by Vince Vogel
“Is that you, Conner?” he said, trying to figure from memory if the size and body shape were the same.
The figure didn’t move and merely stood with his head bowed.
“Where’s Kevin?” Dorring wanted to know.
The mouth smiled at him.
“Whoever you are,” Dorring went on, “you’re going to need something more substantial than that knife.”
The figure came at him again, but he was ready. Dorring used the motion of the other man to move around the thrusting knife blow and swoop underneath the arm. Grabbing it, he thrust upwards. But the figure moved rapidly himself and twisted away from the attempt to break his arm. Pulling back, he managed to evade Dorring. But the ex-MI6 agent was expecting the show of strength. He used it as a distraction. Coming back up with the retracted arm, he swung his knee with everything he had into the figure’s groin. It should have sent him sprawling to his knees. It should have sent his balls into his stomach. But instead, the figure moved not one iota, didn’t even flinch. Dorring glanced up into the face. He could see the mouth and chin. He was smiling.
Dorring leaped back and the two resumed their circling of each other, Dorring’s eyes peeled on his opponent. That was when a nearby gate flew open and an old woman carrying a black bag filled with garbage came strolling out. She jumped when she saw the two, especially when she spotted the knife. The figure turned sharply to her. Then back at Dorring. Then he bolted through the gate she’d come out of, knocking her backwards as he pushed past and making her scream. Dorring went off in pursuit. They dashed through a small garden of patio stones and flowerbeds and into a house. An old man sitting at a table almost threw his newspaper into the ceiling when they ran past. The figure moved through the house and out the front door. Dorring came out after. It was a residential street bordered with terrace houses made of the same gray stone as everything else. The rain was pouring off the black tile roofs and cascading down the fronts. The figure was heading to the end of the road. There, the street was cut off by a road coming across perpendicular. An iron fence ran along it and it was this they ran towards. The other side was a steep bank that led down to a road hugging the edge of the cliffs.
The figure jumped over the fence and disappeared down the bank. Dorring headed to it, but as he reached the road, he had to throw himself suddenly to the side as a car came screeching out of the rain.
Landing on his flank close to the iron railing, Dorring lay gazing through the gaps while the figure reached the end of the bank and ran across the road at the bottom, heading into another alleyway that split the next set of houses.
“You blind or something?” a female voice cried through the rain.
Dorring turned and was surprised to see the woman with the mole. She wore an angered expression as she stood outside her car.
“I asked you a question,” she said.
Dorring gathered himself up off the ground. She was gazing at him sternly, the hood of her jacket down and the rain splashing off of her russet hair, the mole shining like a black hole in the center of her milky skinned cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he was standing before her.
“You’re sorry? I could’ve killed you, ya silly bastard.”
“But no harm was done, right?” Dorring said, wiping the dirt from his jeans.
“No harm!? What if I’d o’ driven off the side here to avoid you? This fence is ancient. It wouldn’t have stopped my car.”
“It wouldn’t have been so bad,” Dorring replied with a note of indifference in his voice. “It’s not a huge drop and maybe then you would have struck the man that’s just tried to kill me.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, frowning through the raindrops. She looked even more beautiful when she was cross. Dorring always found that with women. When they pouted, it was all show. An act. But when they were cross, there was nothing fake about their look. This was them at their core. Reality rather than act. And the reality was that this woman made Dorring’s blood burn.
“What did you just say?” she said.
“It wouldn’t have been so bad,” he repeated.
“No. After that.”
“It’s not a huge drop?”
She became even more irritated and her face bent into a scowl.
“Don’t play games with me,” she growled at him.
“I said that you might have hit the man who tried to kill me.”
“Who the hell just tried to kill you?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say and he wouldn’t lift the hood of his jacket. But he came at me with a knife.”
She ran to the edge of the railing and looked down at the road and the backs of the houses below.
“He’s gone,” Dorring informed her.
She turned to him with narrowed eyes, a look of suspicion mixed with consternation on her face.
“Who?” she asked.
“I never got a good enough look at his face and he was hardly going to leave me his card.”
“Are you willing to come down the police station and make a statement?”
“No.”
“What if I placed you under arrest?”
Dorring looked at her and it was his turn to narrow his eyes.
“You a cop?” he asked.
“Would I offer to arrest you if I wasn’t?”
“I guess not. But I’m still not making any statement. I’m here as a tourist. I merely want to enjoy some rest.”
“Doesn’t sound like rest when you’re being attacked by knife wielding hoodies. That is if there ever was one. I mean, I wasn’t far away and I never saw anyone else. Only saw you at the last second as you came bolting out of Burns Street.”
“Well, maybe you had other things on your mind.”
Her face went red and her eyes bulged.
“I should drag you down the station this minute,” she snarled at him, “and have you charged with recklessly endangering life.”
“For running across a road?”
“Yes.”
They stared at each other for a moment and the tension became thicker than the rain. Dorring found his blood burning even more. There was something wondrous about her taut expression and clenched fists. As though she were trying to hold back her sexuality but was only sharpening it.
“Look,” he said, “I can’t seem to get off on the right foot around here. I seem to simply annoy anyone I come across. Can I offer you my sincere apologies and start again?”
Her look softened as his own did. He looked earnest to her and it was frustrating to feel her anger being ebbed away by his handsome good looks.
Dorring held his hand out and she looked as though she’d rather bite it. Turning furiously, she went back to her car and went to get in. But before she did, she turned to him and said, “What’s your name?”
“Alex Dorring.”
“Well, Alex, you better watch yourself. McGuffin isn’t the nice little island you may think it is.”
With that, she got in the car and he watched as she drove away.
Oh, I know it's not, he said to himself. I certainly know it’s not.
Having retrieved his bag from the alley, Dorring made his way along the streets back to the Mermaid and Anchor. When he walked through the door, he found the place filled to the rafters with fishermen and the walls reverberating with roaring voices and chinking glasses. Mo’s smiling face presented itself from the throng and she sidled her nimble little body through to him.
“I’m all finished, thank God,” she said. “Let the others deal with this rabble. My shift’s over. Where’d you go, anyway?”
“Just for a stroll around the place.”
“See anything worth telling about?”
“Nothing to report. I went to the cemetery on the hill and came back.”
He’d decided not to mention the attack. Not to anyone from now on.
Mo grabbed a fawn colored leather jacket from behind the bar and they left. Around the back of the pub was a mustard colored MG R
oadster—an old British coupe from the 1970s. It was a little rusty and inside was a little dirty, the footwell stuffed with detritus. But when she turned the key in the ignition, the car roared into life with an exuberance that defied its superficial appearance.
“Buckle up,” she said as she dropped it in gear and the car leaped out of the alley and away from the pub.
6
They soon left the cobbled streets and traveled on an asphalt road that snaked along the coastline. Mo drove like a racing driver, changing up and down through the gears as she threw the coupe around the corners, a gleeful smile on her face. The road bent inland and traveled into the island. Now it was all fields of those same plastic tunnels of Gordon’s Heather, the flowers a violet haze passing by the window as they tore down the single lane country road, tall grassy verges on either side that towered over the car. The rain had stopped, but the wet road still offered a hazard. One which Mo appeared unperturbed by as she pushed the car to its limits.
Dorring’s fingers gripped the dashboard. He was wedged into the low seat, his bulk filling almost the whole of the passenger side, and he feared that the car could become a coffin.
“A little fast for you?” Mo said, turning from the road and grinning across the car at him.
“No. I don’t mind fast,” he said. “It’s driving while not looking that does me.”
At that moment, she dashed her eyes back onto the road as a sharp left came up. She swung the steering wheel and changed down through the gears as the car swung around the tight corner, the chicane suddenly turning right and her hands spinning the wheel the other way, the car feeling as though it would come off one set of wheels.
She laughed loudly like a witch, her head tipped back, when the coupe burst from the turns and she went back up through the gears. Dorring's fingers almost ripped a piece of the plastic dash away.
Then her laugh stopped.
“Shit!” she exclaimed.
Dorring saw what she meant. About a hundred yards further along was a police car spread across the road and blocking their way.
“Let me do the talking,” Mo said as she brought the car down through the gears.
“I’ve been letting you do the talking since we met,” Dorring replied and she cocked an eye at him, sticking out her tongue.
Outside the squad car stood a policeman in uniform. Dorring wondered if the woman with the mole had gotten ahold of him and told him to intercept Dorring. He’d soon find out.
Mo pulled the MG up to the cop and he came over to her side. She rolled the window down and he crouched beside the low car so that his face was level with hers. He was a tall, middle aged man with gray hair and a thick black moustache, the hair having aged quicker on his head. His deep set eyes resembled an owl’s, the lids saggy and large bags hanging underneath. It added to his stern demeanor. His thin lipped mouth resembled the gap in a letterbox and he didn’t look pleased to see them.
“Afternoon, Fergus,” Mo said.
“Hello, missy,” he replied. “Where’re y’ off to in such a hurry?”
“I was doin’ my civic duty an’ giving this chap here a lift down to the McPherson cottage. He’s gonna be stayin’ there.”
“Is that so? And who is the wee visitor here?”
He gazed across the car at Dorring, and in turn, the ‘wee visitor’ was busy gazing back at Fergus the cop. The latter leaned against the car, setting his hands down on the edge of Mo’s window. From his position, his waist was close to the window. Dorring could just about see the top of a pistol handle on the side of his hip. This came as a surprise. After all, McGuffin island was in the United Kingdom. And in the U.K., local bobbies on the beat didn’t carry firearms. Only specially trained units, usually in cities and on call, carried them.
“His name’s Alex,” Mo replied. “He’s English. He’s gonna stay at the cottage for a week. Says he wants t’ see the wildlife. Read about us in some magazine.”
“That’s lovely,” the cop said blankly. Flicking two reptilian eyes at Dorring, he asked, “An’ what do you say, lad?”
“Like she said,” Dorring answered calmly, “I’m here for a holiday. Some relaxation. Then at some point I was going to hike the island. Walk every last yard of it.”
He gazed into Fergus’ eyes, looking for a reaction, looking to see if this upset him in any way. A twitch traveled up the cop’s cheek. It looked like it did.
He narrowed his eyes at Dorring and said, “Is tha’ so?”
“It is,” Dorring said. “I’d like to become acquainted with every inch of McGuffin.”
Fergus was looking angry, though he tried to keep his expression as rigid as possible, the letterbox mouth curling slightly at one edge.
“You have any identification, lad?” he asked.
“Now come on, Fergus,” Mo pleaded.
The cop put a hand up to her and she acquiesced. Dorring leaned into the back and he observed that the cop’s hand went to his hip. Dorring paused and glanced sideways at Fergus. The cop’s expression was blank. Dorring gathered that Fergus would have no qualms about shooting him. He wondered if the cop had shot someone before. He had the look of a man who had.
So Dorring was extremely careful with the rest of his movements as he leaned into the back and unzipped his bag. He took his passport and just as carefully leaned back into the front, where he stretched his thick arm over Mo and handed the passport to the hand that came through the gap in the driver’s side window.
Fergus looked inside the document, gazed back at Dorring and then shoved it into his back pocket.
“You can have it back when y’ leave,” he snapped at Dorring. “You won’t need it till then.”
“Now come on, Fergus,” Mo protested. “This isn’t on. He’s a visitor. A tourist, for Christ sake.”
“We don’t need tourism,” Fergus said defiantly. “We don’t need anything.” Then turning to Dorring, he added, “My suggestion to you, lad, is to enjoy your stay an’ keep away from anything that’s nay to do with you. D’ya ken what am sayin’?”
“I don’t think I do ken.”
The cop’s eyes widened and his face erupted into a malevolent scowl. He stood up sharply and hammered his fist down on the coupe’s roof so that the little car shook.
“Get oot the car!” he screamed.
“Come on, Fergus,” Mo objected. “He were only havin’ a laugh.”
“Get oot o’ the fuckin’ car,” Fergus continued.
Mo went to protest further, but Dorring laid a hand on her arm and she desisted. He then opened the door and got out.
“Look,” he said, holding his hands up as the cop came around the car. “We’ve gotten off to a bad start. I was only joking.”
“I’ll tell the bloody jokes ’roun’ here, lad,” the cop grunted as he came before Dorring, who still held his hands up, deeply aware of the sidearm.
Fergus came to Dorring and stared into him. His beady eyes buried in fleshy bags gave off the impression of some humanoid insect. His hand was on the sidearm, a Glock 17. If he drew it, Dorring would whip a fist into his stomach quicker than the hand could raise the weapon. As he’d go sprawling back, Dorring would grab the pistol, get his passport back and then leave.
But he didn’t need to do that.
The cop only wanted to feel that he’d threatened Dorring. Feel that he’d made him scared. He certainly didn’t look up for taking him on in any real capacity. He looked out of shape and stank of cigarettes. Even in the fresh, post-storm country air.
So Dorring stood and tried to look worried by the gun, glancing from time to time at it while the cop glared at him. This, he thought, would give the impression that he was agitated. He wasn’t sure that if he just grinned in the cop’s face—like he’d like to—the little Hitler wouldn’t suddenly decide to start shooting from anger. Then Dorring would probably have to hurt him.
“Just you fucking watch yourself, lad,” Fergus said, laying the bad cop routine on with a shovel. “Enjoy your fuckin
’ holiday an’ stay away from places people tell ya not to go. Watch the fuckin’ birds. Go see the fuckin’ seals out on the eastern bay. Enjoy the salty fuckin’ air. Make fuckin’ daisy chains an’ fuck as many barmaids as you want. But you stay in fuckin’ line, lad. Or me an’ ma pals will hand you to the fishermen for them to use as bait. Understand?”
Dorring nodded. He was trying hard not to laugh. It reminded him of the type of shit drill instructors used to come out with during basic training. Tried to belittle you as much as they could so that they could break you down. Then once you were in pieces, they’d begin the job of building you back up again in their own disciplined image.
Fergus turned on his heels and got in his car. When he was sitting inside and the engine was on, he rolled down the window and said, “Come to the station when you leave. Your passport will be safe an’ sound until then. Mo will tell you where it is. Now stay outta trouble, lad.”
He plunged the car into reverse and did a three point turn before driving away towards town. Dorring swiveled his head to watch him disappear around the grass verge.
“Well, that was intense,” Mo said when Dorring got back into the car.
She started the coupe and drove much more carefully after that. The lack of obvious danger allowed Dorring to think.
There had been no mention of the earlier incident involving the woman with the mole. He was sure that it hadn’t been her that had sent Fergus there. Otherwise the cop would have mentioned the knife wielding maniac. It was clear that he had been waiting for Dorring in particular, but not because of her. And he wasn’t there for speeding cars or had serendipitously happened to be there, either. No. He was waiting specifically for them. So if it wasn’t the woman, then who was it? Conner? He would have been able to tell them that Dorring was with Mo. He could also have easily found out that they were going to meet Mrs. McPherson to retrieve the keys to the cottage. But why? Why was this island so eager to get rid of him? He’d been harassed since he’d stepped foot there. Everyone had given him a hard time except Mo.
