Cape Wrath (11 page)

“LINDA!”
Alan bellowed, running as hard as he could.

She still wasn't hearing him. She went on, sobbing aloud, gasping for breath.

The rush of fresh salt-air hit her in the face. Waves crashed in her ears. It sounded a sudden alarm, but it was too late; her hurtling right foot had now come down in open space. It found no purchase, but went on, down and down. Linda fell after it, suddenly heavy as lead, the world turning upside-down over the top of her …

And Alan caught her from behind. With a last, despairing lunge, he reached out and grabbed her by the belt of her trousers.

She'd been going so fast that she almost dragged him over but, at the end of the day, Linda weighed about nine stones to Alan's 13 and a half, and he was able to snatch at and take hold of the nearest tussock of vegetation, dig his cleated soles in and stop her in mid-flight.

A strenuous moment passed as he hauled her back over the precipice, then she was on top of him, hugging him desperately, weeping into his shoulder. They sank down to their knees together, still on the very edge of the cliff. Despite the proximity of that, and the perilous experience she'd just had there, Linda was still distraught beyond telling about Clive.

“Oh my God,” was all she could say.
“Oh my God, Alan. Oh my God!”

“I know, I know,” he said, holding her to him.

“Who … who could do that?”

“Some maniac, that's all I can think,” he replied.

“Some maniac! Some monster, you mean! Some demented monster! Oh Jesus, his lungs were torn out …”

“I know.”

Linda laid her head on his chest and began sobbing again. Alan hugged her to him, then glanced down over her shoulder. Far below, the green waves broke on the footings of the cliff with cataclysmic force, geysers of spume hurtling upwards. Farther out, in every direction, the ocean heaved and rolled, bleak vistas of crashing, exploding foam. It was almost primeval. There wasn't another shore in sight, nor even a boat. Alan remembered the Viking skalds, and their references to the so-called ‘Poison Sea', the ocean of the apocalypse, filled with great serpents and dead men's ships, all stirring to life as the end of the world drew nigh.

All of a sudden, he became aware of how small and vulnerable he was. The idyllic oneness he'd felt with this wild, forbidding place had long since flown. Behind them, the woods stood dark and silent, though it was still only midday. Watching shadows seemed to creep between the raddled, twisted trunks.

“Linda,” he said quietly, “we've got to get back. We can't stay here.”

A moment passed, then the girl looked up at him, her eyes red, her beautiful face streaked with tears.

“I mean it,” he said gravely. “We have to go.”

Slowly it dawned on her what he was saying: someone had killed Clive, and probably Craig too; almost certainly, that someone was still on the island, biding his time before the next attack. Her expression of grief quickly melded itself into one of fear. She stared nervously into the pinewood, her tears drying, her cheeks visibly paling. Even though, as she had recently so loudly professed, she no longer loved him, she had no hesitation in allowing Alan to lift her to her feet and to hold her close beside him as they made their way back.

Every step of that journey was a nightmare. The open, airy woodland that had previously seemed so tranquil, so picturesque, so typical of the remote Caledonian high country, was now an image of trackless gloom. There was an awesome depth and loneliness to it, a malign stillness in its green and shadowy heart.

“Alan, how're we going to get out of this place?” Linda asked in a small voice.

“The same way we were going to get out before,” he replied. “The boat's coming back tomorrow. One minute after it gets here, we'll all be on it.”

A twig snapped somewhere behind them. They whirled around like cats … but saw only the many pillars of the trees.

“Are we even going to last 'til tomorrow?” she wondered, as they strode nervously on.

“Of course we are,” he said. “There's more than enough of us, if we stick together.”

Two minutes later, though, they were to receive another stunning shock. Neither of them particularly wanted to return to the scene of the killing, but they felt they had no choice. They had to veer in the direction where the others were most likely to be. Before they got back to Clive's body, however, they met Nug. He was still ashen-faced, still shaking with shock.

“You aren't going to believe
this
,” he said, as they approached him.

“What?” Alan asked anxiously.

Nug turned and pointed. They followed his gaze, and saw that, coming idly through the trees towards them, with an almost blissful lack of concern, was Professor Mercy. Surprised, they noticed that she had taken her boots and socks off, and was walking barefoot. White chickweed blooms had for some reason been braided into her flowing blonde tresses.

“Hello there,” she said with a serene smile. “Have you two got back together again? Oh, that's nice. I'm so glad for you.”

 

They left Clive's body where it was, at first because they were unable to remove it, but later because it made sense to.

Both Alan and Barry tried to loose Clive's hands, but the tent pegs had been hammered in with such brutal strength that they were lodged fast. Then Nug reminded everyone that the police would regard this as a crime scene and, though it was sickening beyond belief to do so, it would probably be for the best to leave the grisly picture untouched. Smeared with blood, shivering with nausea, the two lads withdrew, and the entire party – what remained of it – retreated through the woods to the camp, where they built a much larger fire than normal, then huddled around it in a strained and frightened silence as the night descended.

Professor Mercy was the only one apparently unafraid. She hummed quietly to herself as she sat there, occasionally commenting to the rest on the joys of summer and of camping out under the stars, and all the while linking daisy-chains together and weaving blooms into her hair.

“Who'd have thought it?” said Barry, staring at the woman, visibly spooked. “She's totally flipped. It's like she's retreated back to her childhood.”

“I'd have thought she'd have been the last one to go,” said Linda, articulating all their feelings.

“That's the value of true love for you,” David commented. “Enjoy it while it lasts, because when some bugger comes and snatches it away, it'll fuck you up big time.”

Alan, meanwhile, shocked though he was by the Professor's breakdown, could think of little else but the terrible rite of the Blood-Eagle. Even in the endlessly violent world of the Vikings, there were only four or five recorded instances when this most potent sacrifice to Odin had ever been enacted, and most of those were attributable to Ivar, who even by the standards of his own people, was regarded as a deranged beast when the mood was on him. The student couldn't suppress a violent shudder. He turned to Nug, seated next to him.

“Have you ever … I mean
ever
, heard of this in the modern age?”

Nug shook his head dully.

Alan couldn't take it any longer. He leaped up. “First the Millstone, now the Blood-Eagle. Let's admit it, there's some lunatic on this island thinks he's Ivar Ragnarsson!”

Linda gazed steadily up at him. “That's impossible. John McEndry's the only boatman in miles. He'd have known if someone else was out here.”

“Perhaps it's one of us, then?” Barry suggested.

Linda gave him a startled look. “Don't be ridiculous …”

Barry jumped to his feet too. “Think about it! Who else knows this subject well enough? They don't teach the Blood-Eagle on the National Curriculum, do they?”

The following silence was thick enough to cut with a knife. Only the spitting and snapping of the flames disturbed it. Even Nug, who'd reacted with as much hysteria as anyone else at the first sight of Clive's butchered carcass, but who had probably been the first of them all to get his head back together, seemed uncertain. He glanced warily up at Alan and Barry, as if wondering just how much any of them knew about their fellow students.

Finally, Linda spoke again: “But why would any of us do it?”

“Perhaps someone's got a bit too wrapped up in this Norse legend bullshit,” Barry said, and he turned and gazed at David. “Perhaps someone thinks he's
personally
involved.”

David blinked in surprise. “What're … what're you looking at me for?”

“Where'd you get that name from?” Barry demanded. “Thorson?”

David now stood up. He glanced round uneasily. “My mum and dad …”

“Obviously, but where did they get it from?”

David looked bewildered by the question.

“He means it sounds Scandinavian, David,” Nug said. He too was now watching their youngest member carefully.

“Well … my great-granddad was from Norway.”

“What a fucking surprise!” said Barry, darkly satisfied.

“Oh come on,” Alan interjected. “You can't be serious. Look at him, he's just a kid. Whoever did that to Clive had physical strength … like
you
.”

“Or like
you!
” Linda put in, suddenly standing and pointing. Again, her brief reunion with Alan had ended the moment they'd found themselves back in Barry's company. “You're not a weakling, Alan.”

It was Barry who replied: “Yeah, but fortunately for Alan, he was with the rest of us while this happened. And so was I.” He looked again at David, who now seemed very small and isolated. “You, on the other hand, weren't. In fact, you were also with Craig when
he
got killed.”

David backed away a step. “This … this is ridiculous,” he stammered.

But now that he thought about it, Alan began to wonder too. It was true what Barry said: David had been absent from the group during both fatal instances, and on the last occasion, they'd even caught him washing his arms and body.

David started to cry. “I've not killed anyone,” he insisted, as they advanced on him.

Despite his protestations, they tied him up, not only knotting his hands together, but lashing him to the trunk of one of the nearby pine trees with guy ropes from his tent. He wept and pleaded with them throughout, often piteously, but they felt they had no choice. They stood him in his sleeping bag for protection against the cold before pulling the bonds tight, and told him they'd bring water and food whenever he wanted it, but aside from that, there was little other solace they felt inclined to offer. Barry even suggested looping a limp noose around David's neck and tying it off on one of the higher branches, just to make sure he didn't try to wriggle free during the night, but Nug drew the line at that.

“We're not bloody barbarians, Barry,” he said tersely. “We're only doing this much because we've no other choice.” And he strode back to the fire.

Barry shrugged, and looked round at Alan. “Just a precaution. Soon as we're asleep, there'll be nothing between him and us but this lot.” And he reached out and, for the fourth or fifth time, tested the security of the ropes. They were already so taut that he couldn't even get his little finger behind them.

“Try not to enjoy this too much, eh,” Alan advised. “Like Nug said, we're not barbarians.”

Barry sneered. “I don't suppose it was barbaric what
he
did to Clive and Craig?”

“We don't
know
it was David,” Alan replied.

“We've a pretty good idea, though, haven't we?” Barry hawked and spat. “And what's going to happen when we get him back to civilisation? Awww, the poor lad, he's had a terrible upbringing. His dad was a drunk, his sister a junkie, he accidentally saw his mum's stocking-tops at church one Sunday and went round the fucking bend. It's not his fault he did this, he's sick, he's ill. Community care, that's the thing for him.”

And with a bitter snort, he turned and went back to the fire.

“Alan, none of that's true,” David stammered, still tearful.

“I know,” Alan said.

“Surely it's obvious I haven't done any of this! Tell me, how did I get Craig up that tree?”

Alan made no answer. He looked steadily at the boy. The matter of Craig being found 30 feet off the ground was bothering him too, but one thing was undeniable:
someone
put him up there and, so far, David was the only realistic suspect, unlikely though he seemed.

“This is only a temporary arrangement, David,” Alan eventually said.

“How temporary?”

“Til McEndry comes with the boat. Twenty hours, that's all.”

“
Twenty hours!
” David wept. “What if I need a piss or something?”