Cape Wrath (14 page)

Jesus God Almighty, it was no wonder Linda had run. In fact, the next thing he knew, Alan was running himself. Stupored, he lurched down the gorge towards the woods, the hatchet swinging limply from his hand. Torrid moments passed as he stumbled through the trees, the summer heat seeping into him, his pallid flesh crusting over as the blood congealed, his clothes hanging in thick, clotted folds. Sobbing for breath, he blundered from one trunk to another, all the time gibbering, choking, calling out for help, suddenly heedless that his cries might bring the ruthless slayer down on his own head.

When he finally toppled into the camp, there was nobody there; the fire was a heap of ashes, the tents unattended. Without thinking, he turned and began lumbering uphill in the direction of the barrow. That's where Nug had said they'd be, holding out on the most exposed portion of the island, watching all flanks at the same time.

For this reason, they saw him long before he reached them.

Nug had just been in the process of cutting David's stiffening body down from the megalith, sawing through the taut coils of pale, slippery intestine with the edge of his trowl. Linda was now beside him, however, jabbering insanely, gesturing wildly with the pick. In contrast, and in near-surreal fashion, Professor Mercy was further down the slope from the other two, collecting more flowers. As Alan hobbled towards her, spittle dripping from his bloodied chin, she looked up and gave him a joyful, child-like smile … which lasted for less than perhaps five seconds, by which time she had registered the state he was in, the desperate, monstrous expression on his face, and the terrible weapon clasped in his crimson claw. With at first a whine of fear, then a wail, then finally a prolonged shriek of utter, abject terror, the woman turned and fled, throwing herself down the hill and scrambling away into the pines, her screams echoing and echoing long after she'd vanished from view.

Alan tried to tell her not to go, tried to totter after her, but his strength had left him. As the other two came down the slope towards him, angry, frightened looks on their haunted faces, he sank weakly to his knees, regarding them bug-eyed, slack-jawed.

“A … Alan,” Nug stuttered, also falling to his knees. “What the fuck … ?”

Linda was more demonstrative. “
You son of a bitch!”
she screamed, dashing up to Alan and smashing him on the side of the neck with the side of the pick.

“Wait …” he gasped, falling sideways into the grass. “Wait …”

She raised the pick over her head, and it seemed for one moment that she genuinely intended to bring it down, to impale her former lover with it. She probably would have done if Nug hadn't suddenly thrown himself onto her, dragging her backwards. She screeched and swore and kicked, but as she did Alan managed to explain what had happened. At least, the little of it that he could. He stammered out what he knew; about his blackout, about the horrific wounding of Barry, about the fact that their own hand-axe had been used to do it …

“And you saw no-one?” said Nug, repelled by the grisly tale, but also astonished that Alan had emerged unscathed.

Alan shook his head, dazed.

Linda wasn't convinced. She tried to leap at him again. “
You
did it! I know you did!”

Again, Nug had to restrain her. All Alan could do was shake his head.

“Alan, this might be a crazy question,” said Nug, “but you're absolutely sure
you
didn't do it?”

“What … what the hell do you mean?”

“Look at the state of you, man! I mean, you were covered in blood before, but not like this!”

Alan shrugged. “But I was right next to him, I was rolling in it …”

“And you don't remember what happened?”

“How could I? I was out. I must've been hit from behind …”

“You murdering bastard!” Linda spat. “You've hated Barry ever since I started seeing him!”

Alan gazed at her. “Are you nuts? I wouldn't chop him up into dog-food, would I!”

“It's him, Nug!” the girl insisted. “You wanted to know who the killer was, well now you do.”

Only slowly was it beginning to dawn on Alan what she was actually saying. “Linda … for fuck's sake! I was with you all the other times, wasn't I?”

And that, of course, was true. Stubbornly, though, Linda refused to believe it. “He's in on it, then. He must be …”

Rage finally breaking through, Alan jumped back to his feet and began gesticulating with the axe. “You stupid bitch! Aren't you listening to what I'm telling you!”

“Put the hatchet down, Alan,” said Nug, watching the blade carefully.

Alan rounded on him. “You think it was me, too?”

“All I'm saying is …”

“How long have we known each other?”

“Just put the hatchet down and we'll talk about it.”

Alan looked hard at him for a moment, then came to his senses. With a shrug, he laid the axe on the grass and stepped back. “Okay … it's down.”

Linda promptly snatched it up. “Murdering bastard!” she again snarled.

“It wasn't me,” he maintained.

“I think it was, Alan,” said Nug slowly.

“Nug … you know I'm not a murderer!”

“I know
you're
not,” Nug replied. “It's what got into you that is.”

There was a moment of silence. Linda stared round at him, nonplussed. “What're you talking about?”

“You've got to listen to me, both of you. You've got to hear me out.” Nug shook his head and held out his hands, as though he himself wasn't entirely convinced by what he was going to say. His nut-brown face set in a tight frown. “I think … I think Jo worked this out earlier … I think it's been on her mind for quite a while. You wanted to know what helped flip the coolest, toughest mind among us, apart from the loss of her boyfriend? Well now I'm going to tell you. And it's going to take some believing.”

He paused, looking from one to the other. Alan indicated that he should continue.

So he did: “Ivar was a berserker, right. That means, according to Nordic belief, his soul was harnessed to the wolf-spirit. In times of anger, the wolf took over. It made a guy who was already mad, bad and dangerous to know, into a virtual monster! He was unstoppable in battle, he showed no mercy to his prisoners. He tortured and killed them horribly, because that was the way of the feral spirit that controlled him …”

“It's a bloody myth, Nigel,” Linda reminded him.

He shook his head vigorously, a frenzy of sweat and hair. “No it isn't! Not entirely. Listen to me … The traditional funeral for a Viking overlord involved cremation, usually in his own longship. We
know
that to be true. So I ask you, why the hell was Ivar buried and not burned?”

“What are you saying?” Alan ventured to ask. “That they were frightened of the wolf-spirit?”

“Of course they were!” Nug grew visibly more agitated as he expounded his theory. “Listen. We've read enough of the sagas to know the berserkers were of great use to Viking leaders in war-time, but they also terrified the shit out of them. They didn't want too many of those guys knocking around. What kind of instability would that have caused in a militarist society based on loyalty and blood-ties?”

“And your point is?” Linda wondered.

“Jesus, isn't it obvious? If Ivar was cremated, the wolf-spirit would have been freed to wander, to cause death and mayhem. Just like it's doing here.”

She was now gazing at him as if he was someone she didn't know. “Are you serious?”

“Well what do
you
think's been going on?” Nug gestured around them, at the woods and hillside, at the vast northern sky. “Look at this place. It's in the middle of nowhere. There's no-one else here committing these murders, Linda. We've been doing it to each other. Alan's just killed Barry, like Barry killed David, like David killed Craig and Clive. But none of them remembers it, because it wasn't really them. It was Ivar's wolf.”

“Nug,” Alan said slowly, “even assuming your theory's correct, it can't be Ivar's wolf. Like you said, Ivar wasn't cremated. The wolf should still be trapped in his rotting bones.”

Nug shook his head. His expression darkened. “I don't think it works like that. They didn't just find a deserted island and entomb Ivar on it, Alan. They sealed him in with rune-magic. You saw that carving on the portal-stone. That was some kind of holding spell, just like the gods invoked on Loki. And now we've gone and broken it.”

“It's out then,” Alan said.

Nug gave him a bleak stare. “We've got four dead bodies, all killed in Viking rituals. Backbone, lungs, guts and now the limbs as well. Christ, what more evidence do you need?”

This too was beginning to make sense to Alan. “You're saying he's rebuilding himself?”

“Only on a spiritual level. In the manner his gods demand, in payment for his power.”

“As a result of which, you're saying that he, Ivar, this
thing,
can just possess any one of us at any time?”

Nug rubbed his brow. “It's all supposition. But … yeah. I think so.”

Alan glanced round uneasily. With the thickening cloud cover, long deep shadows lay among the trees. A gloom was even settling over the ridge above them.

“I doubt you'll see him …
it
,” Nug added. “It's a ghost. It has no substance.”

“Yeah … right,” said Linda, with a choked laugh. “Very convenient.”

Nug glanced round at her. “It's hard to believe, I must admit.”

“It's bloody impossible to believe,” she retorted, taking a step away from them. “But while you're trying, I'm going to find the Professor.” She hefted the axe and pick. “Either one of you two fucks comes after me, and you'll get these in your cranium.”

“Come on, Linda,” Alan protested.

“Come on, nothing!” she snapped. “
Ghosts, wolf-spirits … Jesus!
This is murder, pure and simple. Some nut-job's finally come out in his true colours. There's only us three left, and I know it isn't me. Therefore, it's one of you two. And
you
, Alan, are favourite. So keep your fucking distance, and I mean it.”

And with that she'd gone, hurrying down the slope and slipping out of sight into the trees. Alan looked wearily at Nug. “We'd better go after her.”

Nug nodded and, together, they set off in pursuit. In a short while, they'd come to the camp. It was still deserted, though a couple of tent-flaps had been thrown up as though Linda had been here, searching for the Professor. Then came the sound of a voice, a female voice, down by the bog-pools.

The two men set off again. When they reached the water's edge, they saw the women close to the far side. Professor Mercy had removed her waterproofs and waded out naked into the pool until she was waist-deep; now she stood there, arms outstretched as though crucified, her wet blonde hair streaked down over her breasts. A number of water-lilies floated around her in a ring. As before, she seemed to have sought to encircle herself with natural beauty, providing an illusory defence against the horrible reality of what was happening. If so, it was evidently working, for she seemed totally oblivious to Linda now coming into the water behind her, speaking softly, telling her that everything was going to be alright.

And only then did it strike Alan,
really
strike him, that Nug's incredible thesis might very well be correct. Okay, Professor Mercy had lost Clive in an unimaginably awful fashion, but she had always been so strong, so stable, a reliable rock in the whirlpool of university life, and an unchallenged expert in her field. But perhaps that deep knowledge, that clarity of vision had worked against her? For surely only a revelation of staggering horror – magnified a thousand-fold by the untimely loss of her love in the midst of it – could have done this?

And as though in direct response to Alan's thoughts, the Professor seemed to come awake. She turned slowly, arms still outspread, and locked eyes with the younger woman, who had now almost reached her. For a moment there was a smile of understanding between them – a brief telepathic pow-wow, sister to sister – then Professor Mercy broke down.

Weeping piteously, she fell to her knees, coming almost to the depth of her neck in the water. Even then she toppled forwards slightly, so that her head came to rest on Linda's hip. The student looked taken aback, but responded in kind, embracing the older woman, brushing her sodden hair into the nape of her neck.

Nug glanced awkwardly at Alan. “Maybe we should keep our distance?” he said. “I mean, watch them and all that, but … you know, not get close enough to freak them out.”

But Alan wasn't hearing him. “Why's she taken her clothes off again?” he wondered aloud.

Nug looked back. Again, Linda had helped Professor Mercy to her feet, though the two women were still in a clinch. In fact, they seemed to be getting into
more
of a clinch as the men watched. Initially, the professor was hugging the girl for all she was worth. Then, suddenly, she locked one arm behind her neck. Linda at first tried gently to resist; then she began to struggle; then she began to shout. But the Professor was stronger; literally overpowering. When she clamped her mouth over Linda's, and thrust one hand under her sweater to paw at the breasts beneath, there was almost nothing the younger woman could do about it.