Requiem

by Clare Francis

  There was the flicker of a match and the glow of a cigarette, and the low murmur of voices.

  It was now or never. Gripping the shotgun, aware of a quite ridiculous fear which had somehow turned to elation, with his heart exploding against his ribs, Nick stood upright and walked steadily towards them. He felt amazingly conspicuous: they must see him, must hear him at any moment, but by some miracle no shout came, no challenge; there was only the glowing cigarette end and the suggestion of two shadows in the darkness. With only a few steps left, he was overcome by a bizarre sense of unreality – was he really going through with this?

  Suddenly they saw him. There was a sharp exclamation, a loud oath, and the two men jumped apart. One of them dropped into a crouch, as if to make a run for it.

  ‘Stop or I shoot!’ Nick heard his voice come out of the distance, as if it belonged to someone else. Had he really said that? It sounded like something out of a B-Western. They made no move. Then the one who’d been crouching straightened up slowly. There was a long electric pause. Nick tried to make out their faces, but it was too dark. What did one say next?

  He began: ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  One of them, the much taller of the two, relaxed his stance. There was something insolent in the gesture, as if he no longer considered himself at risk. That was it, of course: the fellow had realized that, far from facing the dreaded Duncan, who never had any compunction about peppering poachers’ backsides with shot, he was dealing with an altogether softer opponent.

  Nick held the gun higher to be sure the tall man could see it. ‘Who are you?’

  The man gave a grunt which was almost a laugh. ‘I’d say that’s for me to know an’ you to find out.’

  Nick’s anger rose over him like a hot sea. ‘I wouldn’t take that attitude, if I were you.’

  ‘No?’ The man sounded unconvinced. ‘What attitude should I take with a weapon pointin’ at me? Intendin’ murder, are you?’

  ‘Why not – you’re murdering the river!’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a river bein’ murdered. It doesna’ look dead to me.’ He was sounding very sure of himself now.

  ‘But it soon bloody well will be. Then you’ll have a chance to see what it looks like – when it’s too bloody late!’

  ‘Och well. Somethin’ to see then.’

  ‘You don’t give a shit, do you?’

  ‘I wouldna’ say that,’ came the cool reply. ‘But then, why should I? An’ then again, why should you? They say you’re rich enough, eh?’

  ‘What the hell’s that got to do with it?’ Nick’s wrath wasn’t helped by the realization that the tall man knew exactly who he was.

  The man pushed his head forward and spoke in fierce virtuous tones. ‘You come in here, you buy up the place an’ you think you own the entire country. You’ve no knowledge of our ways, no notion of our customs – ’

  ‘Your customs! You call years of wholesale poaching a custom! Christ – ’

  ‘No notion – ’

  ‘It’s you who’s got no notion, chum. The world won’t put up with your sort any longer. Perhaps you haven’t heard of conservation up here, but believe me the rest of the world has.’ Nick waved the gun in a vaguely southerly direction.

  ‘The rest of the world? Och, I beg your pardon.’ The voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘It’s in the name of conservation, is it, that your friends come up from London in their grand cars an’ lord it over the place an’ boast how they caught a salmon all by theirselves, eh? It’s in the name of con-ser-vation’ – he drew out the syllables scornfully – ‘that we have to put up with your kind tellin’ us what to do, is it?’

  ‘There’s been no fishing on this river for three years,’ Nick cried in exasperation. ‘And there’ll be no fishing for years to come either – not while you go on draining the bloody river dry.’

  ‘No fishin’, eh? Is that a fact?’ The voice was both mocking and uncompromising. ‘The folks round here will believe that when they see it. Let me tell you’ – he raised a hand and Nick took a step backwards, momentarily misreading the gesture in the darkness – ‘we’ve been comin’ to this river for longer than any of us can remember. It’s our right. We’re not about to stop, not for the wild ideas of some loony pop star.’

  Trembling with rage, Nick heard himself snap hotly: ‘Songwriter.’ No sooner said than regretted: what a time for accuracy.

  A bow. ‘Och, I beg your pardon.’

  Nick flushed in the darkness, and let his anger carry him forward again. ‘As for wild ideas, Christ, you can talk. You can’t see any farther than the next easy buck. You don’t give a damn about what happens to the river – ’

  ‘That we do!’ the rough voice interjected, sounding injured. ‘We want the fish back. It’s not been good for us – ’

  ‘But they’re not your fish!’ Nick cried.

  ‘An’ what makes you think they’re yours?’

  ‘Damn it, they are mine!’

  The other man didn’t reply and Nick had the impression he was pulling a contemptuous face, even a laughing one.

  Nick rushed on: ‘Not good for you – God, you’ve a bloody nerve. If we’re going to talk money, how much do you make a night, eh? Three hundred, five hundred? Who’s the rich guy, then, eh?’

  The comparison was a mistake, Nick knew it as soon as he said it. But the tall man wasn’t about to bother with words, not when action would do, not when Nick had forgotten all about the gun and let the barrel drop. He came for the gun with a speed and confidence that caught Nick totally offguard. Grabbing the barrel, he drove his body against Nick’s and carried him backwards until Nick staggered, fighting for balance.

  Finding his feet again, Nick held grimly on to the gun. But the tall man had the better grip and the better leverage, and as they grappled Nick could feel the weapon being slowly wrenched from his grasp. In his blind determination to hold on to the weapon, it was a moment before the vital realization seeped dimly into his brain. The gun wasn’t loaded, so why the hell was he battling for it? Even then it took a conscious effort to overcome the instinctive urge to clutch on to it at all costs, and let go.

  He was an instant too late. Just as he released his fingers, a powerful blow hit the back of his knees, knocking his legs from under him. He had the sensation of falling, then a jarring explosion came up and hit the side of his head and his brain was filled with flashes of brilliant light.

  He had no sense of time when he woke. It took him a long while to remember where he was and why he was there. His head hurt with the sort of intense dagger-like pain that he remembered from spectacular bicycle crashes in his youth.

  By screwing open one eye he registered the fact that the surface of the pool was reflecting the grey light of dawn. By swivelling the eye very carefully – he wasn’t about to move his head, not yet anyway – he saw that the pool was deserted. The men had gone, and the net, and with them what would inevitably be a ruinous number of salmon.

  His pride hurt almost as much as his skull. As a victim, he had been a gift. The tall man was probably laughing at this very moment.

  The daggers began stabbing at his skull in earnest. He concentrated on feeling sorry for himself, an emotion he felt he richly deserved. He pulled his jacket closer round his neck and dimly registered the fact that something else had been placed over him, a coat of some sort. The coverings didn’t prevent the cold from seeping up through the ground into his body, nor the sharp lump of rock from digging into the small of his back. But despite these aggravations, he no sooner closed his eyes than he fell into a heavy drug-like sleep.

  Duggan was not at his best in the mornings, and certainly not when forced to get up at such an ungodly hour. It was four thirty when the alarm went off, and it was only the recollection of his precarious financial position that persuaded him to sit up and face the ugly little room with its single overhead light. He felt rotten. Having heard the favourable weather forecast the previous evening he’d been careful to
keep off the booze – even in his most despondent moments, and there were all too many of those, he wasn’t so stupid as to risk his licence – but he’d been hitting it hard earlier in the week, and for some obscure reason the hangover seemed to have caught up with him a few days late.

  It took him ten minutes to dress, run an electric razor over his face and get downstairs. The landlady had said she would leave some food out for him and he peered expectantly into the darkened dining room, hoping for a pile of bacon sandwiches and a flask of coffee, but the shaft of light from the hall revealed a loaf of Mother’s Pride, a pot of garish yellow margarine and a jar of runny marmalade. With weary resignation he slapped a sandwich together and went out to the car.

  It was a ten-minute drive to the airfield. Automatically Duggan cast an eye at the dawn sky. No cloud, very little wind. He breathed a prayer of thanks. It was high time the weather went his way. He was paid piece rate – no flying, no money – although Acorn Flying Services Ltd did provide what was laughingly called a bad-weather retainer, a derisory sum that barely covered the cost of beer.

  As he drove alongside the field he saw that the mechanic had got the generator and the two floodlights going, and was already poking around inside the Porter’s engine. Outside the Portakabin which served as the local office of Acorn Flying Services (AFS) Ltd, Duggan was surprised to see a smart BMW, very shiny and very black. He could think of only one person who might have such a flash wagon, and when he had parked and stomped into the cabin his suspicions were confirmed.

  Keen was at the table, poring over some papers. He was the executive director of AFS Ltd. According to the company’s letterhead there were two other directors, who were so non-executive as to be invisible. At least Duggan had never met them, and he’d been here about three times as long as was good for him. But then Keen wasn’t exactly a familiar face either; Duggan had seen him only once before when Keen had interviewed him at what was glowingly referred to as company head office – a couple of rooms in the converted stables of a country house north of Glasgow. During the interview Keen had spent all his time rattling orders down the phone to what appeared to be a host of operational offices at airfields all over Scotland. It was only later that Duggan had heard the rumours, which like all worrying gossip had proved to be absolutely true, that AFS was down to two aircraft, both of which were leased on short-term contracts, and, until the recent upsurge in business, had had severe financial problems. The mention of financial difficulties had made Duggan nervous – he had quite enough of his own, thank you very much – but as long as the pay cheques kept coming through on time, then it was no concern of his.

  Keen acknowledged him with a brusque nod and a frown at his gold Rolex. ‘About time. Here – ’ He tapped the chart spread out on the table. ‘We’ve got a lot to cover today. Got to make up for all the bloody weather. Take-off at six, preferably sooner. First job is the Drunour Estate. Three hundred acres of pine.’ His finger stabbed a red-ringed area on the chart.

  ‘What about the schedule? I thought – ’

  ‘No, Drunour first,’ Keen interrupted testily and without explanation. ‘Then we’ll go back to the schedule.’ He flicked through the typed sheets. ‘Yes – job number 563 next. Then 568 if there’s time.’

  Duggan glanced over the job sheets and knew without making calculations that the three jobs would take him well over his official flying time, but made no comment. He needed the money too badly.

  ‘No,’ came Keen’s voice. ‘Forget that last one. We’ll wind up with a little job by Loch Fyne.’

  Duggan liked the way Keen talked about ‘we’, as if he himself was going to be up there all day, sweating it out in the poky cockpit of the Porter. Keen was red-pencilling a block of forest on the north side of Loch Fyne. Duggan cast an eye over it. A little job it was not. A hundred and fifty acres at least, and bloody hilly. Could be tricky. And tricky or not, he’d be lucky to get it finished that night. He glanced at the schedule: the job wasn’t even typed up.

  ‘It’s not typed up,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll write a job card now,’ Keen said heavily.

  ‘I won’t have time to recce the site. And what about placing the Hi-Fix?’ The electronic spray guidance system required two black box transmitters to be placed on high ground so as to give cross-bearings over the target area and thence, by means of a decoder in the cockpit, to guide the plane along corridors of precisely the right angle and width. Normally the black boxes were put in position by the second member of the ground crew, a singularly brainless oaf named Reggie.

  Keen said with elaborate forbearance: ‘You can do it on reciprocals, can’t you?’

  It wasn’t worth arguing. Things had been hectic for weeks, ever since the panic about this new bug or moth or whatever it was that was gobbling up all the local forests. Duggan said: ‘Allow me an extra fifteen minutes’ flying time then.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes?’ Keen threw him a pitying glance. ‘I thought you ex-fighter boys could do it backwards with your mind in neutral.’ Duggan ignored this; he was used to facetious remarks from small-time flyers like Keen.

  ‘What about the notifications?’ he asked.

  ‘I had assumed that Jeannie could just about manage that,’ Keen said with heavy sarcasm.

  Jeannie, who would drift in later, constituted the complete staff of the Portakabin office. Normally she sent the prior notifications to the local police, the local Health and Safety Executive and the properties adjacent to the spraying area by post a good couple of weeks before the expected spraying date, although in all the recent rush Duggan knew she had got behind. How she would cope with the need to leap into sudden and urgent action remained to be seen; even by local standards she wasn’t exactly dynamite on the telephone.

  Keen scribbled on the job card then, muttering something about going to see Davie the mechanic, hurried out of the Portakabin, leaving Duggan to ponder on the reason for his master’s unexpected visit. Money troubles, probably: he had the look about him. Duggan should know; he saw a man with money troubles in the mirror every morning. He made a mental note to ask for his next week’s money in cash.

  Lighting another cigarette, Duggan settled down to look through the job descriptions and match them against the Ordnance Survey maps. The idea of double checking was to try to get the details right, details like spraying the correct forest, which was always a good start. Only a month before, he’d drenched a large corner of Forestry Commission land by mistake. Then, just last week, he’d showered a flock of sheep in a field that shouldn’t have been there.

  The sheep episode had refused to leave his mind, not because it was the first time such a thing had happened – it wasn’t: cattle, sheep, horses, he’d given them all a dusting in his time – but because of the small dot of colour that had imprinted itself on the periphery of his memory – a dot glimpsed before it vanished under the wing, a dot that wasn’t in the slightest sheep-like, a dot that should not under any reasonable circumstances have been there.

  He got up to make a coffee and drank it with his fourth cigarette of the morning.

  He reckoned up the flying time for the day. Even if he cut short his lunch break to the bare minimum, he’d be hard-pressed to finish all the jobs before nine that evening, uncomfortably close to twilight, and so far over his permitted flying time that it wasn’t worth calculating.

  As he glanced through the job card Keen had just scribbled, something caught his eye. It was the specification for the Loch Fyne job, a new chemical Keen had sent them out of the blue the week before, something which Jeannie had been writing up as ZXP, but which Duggan, congenitally allergic to technicalia, referred to as the new gunk. Duggan saw that Keen had used what must be the full name: Silveron ZXP.

  The question was, would it be compatible with the old gunk they were using during the first half of the day? If not, they’d have to flush out the tanks, which would waste valuable time. He supposed he should ask Keen, since he seemed to be the only one who knew anythin
g about the Loch Fyne job, but when Keen reappeared he was in a flap to get the show on the road and Duggan, not taking kindly to being goaded along, wasn’t in the mood to ask.

  In fact, what with having to fold an unusual number of charts and failing to find an aspirin for his growing headache and having to put up with Keen breathing down his neck and, most irritating of all, discovering that there was only one Mars Bar left in the box under Jeannie’s desk, Duggan’s temper was at rock bottom. And the day had only just begun.

  At the edge of the forest Nick leaned against a tree and recovered his breath. Gingerly, he fingered the lump on his head and hoped it wasn’t going to show. It would be better not to get embroiled in explanations. Alusha wouldn’t understand. She’d give him that sideways look of hers, the one that asked him how he could have been such a fool, and he wouldn’t be able to give her much of an answer.

  It’d been hopelessly naive of him to think he could have a discussion, even an angry one, with a man in the act of breaking the law. And quoting conservation at him, that had been pie in the sky. The tall man was as likely to think green as to donate salmon to the poor and needy. As for the idea that everyone was going to stick to the quaint rules of conduct which required villains to turn and bolt – well, that cosy little myth looked pretty stupid now.

  It wasn’t the only myth looking shaky in the first light of day. He’d harboured this ridiculous idea that nothing unpleasant would ever happen at Ashard, that by settling his mind to it, by putting all his energies and emotions into the place, Ashard could become exactly what he wanted it to be – beautiful, flawless, safe. Now, with the night still fresh in his mind, nothing felt too safe any more, and some of the old bitterness and guilt come sourly into his mouth, and he remembered the suppressed rage that had haunted him when he and Alusha first left New York.

  Yet, even as he looked out over the enormous panorama before him, he felt the place begin to work its old magic again. Light was expanding over the eastern hills in a brilliant show of gold and yellow that radiated into the tall blue dome of sky above the loch. The water itself was hidden under a thin grey mist, its surface dusted with gold as it caught the early light. There was a wonderful stillness to the air, broken only by birdsong and a sort of vibrant whisper, like the sound of the earth coming awake.