Coffin Road (27 page)

Gunn glanced up and saw the SUV he had spotted when they first arrived.

‘So I go over to take a look. There’s definitely something alive in the back of it, kicking and rocking the bloody thing. I’m peering through the smoked glass, and I see this . . . I don’t know, kid, a girl or something. All tied up, a bag over her head, kicking shit out the tailgate. I’m turning to go and open it up, when, wham, that bugger goes and cracks me on the bloody head.’ He lifts a rueful hand to the gash in it. ‘Don’t know what he hit me with, but he just about split my skull.’ Another drag on his cigarette. ‘Next thing I know, I’m lying in the dark, trussed up like a bloody chicken. Not even the first idea how long I’d been there. Started kicking the side of the boat like mad when I heard your voices.’

Gunn held out a hand to him. ‘Come on, let’s get you back on dry land. Can you stand up okay?’

‘Aye.’ But still he staggered as he stood, and it took both policemen to help him up on to the quayside.

Gunn said, ‘I take it he took the boat?’

Macrae cast his eyes over the boats in the harbour. ‘Aye, it’s gone alright.’

‘Any other boats missing?’

Macrae seemed surprised, glancing at Gunn, then passing his gaze over the harbour again. ‘Aye, there is,’ he said. ‘Harrison’s boat’s gone.’

Gunn said, ‘You never mentioned that he had a boat here.’

Macrae gave him a look. ‘You never asked, Mr Gunn. And why would I even think to mention it? He’s been berthing a boat at Rodel for about a year. Don’t know why, though. He’s hardly ever out in it.’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘I suppose I must still have been unconscious when it left. Never heard a thing.’

‘There’s an ambulance on the way, George,’ Morrison said.

Gunn nodded and turned back to Macrae with the heaviest of hearts. He heard himself sigh before he said, ‘Is there anyone, sir, who could take us out to the Flannan Isles?’

‘What, now?’ Macrae seemed incredulous.

‘Aye.’

‘You think that’s where they’ve gone?’

‘I’m pretty sure it is, sir. Both boats.’

Macrae shook his head, then winced from the pain of it. ‘You’ll not get anyone to take you out there on a night like this, Mr Gunn. Yon folk might have reached the Flannans before the storm broke, but they’ll not get back tonight, and the only way anyone else is going to get out there now is by helicopter.’

Gunn couldn’t help feeling something like relief.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

No words have passed between us during the last hour as Jon’s boat ploughs through mounting seas and the dying embers of the day. He has deferred to my superior seamanship and I am at the helm. But even I am afraid of the coming storm, for this is just the beginning of it. Only my fear for Karen is greater, and that is my single focus.

For some time now we have seen the beam of light fired out at regular intervals from the lighthouse on Eilean Mòr, piercing the gloom, reflecting on the underside of the dark, dangerous clouds that gather all around us. The Seven Hunters are shadows huddled along the horizon, intermittently obscured by the ocean swell.

Our silence is full of tension. I have given them the barest outline of the circumstance which has led me, and them, to make this journey that no sane person would undertake on such a night. They listened in grave silence, neither asking questions nor making comment. All colour and animation left Sally’s face, and I caught them once exchanging glances, a dark, troubled exchange conveying an unspoken understanding that I could not interpret.

But I have held my peace. I cannot afford to confront them with what I know before we reach the island. And they must realise that their success depends on my getting them and me there safely. They also know by now that I have my memory back, for I have told them. And so our silence preserves the pretence. But in my head a voice is screaming, and had I the means I would strike them both down, and hit them. And keep hitting. And hitting. Until I had extinguished all sound and movement and life.

We are upon the Flannans almost before I realise it, the sea breaking luminous and white all around the ragged contours of the rocks. The sound of the sea breaking over them from the south-west and the cry of the wind is very nearly deafening.

I have no choice but to turn on the spotlights mounted on our crossbar to light the way ahead. I know it means that Billy will see us coming, but without them we would founder on the rocks.

From the merest shadows fifteen minutes ago, the Seven Hunters have risen above us now, as if they have somehow pushed up out of the sea, crowding around us, overlapping, dangerously obscure as I try to navigate between them. There is the merest lull in the force of the storm as we slip into the lee of Eilean Tighe, and I keep a wary eye on Gealtaire Beag, away to our starboard side. But then the sea gathers momentum and anger again as it rushes through the gap between the two Làmhs, and I try to hold a course for the south-east side of Eilean Mòr and the more sheltered of the two landing sites.

Finally, our lights pick out the shell-crusted steps cut so steeply into the side of the cliff, and the sea breaking ferociously around them as they vanish into the depths below. We see Billy’s boat, anchored in the bay, rising and falling dangerously on the swell. And his inflatable, dragged up the steps and on to the broken concrete quay, where he has secured it to the great rusted ring that is sunk into the rock. I get as close as I dare to his boat, then drop anchor. A glance at my companions reveals fear in their faces. They know as well as I do that this is the most dangerous moment. The transfer from boat to tender, and the attempt to reach and jump out on to the steps.

I cut the motor and clamber into the back of our boat to swing the inflatable out on its jib and lower it carefully into black waters that seem alive with rage and a determination to suck us under. As the tender comes up on the rise, I jump in and feel it fall away beneath me again as the sea drops, and I fall backwards into the bottom of it, grateful for the ropes around its smoothly inflated sides to grip and steady me as the boat rises again and water breaks over me, icy cold in the darkness.

Sally is next and, as she swings herself into the tender, I grab her arm to steady her. In that moment, I remember all the times we have made love. The feel of her skin beneath my hands and against mine. Her lips. Her breath in my face. Our eyes meet, but neither of us can hold the look, each for different reasons. And then Jon is there beside us, and the two of them sit, clinging to the ropes, as I pull the starter cord and the outboard comes to life, a roar we can barely hear above the sea and the wind. I cast off and, accelerating away from our boat, turn into the swell and steer us towards the cliffs.

As we approach the steps, I swing the inflatable around at the last moment to bring us alongside, nursing the engine and the throttle to try to keep us there and prevent the sea from throwing us against them. It is not an easy thing to do, for the sea is trying its hardest to smash us all to pieces as our tender lifts ten feet or more, riding the incoming waves. I accelerate hard against its drag until we drop again, suddenly. I hear Sally scream, but we are still in one piece. Jon turns his eyes towards mine and they are black with fear. I throw him the rope and shout at the top of my voice, ‘Next time we go up, jump, then hold us steady.’

But he misses the moment. I see him brace for the leap, but he doesn’t make it, fear breeding inertia.

‘Now!’ I scream at him as the sea tosses us high again. And this time he jumps. For a moment I lose sight of him and think he has gone into the water. But as the sea recedes and we drop once more, I see him standing on the steps, ashen, the rope in his hands. Sally looks at me, panicked at the thought that she is next. I nod, and she knows she has no choice.

In the event, she makes the jump easily, grabbing Jon’s outstretched arm to set herself, and they both pull hard on the rope. This is the worst moment for me. I know I must cut the motor before jumping, and trust that the Harrisons will keep tension on the rope. If not, I will be gone, and there will be no one to protect my little girl from these people.

I see the next wave driving in and brace myself, feeling the tender lift on the crest of it. I stall the engine before leaping into space. I seem to fall through darkness for an eternity before my feet strike solid concrete and I feel Sally’s steadying hand. It takes me only a moment to get my bearings, and then all three of us are dragging the inflatable on to the steps, and pulling it up above the reach of the water, to the old concrete landing stage. I can feel salt spray stinging my eyes and the cold of this September sea seeping into my bones.

We secure it to the same ring that Billy has used to secure his, and I stand for a moment, looking out at the incoming ocean caught in the sweep of light from above. The wind is almost strong enough to knock me off my feet, and I know that with the rising tide this will all soon be under water, and the chances are that neither inflatable will survive.

Without a word, I turn and start to run up the steps. The old rusted iron handrail is deformed beyond use, ravaged by countless storms, and for the briefest of moments I find myself in the company of the lighthouse men who lost their lives here. They had trodden these same steps many times, and perhaps their ghosts still do. But Jon and Sally are not ghosts. They are flesh and blood and a threat to me and mine, and they are right behind me.

At the elbow of the dog-leg, I stop to catch my breath. The wind is even stronger up here, the beam from the lighthouse sweeping through the night above us, twice every thirty seconds, reaching twenty miles and more out to sea. I see Sally’s face and Jon’s, caught ghostly white in its reflection. None of us knows what the next few minutes will hold, and all of us, I suspect, are afraid of them.

I push on up the steps, two at a time, feeling how every muscle in my legs aches and how the breath rips itself from my lungs with every step. From the landing platform, we follow the concrete path and the rusted lines left by the old tram tracks, until we reach what they once jokingly called Clapham Junction, where the tracks from the east and west landings converge to ascend that final stretch to the lighthouse itself.

There I stop again and look up at the shadow of the lighthouse standing stark against a stormy sky almost entirely devoid now of light. It flickers and fades like some phantom in the reflected light of its revolving beam. The wind hits us here like a physical blow, and it is not possible even to speak. The outside light at the entrance to the building is switched on, drawing us like moths to our fate.

The rain drives in horizontally as we run the last few yards to the comparative shelter of the outer wall of the complex, and I feel relief in escaping the relentless wrath of the storm. I crouch down in the lee of the wall, among the wet grass and the rubble, and the Harrisons do the same, three faces turned towards each other in the colourless light of the lamp above our heads. The time for pretending is over.

I say, ‘All I want is my daughter. Safe.’

‘So do we,’ Sally says, and the look I turn on her forces her to avert her eyes.

Jon is still gasping for breath. He says, ‘All we want is the data. That’s all we ever wanted.’

‘What makes you think it’s here?’

‘Because it’s not at the cottage. Do you think we haven’t been through that bloody house a hundred times? Every time you went up the coffin road to your bees. All those nights that Sally kept you safe in your bed, asleep after sex.’ I glance at her but still she won’t meet my gaze. ‘And Billy says you were manic about it, refusing to share with him or Sam. That you were the only one with all the data. Paranoid. And just crazy enough not to keep copies in case they fell into the wrong hands.’ He looks at me with cold, hard eyes. ‘We had your computer hacked.’ He shook his head. ‘Both of them. Nothing. No data on the hard drive. And you weren’t uploading to the cloud. So you had to have some kind of hard copy. It’s here somewhere, isn’t it? All those trips backwards and forwards to the islands. That was all about keeping your data safe.’

I nod.

‘And you knew all about us, didn’t you? You knew we were watching you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Until you lost your bloody memory.’ He glares at me. ‘At first I didn’t believe it, but Sally was convinced it was real. And then we were afraid that we wouldn’t get our hands on it, because you didn’t know where it was. And who knew when you might remember? If ever.’ He turns and looks towards the door of the lighthouse. ‘You’ve hidden it in there?’

I nod again. ‘It’s all on a hard drive.’ And in the look I give him, I try to convey all the contempt that I feel. ‘You know what you’re doing, don’t you? All the time and money and effort that’s gone into this. Proof positive that the poison these agrochem companies are pouring on our crops is destroying the bees. And all that that means for the future of our own species. This planet. And you don’t care, because someone’s paying you a lot of money.’

‘A helluva lot of money.’

‘You fucking idiot! Maybe one day, if you ever have children, you’ll understand how you’re selling their future down the river.’

He is unmoved. He says, with a strangely quiet authority, ‘We’ll go in there, get your data, and take Billy away with us.’

But I shake my head. ‘Billy’s not going to just walk away, Jon. I saw him kill Sam that night. And he’d have killed me, too, if I hadn’t got away from him.’ I shake my head with the recollection of it. ‘I knew I was going to have to blow the whole project. Go to the police as soon as I got ashore. And I would have, if I hadn’t struck rocks trying to clear the islands in the dark. Holed the bloody boat, and knew I was never going to make it back. Don’t know how many hours I bailed her out after the engine got submerged. I don’t even remember her going down in the end. Just the thought that I was going to die out there.’

Sally’s voice cut in for the first time. Frail and uncertain. ‘But you didn’t.’

I turn withering eyes on her. ‘No. Which is why Billy came looking for me at the cottage two nights later to try and finish the job.’

Jon’s voice forces me to tear my eyes away from Sally. ‘Billy was way off script, Tom. Freelancing. The stupid little idiot must have thought he could hijack the research data himself and hold Ergo to ransom. All he was supposed to do was keep me and Sally informed, and we’d have snatched the results from you ourselves when the time came. No need for anyone to get hurt.’

‘Except me.’ I turn my head towards Sally again. ‘And I don’t mean physically. It must take quite an act of will to fake sex with someone so convincingly.’

This time she forces herself to hold my eye. ‘It wasn’t all an act, Neal.’ And speaking the name she has always used for me strikes us both, as if we have been slapped in the face. She quickly corrects herself. ‘Tom.’

‘Enough.’ Jon stands up, rising beyond the protection of the wall, and takes a step back as the full force of the wind hits him. He reaches behind him and draws a pistol from some hidden holster. His smile is dry and goes no further than his lips. ‘Don’t worry, Tom. I have a licence for it. And no intention of using it. But who knows how unstable our friend Billy Carr might be? He might require a little persuasion. And we might need a little protection.’

The grilles protecting the outer door have been prised open, and the lock on the door itself smashed. Jon opens out one half of it and slips into the yellow light that illuminates the kitchen and the corridor that leads off to the sitting room. Sally and I follow, and I pull the door shut behind us.

The sound of the storm raging outside recedes immediately, and we are enveloped by a strange hush. Like stepping through some portal that takes us to another time in another world. I become aware that all three of us are soaked to the skin and trembling with the cold.

There is no sign of life. No sound. Yet I know that Billy must have seen us coming, and that he is waiting for us somewhere in here. I only hope to God that he has Karen with him, and that she is still alive.

‘Billy!’ Jon’s voice thunders in the silence of the building.

‘We’re in the tower.’ Billy’s shout echoes down the spiral stairs from the light room above.

‘Don’t be an idiot, son. Leave the girl up there and come on down. Tom’s going to give us the hard drive and we’ll be out of here.’

But I know that they won’t. No one is leaving the island tonight. Not in this storm. And I wonder if Jon has any intention of letting Karen and me leave at all. Because hasn’t it all just gone too far by now? Ergo may never have intended causing anyone physical harm, but Sam is dead. Murdered. Billy is a loose cannon, and I am a witness. As, now, is Karen.