Inside the cottage, the helicopter team were shouting. North couldn’t make out the words. Half would follow out the back and if they were well-trained, the others would go out the front.
North dragged the corpse as far into the shadows as he could. Bruno would know the missing pilot was dead, but North didn’t want him finding the body anywhere near the tail of the helicopter.
The edge of the rocks, just visible in the moonlight, he leapt for it, his feet hitting the hard sand, his body rolling as he tumbled over the rocks. He must have looked the wrong way because at first he didn’t see her, then she whistled, long and low. She’d found the boat.
His feet pounding the sand, Honor was already untying the sodden, weed-shrouded rope from the mooring hammered into the concrete slip. She held the boat to the dock by the rusty metal stake. North scrambled aboard, his weight taking the boat one way and then the other almost knocking Honor into the water, as he wrenched the cord to start the engine. It caught, then died.
North could barely make out Honor’s voice over the crashing of the waves, but he understood the gesture of warning as she pointed towards the silhouette of a man who’d appeared at the ridge. Bruno’s unmistakable Easter Island head. Then another. A third. All with guns.
He tried the engine again, nothing.
The first bullet hit the water – like a coin making a wish. A sincere wish that they would both die.
He wrenched the cord, the angle different this time. Third time lucky. Fourth time dead. And the engine spluttered and caught. Bullets came thick and fast into the sea around them as he opened it up. The paintwork was cracked and battered but the engine sounded powerful enough.
The boat hit the waves with a thud rising and then falling back into the sea. He prayed he wasn’t about to drive it straight into one of the rocks that littered the coastline hereabouts – rocks on which bigger boats than this foundered and were lost.
He turned his head to watch the men. It was dark but he made out Bruno grinning, thigh-deep in the surf, regardless of the cold and wet as his compatriots abandoned their shooting gallery, running for the dunes and the helicopter. Bruno lifted his hand, took aim and fired a make-believe gun at North. Once. Twice. He was in no hurry. North was his – sooner or later. Meantime Bruno was enjoying the chase – savouring the expectation of murder yet to come. Peachy. Good enough to eat. The boat was fast, but the helicopter was faster. North guessed it could reach 130 knots compared to their 10. In an open sea, the boat had no chance of outrunning their attackers. North knew that, and he also knew he’d kill Honor himself before he let her fall into Bruno’s hands. Quick and clean. She wouldn’t know anything about it.
“Under that bench, there’s something there,” North had to shout to make himself heard. He looked back towards the island. Bruno was in darkness but North sensed he was moving away from the sea.
Honor leaned down, tugging, her grip slipping in the wet, holding on to the side with one hand to give her better purchase on whatever was beneath the bench.
There was the noise of ripping as the bundle came free of an unseen nail under the bench. It had caught in an ancient oilskin, ripping a chunk out of the sleeve. Honor took hold of the oilskin and pulled it away to reveal a black donkey jacket, which in turn lay over a canvas haversack. At no point did she look at him to see what he thought. North was irrelevant, he knew. Instead, she unbuckled the bag and upended the contents into her lap. It wasn’t much. A heavy-duty torch. A map and a compass – the arrow swinging wildly with the motion of the boat. What did she think was going to be in there?
North reached for the map. It was the North Northumberland coastline – the rocks jagged and dangerous circled in red ink, a black cross drawn in the middle of the sea close to one of the islands.
Honor was trembling. Maybe from fear. Maybe from shock. Or maybe from disappointment. “Put it on,” North instructed, pointing at the donkey jacket.
The wool cloth must have been cold because she shivered as she drew it over her shoulders, but it was at least dry. Not that she knew it but the jacket made her look younger, more carefree. North wondered if she was ever carefree. He thought not. There was £50 rolled-up in ten pound notes – two rubber bands around the tube – in the pocket of the oilskin. He was beginning to warm to Peggy – she was a woman who thought ahead. He tucked the notes in his jeans pocket and was pulling the oilskin over the Aran jumper as Honor gasped.
The helicopter was trying to take off – the roar and whine of its straining engine carrying on the wind. North cursed whoever else could fly it. It rose and spun – its anti-torque system wrecked by the iron bar. Dipping then rising then spinning.
The helicopter disappeared from view, and a black plume of smoke rose from the shore, a billowing ball of flames from the aviation fuel; the fuel lighting up the diesel across the yard, the woodshed – then the boom hit them, the noise moving across the water like a wall. Honor watched the plume, the ball of flames, her pale face wet from the sea spray. “What did you do?” The wind whipping her voice off the boat and away to the grey and pink horizon. “Are they dead?”
North sincerely hoped their attackers were dead. He would light a candle to every saint whose name he could remember if Bruno died screaming in a blaze of fire.
But they were as far from safe as they could be.
According to the map, they were around 25 minutes from the nearest fishing village along the coast. In this weather it would take twice as long to get back to the mainland. He checked the compass, the co-ordinates, and headed for a bobbing orange floating buoy.
They needed a cover and if he was right, Peggy just provided the perfect one.
He cut the engine and the boat floated sideways on over to the buoy, the waves and wind pushing it hither and thither. “Keep an eye on the rocks – make sure we don’t go too close,” he told Honor as he leaned over the side of the boat into the freezing water, grabbing at the buoy and hauling up the saturated rope attached to it. With a sudden pop, the lobster pot broke from the water, black claws waving from one side and festooned with dark brown seaweed. Foaming water poured back into the sea as North steadied it on the side before heaving it into the boat. Plunging his hand into the roped and bound pot, he eased out a large lobster, its claws snapping closed as North wrapped them around with the rubber bands from the tenners. He threw the lobster in the large plastic box at the back of the boat and pushed his hands back in the other side of the pot for two large crabs.
He was about to throw the pot back in when Honor stopped him. “There’s something in it,” she said, her hand on his forearm.
North pushed his arm though the small gap where the lobsters crawled in, the nylon rope sleeve scratching against his skin. His fingertips touched something hard, wrapped in shredded green plastic as if the lobster had tried to pick a fight with whatever was in there first.
They had got to it just in time he thought. Another day or two and the lobster would have won. His fingers found purchase. It was firm to the touch. Hard-edged. Perhaps some kind of box wrapped in heavy-duty plastic and tarp? More shreds fell away as he drew the package out of the pot. The refuse bags around it had been punctured and torn, but Honor took it from him before he could judge the damage. He waited. The natural thing was to open it, instead she sat with it on her lap, staring straight ahead. Her face was set. They were in Peggy’s boat, using Peggy’s map to find Peggy’s treasure. A treasure Peggy had kept from Honor – a secret she didn’t share. Honor needed time. He let her be.
He set the boat in motion again and gunned the engine.
Honor was right. Three. Two. One. Coming ready or not. The children’s game of hide the thimble played for adult stakes.
Peggy didn’t hide herself, but she saw fit to hide something. In the sea, off an island, miles from home. It was dangerous or she wouldn’t have hidden it. It was valuable or she wouldn’t have kept it. She was supposed to recover it at some point, but she didn’t. Did she keep it for insurance purposes? Or
was it the reason she was in trouble? He glanced again at Honor but her face was turned to the sea. Her hair. The curve of her cheek. He couldn’t read her.
He swept the boat around, its tail spinning out behind them, seething water slapping against its wooden frame, then dropped down, taking her between the islands to anchor. His instinct was to gun the boat, but it wasn’t the right instinct. They had to slip back on to land like any fishing crew. Not hit land at full tilt and draw the wrong kind of attention.
They had to wait it out. And they weren’t alone.
Regardless of the cutting winds and crashing waves all around, a colony of Atlantic grey seals lay fat and comfortable against the foaming water’s edge. Small dark pups nuzzling their parents while braver souls flopped into the shifting, churning water. A sleek mottled seal emerged close-up and sudden against the boat, its liquid brown eyes curious and trustful as it watched the strangers.
North looked at Honor, wanting to share the moment, but her gaze was already fixed on him.
“You don’t care about anyone, do you, North? Not those men you killed. Not me.” Honor’s hands gripped the parcel as if she wanted to throw it back over the side and herself after it. She didn’t look happy despite the fact the find proved her right. What did it tell her? That her friend kept secrets. Everyone kept secrets.
He stayed quiet. She did, after all, have a point. He didn’t care about the men he just killed. He did however care what happened to Honor Jones.
The seal’s head disappeared under the water, its shape a shadow, and then gone.
Chapter 21
NORTHUMBERLAND
5:45am. Wednesday, 8th November
It was still dark as the boat came in to the harbour at Seamouth. The storm dying away like it had never been. His hand gripping the tiller, North took it slow and steady, the diesel engine raucous in the chill of the early morning. He kept his eyes soft – there were figures on the quay, and at least one blaze of headlights. He threaded the nylon rope through the cleat at the stern before twitching the tiller to swing the boat round hard and reverse it stern-first into the quay, stepping around a hunched-over Honor, her shoulders around her ears – to drop the anchor from the bow, its splash reverberating across the churning water. Sometimes the worst course of action was to hide. The good thing about his position as he worked was the clear view it gave him of the watchers on the quayside. A police 4x4 parked against an ambulance, the police driver still at his wheel, the sergeant leaning against the bonnet, his chin tucked into the radio at his shoulder. North listened hard for the excitement, the bloodlust and scurry of predators sighting their prey but there was only a tense waiting. He pulled on the anchor rope – the anchor catching in the muddy sea-bed, and the stern thumped against the harbour wall. Reaching up for a huge rusting ring set in the lichened brickwork, he hauled the boat close against the wall, tensioning first the stern line and then the anchor line. It wasn’t a professional job, but from a distance it was good enough.
Honor stood up, the parcel still in her hands, and the boat rocked from side to side.
He reached out to steady her, but she batted him off.
“Let me go up, then hand me up the boxes,” he said, his boots already on the first rungs of the ladder up on to the quayside. Climbing up, keeping his movement smooth. Something he did every day of his life. Come in from the sea. Climb up the ladder. Bring in the catch. If anyone wanted to take a potshot, they could shoot him first.
But there was nothing more than the screech of seagulls.
She didn’t meet his eye, swinging up the plastic box he packed before they came into harbour, steadying herself in the rock and swing of the moving boat before hauling herself up the ladder, her hands one over the other, the parcel tucked in the pocket of the donkey jacket. He nudged her and they moved away from the side, standing together in the lee of a dry-docked boat, its immense hull high on its supports, paint peeling from the barnacled wood. In the shadows, North pulled the beanie lower over Honor’s face and did up the buttons of her jacket. She didn’t like his hands on her, but she suffered it. He stood back to admire his handiwork. Luckily, she was slight – from a distance she could be a boy. He rolled the sleeves of the oilskin up over the elbows of the Aran. He hadn’t shaved. From a distance he could be a fisherman – if they made fishermen tall and wild and wary-looking.
He raised his hand in salutation to a boatman and he did as North hoped he would – raised his hand in salutation back. Look – they were regulars with friends on the quayside. They weren’t strangers straggling in from the island like refugees from a fire fight.
Honor moved towards the police car, her eyes fixed on the burly sergeant – North’s hand on her arm holding her back. “This has gone too far,” she said. “We need to tell the police what’s going on. I’m an MP – they’d have to listen.” Honor was a woman who had been through enough.
He spoke slowly. “No one will believe you.”
“I’ll take that risk.”
He blocked her, blocked the sight of her from the policemen. “Think about it. The police have to be involved for that body in your flat to disappear.”
Part of him admired her innocence. The part that didn’t mind dying. She shut her eyes as if the sight of him disturbed her. Opening them only as he pushed a lobster at her – its bound claws waving in fury, along with the last pot they’d pulled from the sea.
“Keep your head down,” he instructed.
He didn’t notice him at first, but he saw him now. Along from the police car was a black SUV – by it, stood a lanky figure in a waxed brown riding coat that almost reached the floor. From a distance, the man appeared to have one eye, the other covered by old scarring, ridged and purple. And something about the way he stood as he looked out to sea made North think he had seen the man before.
Obscuring his own face, he heaved the box on to one shoulder as if it was heavy with their catch. Two more lobsters he’d lifted from other men’s pots lay draped over the sides as if the box was brim-full. As if he worked a good night out there on the chopped about charcoal-grey sea. Yes, he was a happy man the money they’d fetch for him and the lad. He started whistling.
They were along the quayside as the lifeboat appeared in the gap between the harbour walls, the water slapping against the huge hull, its blue and orange colours loud in the misty dawn, the diesel engine even louder.
He heard the tutting and the groaning as they passed the florid-faced old captain sitting on a slatted bench under the harbour master’s office, a stick propped against his splayed legs. The old man didn’t even know he was making a noise, thought North.
“Is there a problem?” he asked. The old fisherman studied him – trawling his own memory for the younger man’s name and his nets coming up empty. Not for the first time. Age was a terrible thing.
“Aye, bonny lad.” Shaking his head, his rheumy eyes went back to the lifeboat, anxious not to miss the drama yet hating to watch it. “There was a car went across the causeway last night and the sea swept the driver away.” He sighed again, noisily, too old not to take it personally when Death came calling. “The coastguards found the car in the early hours – the lifeboat’s been out looking ever since, but the body’s only just turned up.”
Beside North, tucked into his shadow, Honor said nothing. Like the rest of the quayside, they turned to watch the lifeboat motor closer to the slipway. Doors to the ambulance opening the same instant as the sergeant abandoned his cigarette to rap against the window and alert his dozing colleague. They were on.
A sombre-faced coxswain stood on the deck, his crewmate hauling, exhausted, on the rope to bring the boat close in.
“Not pretty,” he called up to the sergeant. “The rocks have made a mess long since.”
Honor took a small gulp of breath. North found her hand and squeezed it and she shook him loose. They watched as five of the lifeboat men heaved the body bag up from the deck to shoulder-height, and into the reaching arms of the waiting polic
emen and paramedics.
“What if it’s Peggy?” she whispered. Agonised.
From the way the police and paramedics struggled, the body was heavy, their knees bending simultaneously as they half-lay, half-dropped it on the ground.
“It’s not Peggy,” he said.
Surely it wasn’t? Though he had to admit it would be a neat enough way to explain her death. Drowned crossing the causeway in a storm. And there wasn’t enough luck in the world for it to be Bruno.
“Stay here,” North instructed.
Honor let out a strangled yelp of protest but he ignored it. Best to see for himself.
In the blue morning light, he crossed the deserted road and on to the quay; out from cover his skin prickled, his mouth tasting bitter as adrenalin pumped round his system. He broke step as the requiem from the onlookers gathered around the corpse washed over him. Remembered tears and a murmured chorus of “Shame” and “Waste” and “The sea, the sea”. Forcing himself to carry on.
It was getting worse. The purple pills helped with the worst of the headaches. Their other advantage which he barely admitted, even to himself, was that they smothered the worst of the voices and pictures that came into his head all unbidden. 24 hours since the last pill, he was raw, scoured out and exposed to other people’s pain. Or to his own.
He laid a hand on the shoulder of one of the fishermen, twisting a woolly hat round and round in huge reddened hands – a helpless gesture of respect to the drowned or to the cold sea North didn’t know which. There were a dozen of them waiting – mostly fishermen or boatmen, a couple of divers – rubber suits pulled down around their substantial waists. The noise in his head – other men’s sadness, their past losses and present fears, the coldness of their curiosity – was almost unbearable. Let it not be Peggy, he thought. For Honor’s sake.
Killing State Page 14