by Ru Pringle
You’ve already spent an hour or so cruising around on foot, getting a feel for the place. You remember passing through on holiday as a kid, finding little of interest. That hasn’t changed, but the town now feels oppressive. Army people are everywhere. You’ve already had your card checked three times: at the checkpoint, and then twice by grunts with heavy-duty assault rifles. You bought yourself Quorn and chips, scanning as you ate. Service operatives weren’t something you’d expected to see as you walked about, but someone in an electrical van by the harbour wall has been studying his ’phone for well over an hour, and there’s a woman in a not-quite-right outfit of jeans, beret and woollen jumper near the pub where loud music’s just started up who’s been checking her watch for at least as long. No one’s that late. On the little promontory at the other end of the harbour, a car’s been sitting on a double yellow for a similar time. Every few minutes, a man exits the car and inspects the waterfront with a high-tech little pair of binoculars.
You sigh, telling yourself they’re only obvious because you’re one of them.
TO COIRA’S SURPRISE, hers seems to be the only vessel out on the water apart from a small yacht, moored over towards Saint Columba’s Cathedral. Its patterned sails look familiar. She wonders absently if it’s the one she saw two days ago.
Having scanned in vain for patrol boats, she had decided to head south back to the relatively dark entrance to the Sound of Kerrera. Now she’s rowing towards the sailing club south-west of the town at the fastest speed she can sustain.
She has no idea if the clubhouse is even there any more. The concrete slipway should be, though, and it’ll be hidden round the corner from the harbour. The wind’s blowing strongly from her left. Fortunately, the tide seems to be cancelling it out. Unfortunately, the dinghy’s like a mule compared to the kayak’s Ferrari, with just as much of a mind of its own.
Still, with each backward glance the shore grows a little nearer. Puffing hard, she picks her way between seaweed-bearded buoys where yachts used to be. A short while later the bow crunches against the slipway.
After a quick glance about, she hops on to the crumbling concrete.
The slipway kinks up a steep embankment. Having slid the oars ashore, she lifts her aluminium coracle and props it in the same shadowed corner she used to stash inflatable dinghies as a kid.
Pausing to tighten the towels beneath her boiler suit, she stomps up the narrow road towards the town with what she hopes looks like agricultural resolve, running fingers through her alien hair.
IT’S ALMOST, but not quite, like déjà vu. She recognises most of the well-to-do houses on the hill, most of which have lights on. Mains power is evidently still working here. Jarringly unfamiliar are the fences with razor wire, and bay windows declaring MIGRANT-FREE ZONE, or STRONGER GOVERNMENT, STRONGER FUTURE emblazoned across the cut-down Union Jack without the blue of the Saltire. Breaking into a cold sweat as she realises these properties will have closed-circuit TV, she keeps her face down and her gait as un-Coira-like as she can manage.
She has another rude jolt cutting through the ferry port when she sees that what she’d assumed to be a ferry is, in fact, a medium-sized warship. It’s another with a tall, angular hull, lots of antennae, and a nasty little gun at the front. High up on the deck, crew are pacing with assault rifles. In the corner of her eye she sees a couple watching her stomp past, but although her neck burns with their gaze, she makes it past the port buildings unmolested.
Just beyond, the Wetherspoon’s chain pub she knew is now called Shaggy’s. It’s seen better days: most of the smoked-glass wall panels she remembers being erected in the noughties are patched with gaffer tape. Cupping hands against the dirty glass, she peers inside.
It’s heaving. There are few women, but they stand out like daisies on a lawn because of their extravagant dresses and sheer quantity of exposed skin. She shudders. Prostitutes? In public, in Oban? They’re a diverse bunch. In contrast, most of the men are Caucasian, and, if appearances are any guide, already riotously drunk. There’s a giant chalk-board proclaiming happy hour, boasting of local poteen, cut-price whisky from Oban’s distillery, and micro-brewery beers. There’s a live electric band up on the stage behind immense speakers older than Coira is. Classic rock ’n’ roll from last century, loud enough to shake the glass.
Her blood quickens. As suspected, a good proportion of the men, and one or two of the women, are in green army fatigues. A few are wearing blue naval fatigues or white officer’s uniforms. There are occasional rough-looking men whose dress isn’t a million miles from hers, although their yellow wellies make her think they’re fishermen.
This is not somewhere she should be going.
She glances along the harbour front, and moves on. There’s a swaying scrum of army men between her and the main street, hanging off each others’ shoulders in their combined effort to stay upright. They’re hassling a slightly out-of-place-looking woman in a jumper and a beret.
Coira walks purposefully past. Sees the eyes of one of the men swim towards her.
‘Christ on a bike,’ he says, instantly pegging himself as a Cockney. ‘What a fucking moose! Boys, look at this. Bet she’s never ’ad it up ’er – least, not for a long time.’
There’s a chorus of wolf-whistles and lewd calls from his mates, one of whom shoots back: ‘Bet you’ll be giving her one then, yeah,’ causing a swell of laughter.
Face burning, she keeps her head down. Walks past meticulously cleaned old caravans where, judging by the signs, the seafood market still operates. Ahead, she can see soldiers loitering with guns. They don’t seem to be stopping pedestrians, but they flag down the first car that appears and begin talking to the driver.
She swallows. Turns hastily right past the old railway station. Strides inland towards the Argyll Square roundabout, hugging the back of the old Oban Caledonian Hotel before turning left on to George Street. She’s so shocked by the bullet-holes peppering the stonework above her that she almost bumps into a small, muscular soldier with a gun, blocking the pavement in front of her.
‘Bloody hell!’ she yelps, reflexively, in her best Cockney. ‘Sorry there, mate – in my own little world. Didn’t even see you.’ The wads of paper in her mouth are disintegrating. She’s convinced she’ll pepper his uniform with bits of them as she speaks.
‘You be careful, miss.’ By his accent, he’s northern Irish. He’s looking at her a little too intently.
Get yourself out of here now.
She snorts. ‘Hard to be careful the way this place has gone. Was a nice town when I first came ’ere.’ He’s still staring, but his look has softened slightly.
‘Not just this town. Everywhere’s going to the dogs, if you ask me.’
This could be her chance, she realises. This guy is already going to remember her. It’s all down to how recognisable she is. ‘Heard things aren’t going so well up north.’ His look hardens right up again, and she’s pretty sure she’s blown it.
‘Who told you that?’
‘Brother got given a plot up there – Portnacroish. Came down two days ago. Says he’s too worried to stay.’
The soldier scratches his neck and pulls a face. ‘Well, between you and me, he’s not wrong. There’s been a lot of activity north of here the last few days. Keeps popping up in unexpected places. We lost part of a convoy to IEDs at Benderloch today.’
‘That why everyone’s so jumpy?’
He nods, but stiffens, and gestures with his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Come on, lady, hop it – about your business.’
‘Well. I’m just glad we have nice young men here to protect us.’
She stomps off up the pavement, not looking back. Fuck, that was teetering on the edge of disaster. She had felt it: if she’d pushed just a tiny bit harder, she’d have been hauled in at gunpoint for questioning.
More drunk soldiers come staggering up the street. This time they ignore her. Feeling the prickle of being watched, she crane
s her head up at a window two storeys above the street. There’s a man there. But his eyes aren’t on her – they’re on the soldiers. Very intently. He has a ’phone to his ear. As she watches, he glances at his watch. Then at the sky.
She keeps an eye on him over her shoulder as she continues up George Street. An actual fight has broken out, spilling across the road near an electrical van carelessly parked next to the tide wall. She studiously avoids it. Passing the open door of a chip shop, she ducks inside. Smells of batter and hot oil make her light-headed. She joins the queue. Two anxious-looking locals are in front of her. The two Middle-Eastern-looking men behind the counter, one short and bald, and the other tall and aquiline, keep glancing nervously out of the window.
‘Yes?’ asks the tall one, when it’s Coira’s turn.
It’s all she can do not to drool on the counter. She decides to keep the Cockney accent. That’s when she notices the CCTV cam on the ceiling, and for a moment speech deserts her.
‘Fish and chips please, mate.’
Her accent is drawing hard looks from the other customers. ‘Krill, jelly or sand-eel?’
What? Oh. ‘Sand-eel.’
There’s an old-style flatscreen TV on the back wall, above a couple of plain plastic tables. She sits with her back to the CCTV camera, which unfortunately means she’s side-on both to the door and the TV. In the corner of her vision she can see commercials: something about hair care. The sound is low, but audible. The two behind the counter don’t seem in any hurry. She finds her ears straining to pick up sounds outside. It sounds like a riot is going on.
Suddenly she hears her name.
It’s coming from the telly. She can’t believe it. There she is, on the screen, large as life. Not one of her police or private photos – presumably they wouldn’t have portrayed the right image – but her passport mugshot.
For a moment she thinks she might vomit.
‘Also wanted in connection with the bombing,’ the stern-faced announcer tells her, ‘are Doctor Rajiv Sinclair-Kohli, a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, and Kenneth McCoull, an unemployed man who served before Liberation in both His Majesty’s Navy and the short-lived Scottish Armed Forces.’
The view cuts to a drone’s-eye-view of the Scottish Parliament.
‘Forensic experts have now confirmed that the bomb was indeed an IED, hidden in a car parked by the main entrance to the North British Headquarters building.’
She goes cold.
What …? No. No, no no – that’s not what happened! What was the crazy woman even talking about?
‘No one at present has been able to explain why an unchecked vehicle was allowed in such close proximity to the building, let alone one being visited by a head of state during a state of emergency. Though it’s clear that his injuries were severe, reports are that Prime Minister John Faulkner is recovering well in hospital and his condition is no longer critical.’
Her knuckles pop around the edge of the table she is clutching.
‘Others were not so lucky.’ The picture cuts to drone footage of smoke billowing from the front of the one-time parliament building, with ambulances, police cars and fire engines in attendance. The building’s stick-like decorative adornments and the concrete frame supporting them are blackened. Not a pane of glass looks intact. There’s another cut to unidentifiable red matter strewn on the road, and blood-spattered bodies on stretchers being lifted into ambulances or wheeled into Edinburgh Royal Infirmary A&E. ‘The death toll currently stands at fifty: mainly UK civil servants, North British councillors, and Edinburgh passers-by. Also among the fatalities were several news reporters, including the BBC’s Martin Telford. The prime minister’s chief of staff, Tristan Coombes, tragically died of his injuries in hospital earlier this week. His funeral is to be announced. Fifty-nine further people were injured, some of whom remain in a critical condition.
‘It’s been confirmed that James Teith, the man believed to have masterminded the attack, was shot on the sixteenth of October as he tried to escape a police raid. He was pronounced dead at hospital. In a BBC exclusive, an anonymous source has indicated that the police are following a line of inquiry they expect to lead to the arrest of Kenneth McCoull.’
Coira loses focus after that. No! How could they even think …? An abyss seems to be opening inside her. When did this happen? The mismatch between what she’s watching and what she knows is something she can’t process. She had been at the parliament building, for fuck’s sake. Saw with her own eyes as Faulkner and Coombes went down. Watched the panicking security team wait for the ambulances, having sealed off the underground car park where it happened, as per protocol, to prevent word reaching the press …
She waits in bewildered agony while the burgers are fried. At least the turmoil as she fled Edinburgh now makes a horrible kind of sense. The TV has more – something about her being seen at a filling station near Dumbarton, about cash rewards for information – but she can’t pay attention. The tall man behind the counter seems to be taking over-elaborate care in his wrapping of her meal in one of the shop’s reused plastic bags.
‘That’ll be two hundred and twenty pound, please,’ he says in an undiluted Oban accent, as she rises to pay.
She fumbles a fistful of notes across the counter and scurries through the door, almost tripping on the housing for the shop’s flood barrier. She staggers on up the street in a daze, cramming soft, warm chips into her face, remembering her cheek padding only when she swallows a wad of it. Shiteing fuck. No matter – she’ll use chips instead. She spits the remaining paper on to the pavement and only starts relaxing when a good chunk of George Street lies between her and the chip shop.
The enormity of what she has just learned is barely sinking in.
James is dead. But what terrifies her is that someone has let off a big bomb in public, and found a way to blame it on James and his team. They were being set up, by somebody prepared to kill indiscriminately. For ends she can’t even guess.
Suddenly she knows she’s in more danger than she ever imagined. She has to get back to the dinghy.
She turns away from the sea front, walking as fast as she can up Argyll Street. More bullet holes in the walls. She turns right again. An open car park is on her left. The cars in it are all burned out. Rubbish, masonry and broken appliances are everywhere, as if a whirlwind hit a scrap yard. She feels unaccountably threatened. Imagines she can hear footsteps behind her. She glances behind.
Someone is following her.
Coira lengthens her stride. Soon she’s half-jogging. She can hear her follower matching her. Pulse thudding, she tightens fingers round the Stanley knife in her pocket.
Someone steps out of an alleyway ahead.
‘Where d’you think you’re going?’
His accent is harder than Oban. Fort William, she guesses. The footsteps behind her slow to a halt. There’s low laughter.
The shadowed man in front of her is a head taller than she is. He’s close enough that she can smell his halitosis. But not alcohol. That strikes her as a bad sign.
‘Leave me alone,’ she says, sliding the blade open.
‘Well now, that’s an interesting accent. What is it? Let me guess. Oban. But you’ve lived down south for a while. Born here, was it? But then escaped, like they all do, for the …’ his tone becomes sneering ‘… bright city lights.’
‘I’m warning you – leave me alone.’
‘She’s warning you,’ parodies the man behind her. He sounds amused.
The man in front mockingly widens his eyes to bright rings, sucking air through pursed lips. She feels a big hand clamp round her left wrist.
Not really thinking, she slashes at it. She’s half-conscious of a yelp of surprise. Then she’s etching a frenzied picture where the other man’s face is, slashing the knife back and forth with crazed intensity until his arms come up and he bats her away.
‘Fuck!’ Someone is screaming. ‘Aw fuck, help
me!’
Then she’s running away down the street as fast as her legs can carry her. One of the towels round her waist comes undone, creeping down her leg with each jolt, but she doesn’t care – she just runs. She pounds round a corner and finds herself at the back of the Oban Caledonian.
Beside a candlelit window protected by a steel cage, she stops to be sick. An alleyway is nearby. Still retching, she darts into it. A door opens. She whirls towards it, eyes wild, knife outstretched in her trembling hand.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ says a soft voice. She’s facing an elderly man, barely taller than she is. ‘Quick.’
He beckons her inside. His accent is received English. He closes the door behind her.
‘Please,’ he says. ‘Put down the knife.’
She hesitates. Sees him swallow. He has a narrow, angular and very wrinkled face, contrasting oddly with his soft grey eyes. ‘Yours?’ he asks, pointing at her hand.
She looks down. The hand holding the knife is dripping with blood. She drops the knife on the floor. Wipes the hand on her boiler suit. Feels her eyes well up as she shakes her head.
‘You can’t go around the town at night alone,’ the old man admonishes, his eyes brimming with fatherly concern. ‘It’s not safe!’
It smells of urine in here. Urine and mould. She tries to speak, but finds her mouth will not obey commands.
‘Are you hurt?’
She shakes her head.
‘Sit down, my dear. I’ll bring you a drink, but then you’d better be going. It’s not safe!’
She does as asked, expecting him to start making her a cup of tea, but instead he returns almost immediately with a bottle of chilled beer, which he uncaps with his bare hand and presses into hers. Hand shaking, she puts it to her lips.
‘Is it always like this now?’ she manages, realising that her accent and all other pretences have flown clean out of the window.