October Song

by Ru Pringle

  Alistair had said he was taking them to Soay because the island had a good chance of being uninhabited. It also had much the best natural harbour in the vicinity for a small boat to ride out rough weather: enclosed on all sides, save for an inlet to the north-east. As they rounded the west corner of the island, wind-harried clouds were chasing the stars from the sky. By the time they reached the harbour things were wild enough to make negotiating the narrow inlet tricky, even under engine power. They dropped anchor under a glowering ceiling of near-black.

  She can’t imagine what she’d have done without Alistair.

  Wind whistles round the mast. The generator goes wild. Even on this little patch of sheltered water, the waves are a constant undulation. She shudders to think what it must be like out in more open water to the west. Let alone the Atlantic or the North Sea.

  She had thought they might make love, but they haven’t. Alistair seems as content as she is to lie here, listening to the storm. She wonders if he knows or guesses anything of what she’s thinking.

  The ’phone had been given to her by one of Gryanov’s men as she was escorted to the jetty where the powerboat was waiting. It had been a sleek satphone. She knew satphones were risky, as calls could be triangulated to within a few metres using variations in delay between signals bounced off different satellites, but she’d been assured by the ex-military type who’d handed it to her that his employers had ways of preventing this.

  She didn’t doubt him. Trusting Gryanov not one millimetre, however, the moment her brief call was finished she’d thanked the man and apologised, before hurling the ’phone as far as she could into the sea.

  He hadn’t seemed that surprised.

  While confirmation of James’ death and Rajiv’s silence have jolted her, now she has three things she didn’t have before. A reason to hope, a clear aim, and – potentially, at least – a good end to all of this, both for her and for Alistair. According to Mungo – the code for Ken McCoull, her oldest friend among the conspirators – the group’s fallback contact is still in Stornoway and is organising transport and a passport to get her to Sweden. She studies the map of Britain she keeps in her head. As the crow flies, the capital of the Western Isles can’t be more than a hundred and fifty kilometres from where she is now. Not only that, according to Ken the town isn’t a war zone yet – and, amazingly, flights south to Glasgow are still running.

  There are risks associated with her plans for Alistair, she thinks. She will need to use all her wiles to misdirect him long enough for a clean getaway. But it’s doable. On and off, she’s considered duping him and taking his boat. But where would she sail to? How would she even survive storms like this one, without the knowledge Alistair has spent years accumulating? Besides … she’s tried to imagine how it would feel doing this to him, and didn’t like what she found.

  What if she can persuade him to go with her to Sweden?

  It’s a ludicrous thought, a fantasy. He’s already rebuffed a similar suggestion. But the idea won’t go away. Once formed, it lies there burning, like a hot coal. She looks at him, lying next to her. Watches the fall and rise of his broad, lean chest; the tendons in his neck which stand out even when he’s relaxed. The way hairs in his nose move softly with each breath, like seaweed. He’s the same man she knew all those years ago. But not the same person.

  Neither is she.

  They were too immature the last time round, she realises. She too full of angst and ideological certitude; he too blinkered in his trust of divine order, and his pursuit of carefree urges. It had been a bad combination. Now, life and experience seem to have eroded them into more similar – and perhaps more compatible – shapes.

  ‘I signed up for MI5 once,’ she says.

  He drags open bleary eyes with endearing effort and a smacking of dry lips. ‘Huh? Kidding. You? MI5?’

  ‘Aha.’

  He seems to be having trouble processing this. ‘When?’

  She squirms closer. She feels gloriously snug, despite the elemental orgy happening outside. ‘Just before independence. I got contacted. Seems I fitted their profile. They have a thing for orphans. Apparently we make good, malleable little agents.’

  She digs him in the ribs as she says this, hoping he’ll see she’s making a joke of it. He grunts. Indignantly, she thinks. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, I applied. Took tests. They signed me on for a probationary period.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Then I left before probation was up. Went and joined Police Scotland.’

  Silence for a while. ‘What made you join the police?’

  ‘Instead?’ She watches rainwater quivering in gusts on the transparent hatch a metre from her face. ‘Wanted a Scottish passport. Also …’ She takes a slow deep breath. Studies the slightly uneven ceiling. ‘I wanted to help. To make a difference, somehow. I wanted to make people’s lives better.’

  A pause.

  ‘So why did you join the police?’

  The two of them giggle at that for a bit. Then Coira asks: ‘Why did you join MI5?’

  ‘I have absolutely no fucking idea.’

  She snorts. They burst into laughter.

  And they make love.

  A lot.

  CHAPTER 49

  ______________

  Forum News

  YOU GAZE IN FRUSTRATION out of the window at the sea. Even sheltered by a wooded hill and a row of colourful five-storey buildings, Tobermory harbour is streaked with lines of foam. Boats toss and pitch on their moorings. Further out in the Sound of Mull, conditions look wild.

  Not long after first light, Somhairle took you in Orca out beyond the harbour entrance. You suspect he’d agreed to it only to demonstrate what a fool you were being. Wind scoured the comparatively sheltered sound so fiercely it felt as though the boat might capsize at any moment and blow away like a leaf. In the more exposed mouth of Loch Sunart to the north, little was visible except roiling white. It was breathtaking. Literally: the wind was so strong that, facing it, air was rammed down your throat, making breathing out difficult. Facing away, the vacuum created by your own head meant you could barely inhale. When you agreed to head back, it seemed touch and go for a while whether or not the engine would make any headway. A journey that took five minutes with the wind behind the boat took almost an hour.

  Somhairle disappeared after that to smoke and get drunk with his comparably ruinous friend Alex. Occupying the third floor of a cornflower blue sea-front tenement, Alex’s two-bedroom flat would have been desirable once. Plaster has come away from the lath of the walls, creating holes from which draughts whisper and howl, causing candles and the flames of the open peat fire to flicker. It smells like a squat. The floor physically shakes in the bigger gusts. Outside, the wind is an intermittent scream.

  The house is also occupied by a small round woman, who looks petrified and tends to lurk behind furniture. She boils potatoes and bits of unidentifiable small animals in a pot on a hook over the fire, occasionally offering you some on a chipped plate. It tastes better than it looks. She doesn’t talk, and you’re glad.

  Drunken noises and aromatic smoke permeate from the room next door. You console yourself with the thought that Keir will be similarly storm-bound. Earlier, you asked Somhairle if he thinks anyone would risk sailing in this. He just looked at you and snorted.

  The hiatus also gives you a chance to put more research into your plan, such as it is. There’s no electricity today, and the weather means zero chance of getting work done outside, but you’ve found a spot by the window that gives intermittent satellite reception. As hoped, there’s valuable intel in local forums. You’re grateful you didn’t try the southern route: it sounds insane, but apparently the south-west corner of the island has been taken over by some kind of cult who’ve taken to preying on passing ships. There’s talk – surely fanciful – of cannibalism. You avoid dwelling on how Keir’s boat could easily have fallen victim.

  As you exp
erienced yesterday, the Sound of Mull seems safe enough, with community-sponsored local militia in armed RIBs patrolling to keep it open, assisted by a Royal Navy frigate and a couple of patrol boats from the coastguard. It’s not the first time you’ve been glad of Somhairle’s whisky-sodden, but so far strangely reliable, presence. He was on first-name terms with crew on the patrol-boat that intercepted you, and a bottle of Famous Grouse was enough to see them on their way.

  Further north is a different picture.

  You’re getting the impression that the mainland is a no-go zone at least as far as Ullapool, with what sounds like a return to seventeenth-century clan warfare, except with automatic weapons. There are rumours of some kind of jealously-guarded micro-state in the islands between the peninsula of Ardnamurchan and the Isle of Skye, and innumerable reports of largely one-sided skirmishes between locals and bands or enclaves of starving migrants.

  There are even accounts of navy boats blockading vessels heading south, in what seems to be a line between Mull and the southern tip of the Western Isles. You hope Somhairle doesn’t get to hear this, or you might have no choice but to take his boat at gunpoint. You slept last night with your Walther in your armpit holster and your knife holstered in your sock.

  Perhaps most interesting from your point of view, and a stroke of luck in a way, is that the sound separating the Skye from the mainland is also haunted by gangs preying on boats. There are accounts of extortion, theft, violence, rape and at least one murder. Advice is to stay away, and as you study the channel’s twisting labyrinth on Google Maps, you appreciate it’s perfect for this kind of ambush. Even if Keir and her benefactors were unaware of the racketeers, in current circumstances you’ve little doubt they’d have taken one look at the channel and decided to go the long way around, up the west of the island.

  The wind, if anything, strengthens, making the building shudder. Motes of plaster drift from cracks in the ceiling. The woman offers you more scraps of potato.

  You wonder where Keir is holed up now.

  CHAPTER 50

  ______________

  Stormbound

  IT’S MID-AFTERNOON by the time Coira and Alistair rise. Coira cooks breakfast this time: fillets of a smallish cod-like fish which hooked itself on the static line Alistair put down before they went to bed. Grilled, it’s served with packet mashed potatoes, fritters of tinned sweetcorn, and a hollandaise sauce she knocks up using egg yolks and melted butter with a little lemon juice, salt and ground pepper.

  Alistair seems impressed.

  ‘Better than I had last night,’ she admits, chewing. She knows he’s been burning to ask what happened on Rùm, and appreciates that he knows her well enough not to press for details.

  She recounts everything she thinks she can get away with. Alistair looks horrified.

  ‘I can understand how your work profile would make you a good catch for his security team,’ he says, frowning at his half-empty plate. ‘But, asking you to kill me? Why go to the trouble? They could have done it any time they liked with a drone. I’d never have known what hit me.’

  She expels a lungful of air. ‘I’ve been wondering that. I simply don’t know. He seemed to like his games; his little power-plays. I think it appealed to him, the thought of twisting someone like that. Manipulating them. Especially someone in authority.’ The thought’s occurred to her that Gryanov might not be finished yet, with either of them. That it’s well within his means to track them by satellite, meaning there’s still a chance they can expect remote execution at any moment. She doesn’t mention any of this to Alistair.

  ‘Sounds like a proper sociopath.’

  ‘Fuck, yes. Although, it could be an initiation thing. You know? Complicity in a terrible act ensures loyalty. Lets you call in favours later. Like the Masons used to have – or like what that prime minister who went to Eton did with the pig.’ She breathes out slowly and shivers. ‘It’s funny. I was cleaner than I’ve been for … well, days, and I felt like I needed a bath. Still, got a nice frock out of it. Oh! – and what I’ll bet is a rather nice bottle of plonk.’

  ‘Bottle of plonk.’ Alistair is shielding his eyes. ‘Coira, have you any idea what Taittinger Comte de Champagne Rose actually is?’

  ‘Bubbly?’

  He shoots her a look of outrage. ‘Widely regarded as one of the best champagnes of all time. And ’76 was reckoned one of their best years. I didn’t even realise there were any bottles left.’

  ‘So … it might have gone off?’

  ‘Now you’re just teasing me.’

  ‘Where is this miraculous grape juice?’

  ‘I hung it overboard to cool. Cord is tied to the ladder. Make sure you grab it tight!’

  It is, Coira has to admit, once she’s accidentally sprayed half the cabin with it, pretty good.

  DURING A LULL in the storm they row the dinghy ashore and nose around what Alistair claims is an old flensing station, where the huge basking sharks once plentiful in the surrounding seas were processed.

  The building looks like a roofless cottage. In the garden, however, are the rusted remains of a boiler almost the size of Otter’s Pocket, and concrete outbuildings smelling of animal droppings. Lobster pots of sun-rotted blue nylon lie stacked against walls. Plastic drums are scattered around like dice. Ambling through the ruins, Coira notices a curious problem with her legs. They feel unaccountably rubbery. It’s like she’s drunk, or the land under her is moving.

  ‘Sea legs,’ Alistair tells her with a grin. ‘Means you’re acclimatising. We’ll make a seawoman of you yet.’

  Even on a day like this, it’s a shabbily idyllic spot. The harbour is virtually surrounded by mature trees, most of which still have their leaves. The undergrowth is alive with rabbits. Alistair produces what look like coils of old guitar string from a pocket, turns them into nooses, and pegs them to the ground outside a couple of likely-looking burrows. As rain comes on again, the two of them flee back to the shelter of the boat.

  Dried off and changed, Coira curls up in a blanket on the bigger of the main cabin’s benches. Using Alistair as a cushion she begins chapter one of The Complete Sailing Manual by Steve Sleight: a battered and well-thumbed old hardback from Alistair’s sparse onboard collection. Can’t hurt to be prepared, she figures. Besides, while Alistair’s collection is eclectic, pickings are slim. There’s science fiction (which she doesn’t like) by authors she’s never heard of, a couple of collections of Odgen Nash poetry (which she does), what looks like a collector’s edition of Moby Dick, several factual books on topics ranging from DIY housebuilding to quantum physics, and a disturbing number of turn-of-the-century thrillers for man-children featuring someone called Jack Reacher.

  They converse like old lovers, falling in and out of conversation sporadically, naturally.

  ‘I’ve a plan,’ she says presently, looking up at him, hoping her nerves don’t show. He’s studying charts laid out on the table. ‘There might be a way out of this. Want to hear it?’

  Alistair regards her intently for a moment over his reading glasses.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We sail north up the Western Isles. To Lewis. I found out some things while I was with our Russian friend. It sounds like the fighting hasn’t reached Lewis yet. Apparently there’s still law and order on the Island. And the best thing of all …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I must admit I find this quite hard to believe, but – allegedly, flights to Glasgow are still running from Stornoway Airport.’

  His eyebrows go up. ‘Seriously?’

  Alistair seems thoughtful after that. Nestled against him, Coira reads until she falls asleep.

  CHAPTER 51

  ______________

  Interrogation

  LORNA SITS at the chipped vinyl table, one leg crossed over the other. She regards the man sitting opposite her with an expression that could mean absolutely anything.

  She has her packet of Gauloises out. She fiddles wi
th them.

  The bear-like man in the other chair watches the cigarettes. It’s like he’s mesmerised. He’s sweating, although the cell is far from warm. Wearing one of the red and green boiler suits reserved for dangerous prisoners, he’s chained by alloy cuffs to a ring on the floor. He looks like he hasn’t slept for weeks. His skin has a bilious tinge, and his skull is fuzzed by a couple of days’ stubble.

  Sebastian stands with his arms crossed, looking down on them from a corner of Lorna’s side of the table. This is the first time he’s has really seen Lorna at work, and he watches with interest. He’d heard she was good at this, and so far it’s hard to disagree. Somehow she seems to encompass the whole good cop, bad cop routine in one elegant package. Her eyebrows are weapons. The Jekyll and Hyde transformation of her eyes is remarkable. Currently, they’re like lumps of ice.

  ‘So, Kenneth.’

  ‘Or Mungo,’ Sebastian chips in. ‘Nicer ring to it, don’t you think? Sounds like a clown.’ Lorna might be a one-woman inquisition, but he still has his role to play. The routine is hackneyed because it works. Especially on people who have a record. Which Kenneth McCoull – surprisingly – doesn’t. ‘Better than Kenneth. That’s the name of a till assistant. Where are these names from, by the way? Mungo, and Tam, and the rest?’

  The man in the chair glares at Lorna, then Sebastian. He was clearly physically powerful once. Perhaps still is, though he’s very much gone to seed.

  He doesn’t answer.

  ‘From Tam o Shanter,’ says Lorna. ‘Isn’t it, Kenneth? Robert Burns,’ she adds, for Sebastian’s benefit.

  ‘Weil done,’ says McCoull, mocking. ‘Some o youse lot hae a bit o culture efter all.’

  ‘Really, Kenneth? And which “lot” would that be?’

  He looks away.

  ‘Your telephone conversation sounded like it went well. I have to admit, I didn’t think you’d go through with it.’