by Unknown
4
Sometimes you surprise yourself. When we drove away from the layby I was trembling with shock. But then I wound down the window and put my face into the slipstream, the cold air racing up my nose and into my lungs and I thought of one thing. I thought about Christophe. I thought about the things he's endured – the human tragedies, the danger, the disaster zones – all the appalling conditions he's confronted (without, incidentally, ever being reduced to tears). The sun floated free of the horizon and warmed my face, and suddenly I felt very close to him. I had the strange feeling that what had happened on Cuagach was going to unite us in some way. By the time we got to Oban I wasn't trembling any more. If anything, I was excited. I was in the middle of something enormously important. No one at the clinic would be able to ignore that for very long.
The seaside town was absolutely silent: aside from the early Mull ferry in the harbour, lit up like a Christmas tree, the only sign of life was the remains of last night's drinking sessions – chip-wrappers blowing along the cobbled street, a seagull tugging at a half-eaten kebab in the gutter. Oakesy parked in a back alley and we all got out of the car, our faces stony and shocked in the early sun. Angeline took a little longer getting out, struggling a bit. I think it was then I realized there was something wrong with her.
Earlier I suppose I must have thought she'd hurt herself on the island and that was why she was sitting strangely. It's amazing that, with all my experience at the clinic, I didn't give it much thought. But now, as we walked to the police station, I studied her out of the corner of my eye and it dawned on me that something was very wrong. She limped slightly, lurching a little, as if her right leg was shorter than the left, and once or twice held her hand up, as if to reach for something to catch her balance, the hem of her coat swaying. She kept up with us – but whenever I slowed down to try to get a glimpse of her from behind she slowed too, so I couldn't see. But I was getting an impression, even out of the corner of my eye, of a strange bulk at the back – looking at her, you'd think she was wearing a bag strapped under her coat.
The police station was in a dark brick building on a main street, and while we waited in Reception for someone to come to the desk, she stood with her back to the wall, arms folded tight round her, eyes darting from side to side as if she expected to be ambushed. The man behind the glass shield was friendly enough until Oakesy told him why we were there. Then his smile froze and the friendliness left him. He looked from Oakesy, to me, to Angeline and back again, as if he was sure we were having him on. 'Wait there,' he muttered, and disappeared for a while. When he reappeared he didn't meet our eyes, but ushered us through a door, down a corridor and into an office, a small stale room at the back of the police station, full of filing cabinets, with chipped mugs on the desk. 'Wait in here,' he said, switching on the light. 'DS Struthers is out on a call, but he's coming back to speak to you. I'm going to get you some coffee.'
We sat in the office waiting for our coffee, none of us speaking. Oakesy spent the time bent over, inspecting his legs, running his fingers down the messy long grazes already scabbing over. I kept watching Angeline. She could hardly keep still she was so nervous: swallowing over and over again and putting her coat sleeve up to dab at the sweat that kept popping out on her forehead. It was strange the way she was sitting, half on her right leg, one hand clutching the seat as if she was sore or something.
After about five minutes a sleepy-looking man in a rather creased suit appeared in the open doorway. We all glanced up at him expectantly, but he didn't say anything, just stood there, studying us all. He was young, probably only about twenty-nine, and slightly overweight (what do they say about the Glaswegians? That they've got a lower life expectancy than the Ethiopians or something?). His hair had been shaved at the back of the neck, with the front all spiked up and the tips bleached yellow.
'I'm DS Callum Struthers,' he said, after a while. 'The desk FSO told me your story and what I'm wondering is ...' He looked from one of us to another, taking us in. '... is it true?'
'It's true.'
'You were out on old Cuagach? The three of you?'
'Just me,' said Oakesy. He nodded to Angeline. 'And her.'
'And what are you going to tell me? You saw the devil of Cuagach? A wee maddarous beastie creeping through the forests?'
Next to me I felt Angeline stiffen. She dropped her face and began to scratch compulsively at her shorn head. Her chest was rising and falling, her mouth moving noiselessly; she was muttering something under her breath as if she was talking herself into not getting up and running away. Oakesy turned to Struthers. He had that heavy, red-eyed look that he gets when he's angry.
'Are you sure your desk sergeant told you what happened?'
Struthers lowered his lids and nodded. 'Aye. But to be fair with you, it's not the first time I've heard this story. People love a good hoax call when it comes to old Cuagach. Human remains washing up on the Craignish Peninsula? I mean, what do they think we are?'
'Don't say that word again.'
'What word?'
'Hoax.'
Oh-oh, I thought, there's going to be another fight. But then Struthers seemed to back off a bit. He came in and sat down, studying Oakesy very carefully for a while.
'Our dispatchers in Govan have got a lad nipping out to Cuagach for a keek at what's happening out there.' He glanced up at the big map on the wall. 'They'll've sent someone out of Lochgilphead and he'll've chartered something out of, I don't know, Ardfern or somewhere, because the launch won't come up from the Clyde, not for a ho—' He paused. 'Not until we know what's happening. So that'll be ...' He sucked in a breath through his teeth and looked at his watch dubiously. 'What? Two hours before we know how the land lies out there?'
'This isn't a hoax. Do we look like teenagers?'
Struthers didn't say anything for a moment or two. Then he opened a filing cabinet and pulled out a folder, kicking the drawer closed. 'Tell you what. Why don't I do the right thing? Get your statements. Get it all clear in our heads.'
Oakesy went first, leaving the room with Struthers, wooden, still containing his anger. Angeline and I were left with some undrinkable coffee in polystyrene cups that the desk sergeant had brought. We didn't speak. She sat opposite me in an uncommunicative huddle. She'd stopped that compulsive scratching and had her hands pressed between her knees. Her closed little face was lowered, but from time to time she looked up at the door as if she expected someone to come running in. I tipped my head forward, resting it on my fingertips so that she wouldn't be able to see me sneaking glances at her. She was all tilted and awkward, as if she was sitting on a large cushion or something. I thought about the way she'd reacted to what Struthers had said and suddenly my heart started to race, my hands sweat. Something incredible – something strange and unbelievable – was in my head. Something about the mass she was carrying around under the coat. Why doesn't she take that coat off? She must be baking in it ...
The video.
A human tail – it sounds like a fantasy, doesn't it? But you as a doctor will know that actually hundreds of children a year are born with tails, it's just that most of them are removed in the first few hours. The sacrococcygeal growth. The vestigial human tail. I'd seen a paper about them in one of the journals at the clinic. There are all these different kinds of human tails, some are haemangiomas – I stared at her with this fixed smile on my face, all the scientific stuff going through my head – and some have something to do with spina bifida. There had been photos in the journal. One was of a little boy in India with a long, skin-covered tube of fat dangling from the bottom of his spine. What was the term they used? Occulta? Spina bifida occulta? But his tail had been quite small in comparison: no bigger than a large worm. So what about something as big as what was on the video?
And then, with Christophe's face in my mind and all these ideas racing around, something else occurred to me. It went click-click-click into place, and I almost smiled. This dreadful thing might have a silver lini
ng, after all. Oakesy was sitting on something big with this story, much better than a feature on the Positive Living Centre. This would be tabloid front-page stuff – the end of our financial troubles. Angeline would give Oakesy everything he needed to know about Malachi. But it wasn't just Oakesy she could help: this was a story Christophe would kill to be involved with. I could just imagine his face, smiling out of the newspaper from Angeline's post-op bedside, maybe holding her hand. And I'd be the one who had found her for him. An excited little itch was starting in the palms of my hands.
I glanced at the door, then sat back, sipping my coffee and smiling at her. My heart was beating, very cool and hard, because I knew Angeline Dove was going to help us. First she'd help Oakesy. And then she'd help me.
5
It didn't take two hours, as Struthers predicted, but just fifty minutes before the news came through from the dispatcher. Then everything changed. In the time it took for Oakesy to give his statement, the station was transformed from a sleepy backwater to a place full of noise: people busying around, carrying forms and bulging folders, phones ringing in distant offices, doors slamming, police radios firing off bursts of white noise. They were supposed to use a courtroom in Lochgilphead, but that was being renovated so they were setting up an incident room here in Oban, in a building that was too small, and by lunchtime there were arguments raging up and down the corridor between the local police officers and the women in the HOLMES team, who'd just arrived from Glasgow with their computer equipment: there weren't enough parking spaces – where in the name of God were they expected to leave their cars? And what? Only one ladies' lavvy? In the whole building? 'And that's got a broken water-heater that'll scald you if ye're not careful.'
For lunch me and Oakesy sat in silence at Struthers's desk and ate supermarket sandwiches, like office workers on a rainy lunch-hour. Angeline couldn't eat. She tried but you could see it was like trying to swallow pebbles. When Struthers came to get her to give her statement she stood, but she was shaking so much they had to call a female officer to come and help her away.
'She's in shock,' Oakesy said. 'Take it easy with her.'
Ten minutes later he was taken off by a detective who said he was the 'senior identification manager'. He needed help in making up a list of missing persons. Well, that took almost two hours during which time guess who was left alone in the office, with nothing to do but read through the Strathclyde Police leaflets from Reception – Loch Safety; What Happens If I'm Arrested?; Cadet Programme: So You Think You're Too Young to Join the Police? – and stare at the area map. Nobody said anything about getting our stuff from the bungalow, no matter how many times I asked, and I didn't have my phone with me to send a text.
'No one's even offered me a cup of tea,' I told Oakesy, when he and Angeline came back to the office. 'Not a thing since lunch. I wouldn't mind a cup of tea.'
At four p.m. an intimidating team of plainclothes men arrived from Dumbarton, silent, grim-looking in their suits. At their helm was the subdivisional chief inspector: a bit older than Christophe, maybe mid-fifties, very thin and austere, the height of a basketball player with the long, serious face of a professor. When he came into Struthers's office he didn't say hello or anything: he went past us to the window, put his nose to the pane and studied the view thoughtfully. I knew what was out there – God knows, I'd had enough time to look out at it: a little parking area behind the station, two marked cars and a row of dustbins. Beyond that the back-street rooftops ... then purplish, heather-pocked hills, deserted and alien.
After a few minutes he closed the blinds, twisting the slats so they met each other neatly and didn't let any daylight through. Then he switched on the fluorescent lights and came to sit down opposite us. He didn't speak for a while, just studied us carefully, one after the other.
'I'm Peter Danso,' he said eventually. 'I'm the police incident commander, which means, for your purposes, I'll be heading up the investigation. I'm sorry it's taken me some time to come and speak to you. There's been a lot to – to deal with.' He leaned over and shook our hands. We all said our names in turn, like children at register time. It was making me nervous, the way he seemed so worried about us. He turned to Oakesy and Angeline. 'I've read your statements and there are a few things I want to say to you both. A lot of issues around your mental welfare and what we can do to support you, of course. But what's on my mind, what I'm here for now, is to discuss your plans.'
'I'm staying,' said Oakesy. 'I'm staying here.'
Danso nodded slowly, taking him in: his scabbed knees and battered hands. The measured look in his eyes. 'You know there's nothing to stop you just getting out of Strathclyde right now? I'm not going to lie, you're crucial to our investigation, and in a perfect world I'd have you stay, both of you.' He looked at Angeline who was staring at the floor, bright red in the face. 'But I want this clear – all I can do is advise you to stay. I can't force you.'
'I know,' Oaksey said. 'I'm staying.'
'OK, OK.' Danso propped an elbow on his desk and scratched his ear uncomfortably. 'Look, I don't need to tell you how serious this is. And reading through your statements just now one or two red flags came up for me that made me want to think carefully about your safety. With the trouble this lass's father is in... well, in my experience it makes him dangerous.' He met Oakesy's eyes and held them. 'Very dangerous indeed. In the next few hours someone'll be thinking about doing an impact assessment and that'll address just how worried we should be ...'
On Danso's belt his phone rang. He checked the display, put it on to answer and looked back up at us.
'We had a vehicle stolen from the car park at Crinian Hotel on Saturday night – at about eleven. Do you know Crinian? It's one of the places boats put in to when they come off the islands.'
'He took the little dory, the one they had at the centre. It was missing.'
'Aye, and my head's telling me the stolen car is just some kids come up from Glasgow, but my ticker's got a mind of its own on the subject. Now, you've got history with him, Mr Oakes. He's already injured you once.'
'Yes.'
'He knows where you live? And he threatened you?'
'Yes.'
Danso sighed and rubbed his temple. He dropped his hand away from his head in Oakesy's direction. 'It's a pity you didn't report it. If you'd reported it at the time we could have—'
'I know, I know. Tell me about it. It's gone through my head about a million times – if I'd told you then, you could've done something about it.'
Danso nodded. He studied Oakesy for a long time without speaking, as if he was trying hard not to say something nasty. My heart was still going fast, thinking about the close call I'd had, but I had a moment's faint satisfaction. I'd begged Oakesy to report it, but would he? It will come back to haunt you, Oakesy.
'Look,' Danso said eventually, 'I'm going to be honest. I don't have a lot of experience with endangerment of witnesses, but...' He pulled out a drawer in the filing cabinet, rummaged a bit and found a folder. He held it up, clearing his throat and giving us an apologetic look. '... Strathclyde Police has got a dedicated witness protection scheme. Sorry to come over like a PR exercise, but we're one of the only forces that has.' He opened it and distributed a set of stapled papers to each of us. I looked at the top page in my lap. 'These are the unit's criteria forms. I think it'd be worth filling them out and sending them down to Headquarters to see what they think.'
Oakesy flipped through the pages, his face tense. Angeline took her copy without meeting Danso's eyes. She read in silence, the paper in her lap, her hands up to her face.
'It's not going to happen overnight. Even if it comes back from Pitt Street with a tick in the box it's still going to take time to process, so in the meantime my lads back in Dumbarton have been calling the locals to find somewhere safe for you. They've come up with a place – on my home patch, as it happens. My feeling is, it'll be better than anything the witness team can offer you.'
'A safe-house?' I said. 'Is
that what you mean? A safe-house?'
Danso looked up at me and smiled. His face was suddenly pleasant, not austere any more. 'Hen, if you want to call it that then be my guest. I hope you won't be disappointed. It's a property we use for visiting police officers. It used to be a hidey-hole for victims to give their evidence. Vulnerable victims, if you're with me: racial harassment, child abuse, rape.' He let that sink in. 'Put it this way, it's not the Hilton.'
'All my things are still at the bungalow. He knows the address.'
'We've got someone out there already, having a look round. When we've cleared it we can pick your stuff up.'
'Or this could be a good time for you to go and see your mum, Lex?' Oakesy said, turning to me. 'This is going to be over in a few days and then I'll drive down and get you. We'll take her to that tapas place she likes and—'
'No. That's OK – I'll stay. I'll come to the safe-house.'
'I think you'd be better off—'
'I mean it,' I said, cutting him off. 'I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying with you. And ...' I leaned over and put my hand on Angeline's arm. She dropped her hands from her face in surprise at the touch and stared down at my fingers, white and clean-looking, the nails quite pink and nice next to her earth-stained skin. '... and you must come with us too,' I said. 'You really must. You need to be with someone who can care for you.'
6
Angeline's mother, it turned out, had been dead for two years. Angeline had been on the island all her life and she had no contact with friends or relatives on the mainland. There was nowhere else for her to go. Danso said, 'Look, hen, a doctor can examine you if you want, see if you need any psychiatric care or medical attention.' Here, he glanced vaguely down at her hips, then back at her hair, which looked, I agreed with him, diseased. But for all his offers she just stared ahead of her, occasionally looking warily at him and grunting an answer. It was only after about ten minutes that she spoke. 'Him,' she said stiffly, nodding at Oakesy. 'I want to go with him.'
