The Exiled (14 page)

Alan stood from the sofa. He turned to Grainger.

“It’s what we came for, isn’t it? She says that she’s got a way over there without meeting the black bird. We either believe her or we don’t. I say yes.”

Grainger still wasn’t sure, but he also knew that they couldn’t run for long—the case was too big, too high-profile. He had to make something happen.

Looks like this is our only option.

He finished the whisky and dropped his cigarette end into the empty glass where it hissed for a second before going out.

“I always do what my wee brother says—let’s get this show on the road.”

* * *

The woman motioned them over to the far side of the room—Grainger’s memory of his previous visit was spotty to say the least, but they were now standing almost exactly on the spot where he’d been lying injured.

“So what now?” he said. “Do we join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’ or something?”

She laughed again and he almost smiled in return.

“Just stand close,” she said. “I need to concentrate.”

Grainger looked over to Alan.

“Click your heels three times and say the magic words,” he said.

Alan laughed.

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

The walls melted and ran, revealing gray stone behind. The tang of wood smoke was stronger now, almost choking at the back of Grainger’s throat. Alan’s eyes went wide.

“It’s a trap,” the younger brother shouted—too late, far too late.

They had passed over.

The brothers stood in a twelve-foot square cell on a floor of dry straw over stone slabs. The walls rose sheer to show blue sky some fifty feet above with a single window open to the elements around halfway up. The woman stood on the other side of a heavy iron grate.

“You know, for a copper, you really are as thick as shit,” she said.

She closed her eyes and wavered, going thin and wraithlike. Two seconds later Grainger and Alan were alone.

18

The brothers looked at each other. Alan laughed.

“We walked right into that one.”

“That we did, wee brother,” John said. “I always was a sucker for a woman in uniform.”

Alan looked around. There wasn’t much else to see. The walls looked too smooth to attempt a climb—not that John would be up to it anyway. He went to the iron grate and tugged, putting his weight into it. There was no give at all, not even a creak. He checked the lock—it too was solid, rust-free and unmoving as he pushed, pulled and kicked at it.

“Looks like we’re here for the duration,” John said. “I don’t suppose you brought your ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card?”

Alan checked his pockets. He had some loose change, his house keys, the car keys, his phone and his wallet—none of them any use in their current situation. John did the same—all he had was wallet, house keys, lighter and smokes.

“Yep, we really came prepared, didn’t we,” John said bitterly.

They hadn’t taken their situation seriously enough—at least Alan hadn’t. Even after what had happened in the lockup, Alan was still half-convinced it was all a mental aberration, a bad dream that he’d wake up from, eventually.

And look where that got me.

“This is where it stops,” John said softly. “We’ve been pulled and pushed and fucked over enough. From now on, we do things on our terms. Agreed?”

Alan nodded, and looked around.

“Fine by me—as soon as I figure out how to get us out of here. Wherever here is.”

John lit up a smoke and sat with his back to the opposite wall from the iron grate.

“She said it was a matter of will? Maybe all we need to do is think our way out?”

Alan closed his eyes and concentrated on the chair and sofas back in the farmhouse. All it got him was a fresh headache. John smiled grimly.

“No joy?”

Alan shook his head, and immediately regretted it as the pounding inside got more insistent.

“Same here,” John said. “There must be another trick to it.”

Alan sat down with his back to the grate and looked up. The sky was pale china blue far above. He flipped open his phone—it was completely dead, as if the battery had drained.

“I charged this bloody thing back in the cabin,” Alan said. “It can’t have discharged already.”

John pointed up to the sky high above.

“It should be full dark—if we were still in Scotland, it would be. As you said before,” he said grimly. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto. Besides—who were you going to call?”

* * *

There was little to do but wait and hope the woman would return—if she didn’t, their stay was going to be short, but painful. Alan was all too aware that all he had eaten before getting to the farmhouse were bacon rolls for breakfast and what he’d managed of the sandwich John had bought for them. His stomach rumbled in sympathy just to remind him.

Besides his own hunger he was getting increasingly worried about John. The older man sat quietly on the far side of the cell, head down on his chest, eyes closed. He looked pale, almost gray, sweat glistening on his brow. He seemed to be asleep, and Alan didn’t speak for fear of waking him, but it meant that any sleep on his own behalf was a long way away.

He couldn’t stop himself from checking the phone every few minutes. It was still dead, and the chances of it springing into life to let him make a lifesaving phone call seemed remote, to say the least. But it was something to cling to, something that might give some hope in what had become a desperate situation. It was also a reminder that there was another place, a home, somewhere he might actually get back to.

The past few days were already taking on the quality of a dream, his mind struggling to process all that he’d seen and done, and being unable to fit it all into his conceptual reality. The model in his head of how things behave and work needed adjusting—and it was going to take some time.

The cold seeping through the straw beneath him was real enough, as were the stone walls. He looked up again, and noticed that the sky looked almost indigo now—night was finally falling. He didn’t relish the thought. They knew nothing of this place, or its weather.

What do we do if it gets below freezing?

Stars slowly poked through in the purple. Alan tried to remember constellations and planetary positions from his youth, but those memories were far too far away to do him any good here. And when a huge moon, pink and unsmiling, crept over the edge and looked down the chimney, Alan finally came to terms with the fact that they were truly lost.

By the time the woman—Sandy, if that was even her name—returned, it was full dark in the cell. The moonlight that managed to seep inside did little to keep the darkness at bay. When John sat up suddenly, snorted, and flicked his lighter alive, the flame was as bright as a flare going off; Alan saw the yellow afterimage for long seconds even after John lit a smoke and put the lighter away.

The tip of John’s cigarette was a wobbling red dot in the black as he smoked.

“You two still here?” a voice said sarcastically from outside the grate. Alan hadn’t heard a sound, but she was back, as quickly and as silently as she had gone. “Give me a second—I’ll make us a bit more cozy.”

Alan had to look away as she lit a torch brand in a sconce on the wall from a lighter of her own. The new light flared and flickered, then settled into a dancing orange glow that lit most of the cell. The woman stepped forward and kicked a box across the floor to nestle against the iron grate at a spot where Alan could reach through for it.

“It’s going cold, so I’d eat it soon,” she said, and closed her eyes again.

“No, wait,” Alan shouted. “At least tell us why we’re here?”

She kept her eyes closed, but smiled as she once again wavered out of existence.

“You’re honored guests,” she said, then was gone.

* * *

The box contained two portions of fried chicken and fries, and the incongruity of the two of them sitting there, eating fast food from a Scottish takeaway, was not lost on either man.

“What do you think she meant?” Alan asked after they finished and he pushed the box back outside the grate.

John shook his head.

“I’m guessing we’re a bargaining chip in a game we’re somehow caught up in. We were right earlier—there’s more going on here than Galloway and the black bird. But there’s nothing we can do about it until she—or someone else—tells us.”

And with that John shocked Alan by going back to the far wall, lying down and falling asleep almost immediately.

Alan wasn’t so lucky. He sat and watched the shadows flicker for a long time. High up the chimney a single star—a blue jewel—winked down at him and he watched it track across his view until it was lost beyond the rim. Only then did he too close his eyes and finally the last few days caught up with him all at once.

He slept. There were no dreams.

19

Grainger woke first. Thin sunlight came in from high above and the brand was little more than a smoking stub on the sconce. The air tasted smoky and dry, but not unpleasantly so, and he felt remarkably little pain in his shoulder, considering he’d just slept on a cold stone floor. All things considered, he didn’t feel too bad.

“Good, you’re up,” the woman said. She stepped out from the shadows beyond the grate. “Give the young one a kick, would you. There’s someone waiting to see you both.”

“I’d suggest we have a wash and you let us use a lavvie first,” Grainger said. “Otherwise it might get a bit smelly.”

She laughed.

“Smell is the least of your worries. Now come on—get him up. Time’s a wasting.”

Waking Alan up proved far from easy. He had curled up on the floor and looked far too much like the frightened boy Grainger remembered all too well from the bad years after their father died. Grainger knelt by his side and shook his shoulder, harder than he wanted to. Alan came awake with a start, nearly knocking Grainger over.

“Time to get up, wee brother. It seems we’ve got an appointment.”

He helped Alan to his feet. While their backs were turned to the woman he showed Alan what he’d done with his keys; he had them in his hand, the longest key sticking through at the junction of index and forefinger when he made a fist. It was an old con’s trick—a weapon, should they need one.

He waited until he was sure Alan understood before turning round.

“Take us to your leader,” Grainger said, deadpan. It got a laugh from Alan, but the woman wasn’t joining in this morning.

She removed her pistol from its holster and with her other hand took a long key out of a pocket in her flak jacket.

“You’re going to stay back there, and when I open this door, you’ll come out one at a time, and we’ll take a little walk. If one of you so much as sneezes, I’ll shoot the other one. Understood?”

“Understood,” Grainger replied.

The cell door opened with a loud creak.

“Can’t you just, you know, close your eyes and make three wishes or something?”

She snorted—not a laugh, but it was as close as they were going to get to one.

“You’re not going back over—at least not yet. Now move. He’s waiting for you upstairs.”

* * *

“Upstairs” was just a short walk up to what had obviously once been the main hall of a much larger structure but now was little more than four tumbledown walls open to the elements. Only the remains of two large fireplaces and a single fragment of stained glass window were left to show for its former magnificence. The air was fresher up here, and for the first time Grainger smelled the tang of the sea—far off, but definitely there. Two ravens cawed at each other high in a ruined turret. The only other occupant was a tall, almost skeletally thin man. He had the air of an aristocrat going slowly to seed. His leather tunic was wrinkled, torn and patched in several places, but his boots and trousers—likewise in leather—were smooth and well maintained and his hair, although gray and wispy, especially over the slightly pointed ears, was precisely trimmed. He smelled slightly—Grainger noticed it from quite a distance—of cut flowers and honey masking a stronger, less pleasant odor beneath. His eyes were deep blue and they stared straight at Grainger’s face as he put out a hand to be shaken.

“Mr. Grainger. I’m sorry for all the subterfuge,” he said. He had the singsong accent of the Highlands, his brogue faint but noticeable.

Grainger ignored the outstretched hand.

“Subterfuge? Is that what we’re calling kidnapping and imprisonment of a police officer these days?”

The tall man laughed.

“You were hardly kidnapped. And you’re not a police officer anymore. But if you like, I can send you straight back there—right now—right this minute. How long do you think you can run for?”