Dark Waters (12 page)

‘I’ve been waiting for you, Col. I knew you’d come.’ Even Klaus’s voice seemed to drift, ghost-like in the wind.

Col wanted to cry, his voice was a sob. ‘I don’t believe this. I don’t understand.’

‘Believe it, Col,’ Klaus’s voice was so soft, yet Col heard it perfectly above the storm. ‘I don’t understand either. But I’m here. A force more powerful than death has held me here so that you can help me. Tell them who I am. Tell them to send me home to my family.’

And now he knew why, that night in the shelter, Klaus had told him so much about his village, about his family. He was leading up to this moment.

Col screamed. ‘I can’t tell them about you! They’d find out it was my brother who did this. What does it matter now?’

‘It matters to me, Col. Help me. I want to go home to my mother and my sisters.’ Now, Klaus was crying softly. So sad, so lonely. ‘I don’t want to lie in the dark waters of the loch for ever.’

‘I can’t do it, Klaus. Don’t ask me. Please, don’t ask me.’

‘I can’t hold on much longer.’ Col could see how true that was. Death, cheated for so long, was pulling him closer. ‘You are my only hope. Help me, Col. Help me.’

‘NO!’

Col stumbled back, began to run, away from the loch. He took one last backward look at Klaus, hardly visible, hardly there, still calling after him.

‘Help me …’

Col ran on, splashing through puddles, flooded gutters, through rivers gushing down the streets. His mind caught in as much of a storm as his body.

To help Klaus would be the end of Mungo. He’d be arrested, jailed. Mungo, who hated to be shut up. He couldn’t do that to his own brother. It was against everything he believed in.

Yet, how could they prove it was Mungo who had killed Klaus? They couldn’t. Could they?

But what if they did?

It was too much of a risk to take.

He had run without thinking and here he was on the street where the Sampsons lived. He hadn’t realised he had been heading this way, but he knew why he was here.

He trusted them. They’d know what to do.

He banged madly on their door, oblivious to the storm. A light came on upstairs. Col shouted, ‘Mr Sampson. It’s me, Col. Please let me in.’

A moment later light flooded the hall and the front door was hauled open.

‘Col! What have you been doing?’ Mr Sampson pulled Col out of the driving rain and into the warm welcoming house. Even in the storm, there was a warmth that enveloped this house.

Mrs Sampson was there too, trying to get Col’s wet jacket off, but he struggled against her.

How could he explain this to them? What could he say? They’d never believe him. He still hardly believed it himself. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ was all he could manage to say.

‘Come to the fire. Tell us about it.’

But he couldn’t move, shivering and dripping on to
the scratched and defaced wood of their floor.

‘I’ll believe you,’ Mrs Sampson said, and Col thought that of all of them she was the one who probably would. She had sensed Klaus at the hospital, thought she saw him at the hotel.

He clutched at her hand. ‘I’m so mixed up. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t know what’s the right thing to do.’

She touched his face. ‘You’ll always do the right thing, Col.’

‘Tell me about it, Col. Let me help.’ Mr Sampson’s voice was full of concern.

Maybe, Col thought in a flash of inspiration as bright as the lightning, he could tell Mr Sampson about the body in the loch. Tell him he had thought it was a dream. But it wasn’t. It was a locked up memory that had been too horrible to face. Things like that happened, didn’t they? Mr Sampson would know how to explain it – Col wouldn’t be involved then, Mungo couldn’t blame him, and Klaus would go home.

In the next instant he realised he couldn’t involve the Sampsons. Mungo would take his revenge on them, would feel he had a right to.

No. Col couldn’t involve anyone else.

It was then that Dominic appeared on the stairs, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

‘You all right, Col?’

Col looked up at him, and in Dominic’s eyes all he could see was admiration. To him, Col was the best person who had ever lived, the big brother he didn’t have.

‘Dominic,’ he asked, ‘would you ever betray me?’

Dominic’s eyes went wide with horror. ‘Never, Col. Never.’

‘No matter what I did?’

No hesitation from Dominic. ‘I’d die before I’d turn against you. No matter what you did.’

Col was reminded of another stormy night – so long ago – when he had said the same thing to his brother. ‘I’d die before I’d turn against you.’

And he realised he didn’t want Dominic to be the same as he was. He didn’t ever want him to face this kind of dilemma. He wanted him to be his own person. Do the right thing. Always.

He pulled away from the Sampsons. ‘It’s OK,’ he muttered, ‘I’m all right now.’

He ran through the doorway and out into the night. The Sampsons shouted after him, but he didn’t stop. He knew what he had to do now.

Chapter Twenty-One

He almost collapsed with exhaustion when he burst through his front door an hour later.

His mother, frantic with worry, ran to him in tears. ‘Col, what have you been doing, for heaven’s sake?’ She hauled him to his feet. ‘You’re shivering. You’ve probably caught double pneumonia. Oh son! Come to the fire.’ She glared into the living room where Mungo stood watching Col closely, his face stern.

‘That Mrs Samspon phoned. Said you’d been there. In a state, she said.’ Mungo’s voice was barely holding in his fury.

‘She was that worried about you.’ His mother was leading him gently towards the fire. ‘What’s wrong, son? What’s happened?’

She caught the look that passed between the brothers. ‘Has something happened wi’ you two?’ Her eyes
settled on Mungo. ‘What have you done now?’

Even Col was surprised at her tone. He’d seldom heard his mother talk like that to Mungo. Accusing him.

Mungo snapped at her. ‘Me? Ask him what he’s done!’

‘In the mornin’. In the mornin’.’ Mam was on the edge of tears. ‘I can’t handle this now.’

She settled Col in a chair by the roaring fire. ‘I’m going to run a bath for you. Get you out of those wet clothes.’ She took a step back and looked at him, and the realisation that he’d been running through the storm in his pyjamas and slippers hit her again. ‘Why, son? Why?’

She didn’t wait for his answer. She didn’t want to hear it. She was too aware it had something to do with Mungo. As she left the brothers alone the dark look she shot at her elder son warned him not to make more trouble. Col shivering in the chair. Mungo standing over him. Col couldn’t stop shaking. The cold, the rain, the shock, had all seeped into his bones.

‘Right. You’ve been to the Sampsons. Probably told them everything. Where else have you been, ya wee grass? The cops? You told the cops?’

Col looked up at him. How could he ever tell him what he had just done? Why couldn’t he talk to him the way he used to? Or, had he ever really talked to Mungo? Had he only ever listened – in awe at his exploits? Never questioning, never going against him – until now.

Col’s voice wavered when finally he did speak. ‘I didn’t tell the Sampsons anything. I promise.’

Mungo looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.

‘And the cops?’

Col’s hesitation told him all he needed to know. ‘You grassed me up! My brother grassed me up!’ He looked as if he was ready to take a swipe at him.

Col shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. Nobody could connect you or me with that body. Honest, Mungo … I just made a phone call. An anonymous phone call.’

He saw himself back in the vandalised call box. Dialling 999, telling a snotty-voiced woman there was a body in the loch, deep in the loch, telling her exactly where to find it. Telling her all about Klaus. What his name was, where he came from. Remembering every detail that Klaus had told him that cold night in the air-raid shelter.

Finally, telling her to send him home.

He had refused to answer any of her questions.

‘How do you know about this body?’

‘What is your name?’

None of that mattered, his quivering voice told her. Just get the body out. He wants to go home.

Then he’d hung up.

No mention of Mungo. No way surely of tying his brother to the body in the loch. No way of connecting Col to the phone call.

Klaus would be found. He would be lifted from the dark waters he was so afraid of. He would be sent home to his mother and his sisters. Buried in his homeland.

It was the best he could do for Klaus, and it was the most difficult decision he ever had to take.

He shook himself back from the memory. ‘You won’t be connected to it, Mungo.’ He assured him. ‘But I just couldn’t leave him down there.’

Suddenly, Mungo lifted him by the shoulders. ‘Him? You talk as if you know him personally.’

Mungo’s eyes were exactly the same colour as Col’s, but there was an ice in them that Col hoped he didn’t have. How could he possibly tell him? It was too unbelievable.

‘I know how scared I was in that water, Mungo. I just wanted out. How could I let anybody else rot in there for ever? I couldn’t do it. Not even for you.’

And that, at least, was true. He could never have let Klaus stay down there, lost, alone, unknown, for eternity.

‘You leave Col be!’ Mam bounded back into the room. Col had never heard her so angry. Never heard her so angry at Mungo.

Mungo sprang back, released Col. It had taken him aback too. ‘You don’t know what he’s done, Mam.’

Suddenly, she sprang at Mungo. ‘I know he’s your brother.’

Mungo’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘He’s no brother of mine!’

Mam screamed. ‘He’s a better brother than you deserve. I’ve let you off with too much, Mungo. Just like I let your daddy off. But not any more. I want Col to have a better life. He could have a better life. And I won’t let you ruin it for him.’

She was yelling at the top of her voice so frantically and with such anger that Col started shaking again. But Mungo was angry too. Suddenly, he lifted his hand and—

‘That’s right! Hit me! Just try it!’

Mungo stepped back. Afraid of his own fury. Afraid, too, of his own mother’s anger.

Mam wrapped the warm blanket around Col’s shoulders. ‘Come on, son,’ she said softly. She didn’t look at Mungo. ‘You should never have done what you did to that nice family, Mungo.’ She led Col upstairs, and didn’t answer, didn’t listen as Mungo tried to protest, tried to put all the blame on Col.

She thinks it has something to do with the burglary, Col thought. His mother could never imagine that her son, bad as he was, could ever do anything as evil as murder.

But it would be all right now. Col was sure of it.

It had to be.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Over the next few days the papers were full of the story. The body dragged from the loch. The mysterious, anonymous phone call that led the police to the grim discovery. There were pleas for the caller to come forward, but no mention, no connection to Col, or Mungo, or the McCanns. Col heard it all through a haze, wrapped safely in a cocoon of fever brought on by his night in the storm.

The police didn’t come to the house when they found the body, and Col rested easier after that. No one came for Mungo, and with Klaus identified, he would soon be at rest in his own land. Mungo was safe.

The police still didn’t come.

Col was off school all that week. He and Mungo were barely speaking.

Almost the whole week had passed before the police came.

Four of them. Two in uniform. Two in plain clothes.

Col sat in the kitchen while they questioned his brother in the living room. His heart was thumping wildly inside him.

‘What’s this got to do wi’ me?’ he heard Mungo snarl. ‘You’ve got nothing on me!’

The policeman’s voice was calm. ‘We’d like you to accompany us to the police station, Mr McCann.’

Suddenly, Mungo’s voice was shrill and loud. ‘Mam! Phone my lawyer!’

Mam was in the kitchen with Col, apparently intent on shredding cabbage. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then wiping her hands on her apron she hurried into the living room. ‘I will, son.’

Col got up too, and stood at the kitchen door and watched as Mungo was led from the house. He wanted to run to him, to let him know how much he still loved him, but he was too afraid to move. Mungo turned as he passed him, his eyes ablaze with anger. ‘Satisfied noo, wee man?’ And before Col could say a word Mungo spat in his face. Col reeled back, shocked.

‘I don’t know why you’re mad at your brother, Mr McCann,’ one of the uniformed policemen said. ‘It’s your mates you should be angry with.’

Now Mungo turned on him. ‘What?’

The policeman couldn’t help but look smug. ‘Seems your mates don’t have any loyalty at all. First chance they got they spilled their guts out, making sure you got most of the blame. They’re not going to carry the can for this one.’

Mungo almost leapt at him, but the other policeman held him back.

‘You’re trying to trick me.’ But there was no real conviction in his voice. Mungo was uncertain now. Couldn’t be sure just how much the police knew. He was dragged out of the house, shouting abuse at the police, swearing vengeance at all who had wronged him, including his brother.

‘I’m sorry, Mam,’ Col said, when Mungo had gone. His voice was shaking.

‘It’s not your fault, Col,’ she said. And then, suddenly, her face crumpled and his Mam began to cry. ‘I knew he was a bad lad, but not this … not murder. Not my son.’ She seemed to sag inside her clothes, and Col gently held her and sat with her on the stairs.

‘I’m the one to blame,’ she cried quietly. ‘Letting him off with so much. I knew what he was doing, but I kept thinking … he’ll change. He’ll grow out of it. But he
had bad blood in him. Your dad’s bad blood. I thought if I gave you both a happy home, and love, Mungo wouldn’t turn out the same as his dad.’ She looked at Col through her tear-filled eyes. ‘Your dad had such a horrible upbringing, that’s what made him bad. I tried to change that for him, because I knew he was good, deep down. I thought I could change Mungo too.’