October Song

by Ru Pringle

  The tension is more than Coira can bear. The narrows are half a kilometre long. At this dawdle it’ll be a good five minutes before the boats are out the other side. Everything feels wrong. She doesn’t know why, but it just all feels really bad, and there doesn’t seem to be a thing she can do about it.

  From the body language of those on the boat, they feel it too. Two of the children are starting to cry. Not good. Not good at all. Oh fuck.

  Coira finds she’s made a decision.

  ‘Karen.’ Hands cupped around her mouth, she calls out to the RIB in a half-whisper. ‘Karen!’

  She tugs at the quick-release knot she used to fasten the tow-cord to its eyelet. Sees Karen looking back at her over the scrum of brown heads.

  ‘I’m not doing any good back here!’ She makes shooing gestures. ‘Go! Go on ahead.’

  Karen’s face slackens. She’s about to protest.

  ‘Hurry! I’ll get to Oban by myself. I’ll see you there!’

  She already knows this is a lie. The cord whips through the handle at the kayak’s bow and into the sea, creating its own little wake as the RIB pulls away.

  Then things begin happening very fast.

  NOT THAT FAR AWAY, there’s the sound of an engine being revved hard. Every head on the boat turns towards it.

  Coira sees a pick-up approaching along the single track road that contours Luing’s choppy little hills from the south. Half a dozen people are standing in its rear. They’re clinging to the roll bar, leaning into the bends as the vehicle takes them at speed.

  Sounds of dismay come from the RIB. People on it are gesturing wildly. Karen darts Coira a final, searching look, then turns and rams the throttle forward, hard enough to unseat the passengers near the engine. Urgent hands pull them back as the boat lumbers forward. The engine’s turning water noisily to foam, but it can’t get planing: there’s too much weight. It recedes with agonising slowness into the throat of water leading to the open sea.

  Meanwhile, the current is carrying Coira towards the slipway where the ferry used to be. On each side of the strait are cars, houses, and deserted trailer homes. She hears the pop and crack of gunshots. Jerks her head round to see weapons being aimed from the back of the pick-up. The light is low enough that she sees their muzzles flash.

  But they’re not firing in her direction. They’re firing to the side. Towards the houses the RIB passed earlier.

  She realises they’re returning fire only when the pick-up’s windscreen turns white, and the vehicle slews off the road. It’s stopped by some unseen obstacle, throwing one of its occupants and a couple of the weapons clear over the top of the cab. The thump of the impact arrives a second later, as the eight or so figures still moving swarm into the grass. Some begin laying down covering fire. The rest run, stooped, towards the slipway in the cover of the roadside ditch.

  Coira can’t see any way out of this. She’s no idea who’s just fired at the pick-up, but judging by last night’s mob at Karen’s house, reinforcements will be coming down that road at any minute. Stuck out in the strait like this, she might as well be a gun range target.

  Come on – think!

  The Somalis will chase down the RIB first, she realises. She hates herself for the thought, but it’s the truth. And there’s nothing she can do about it.

  Hoping their pursuers are too distracted by their firefight to have noticed her, she paddles as hard as she can out into the current. The flesh on her back tingles as it anticipates receiving bullets at any second. Karen’s boat, she sees, has already reached the other end of the channel. The girl seems to have shifted everyone forward so the boat has managed to plane. She finds herself raising a fist.

  Go Karen!

  Then the boat veers unexpectedly right.

  Coira stops paddling. Hardly daring to breathe, she steadies herself as best she can. Squints through the binoculars. The faces on the RIB look panicked.

  She unsteadily scans leftwards from the boat. Follows the horizon towards the cut-out shore of the island of Luing.

  In time to see a second RIB erupt from behind it.

  She can clearly see the men aboard. There are five of them. Skinny, dark faces. All wearing woollen hats or baseball caps. Four holding automatic weapons, cocked vertically in the air.

  She tracks back to Karen’s RIB as it tries to escape to the north. She knows it’ll never be fast enough. Mouth opened in a silent scream, she watches the boats converge. Watches the muzzles lower inexorably until they’re pointing directly at the other vessel.

  No! No, no NO!

  She sees little white fountains spring up from the water, in a line approaching the boat. Watches the line continue on the other side before petering out. For a moment she thinks it was – had to be – just a burst of warning fire. But then, as the delayed crackle of automatic gunfire reaches her ears, the first slack-limbed shapes start spilling into the sea.

  The faster RIB begins to circle. Coira sees people leaping off the slower boat to try and save themselves. Karen is hunched over the wheel. The girl looks lopsided. She’s moving oddly. Her boat begins turning in sweeping loops, chasing its own tail. Mowing down flailing figures in the water.

  Coira tries to look away, but she’s transfixed now by Karen. A kind of dark patch appears in the air next to the girl’s shoulder. For a moment it seems to hang, weightless, against the lead-grey sky, dissipating as she slumps chest-first against the wheel.

  The attackers strafe the stricken RIB until nothing on it is moving. The gunfire sounds distant and harmless, like a television show in another room. There’s no explosion. The boat just circles tighter and tighter, like a grotesque fairground ride, with what was once a brave girl called Karen propped like a mannequin against the steering wheel.

  The men turn their attention to the sea until nothing is moving there either.

  COIRA IS FROZEN. Every part of her is locked rigid.

  She just stares stupidly at the boat full of murderers as they run out of things to shoot. Things to distract them from turning their attention on her.

  Then it’s like a switch has been flipped in her head.

  SHE FINDS HERSELF PADDLING furiously back up the channel, tearing for breath, angling for the shore of Seil. Her arms quickly start to burn, but it’s like a pain belonging to someone else. Her world is suddenly one of terrible cold clarity. In her last moments Karen may have saved her, she thinks. By turning north, she inadvertently lured the other boat almost out of sight behind the skyline. With luck, her kayak might be sufficiently low and inconspicuous for them not to notice her. Unless they’ve already seen I’m in a kayak. Or spotted it in the back of the RIB earlier.

  The current is against her. She looks ashore with dismay. Relative to it, she’s almost stationary. She angles the boat more sideways, gaining ground as the current weakens closer to shore. All the time she’s aware how visible she is from the island of Luing. She can still see the slipway, just a couple of hundred metres away, well within bullet range. Just as it’s retreating behind the rocks of the old ferry’s little harbour, half a dozen men spill on to it. They stand looking out to sea, jabbing their guns in the air and shouting. A couple of rounds fired off into the sky make her flinch.

  She puts her head down and paddles.

  Some time later, when she dares to look back, the slipway and the boats are out of sight.

  What next?

  She’s breathing like a winded boxer. It’s partly the exertion, partly her trying to pump herself up. They could be coming after her at full speed, right now. Even as the thought forms, she realises she can hear a boat engine.

  The open sea is no option. That seems clear. Assuming she’s not going to abandon the kayak and try her luck on foot, that leaves the channel between Seil and the mainland.

  But no way is she going to risk that in daylight.

  So: she will hole up in the first decent hiding spot she can find, hope they don’t search too thoroughly, and
wait for the cover of darkness. As plans go, it’s shaky as fuck. But it’s all she’s got. First, however, she has to get around the southern tip of the island. A good third of a kilometre away. Against the current, with a pursuing boat an unknown distance behind her, in full view of anyone keeping a lookout from the road.

  She twists all her grief and pain into one single animal howl, and puts her back into it.

  CHAPTER 22

  ______________

  Smoke and Mirrors

  IN LOCHGILPHEAD a hotel was still open. A rambling old building of honeysuckle and ivy-encrusted local stone, it was clearly cosy once. Now, the garden is overgrown, paint is peeling, and half the place is boarded off because of leaks which are unlikely to get fixed any time soon.

  Still, the beds were comfortable and the food – though stodgy and based on the ubiquitous potato – was hot and filling.

  You needed it.

  You’d considered continuing north to Craobh Haven yesterday, but when you ’phoned HQ with your intentions you were informed pretty bluntly that your services were not required. When you pushed the issue, what you got was a curt spiel about how your going there risked tipping off Keir’s contact, who was suspected of involvement in the arms smuggling ring believed to be using the marina. This makes sense, you suppose. But you’re still miffed. And you’ve a strong feeling you’re not getting the full story.

  Reading between the lines it sounded as though the contact was unidentified. Or, that what awaited was a marina full of dubious characters, any of whom could have been Keir’s contact – or worse. If you’re honest, being put on standby in this way was almost a relief: the day taxed you more than you care to admit. It wasn’t just the foot-slogging and a long trip in a basic, unfamiliar mode of transport. Trying to channel someone else’s psyche is something you’ve always found exhausting. You were perfectly happy to take the evening off.

  But now …

  You’ve been woken at seven AM with news that Craobh Haven – the place where, give or take a ’phone call, you would have spent the night – has been very thoroughly bombed to slag.

  You don’t like the way this churns you up inside. You force yourself to eat breakfast: a “full Scottish” of eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, potato fritters, jellyfish patty and a square of “Lorne sausage” made of Quorn. You don’t really taste it. As you step into the car, your heart is racing.

  You give the Walther a reassuring check and clean, put it muzzle-down in the door’s drink holder and set off.

  The road north twists and turns through a landscape of intricate knolly hills and the scrubland that seems ubiquitous here now that firewood and venison are at a premium. Even using the satnav you almost miss the turn-off. There would have been signs once, but they’re long gone. The side road to the marina is, ironically, wider than the main one, and in better repair. A reflection of the hopes its builders once had for the place.

  Towards the sea you see a pall of smoke.

  The road makes a final kink, and an island-studded seascape opens out before you. The devastation of the marina is blindingly obvious. The harbour is still intact, with its uneven crescent of little islands joined together by causeways of piled boulders, but any vegetation or buildings may as well never have existed. Whatever was here yesterday has been replaced by black char. It’s like photos you’ve seen of Nagasaki after the bomb in 1945, a century ago.

  You freewheel the car down to what used to be the car park. You can tell it’s the car park because it’s slightly flatter than other areas, and there’s metal in the vitrified rubble that could have belonged to cars. A half-dozen police vehicles are already here, lights flashing, along with an ambulance and a white van you assume is forensics. A broken line of onlookers has formed beyond the cordon of yellow and black barrier tape, talking and gesticulating. Locals, you assume. Some look angry; others shocked or upset. Within the cordon, a few figures in white coveralls are stalking through the debris and the smoke, like people doing what’s expected rather than anticipating finding anything. The police officers are standing about looking dazed, as though they don’t know what to do.

  You know how they feel.

  One comes over, hand edgily on her holster. She scans your agency card, and nods. ‘Park by the van. We can’t rule out unexploded ordnance – take care, eh?’

  The smell outside is indescribable. Burnt, but chemical, like boiling tar. Holding a sleeve over your mouth you walk towards the harbour edge and look out to sea.

  A few broken masts and concrete piles break the water in the harbour. They’re the only visible sign a marina was ever here. A handful of charred planks on the shore are all that remains of the gangway. A black shoe is pinned under one of them.

  You lift the plank. Turn the shoe over with your toe.

  There’s a foot inside it.

  You trudge up to the police cars.

  ‘Survivors?’

  Lots of head-shaking. The forensics unit has identified remains from seven people so far, you’re told, but there are no complete bodies. The sergeant in charge is a burly character with a bull-neck and suspicious little eyes. Frankly he doesn’t know why his men are here, he tells you. This was clearly an air-strike, and there are a dozen actual crime cases they’re needed for. Either the Royal Air Force screwed up, or it meant to target the marina. Either way you should take it up with them.

  You assure him this is being done. ‘Under State of Emergency rules you’re bound to comply with requests from the Service – and as effective ranking officer here, I’m ordering you to assist. By the end of today we need IDs for all the deceased at the scene. And, yeah – from the look of things that’ll mean DNA. Press-gang the civs for heavy lifting if you need. Oh, and we’ll need divers trawling the marina.’

  You smile sweetly. Bull-neck looks like you’ve suggested an obscene tryst. ‘Looking for what?’

  ‘Every person here who died needs to be accounted for. Same for anyone who didn’t. Question all these civs: find out if anyone witnessed the bombing – or if anyone saw anyone or anything suspicious in the previous twenty-four hours. Particularly anyone in a kayak, or who looks like they might have been in one. Any CCTV?’

  The policeman makes a scoffing sound. You leave him muttering and wander off to toe through what’s left of twin rows of terraced houses that once overlooked the marina. The drifts of masonry could hide any number of bodies, you think, heart sinking as you realise it’s going to be another long day. The heavy stone will have protected remains. You’re not so sure about the more lightly constructed modern buildings between the car park and the water. It’s as though a tornado came and took them away. All you can see is outlines of block foundations amongst the craters.

  You return to the car and pour yourself a coffee.

  All bets are off, you realise. You were so close. Now everything’s changed. The connection is broken. You’ve no direct evidence even that Keir was here: last night’s drone footage apparently showed nothing. Thinking about her next moves without knowing if she even has any to make is proving difficult.

  You check your gut.

  No. You don’t think she’s dead. Why, you’re not sure.

  Except …

  This woman is cautious. Meticulous. She’s uncomfortable with uncalculated risks. This could manifest itself in many ways.

  On paper at least, she could have made it from the north end of Jura to the marina before dark. In which case, she could have met with her contact well before the bombing. Meaning she might be already halfway to Oslo or Stockholm.

  But you don’t think she would have. Especially if there’s truth in what your friends from the local constabulary were muttering about boat people from Africa running amok on nearby islands. No: she’d have scoped everything out in daylight, probably from a hill-top. Weighed up risks. Probably waited until dark. Then, before committing to the harbour, she would have hidden herself. Waited and watched. Perhaps even until she recognised her contact.
You’re beginning to realise it’s likely she never even got to Craobh Haven. Assuming that was her goal in the first place, which remains questionable. She probably watched the fireworks from her kayak, safely out at sea to the west.

  In which case she’ll have been facing exactly the same quandary as you: what to do next?

  One thing seems certain, though. This attack was no mistake. Someone had orders to scrub this place from the map. Not just to kill people, either: it was to erase evidence. And the timing is starting to feel more than coincidental.

  But why?

  You sigh. Pick up your ’phone and dial the number. You’re going to have to follow protocol for once. Which means being stuck in this backwater at least until it can be demonstrated that Keir’s death is unlikely. From experience, that’ll mean tomorrow morning at the earliest.

  But you don’t think they’ll find her remains. And you already know what you’ll do.

  You’ll use the time you spend here waiting – for Service officers to arrive, for human remains to be unearthed, and the DNA results to come in – walking the site and gnawing at the problem in your head. Imagining her plan B if she saw her destination destroyed.

  You haven’t got away from me yet, Coira Keir.

  CHAPTER 23

  ______________

  Squeeze

  SEBASTIAN BLAKESLEE IS FUMING. In all the twenty years she’s known him, Lorna can barely recall seeing him so angry.

  He’s appeared at the top of the stairs with eyes that seem lit from within, giving her a curt wave to join him outside. The ops room looks like a convention for furtive people. As she scans from desk to desk, few of the team will meet her eye. She’s never seen display screens given such unwavering scrutiny.

  Well. She needs a fag break. And she has a notion for real ones this time.