by Ru Pringle
The boat itself is a big grey and yellow RIB, with an outboard that looks suspiciously like it’s been borrowed from something half the size. You’re glad to see a second, though even smaller, outboard bolted to the rail at the back, presumably as a spare. There’s a wheelhouse of sorts: a threadbare rubberised tent with window panels of a more or less transparent flexible plastic, stretched over a steel frame surrounding the pilot’s seat. Otherwise the boat is open to the elements. Forward of the wheelhouse are several mismatched plastic barrels of fuel. Positioned there to keep the bow down, Somhairle says.
You’ve come to the conclusion you don’t like being around boats. Everything smells of diesel and wet rubber.
Lina’s standing alone at the far corner of the harbour, arms clasped about her as if for warmth, though the evening isn’t yet cool. She asked if she would see you again. You were surprised to find yourself wanting to say that she would. ‘I don’t know’ was the best you could manage.
She doesn’t wave as she disappears in the distance, and neither do you.
After just a few minutes, the southernmost headland of Kerrera is sliding by. Somhairle brings the boat round to face the west.
You’ve spent much of the day mulling over where Keir might have gone. Given her actions so far, the ultimate goal that makes sense to you is Scandinavia. Which means she has little option but to sail up the North British Highlands’ western seaboard.
There’s a chance that she, or whoever’s sailing the boat, might have chosen the less trafficked but more exposed Atlantic side of the Western Isles. But you don’t think so. Storms are forecast. You feel that anyone with boat experience would choose the shorter journey and relative shelter between the Western Isles and the mainland. Even if it increased the likelihood of being intercepted.
A possibility you don’t really want to think about is that the yacht could have been shuttling her to a floatplane or long-range powerboat somewhere nearby. In which case there’s little you can do. Assuming it wasn’t, and if – as seems logical – she intends heading east towards Scandinavia around the mainland’s north-western corner at Cape Wrath, there are two major variables to consider. The first is whether she passed the Isle of Mull to the north or south, and the second is whether she’ll pass the Isle of Skye through the relatively open waters to the west, or the narrow Sound of Sleat to the east.
The first of these you figure you can ignore. While you’re confident she’ll have preferred Mull’s wild south coast to running the gauntlet of the relatively populous strait north of the island, she’ll likely have wanted to put distance between her and Oban quickly. She could already be as far north as Skye. Choosing the wrong route round Mull might make her trail harder to pick up, but your gut seems insistent that your priority is getting north as soon as possible.
‘South or north of Mull?’ you ask Somhairle.
He spits out his dog-end and sucks his teeth for a while. He does actually have teeth – a few of them at least, although they’re largely brown. ‘Well, now,’ he says eventually. ‘Personally, I would be heading north. I was checking on the radio, with a friend who lives in Tobermory, and he was telling me that the Sound of Mull is being closely monitored by the navy for pirate activity. It seems that a part of the south-west of the island is now being used as a base for pirates. It’s quite possible that we might be stopped and searched if we go north by the Sound of Mull. However, it will be quicker, it should be safer, and, speaking personally, there is nothing that I have to hide. Have you?’
You ignore the question and look at your watch. You’re not relishing the prospect of a night on this boat. ‘Can we keep going in the dark?’
Solemn head-shaking. ‘No, indeed. That would not be advisable. This boat does not have the sonar.’
You want to think he’s being unreasonable, but despite his broken appearance you’re starting to trust his judgement. ‘Do you think we could stay with this friend of yours?’
‘Yes, indeed. I am sure that a bed would be in order. If you were to use some of that money you didn’t have.’
Somhairle is a little too astute for your liking. ‘North it is then.’
The boat burbles languidly along Kerrera’s south coast and into a broad, straight highway of water stretching into the northern haze. There’s a surprising amount of boat traffic, some of it military.
‘Shouldn’t we be going faster?’ you ask, hopefully.
‘No, indeed that’s not the case. This is the top speed.’ Thought you might say that. ‘Do you see that canvas bag back there?’
You nod that you do.
‘Could you be passing me one of the bottles that are inside it?’
You open the bag with trepidation. Inside are at least a dozen bottles of Famous Grouse. You hesitate, and pass one over.
‘Much obliged to you,’ he says, somehow cutting the wrapper and removing the cork with a single downwards movement against the edge of the instrument console. He doesn’t seem to care where the cork’s landed, and proceeds to drink the whisky like it’s Irn Bru. Seeing your expression as you watch in helpless fascination, he says ‘Tch, get over yourself. Anyone who isn’t spending their lives drunk is clearly crazy.’
Worried now, you seat yourself on a coolbox in the rear and turn your ’phone back on, checking it’s set to reject incoming calls. There’s always the option of leaving him somewhere, you tell yourself. You’ve missed six calls already, and there’s a text message to call HQ urgently. You don’t mind that they can track you via your GPS. In fact, you’re rather hoping they will.
You swipe open a search page.
The risks of what you’re doing are just beginning to sink in. Somhairle’s local knowledge will be useful – assuming the alcoholic stays compos mentis – but even if he doesn’t drink himself into oblivion, you’re woefully short on intel. You need an idea of Separatist activity up the coast and other local problems. If there are pirates on Mull, gangs of lawless thugs could be anywhere. It’s also conceivable that, by trawling local blogs, you can track the yacht. Internet service will have survived in localised pockets at least, and a sail will be a sufficiently unusual sight to attract comment.
As Somhairle throws the empty bottle over the side, you begin to type.
CHAPTER 45
______________
Visitors
OTTER’S POCKET contours Rùm’s south-eastern shore, towered over by the shadowed corries of the island’s mountains. Their lower slopes have been chewed by the sea into big-blocked cliffs, deeply ravined and dark. Alistair names the peaks they can see: all Norse, from the time not that long ago when the isles were part of a Scandinavian kingdom. He seems to know the area very well.
With the mountains receding, the coast curls to the north. Having checked the laundry is dry, Coira takes the lines down, remakes the triangular bed in the tapered forward cabin, and stows the folded clothes on the shelf at its foot.
‘Thought Kinloch Castle might be a relatively safe place to try,’ Alistair tells her as she re-emerges with cups of tea. ‘By the bay a few kilometres up the coast from here. It’s a good anchorage. Last time I was round this way there was a self-sufficient community based at the castle. Bought the island off the previous landowners – had it all off-grid, with wind-generators and everything. Interesting people.’
Coira tenses at this. Given that her attempts to lure him on some improbable one-way voyage have apparently failed, however, she figures she’ll need to face the music at some point, and this is as good a place as any. She still has no strategy for stopping him accessing news. She’ll have to wing it, and hope something comes up. ‘How long ago was that?’ she asks, passing a mug to Alistair. ‘Your visit.’
He takes a slurp. ‘Ten years.’
‘A lot can happen in ten years.’
They sip in silence. The shore seems gloomy and forbidding. Perhaps, she thinks, it’s just the thickening haze and deepening shadows. Eastwards, the distant coast of Morar seems a malign
presence. Sleat, the southernmost peninsula of Skye, is basking in murky sunshine, while to the north the mountains of the Cuillin are a spectral jagged line.
She feels Alistair go still. ‘Binoculars …’ Putting down his mug, he snaps outstretched fingers to show it’s urgent. She hands them over and he peers northwards past the fidgeting sails. Coira narrows her eyes, but can’t tell what he’s looking at.
‘What do you see?’
‘Thought I saw a helicopter.’
‘Is that bad?’
He looks at her. ‘A helicopter? On an off-grid, community-run island?’
She knows better than to ask what they should do. Alistair continues watching for a few minutes, then hands the binoculars back. The sun has already dipped behind Askival, the highest and sharpest of Rùm's peaks, and she shivers with the breeze’s sudden chill.
‘Keep an eye out. Tell me if you can see anything. I think it might be an idea to take us a bit further out.’
Coira leans through the hatch to dump the mugs in the sink. Alistair slackens the sails and the boat angles away from the shore. After a few tense minutes, he returns to a parallel course.
The entrance to the bay swings slowly into view.
‘Helicopters,’ Coira warns. ‘Two of them.’
‘Two?’ Alistair scowls in the direction of her gaze. ‘They look military?’
She squints. Shakes her head. The two aircraft don’t seem to be going anywhere. Just descending gently towards where she reckons the castle must be, although it’s currently hidden behind a broad, low ridge. ‘Both blue. No military markings. That’s weird – I can’t see registration numbers. Here.’
He takes the binoculars again. ‘Definitely civilian,’ he says. ‘So then … why the hell are they packing what look very much like M230 chain guns?’
Their attention is grabbed by the sudden thump of rotor blades and they look up to see a much larger helicopter coming over the ridge.
It’s sleek and modern-looking, and headed directly towards them.
‘WHAT DO WE DO?’ She’s deferring to him again, but it’s his boat. Alistair’s mouth is a compressed line.
‘Sit tight.’
The helicopter slows before it reaches them, clearly checking them out, then performs a long, lazy turn and whap-whaps away in the direction of the bay. As Coira watches it go her eyes alight on something else.
‘Alistair … What is that?’
She’s pointing inland past the now obvious mouth of the bay. As the boat approaches she can clearly see, revealing itself slowly above the intervening ridge, a gleaming structure. Clearly the tip of something, it looks as out of place in such wild surroundings as if a spaceship had landed.
Seeming shell-shocked, Alistair doesn’t respond.
As the bay opens up, a curving monolith of steel and glass thrusts itself into view. It’s like buildings Coira saw in tourist brochures for Abu Dhabi when she was at school. At its foot is a sprawling four-storey castle of red stone, its twee castellations, arched verandas and tall windows marking it as some Victorian magnate’s folly. The two helicopters she saw earlier are parked at the monolith’s base. Their rotors are still turning. The one that just overflew them is lowering itself on to the building’s tip, where presumably there’s a helipad. Also swinging into view is a gigantic motor-yacht. It looks like an Apple accessory melded in a wind-tunnel with a wedding cake.
‘What the fuck is that?’ Coira asks, of no one in particular. She feels affronted, somehow, by the tower’s existence. Alistair lowers the binoculars.
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
‘Had you any inkling anything like this was here?’
He shakes his head. She seizes the binoculars. Feels a jolt of adrenaline as she puts them to her face.
‘Fuck. A lot of people there. We’re being watched from that boat through the biggest binoculars I’ve ever seen by someone wearing a very posh uniform. There must be … two dozen people around the castle. More by the helicopters at the foot of that building. Wait. Shit, what are those?’
Alistair snatches the binoculars back. Mutters something. ‘Drones. Not surveillance ones, either.’
‘Armed?’
‘Oh yes.’ He looks about as worried as she’s seen him. ‘The army can barely afford hardware like that. And they’re not any model I recognise. Whoever these guys are, they’re … Oh, here we go.’
He fixes her with a resigned look. ‘Reception committee.’
She can see – and hear – a boat motoring very fast up the elongated bay towards them. It’s like a smaller cousin of the military boats she saw during her kayak from Loch Sween.
‘Should we run for it?’
He studies the oncoming boat. Smooths his beard.
‘I don’t think that would do much good. If they mean harm, we’re sitting ducks whatever direction we’re sailing. Let’s hold our course, and see what they do.’
The drones reach them first. They’re ugly, gunmetal-black, and – she estimates - more than half the length of the boat. Each has six fans arranged around the top of a trapezoid pod, from which multi-barrelled weapons dangle obscenely. She suspects a short burst from one would carve through the boat like a chain saw.
‘No sudden moves.’
‘Thanks for that update, Sherlock.’
The boat arrives a couple of minutes later. It’s remarkably fast, and stops planing in a cloud of spray that’s ostentatious and clearly intended to threaten. As well as a sizeable gun turret, there’s an actual missile battery on its deck. Coira’s getting a little tired of having such excessive weapons pointed at her.
‘This island is private property,’ booms a disembodied voice. The accent is Scottish, which surprises her somehow. ‘You are not welcome here. Leave now, or face the consequences.’
‘Great PA system,’ Alistair is murmuring. ‘Wonder if they do concerts?’
Coira, however, isn’t listening. She’s thinking, hard.
This could be her chance, she realises, feeling slightly faint. Perhaps her only one. She’s convinced Alistair will notice her sweating. She looks up at him, mouth jammed open. She doesn’t trust herself to speak.
Her plan is half-formed at best, but she has to act now, while she has the initiative.
‘I think I should try and talk with them.’
Alistair looks at her, eyes popping. ‘We have zero idea who these clowns are!’
‘But they haven’t attacked us. Yet. Think about it: whoever they are, they’re obviously fucking rolling in it, with enough high-end hardware to protect them from any threat likely around here. My guess is, some oligarch from the US or Saudi or somewhere bought the island. Set up his own wee fiefdom before the uprising. Now war is nearby, they’re getting twitchy. Though not enough to leave.’
‘With you so far. But …’
‘We’re no obvious threat to them. They’re probably curious as much as anything. Don’t you see? This is our best chance to get information. Maybe even leverage, or a way back to somewhere relatively safe.’
‘Okay … But why does it have to …?’
‘Be me?’
She cants her head towards the building shoved into the deepening sky above the castle.
‘Trust me, only a man would create something like that. Especially somewhere like this. Whatever this place is, it’s built for and controlled by men. They’ll be less threatened by me. And …’ she narrowly avoids stuttering ‘… I need to go alone.’
Seeing he’s about to argue, she tells him, ‘Look, Alistair, what this will boil down to is a negotiation. With a severely weak hand on our part. I didn’t get to be a police superintendent without negotiating skills. So for once, go with me on this. Whatever happens, wait here. Or leave, if you need to – but please don’t try and follow. Now, put your hands up. Hands up!’
He looks most unhappy, but does as asked. She steps up onto the side of the boat with her own hands above her head. Then
she waves the boat over.
Really hope they go for this …
Through the other boat’s slanted windows high above, she can just make out a debate taking place. A door opens in the smooth upper hull, and five smartly-suited figures emerge on to the deck. All are carrying futuristic-looking assault weapons. They kneel, pointing the weapons directly at Otter’s Pocket, and a man in a crisp white captain’s uniform follows them out.
Manoeuvring thrusters push the boat sideways until it towers over the yacht. Its deck is almost as far above the water as the tip of the mast. A face appears against the skyline.
‘What do you want?’ a voice barks down.
Trying to ignore the red sighting lasers now crawling over her torso, Coira smiles. Gives a cheerful wave.
‘Permission to come aboard. Please.’
CHAPTER 46
______________
Glass Tower
INSIDE, THE BOAT is more Spartan than expected. Somehow Coira imagined opulence. Instead it has the utilitarian pipes, conduits and paint of a naval boat. There are twin pilot’s seats ahead of the captain’s, and a large head-up display behind the bridge’s forward windows. White-uniformed men watch her suspiciously.
‘You have exactly one minute,’ the captain tells her, standing with hands on his hips – a gesture reinforced by the two muscular black-suited men standing behind him. They look ex-Royal Marines, she thinks. Unsurprising. Private security has been one of the few reliable vocations for people with military skills for decades.
The captain doesn’t, she notices, say what happens after the minute is up.
‘It’s nothing complicated,’ she explains. ‘I came to ask if I can buy a ’phone.’ Then she spontaneously adds: ‘Oh, and some tampons.’
The captain stares at her. He’s an imposing man – large of chest, chiselled; slightly too big-jawed to be handsome. She has trouble placing his accent. German, maybe? He has hard black eyes.
‘You want to buy a ’phone … and some tampons.’
She nods.