall before her. He had come this way; she didn’t know how she knew it, but she did. Suddenly she was back in the forest on the edge of the Sawtooth in Idaho, the old fears bubbling like uncorked wine in her throat.
After that first hundred feet or so things got tougher. Imogen paused as the wall lifted almost sheer in front of their faces. This was the first real climbing; black rock, slimy and treacherous with rain. McKewan came alongside her. Imogen stood for a second, aware of nothing, doubting herself again, and then she pointed to their right, where the rock formed a natural bulbous pillar on the mountain. ‘Can we go that way?’
McKewan was alongside her now and set down his pack. ‘It’s a traverse. I’ve done it before. Should’ve left a bloody rope up.’
Imogen looked at him, as if for reassurance. ‘Does it make sense if you’re climbing?’
‘The traverse. Aye.’ He indicated the sheer wall above their heads. ‘Once you get round the pillar the going’s a lot easier.’
Dropping his pack to his feet, he bent and began to uncoil the rope from the top. ‘Can you climb?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve scrambled up Tana Coire, but that’s about it.’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘I guess we’re about to find out, Andy.’
‘Hang on a minute.’ He checked in with the others, told them what they were planning and called them all together. ‘We’re going ahead with the traverse now,’ he said. ‘It’s not too severe, but it could be tricky in this weather. Take care on the approach.’ He signed off and strung out the rope.
Imogen let him lead, paying out the line as he worked his way round the pillar, heavy boots biting at the rock for grip. He moved out of sight and then, a few minutes later, she felt the rope jerk twice in her hands and his voice came over the radio. She picked up her handset from where it lay at her feet.
‘OK, Imogen. It’s only about fifteen feet once you pass the exposed bit. Leave your belay in place and fix another karabiner onto the rope. Leave the bits of gear I’ve put in the rock in case we have to come back this way.’
Imogen did as he told her and soon she was on the wall, flattening herself against it, unsure of her grip on the slippery surface. But as she sought handholds and scrabbled with her feet, pressing her body and face in close to the rock, she knew he had been there before her. Sense or smell or impression, she had no name for it, but the knowledge was firm and fast in her head. It both thrilled and terrified her in the same moment.
McKewan cracked a broad smile as she came into view. He was keeping the rope tight, so she could feel the comfort of it tugging her middle. She knew, if she slipped, he would hold her. ‘Well done girl,’ he said. ‘You’re a natural.’
She unclipped from the rope and looked up. McKewan had been right: they still had to climb, but the going was easier. Again he led, Imogen allowing him to lead now and pick out the safest route up. An hour later they were standing in a sloping boulder-strewn amphitheatre, perhaps 1,500 feet across, rising steeply to another sheer wall of granite overhead.
‘My God,’ she said.
McKewan looked where she looked. ‘That’s serious climbing, Imogen. Especially when it’s this wet and greasy. I’m not sure I want to take you up there.’
Imogen gazed the length and breadth of the plateau. ‘Let’s worry about that when we get to it,’ she said.
McKewan checked everyone’s position on the radio while she stood a moment in silence. He frowned at her, not understanding, scepticism again curling his lip. He took his tobacco tin from his jacket pocket. Imogen sat on a rock, knees together, hands between them, looking up and down the mountain. Once again she had to wonder why she had brought them here. Nothing. Just the stillness of the air, the cloud overhead and the land stretching away from them. She sat for a few minutes, then a few minutes more and began to question herself all over again. Doubt.
McKewan’s semi-scornful eyes were on her; he was doing his best to hide it, but every so often his mask slipped and she glimpsed it. Why shouldn’t he be scornful? For God’s sake, she was scornful. This was ridiculous. The whole mountain seemed to mock her and she questioned why she’d gone there in the first place. What was he to her after all this time except a cheat and a liar? And then she realized, perhaps for the first time, that she wasn’t there for him at all; she was doing this for herself.
‘Well?’ McKewan broke in on her thoughts. ‘Are we going for it or what? I can’t see anything that looks like an eyrie from here.’
Imogen sat there looking at him, then lifted her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
‘Maybe you’re right, Andy. If the helicopter couldn’t find him, what hope have we got?’
‘Now you tell me.’ McKewan frowned and sucked on his cigarette, picking strands of tobacco from his teeth. He called in on the radio once more. Two of the others were just beginning the traverse. He spoke again to Imogen. ‘We’ll let the others catch up, then we’ll string a line on this plateau. We’ll search it section by section, and if we don’t find him we’ll have to think again.’
Imogen nodded and frowned, then she got up and looked at the ground: grass, heather, the broken soil where her boots sank into the earth. She looked at the scattered rocks, thick slices of stone, boulders split where they’d fallen away from the cliff face. Slowly she moved off, leaving McKewan where he was, smoking his roll-up and talking into the radio. She walked up the slope, totally at a loss now. The land seemed to yawn and stretch and mock her. Ahead was a massive ravine. She stopped, moved back again, then set off in a different direction, desperately trying to keep the sense of aimlessness from her footfall. She moved fifty yards ahead—McKewan was watching her—then she stopped again and sat down. Cold hard stone underneath her, stone all around her. She recalled her book on gemstones—the fields of electrical energy—trying to remember if it was scientific fact or just somebody’s fantasy. The search party had gone off in the wrong direction back in Idaho all those years ago. She had known it. How had she known it? Had Connla known it, too? Had he sent them the wrong way? Something about his demeanour that day had told her he knew more than he’d ever said. She remembered staring at him in that clearing, staring at him across the desk in the sheriff’s office, staring at him in the handful of schooldays left before her parents brought her back to Scotland.
And then she felt him and all her senses seemed to come alive, her nostrils suddenly flaring, as if she could smell the scent left by his passing. She stood up, head high, eyes bunched at the corners. She turned and stared at a fallen section of rock and moved closer to it and the same strange certainty came over her yet again. She lo
oked back at McKewan and nodded. Rapidly, now, he joined her.
Imogen led him across the brown stain of the bracken, around the ravine towards the barrier of sheer rock. She moved more quickly now, a sudden urgency in her breast. At the wall she paused. Nothing. Then something vague and faint, like the thinnest of etchings, and then nothing again. It didn’t make sense. She stared at the cliff face, then moved further to her right, then back again, and all the time McKewan stood and scratched his head, looking at her as if he were considering having her certified.
Imogen stopped and looked back. She looked at the wall once more, and whatever she had sensed was fading. And as it faded so the panic grew and the doubts returned and she wondered if she wasn’t just slightly mad.
‘If he went up there, we have to climb,’ McKewan said. ‘You belay, I’ll lead. It’ll be bloody slippery, so make sure you tie on fast to a rock. I need you to hold me if I come off.’
Imogen nodded, stepped back and selected two karabiners from her harness. All sense had gone now and she stumbled like a blind man in a forest. She didn’t understand this sudden nothingness; only moments earlier she had been sure. She moved closer to the gully, looking for a decent rock to mount her belay.
And then she saw him, lying on a slab of stone, almost hidden from view by an overhang. His eyes were closed, his face white and he lay absolutely still. And Ewan lay under the river, body thrashed by the waves that beat the cottonwood bough that held him. She stared, no words, breath just lodged in her throat. Connla had fallen. He was dead. She knew that he was dead and a chill swept over her then, like nausea.
McKewan was still working at his rope behind her. Something moved in the bracken and Imogen heard a sound that dragged her gaze from Connla—half hiss, half growl. She stared at the far side of the gully. A black shape reared up from the grass not fifty feet from where she stood—a broad, flat head, ears laid back, mouth open and long, yellowed teeth. McKewan saw it, too, and took root where he stood.