The Sound of Whales (19 page)

It was Fraser, suddenly bursting into life, who broke the trance.

‘I need to go.'

He took off running down the road towards the boat and Hayley chased after him.

‘Is Jonah still in the castle?' she called.

‘It's got nothing to do with you.'

‘Is he still in the castle?'

‘No.'

‘Where is he, then?'

‘He's on Ben's boat.' They skidded to a halt at the top of the jetty. ‘But it's fine, see. You're all talking nonsense.'

They took three steps down the stone wall and there was the sound of a clanking engine and water stirred beneath the hull.

‘Och, no,' Fraser said as he began to run down the jetty. Hayley called his name but he didn't stop, sprinting down the old stones as the boat slowly pulled itself away from the harbour wall. ‘Ben,' he shouted, ‘Ben!'

He arrived at the spot on the jetty where the boat had been moored, seemed to calculate the gap between the wall and the starboard gunwale, was about to make the jump when his legs betrayed him and he checked himself on the very edge of the wall. ‘Ben,' he cried once more. ‘Wait!'

Inside the wheelhouse Hayley could see Ben McCaig turning the wheel, curving the boat around to face the harbour opening. The man refused to look in their direction, even though he must have heard the shout. The boat completed its turn and made for the gap in the harbour wall.

‘Where's Jonah?' Hayley asked.

‘He's on the boat. Ben was supposed to take him to the mainland today.'

They watched the vessel glide slowly between the harbour walls and touch the open sea.

‘Maybe that's what he's doing.'

‘I don't think so. Why would he leave me here?'

Hayley watched the boat sail lazily into a calm sea. Ben McCaig seemed in no hurry to do whatever it was he planned to do. The throttle of the boat was only at quarter speed, he could have been circling and searching for whales.

So that was that. They had failed in their attempts to save Jonah. The adventure was over; no more sneaking around, no more annoying Scottish boys, no more caves or whales or hungry fugitives. And then she saw movement at the back of Ben's boat and knew that she wasn't quite done yet with her Scottish adventure.

At the stern of the boat, from beneath a pile of old lobster creels, there emerged an instantly recognizable shock of fine, white hair.

Fraser opened his mouth to speak or shout or scream but all that came out was, ‘I hate my brother.'

CHAPTER 33

A
s the boat sailed away from the harbour Fraser felt tears well up beneath his eyelids, a soup of anger and frustration and despair that threatened to spill down his cheeks and add embarrassment to the pot.

‘What do we do now?' Hayley asked.

‘Dunny can sort out his own mess for once.'

‘It would be nice if he could, but I don't think he can.'

‘It can't be me, not every time.'

‘You're his brother.'

‘I resign the position.'

Hayley gave a sympathetic laugh. ‘It's a lifetime appointment.'

Fraser nodded wearily.

‘We should tell your dad,' she said.

The boy stood in silence, watched the boat sail further up the sound, still chugging gently at a leisurely pace. ‘No,' he said.

‘Mr Wallace, then. Ben has kidnapped Dunny.'

‘No, he hasn't. And we can't.' He looked back up the road to where Mr Wallace and Sarah Risso stood. ‘They don't know that Jonah's aboard. All they saw was Ben going for a sail and that's his usual Monday morning routine. If we tell anyone, Jonah is doomed.'

‘He's doomed anyway. We don't even know where Ben is taking him.'

‘No place he wants to go.'

‘And what about your brother?'

‘If he sneaked on, he can sneak off again.'

‘You hope.'

‘If Dunny has stowed away, it's for a reason.'

And as Fraser stood there he thought of his brother wandering the beach and clifftop, how he grabbed Ben's arm by the dead whale, how he wrote on shells and tossed them into the sea, how he watched from castle windows. Dunny was everywhere. And yesterday's scene on the cliff path had been his brother trying to warn him. Dunny knew everything.

Now Dunny wanted to help Jonah. And the only way to do that was by stopping the boat.

Fraser moved down the jetty to where it met the sand, jumped down on to the familiar stretch of beach. The boat was ahead but it wasn't gaining ground, as if reluctant to leave the shelter of the island.

‘What are we doing?' Hayley asked, running after him.

‘Why do you care?'

‘I said I'm sorry, OK. I would like to help.'

Fraser pondered for a moment, thought he would give her a taste of her own medicine. He raised a hand, palm out. ‘Whatever.'

She didn't seem amused. ‘So what are we doing?'

‘We're following the boat.'

‘It's heading out to sea. I'm done swimming out there.'

Fraser looked back. ‘Everyone is done with that. The boat is sticking close to the coast. Dunny's going to stop it.'

‘How can Dunny stop a boat?' Hayley asked, walking fast beside him.

‘He's a creative boy, he'll think of something.'

‘Then what?

‘Then we undertake a daring rescue.'

‘Of course, because we're Navy SEALs and there's our mini-sub just offshore.'

‘I'm ignoring your sarcasm. We do have a boat, remember. The dinghy.'

‘Didn't that sink?'

‘It washed ashore. I know where it is.'

‘So what's the plan?' Hayley asked.

‘It's not quite finalized.'

‘But it starts with Dunny stopping the boat.'

‘That's the tricky part.'

‘You think.'

There were ways of doing it, of course: sabotage the engine, snap the rudder, let the anchor drag. His brother certainly wasn't going to tackle Ben by himself but if Dunny could free Jonah, the African could deal with Ben McCaig.

Fraser looked along the shore to where the
Moby Dick
had made a little distance on them. Its course was beginning to veer away towards the deeper ocean and Fraser knew if something was to happen, it had to happen now. Ben was taking Jonah to a rendezvous with dangerous people and his wee brother was hidden in the stern and sailing closer to trouble with every turn of the propeller.

What could Dunny possibly do? What could any of them do really?

Further out to sea, in front and to the side of the boat, the ocean darkened, almost imperceptibly at first, like the shadow of a high cloud moving over the water.

The shadow became a ripple, an undulation that sparkled as if glitter floated on the surface.

The ripple became foam, a bubbling of the sea, and the bubbling became a rising of water, the ocean doming as if giant hands were cupped beneath the surface and lifting up a torrent of water.

From deep below there appeared a dark shape, a blackness against the brightness of the sun-skimmed sea.

The noise came first, a surging blast like the roar of a mighty waterfall, and the dark shape lifted itself above the surface to reveal the black, barnacle-encrusted head of a whale. And the whale kept coming. First its head, then its massive body, with two long fins that projected like wings, and up it rose, its body tapering down to the colossal tail fluke, and even that lifted clear of the ocean. For an instant the whale took flight, as if suspended in mid-air, the fins ready to flap and carry the whale high into the sky, riding the thermals towards a faraway turquoise sea.

The whale twisted slightly and fell back on to the ocean, the concussive slap of blubber on water sending spray in all directions.

‘That's a humpback,' Fraser said in disbelief.

It was beyond belief: a humpback whale breaching offshore of Nin. He looked at Hayley, who was staring, mouth open, at the black silhouette that floated on the ocean now. The whale released a blast of spume from its blowhole as if to confirm that it was real, not imagined.

Fraser saw that the boat had stopped, the pistons of the engine dying. Ben McCaig might be involved in criminal enterprise but he was first and foremost a whale scientist. A breaching humpback whale would stop him dead in his tracks.

Dunny had stopped the boat in the most spectacular way imaginable.

CHAPTER 34

W
hen she could get her lips and tongue to work, all Hayley could muster was a stunned, ‘Oh, my God'.

Now she had truly seen it all. For the briefest of moments a giant whale had flown. The lobster boat sat motionless beside the black back of the whale as it blew vapour from its hole with a percussive whoosh.

‘What is that?' she asked.

‘It's a humpback,' Fraser said again. ‘Those fins are like no other whale's.'

‘It
 . . . 
it
 . . .
' Hayley could think of no other way to phrase it. ‘It jumped from the water.'

‘It's called breaching,' Fraser said quietly. ‘It's impossible.'

‘I definitely saw a flying whale.'

‘It's impossible for it to be here, in these waters.' Fraser pointed at the whale. ‘It's just impossible.'

‘Well, it's happened. So what now?'

Fraser dragged his thoughts away from the whale. ‘We go get Jonah. We can use the dinghy.'

‘We'll never reach the boat, not when it starts moving again.'

‘I don't think it will.'

‘The whale won't stay there for ever.'

‘I think it might. It will stay if Dunny asks it to.'

He moved on and Hayley followed, past the bluff, past the caves. The shore became rockier. Fraser cut left, moving towards the top of the beach and Hayley saw the grey dinghy a little further up on the sand. She stopped for breath, looked out towards the ocean and saw the boat just offshore, the whale beside it, barely moving, staying on the far side. The animal was big, longer than the boat, its black body sleek like a submarine. Fraser appeared beside her, dragging the dinghy.

‘We haven't any oars,' he said.

‘Why is the whale still here, Fraser?'

‘We'll have to find some driftwood.'

‘What's going on?'

‘We're going to row out to Ben's boat and rescue Jonah.'

She grabbed the boy's arm and forced him to look at her. ‘Why is that big whale swimming beside the boat, Fraser? And why is it Dunny's doing?'

Fraser smiled and said, ‘You wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

‘Try me.'

‘Dunny is a
gairmie
.' He paused, as if that was sufficient. Her frustrated frown showed that it wasn't. ‘A
gairmie
is a boy with
 . . .
' Another pause. ‘With an unusual talent. A very unusual talent. Unbelievably unusual, in fact.'

‘Tell me!'

‘Dunny can summon whales.'

‘What?' Hayley practically spat the word.

‘He can summon whales; in Gaelic that's what
gairmie
means, a summoner. He calls whales and whales come.'

‘Don't be ridiculous.'

‘I said you wouldn't believe me.'

‘Can you blame me?'

‘Well, that's what he is, he's a
gairmie
.'

Hayley repeated the word, rolled the ‘r' like Fraser had done. ‘So how does he do it?'

Fraser shrugged. ‘I haven't a clue.'

‘Does he blow a whistle? Use a seashell as a trumpet?'

The boy laughed. ‘It's nothing like that. He communicates with them. I've seen it happen, though at the time I didn't realize that was what he was doing. He kind of sings sometimes.'

Hayley remembered that first night on the clifftop. ‘I've heard him sing. It scared me.'

Her gaze returned to the small boat and its leviathan neighbour. She could pick out the figure of Ben at the bow.

‘There's Ben,' she said.

‘I see him. I think he's taking photographs.'

‘Can you see Dunny?'

‘No. He's hiding, waiting for us.'

Hayley reached into her pocket. ‘I think your brother left this.' She held out a long, thin razor shell. ‘It was lying on the harbour wall. You nearly stood on it.'

‘Toss it.'

‘It's one of Dunny's tell shells. It has a message.'

‘Not interested.'

‘At least read it.'

Fraser sighed and snatched the shell from Hayley's hand, read it quickly, then read it aloud.

‘
Will help
.' He scoffed. ‘The usual riddles.' He dropped it on the sand and stood on it. It broke with a crack.

‘Fraser! That might have been important.'

‘If anyone could understand it.'

‘It could have been a message for Jonah.'

‘Well, if it was, he never got it. Come on.'

Fraser lifted the heavy dinghy and pulled it with difficulty down the sand. He searched the beach as he moved and eventually hoisted a long, twisted piece of wood into the air and then a second, holding them triumphantly aloft. ‘Oars!'

Hayley helped Fraser drag the dinghy across the sand towards the water's edge.

‘We shouldn't do this,' she said, feeling the swash of an incoming wave surge around her feet. ‘My mom can sort it out.'

‘If we do that, then Jonah is sent back to Africa.'

‘My mom said maybe not. Anyway, Africa is his home. We're not responsible for him.'

‘I am. I made him a promise.'

Fraser dropped the dinghy and it splashed on to the rim of the ocean. He threw the two pieces of driftwood inside and turned to Hayley.

‘Are you coming?'

The girl searched the sea and then the sky. The air was calm, the water had only the gentlest motion when a wave rolled slowly to shore. The sun even had warmth to it, its light dappling the water and making it almost inviting.

‘You couldn't ask for a better day for a boat trip,' Fraser added.

Hayley sighed, knowing once more she had followed this Scottish boy to the place where trouble met the sea. She sighed also because there had never been more fun and adventure in her life, and the more fun and adventure she experienced the harder it would be to leave this place. Skulavaig was never supposed to grow on her, this Scottish boy was never
ever
supposed to grow on her.

‘I hate you, Fraser Dunbar,' she said, climbing into the boat.

‘Good,' the boy replied with a smile. ‘I'm not very fond of you either.'

He pushed the dinghy out into the water until the sea was up to his thighs, then he rolled in. The small craft wobbled and Hayley gripped on to the rubber while holding on to the boy. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and lifted a piece of driftwood.

‘It's not bladed like an oar but it will have to do.'

He gave the wood to Hayley and took the other piece for himself. Hayley watched him place the makeshift oar through a hoop on the side of the dinghy and dunk the end into the water. He pulled on the wood and the vessel moved forward slightly and to the left.

‘You need to do the other side,' he said.

Hayley dipped her piece of wood into the water and tried to copy Fraser's movement. They inched away from the beach, the only sounds the slap of gnarled wood on water and in the distance the blow of air from the humpback whale as it rested beside the lobster boat.

It took a few minutes of splashing and bobbing and turning the wrong way but eventually Hayley and Fraser found a rhythm and a stroke that propelled them forward and in the right direction across the tranquil water. The whale floated on the other side of the boat, as if it had seen them coming and didn't want anyone else to know.

‘So Dunny sings to whales,' Hayley whispered, afraid her voice would carry across the water.

‘I think he talks to them.'

Fraser pulled on his makeshift oar. Hayley pulled. They both pulled. Wood through water. And again.

‘Dunny doesn't talk.'

‘Not all talking needs words.'

‘Is he
 . . . 
telepathic with whales?'

Fraser gave a half-shrug. ‘Aye, I guess that's the word. Something like that.'

‘But how do the whales understand what he's thinking?'

Fraser gave a small laugh. ‘More to the point, how does he understand them?'

They kept pulling on their driftwood and the boat grew closer. Hayley looked down into the water. It was dark and deep and she was amazed to think that they had been swimming here, all three of them, in the cold and the wind and the night. Four of them, in fact, for Jonah had swum out to rescue Fraser. She pulled a little harder on her oar, thinking of the African facing a return to the place where his journey began. She thought about her own return to Texas and wondered if perhaps she wanted to stay just as badly as Jonah.

When she next looked up they were at the lobster boat.