by D C Macey
Once Helen and Sam were inside, they happily accepted Patricia’s offer of refreshments. Then Helen engaged in polite conversation as Sam moved from his seat on the sofa to sit at the dining table. There, he tuned out the conversation in the room and focused on the two packets of photographs that Patricia had laid out for him.
The first was just a slim envelope. Inside, he found a dozen or so photographs. He instantly recognised the green but treeless features of South Ronaldsay and began flicking through. Three or four in, he found the pictures Miles had flagged. The turf had been cut away from a protruding stone edge to uncover a long slender slab that might once have stood several feet tall. Miles had not placed a scale measure beside the stone, so it was hard to be certain. What Sam could see were symbols engraved into the stone.
He flipped on to the next picture. This wider shot put the fallen stone in context. It would once have stood proud, set back a few paces from the cliff edge. Exactly at the point where, far below, the winter wilds of the North Sea merged with the oft raging North Atlantic. Sam wondered about the remoteness of the stone and its purpose at just that spot.
He flipped to another picture and suddenly leant forwards. Here was a close-up of the engravings. The stone had stood weathering for a long time before it eventually dropped towards the unwitting protection of the earth. Nonetheless, he immediately recognised the Templar seal. The unmistakable outline of two knights on a single horse was perfectly captured. There was more beneath, perhaps a boat, maybe a box? Sam pulled out his magnifying glass to see better.
Now he saw clearly. Carved in the middle were the two Templar knights on their horse riding away from a sunrise and towards what may have been a tree or plant topped with a few dotted holes … stars? The object beneath the knights came into focus, a ship carrying a box. It too sailed away from the sunrise … west?
Sam thought for a few minutes while flicking back and forth between the images. Then he put the pictures to one side. They were interesting, but he needed context. This was a stone that should be visited when all of this was over. Right now, he needed to focus on Leptis Magna and the Temple of Jupiter.
He drew the second envelope towards him. This was thicker, heavier. Opening it, he began to turn through the pictures - a visual record of Miles’ unauthorised Leptis Magna dig. There were the predictable team pictures, the general interest shots featuring the western half of what was a quite stunning and undisturbed classical city. Then there were the pictures Sam wanted, the careworn and less glamorous eastern side of the city.
In particular, the Temple of Jupiter. But there was no imposing temple - that was long gone. The stone, all taken, perhaps by locals to build homes and boundary walls, perhaps by British or French officials who had made many trips to loot columns, statues and whole buildings for their own needs. The temple’s proximity to the ancient harbour would have made it a prime target. All that remained were the foundations of the temple and an imposing stair leading up the slope from the port.
It was clear Miles had enlisted the unauthorised assistance of a young German student. She appeared in a series of the shots, her arms outstretched, each hand holding a scale pole - Sam guessed to help establish the scale and length of the stone stair.
He looked back and forth and suddenly realised she was not holding the posts up to fix scale, though they did serve that purpose. All the photos were taken from the same spot. In each successive image the young woman was another pace further down the stairway. She was marking the positions of things set in the ground.
Turning the pictures, Sam felt a tightening in his chest. He stopped, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding it in. The image remained fixed in his mind. Exhaling, he opened his eyes, the image was still there. He flipped to the next picture and the next and again. A series of photographs - close-ups, capturing the detail of the walkway tiles whose positions were singled out by the young German assistant in the first set of pictures.
Sam knew the tiles, knew them exactly. He had looked and looked at them hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times. The tiles were perfect representations of the various faces of Helen’s boxes.
• • •
It was a little after one when Helen and Sam drove off. With Patricia’s blessing, Sam had two envelopes of photographs in his jacket pocket. ‘Daddy was quite clear on the phone,’ Patricia had told him. ‘He said you were to take whatever you needed. He wants them back, of course, for sentimental reasons, but you just take what you want.’
There was a long drive back to Edinburgh ahead of them, but at last, they had something that linked to the boxes. The link was from the wrong period, but he’d worry about that later. They had something tangible to work with.
Sam rapidly explained to Helen what he had found, keeping up a flow of information as he turned the car into Marine Road. The road followed the coastline, running parallel to the wide-open expanse of the Morecambe Bay sands. Now they were driving east, and further ahead, they could just make out where the road began its turn north to follow the shape of the great bay.
‘They’re vast,’ said Helen, looking out across the sands. Turning her head, she look back, westwards, to where the Irish Sea was nothing more than a far off silver line that underscored the sky. Everything for miles around was flat, all shades of yellow and grey. To the north, a barely discernable grey-black smudge lowered beneath the winter clouds to mark the northern side of Morecambe Bay where the hills and peaks of the Lake District National Park closed in on the coast.
‘Yes, the sands seem never-ending, a very impressive sight, but it’s all tidal so don’t be fooled - walkers frequently get caught out. Every year, people are lost, drowned on the sands.’ Sam chanced a quick glance out across the sands and briefly stretched out a flat hand towards them. ‘For miles and miles, the sands are flat so only a little shift in the tide will have them covered by water in a flash. And you can’t see from here, but the sands are riddled with natural dips and gullies. The incoming waters can rush in unseen ahead of walkers who suddenly find they’re cut off with water closing on them from all sides. It’s not a good place to be when the tide’s on the flood. What’s dry now might be under a dozen feet of water or more before you realise—’
Sam stopped speaking. Helen looked at him and saw he was watching in his rear-view mirror.
‘What’s up, Sam?’
‘I think we’ve got company.’
‘Oh, are you sure?’
‘Big silver car. It turned onto Marine Road behind us, and I’m sure it was parked just along from the sheltered housing complex too.’
He sped up a little. The silver car behind matched his speed. He pushed the speed up above the local limit, the car behind did the same.
‘Yes, they’re on us.’
Helen had shifted her head to watch the other car in the wing mirror. ‘What now?’
‘We have to lose them. I’m not sure how; this is a fairly straight road.’ Sam allowed his speed to drop to the speed limit and saw their tail do the same.
A little ahead was a tour coach that had paused at the kerbside to allow its passengers a chance to admire the spectacle of the sands. The coach’s offside amber signal lights started flashing to indicate its intention to pull away. It began nudging forwards and out, trying to force a break in the traffic flow that would allow it to get underway. Sam’s natural instinct was to give way and let the coach out ahead of him; he slowed a little, and the coach continued to manoeuvre out into the flow.
At the last moment, Sam accelerated the car hard and veered out into the oncoming traffic lane, driving the car as fast as he could to force a way past the bus as it continued to pull out and build up speed. The bus’s horn sounded in fury while, directly ahead, the first in a line of oncoming vehicles flashed its lights and braked desperately. Sam registered more distant horn tones as the subsequent vehicles applied brakes and expressed their exasperation.
Their car powered ahead of the bus just as the driver brought it to a lurching
halt, filling the eastbound lane and jutting over into the westbound lane, bringing all the traffic to a stop. The first of the line of westbound vehicles was stationary directly adjacent to the coach, almost cab to cab. The two drivers exchanged looks, shook their heads and prepared to get underway again. Stuck behind the coach, the driver of the silver car was blasting the horn in frustration. The coach driver shrugged to himself and took his time to restart. The first idiot car driver had got away, this next one could wait a while, and he knew exactly how to slow a car down. With another wry shake of his head, the coach driver selected gear.
‘That was close,’ said Helen. Her hands still gripped the seatbelt, white-knuckled.
‘Needs must,’ said Sam, glancing in the driver’s mirror. The bus was just starting to move. He gunned the engine harder and lost sight of the bus for a few moments as the road ahead turned to follow the line of the coast.
‘But they’ll catch us again, soon enough; this is a long road.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Hold tight again.’ Sam braked suddenly and spun the wheel to the right. The car shot across the westbound carriageway, up a slight incline and into a car park. In the few moments it took Sam to steer the car into the car park, he had got the speed down and they appeared to be just another couple come for dog walking or to enjoy the view. Sam stopped the car in an empty parking bay located amid a line of parked cars. They all faced out across the road and towards the beach on the other side.
‘Keep down,’ said Sam as he switched off the engine ignition and slid back a little.
Helen eased back in her seat too, then mirrored Sam to peer out across the lip of the dashboard as the bus drove slowly past. Its angry driver could be clearly seen muttering to himself and obstructing the pushy silver car behind.
Then the vehicles were past and Helen let out a long sigh.
‘Close thing there. Let’s not do that again.’ Helen looked across at Sam. ‘That was a truly lunatic piece of driving, Mr Cameron. Lunatic!’
‘Yes, but it got us away for now, bought a little time.’ For a long, silent moment, Sam gazed out across the sands. Then he stretched an arm through to the back seats and grabbed their rubber boots. ‘Get these on.’
‘Why do we need these? Where are we going now?’ Helen opened the passenger door, swung her legs out and changed into the boots while Sam did the same thing on his side.
‘I think we need to change our mode of travel. They’ll be back soon enough. It will only take a couple of minutes for them to get past the coach and realise we’ve already left the main road. Then they’ll double back. We need to be out of sight by then.’
They got out, pulled on their winter jackets, and Sam put their shoes in his rucksack.
Helen looked about. There was no hiding place. In one direction, the road stretched open and unbroken back into Morecambe; the silver car would soon be returning from the other.
Sam pointed towards the beach. ‘Come on.’
They hurried out of the car park and dodged traffic to get across the road where a pedestrian path allowed them over the breakwater and down onto the beach.
‘Over there,’ said Sam. Perhaps a hundred paces out on the sands was a long line of people, each spaced several feet apart and carrying what looked like a large bag. All had their backs to Sam and Helen and were walking slowly away from them while moving parallel to the shoreline. The pair broke into a slow jog, hampered by their rubber boots and the slight give in the surface sand.
‘What are they doing? Beachcombers?’ said Helen.
‘My guess is they’re picking up rubbish. It’s getting everywhere now.’
‘How’s this going to help us?’
‘Let’s just blend in. Hopefully, we’ll give our pursuers the slip, and in a while, we can phone for a taxi to get us back into Morecambe. We can pick up another hire car there.’
‘What about ours?’
‘It’ll be fine in that car park. We’ll just have to pay a recovery fee to the hire company.’
They stopped talking and focused on closing the distance on the line of people.
‘Hello there!’ Sam hailed. At about the mid-point of the line, someone turned and waved. The woman paused for Helen and Sam to reach her as the line slowly moved ahead.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, what are you up to?’ said Sam.
‘Plastic picking,’ she replied. A woollen hat was pulled down firmly over her hair, loose trails of which wafted and jerked in a wind that seemed to have got up in the time it had taken them to run across the beach. Her hearty voice, heavy with a Lancastrian accent, was accompanied by an open smile. ‘I’ve got my environment students out here. They’re contributing to a national pollution survey and doing some good in the process. And how can I help you?’
‘Well, we thought we might help you,’ said Helen.
‘Great, the more the merrier.’ She pulled some sturdy black plastic refuse sacks from a roll and handed them across. ‘Here, take these.’ She laughed as they took them. ‘I know it’s ironic that we’re using plastic bags, but what can you do? Any bags you don’t use by the end, please give them back; we’re on a tight budget.’
She pointed away towards the end of the line. ‘If you want to join up at the end out there, just walk in line to the next person and pick up any plastic you see. Sorry, I don’t have any spare picker sticks, so it will mean a little bending.’
‘That’s no problem.’ Sam took the bags, stuffed two into his pocket and fluffed two open, handing one to Helen.
‘Okay, thanks for your help; though we don’t have much time left, I’m afraid. The tide’s already turned, and this onshore wind will bring the sea back in quicker than normal. Have fun, but please, listen for my whistle. We have a strict rule to make sure nobody gets into difficulty with the water. When the time comes, we all leave at once. When you hear the whistle, turn to the shoreline and walk straight towards it. It’ll be like a long crocodile, just keep close to the person next in line. That way, I know everybody gets well clear before the water returns.’
‘Fine,’ said Sam. They hurried further out into the sands to join the far end of the line, and the lecturer returned to her spot in the middle.
As the line moved on, Helen and Sam bobbed up and down, picking up a wide range of plastic waste. All the while, they scanned the road looking out for the pursuer’s car.
‘There it is,’ said Helen.
They both watched as it drove slowly back along the road.
‘Well, they worked that out pretty quick,’ she said.
‘Right, it’s whether they spot our parked car that matters now. Let’s hope not.’
Both breathed a sigh as the silver car passed the car park and kept heading into the town centre. The moment of relief was short-lived. Somebody in the car must have belatedly thought to check the car park, and the car executed a rapid U-turn.
The silver car entered the car park, cruised slowly along the line of parked cars and stopped abruptly beside their abandoned hire car. Two men got out; they were clearly big and burley even when seen from a distance. They looked closely at the car, tried the doors, found them locked and began to scan the area.
Sam saw one man’s hands rise up to his face.
‘Hell,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘Binoculars, and he’s looking at the line of people.’
‘Will he know what we look like? Surely, he won’t recognise us from that distance?’
‘These are pros. To have known they were following the right people, they must have pictures from somewhere. They’ll know us if they get a good look. Pull your hat down,’ said Sam as he hunched up the collar of his jacket. ‘Drift out a little further; see if there’s a gully we could drop into.’
As they moved further out, a shrill whistle cut through the crisp salty air to call them all back to shore. As one, the parallel line of students dutifully turned hard right and started to walk in a sing
le column back to shore, each watching for the one directly in front. Unnoticed by the receding line of students, but clear as day to any distant observer, the furthest two in the line suddenly stood out, separated and heading away from the shore.
The men in the car park saw it at once, checked with the binoculars then hurried across the road and down onto the beach. They sprinted towards the spot where they had last seen Helen and Sam. Ignoring the lecturer’s cautionary calls and whistle blasts, they ran on, out into the sands. The lecturer gave up and continued to marshal her wards safely off the sands.
Sam led Helen down into a little gully not much deeper than his height. Taking Helen’s hand, he ran away from the shore. The going was not so easy in the gully. The sand was wetter and every step sank an inch or so beneath the surface. Struggling on, they met a side channel and turned into it.
‘What will we do Sam?’
‘Keep moving until we find another gully running in towards the shore. We can follow it to get back to dry land unseen, I hope.’
They hurried on, and as the gully curved, it forked in two, one channel leading off towards the beachfront.
‘This is our turning,’ said Sam.
‘Sam, look.’ Helen pointed along the main gully and felt a little shiver run down her spine. Water, only three or four inches deep but like a mini tidal wave, was flowing inexorably towards them.
‘Come on. We have to hurry. Run, quick.’ Sam pointed Helen into the side channel that forked off towards the shore and followed her.
‘Shouldn’t we get out of this channel?’ called Helen, over her shoulder.
‘Yes, but if we break cover we’ll be spotted by the men, for certain. Just keep going.’
Now they could hear the shouts of the two chasing men who were frantically running back and forth across the sands, peering into channels, scouring the gullies, desperate to complete their task, to close on their prey.
Helen struggled forwards, and Sam followed right behind. The hunting voices were closer now, loud, angry with frustration. Sam felt his feet sink just a little more into the sand. He looked down; the sand was softening because the water had now caught up with them. In his heart, he had known it would be hard to outrun it.