Iceline

by Martyn Taylor

Jill Darling sat and stared at the answer-phone, it could have been worse, but the cold bloodedness of it all disturbed her, she had weighed up Steel in her own mind and somehow this wasn't him. Alright, so he had an explanation and it had better be a good one, but right now she was not convinced that she wanted to hear the words from his own mouth, the length of a telephone line seemed much safer. There was no way she could read his body language over the telephone, or read his face and the transmission of his voice along the wire would alter it subtly, each one on its own would tell her more and together they could swing his case for or against. What the hell was he on about, where was Mary's well and the water of life, that was the English for the Uisghe, then the penny dropped. Mary's well, the literal translation for Tobermory and Robbie would know where the Uisghe could be found, she rang and got his answering machine, cursed the facetious message that told the world he was, supposedly, in the bath. Adding that when he finally got out he might just bother to return the call and hung up without leaving one, knowing that would get right up his nose and grabbed her coat. Dragging on her coat she left the flat; clattered down the steps and headed across town. She let herself in and found him asleep on the settee in the living room with the television playing to itself in the corner. She switched it off and shook him awake. "What, fuck off, leave me alone, go and pester somebody else...oh, Jill, it's you. What do you want?"

  “Charming." She purred sarcastically.

  Robbie sat up. "Sorry Jill I must have dropped off."

  "Hours ago by the look of it, come into the kitchen and have some tea I need to talk to you." She led the way and Robbie followed, then took over and made the tea. She sat down opposite him, this was a cross table talk and that usually meant bother. It was a family thing, arguments were settled and differences thrashed out across the table. She set the mug in front of her and folded her arms, leaning forward she rested her chin on them and looked at him, the slightly upward angle of her eyes revealed more white at the bottom giving them a vulnerable doe like appearance, widening the pupils. She wants something, Robbie thought, she's going for the eyes, full bore, look at me, I'm just a vulnerable little woman and you're a man. He copied her position and stuck out his tongue. "Cut the crap Jill, straight out with it," he said, "Obviously it's important, or you wouldn't be here, so why don't we skip the persuasive little lady bit and assume I said yes."

  She sat up and folded her hands around her mug. "OK, I'll get to the point, or at least, I'll try. Have you heard what happened at the hospital this morning, with that patient they brought in off the hills?"

  "No, been here all day, probably asleep for most of it, why?"

  "Well, the policeman on duty was attacked for his uniform and the man, who stole his uniform tried to get at the patient, you remember him, I asked him about the thing with the diving cylinders."

  "What happened?"

  "He got away."

  "No, not the other guy, the patient."

  Jill said flatly. "The patient got away, now the other man is a patient and he's injured. Nobody is quite sure what happened. The last person to talk to the patient, Steel, was Janet..."

  "MacGregor?" Asked Robbie.

  "Yes, Jan, she said he told her to go and find the duty policeman, she saw what she thought was him coming back down the corridor and thought nothing more of it, only it wasn't. Anyway, the long and short of it is, we found this other fellow with a bullet hole in his earlobe and Janet patching him up, after she'd sorted out the policeman and no sign of our patient. But, I have had a phone call."

  "Well tell the police, for God's sake lass."

  "Wait, I know, but he wants us to meet him."

  "Where, tell me and then we'll tell the police and let them sort out the mess. This is not our business." Robbie leaned forward, taking hold of her arm. "Seriously Jill, this has got to be a police matter. If your man put this other laddie in hospital then how can we trust him?"

  She let her head hang. "I don't know, all I have is a gut feeling that my initial response was right, he's not evil, but has been in the hands of some evil men. Maybe this other man was something to do with that, I don't know, but he's left a message on the machine, he wants to meet us both at Tobermory, where the Uisghe is."

  "It could be any one of the pubs, there's a couple of them at least we could be chasing one another up and down the street all night."

  "No, you're not listening, he said meet where the water of life is at Mary's Well."

  Robbie stared into his tea, as if trying to see the tea leaves through the dark brown liquid. "That's not just a see you in the pub, he must mean the distillery, or somewhere close by." he took a swallow of tea. "As for helping him, I think the best way he can do that is to hand himself over to the police, let them sort it out."

  "He could end up in prison, please come with me. I want to trust him, it could have just sent him over the edge and this may be a one off, even if the man wasn't involved, Steel may have believed he was, because of the thing with the policeman and his uniform." Jill explained.

  Robbie put down his mug and took his cousin's hands in his own. "Jill, you know nothing about him. This is not like you. What stories were you weaving in that head of yours before you found out his name, eh, what was going off in there?"

  Jill dropped her eyes and stared at the table, he was right, she had lost it. The intimate vulnerability of the patient brought in from the mountains beaten and bloodied, had touched something deep and she had felt her professional reserve beginning to crumble. Robbie was right, it had become personal and as he re-emerged as a human being, with his memory in place, the damage healing and still with laughter in his voice, particularly the way he played word games with her name had touched her.

  "I need an honest answer Jill, a very honest answer. No kidding and especially not yourself. Did you fall for him?" Robbie's voice was firm.

  Jill cried, equally firmly. "No… no..." then paused and slumped forward putting her head in her hands, "Oh I don't know. After all the lectures I've given the rest of the team about getting too close and all that, it happened to me."

  Robbie Maclean brushed a strand of his cousin's hair away from her forehead. His voice was soft, full of gentleness and relief. "Darling Jill, It finally happened didn't it, all that starch got creased, the ultimate professional finally realised she was human. What's it like to find the anatomical pump inside your chest is just as much a heart as anybody else? There was no nearly here, you fell."

  "Why do we have to fall Robbie?" She asked. He laughed a deep throaty chuckle and the skin around his eyes wrinkled. "Don't ask me, if I knew the answer to that I wouldn't be working all the hours God sends for the bloody Coastguard."

  "I suppose we're all asking that one, aren't we?"

  The conversation was beginning to drift and Robbie wanted it back on track. "That, is as maybe, but how about we get back to the real business? Discussing the eternal questions will not, I'm afraid, get the pigs in."

  "Yeah, you're right, we can sort out the tangled mess of my internal workings another day.”

  "I hope it doesn't hurt too much." Robbie said, "So, what are we going to do now?"

  "Deep down," Jill said, "I feel I can trust him, that whatever he may, or may not be capable of under normal circumstances, there is something inherently decent about him. I want to trust him; I want to hear his explanation."

  "You could do that over the telephone." Robbie commented.

  "I could, yes, but that wouldn’t give me the whole picture, I need to see, to hear him and get the whole picture, the body language, everything."

  "You could also be putting yourself in danger and even with me around, there may be no guarantee for your safety."

  "What you're really saying is you don't know if you can protect me from him?"

  "I'm not sure I can.” He told her, "You’re determined to go, whether I come or not, the least I can do is be there, either to see your faith in human nature justified, or to pick up the pieces when
you finally discover what a monster he really is."

  Jill Darling leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks, I knew you wouldn't let me down."

  Poor bloody fool, he thought, you never could refuse her anything, this kissing cousin that won't. "Tell you what," he said, "let's go out tonight and grab something to eat, then get a video and chill out before we cross to Mull in the morning. Don't know about you, but I need to sort out a few things at work, put in a couple of leave days, you must have too?"

  "Yes, you're right, trust you to be practical when I'm not." Jill said, quietly embarrassed. Robbie gave a dry snort of laughter. "Makes a change, for once."

  "Right then," she said, snapping back to her usual self, "What time tonight?"

  "Six thirty for seven-ish." He suggested and she nodded her agreement and made to get her coat a moment before she realised that she had never taken it off. "I'll be off then, see you later." and she was gone. Robbie watched her from the front window and let the net curtain drop back before she was out of sight and settled back on the settee. It wasn't long before he was fast asleep again.

  *****

  Chapter Thirteen