Follow the Dead

by Lin Anderson

  ‘I don’t want you to do that,’ McNab had swiftly said.

  ‘It’s the best way to distract whoever is on the bridge. And they’ll assume that I’m alone.’

  What she said was true, but that didn’t make it right.

  Seeing his discomfort, Isla added, ‘We have to get those kids off the boat before it reaches its destination.’

  McNab ran the plan over in his mind. They must know that both he and Isla had escaped their prisons by now, but there had been no active search for them. The storm had occupied the crew and laid Brodie out, and there was nowhere for them to go anyway, except overboard.

  He could barge in with the gun, take his chance, but it wouldn’t be the smartest move.

  ‘You should join the police force,’ he said, only half joking.

  ‘I may yet do that,’ she threatened.

  They fell silent, hearing footsteps approach their hiding place. Then a low whistle told them it was Tarik.

  ‘There are two men on the bridge. One is the captain. The other is the one from the cabin.’

  So Brodie was free.

  She must be frozen, was all McNab could think as Isla walked away from them. Tarik averted his eyes and McNab knew that the young man was deeply uncomfortable with what was about to happen.

  ‘She’ll distract them. Possibly enough for us to enter unannounced,’ McNab said.

  ‘What if they hurt her?’

  McNab couldn’t answer that one.

  They’d gone over the plan with Tarik before approaching the bridge, then Isla had stripped. The oversized male clothes gone, she seemed to McNab as frail and vulnerable as when she’d crawled through to him. But her reaction had been just the opposite. Being naked had appeared to give her strength.

  And her plan just might work, he thought.

  81

  The interior door that led into the hangar was guarded, although the two men who sat outside appeared relaxed.

  Hoping they spoke English, she reminded them that she’d come in with the SAR team and wondered where they were.

  ‘Not in there,’ came the reply.

  When Rhona looked puzzled by this, the same man responded, ‘They’re below, getting some food and sleep.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Rhona said. ‘Where exactly?’

  That threw him a bit, but Rhona still had the impression that his response might be genuine. ‘B deck. That’s where the cafeteria and bunks are.’

  Rhona swore lightly under her breath for effect. ‘I left my bag on the chopper, and I really need it.’

  The two men exchanged further words in Norwegian, before the English speaker said, ‘It’s not safe out there.’

  ‘I can cope,’ Rhona insisted.

  They reluctantly opened the door for her. Even as Rhona stepped inside the hangar, she registered something odd about the interchange. Just like everything else about their time aboard the Solstice. Their separation from the SAR crew. The reaction when she’d visited the hospital.

  All of which might have an innocent explanation. They’d taken refuge on a commercial ship. They’d been treated okay, if not in a friendly fashion, but everyone had been fastened on the storm, only now abating. Yet, she still didn’t buy it. None of it. And neither did Harald.

  The wind was tailing off, as evidenced by the level of noise in the hangar. They would be expected to leave soon, unless Olsen decided to alert the authorities. And Rhona was convinced that he should. They had nothing tangible from their search, apart from a child’s toy. And yet …

  Only when the Solstice was brought into Stavanger and forensically examined could they be sure that they were right, or wrong. If they were wrong, then they would have to face the consequences. But if they were right, and had done nothing to prove it?

  The hangar was in darkness. Rhona checked for a light switch as the door clanged shut behind her, with the thought that having persuaded them to let her in here, they might not let her back out.

  Rhona turned, expecting to view the large bulk of the NH-90, and found something quite different. There was a helicopter in the hangar, but it wasn’t the one they’d arrived on. Slightly smaller in size, but sleek and obviously powerful, it was the only resident of the hangar apart from a variety of equipment.

  No wonder the men had been puzzled by her desire to enter, and what was it they’d said? It’s not safe out there. They hadn’t been referring to the hangar, Rhona realized, but the deck. The NH-90 had never entered the hangar, as Harald had suggested it would, possibly because the conditions were too difficult at the time, or because there was insufficient room inside for both choppers.

  Rhona made her way round the helicopter, noting the symbol and name of the Hagen Corporation emblazoned on the side. The thought occurred that someone from the corporation might well be aboard the Solstice at this very moment, and like them, unable to leave because of the weather.

  Rhona located the door that led on to the deck and tried it. The wind was coming from the north, sweeping across the front of the hangar and still strong enough to take the door from her hands as it was opened. Crossing the deck wouldn’t be easy, and, assuming she could reach the chopper and get inside, Rhona wasn’t sure she would be able to follow Harald’s instructions on using the comms.

  But she had to try.

  If the wind’s too high, you get on your hands and knees. That had been Kyle’s advice on Cairngorm, and Rhona decided she would take it now. She let the door go with the wind and it slammed back, metal against metal, with a resultant bang.

  The deck she looked out on was in darkness, apart from the light that streamed from inside the hangar, and the fainter light from the upper regions of the ship. But Rhona was able to distinguish the large dark bulk of the NH-90, presumably anchored to the helicopter grid via the harpoon line they’d drawn up to help them land on the ducking ship.

  Rhona dropped to her knees. Without Harald and Olsen to shield her, crawling was the only way she was likely to reach the aircraft. In the initial part of her journey she must have been in the lee of a deck structure, because when she emerged from behind it, she had to drop lower to avoid being rolled by the wind.

  As she got closer, a light came on in the chopper. Startled by this, Rhona attempted to quicken her approach. Then she saw various figures moving about and around the helicopter, beginning to disengage it from the grid.

  The engine started up, and the blades began to turn.

  All Rhona could think about was that the team was leaving and without her. She got onto her knees, and waved her hands above her, screaming in a voice that was immediately swept away in the wind.

  82

  McNab glanced at the young man crouched beside him. Slightly built, barely into his mid-teens, he had ingenuity, but McNab couldn’t see him survive a fight unless he had some sort of weapon.

  ‘How did you defend yourself before this happened?’

  ‘My father was a university professor. He said words were our weapon.’

  And that had worked out well.

  McNab produced the mirror knife from his pocket and showed it to Tarik. ‘Could you use this if you had to?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said without hesitation, reaching for the glass.

  Isla’s naked figure had halted at the foot of the set of steep steps that led up to the bridge. Above her the 360-degree windows gave the helmsman an uncontested view of the still-restless North Sea. The wind had mercifully dropped and dawn was about to break, judging by the line of fire on the horizon. Framed against it, a distant giant oil rig roared a dragon-like flame.

  As Isla began her cold climb, McNab got a clear view of the second figure behind the glass and saw that it was de finitely Brodie.

  When he’d discovered Isla in the cabin, McNab’s conviction that the Iceman too would be on board had lessened. Isla had declared her tormentor had never come to the cabin and the last she’d seen of him had been in the plane.

  So maybe they only had to deal with cologne man now, who, McNab su
spected, had been Amena’s handler, Stefan, at the Delta Club.

  The tug bridge was isolated. Two levels above the main deck, surrounded by a walkway, and only accessible by the ladder Isla now climbed. If they managed to secure it, there was a chance, albeit small, that they might hold it until help arrived.

  But – and here was the big problem in the plan – if they sent out a message, how soon could help arrive? It had taken a two-hour chase across the North Sea before the UK Border Agency and coastguard vessels had caught up with the cocaine-smuggling Hamal; how long before the authorities, either UK or Norwegian, managed to catch up with this tug?

  Then the worst thought of all. In the interim, what would happen to the children below deck?

  ‘They’ve spotted her,’ McNab told Tarik as Isla halted in her climb.

  They watched as the door to the bridge opened and Brodie appeared on the walkway.

  ‘He mustn’t hurt her,’ Tarik said, his voice sharpened by fear.

  ‘He won’t,’ McNab assured him.

  Brodie was out and descending the stepladder even as Isla retreated downwards. She reached the bottom and waited. Until that point, McNab hadn’t registered that she had something in her hand that caught the dawn’s light reflection.

  ‘Glass,’ he realized. ‘She took a piece of the fucking mirror.’

  Brodie was taking his time in his descent. Why worry when you have a naked female waiting below. That was his mistake. Isla delayed until he was almost level with her, then struck. McNab couldn’t see the mirror splinter, but he knew she’d wielded it and where.

  Brodie gave a cry of anguish at its entry, sliding down the remaining steps of the ladder to land on the lower walkway. The shard had pierced him somewhere in the groin. McNab flinched at the thought of where, even as he rejoiced that Isla had gone one better than him.

  ‘Go,’ McNab said to Tarik.

  Reaching Isla, McNab urged her to follow him up the ladder. What had just occurred below would have been difficult for the helmsman to see, tucked as they were at the foot of the stepladder, but it wouldn’t be long before he came out to check.

  The door above lay open, warning McNab the helmsman might already be aware of the skirmish below. The question was whether there was a weapon ready and available in that cockpit, and whether he would use it.

  McNab eased himself into view, indicating that Isla should wait. He was aware her body temperature must be dropping, and swiftly, but hypothermia was preferable at this stage to death. And, he reminded himself, she’d faced extreme exposure before and survived.

  The helmsman stood observing McNab’s entry, his expression astounded. When he finally spoke, his voice was Aberdonian, his surprise, even irritation at the shenanigans he was witnessing, personified by his indignation.

  He went into a babble about being hired to carry a container to a supply vessel. That was his job, nothing more.

  McNab waved Isla into the room. She made no attempt to cover her nakedness, but stood there, McNab thought, magnificent in it.

  ‘That was your cargo,’ McNab said. ‘Her and eight children.’

  The man’s expression faltered as he tried to figure out his next move, or next denial.

  ‘I want to make a call,’ McNab said.

  ‘If I cooperate?’

  ‘Then I don’t make a hole in your balls, which is what just happened to your running mate downstairs.’

  Ollie’s number was written indelibly on his brain. His voice even more so. McNab could see the owl eyes. Anticipate his voice. Oh, how he would welcome that voice.

  ‘Ollie?’

  There was a pause as Ollie registered who was speaking.

  ‘What the fuck, McNab—’

  ‘Shut up, Ollie, and listen.’

  Isla had been right. The satellite comms system had allowed him to call an onshore mobile number, and that call had been direct to Ollie, the man who’d shown him a picture of the North Sea and all the ships currently on it. The man who’d explained that he couldn’t locate a particular ship unless he knew its name. The man who might save them now.

  Much to McNab’s surprise, Ollie interrupted him.

  ‘Your pal Davey handed himself in. Told us they’d taken you to Aberdeen, and the name of the boat they were leaving on. UK Border Agency and the coastguard are already on their way.’

  ‘How long?’ McNab said.

  ‘It depends. The weather—’

  ‘I know all about the fucking weather.’

  Tarik, dispatched to the hold, had brought them here. Bedraggled, excited, traumatized, the children were ushered into the cockpit, the door locked.

  ‘Any problems?’ McNab said.

  Tarik shook his head. ‘Seems like the crew are lying low.’

  McNab nodded, pleased at least for a lull in the proceedings.

  They might yet be challenged, if the injured Brodie managed to muster Stefan and the rest of his forces. They were in a glass enclosure, with frightened children on an open sea, and a helmsman who seriously didn’t want to be caught. According to Ollie, in constant touch, help would arrive within the hour.

  It would, McNab accepted, be the longest hour of his life.

  83

  ‘Rhona. Come.’ It was Olsen’s voice, and his hand that dragged her up. ‘We have to get you on board.’

  She felt his arm round her shoulders, his attempt at steering her towards the helicopter, primed and ready to go. There was no room for a question or an answer during the process of boarding, as to why they were abandoning the Solstice. The noise of the prospective take-off drowned any prospect of that.

  Once inside, Harald urged her to buckle in as before beside him. ‘I’ll explain later,’ he mouthed.

  Voices conversed in rapid Norwegian; the crew, wherever they had been, were back now in charge of their aircraft. The sky was still dark, although a promise of dawn streaked the horizon. This has been the darkest, longest day, Rhona thought, as the aircraft rose from the moving deck, the blades still fighting the wind, but no longer requiring the same degree of determination as when they’d landed.

  ‘The Solstice’s leaving,’ Rhona said worriedly, seeing the ship’s lights move swiftly southwards.

  The Solstice might be leaving, but the helicopter wasn’t following its path, hovering instead above the area the RAS ship had just departed.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Rhona asked.

  ‘Alvis discovered children in a container in the hold,’ Harald told her. ‘He thinks the crew are definitely on to us, and may have dumped their cargo already.’

  ‘My God,’ Rhona said. ‘They threw them overboard?’ She looked out at the seething surface of the sea. ‘They’ll never last without life jackets.’

  ‘Fishermen don’t wear them, and we’ve picked up a few of them.’ Harald was trying to offer Rhona hope, or maybe the hope was meant for himself.

  The chopper, she knew, had FLIR cameras. Night-vision technology for sea rescues in the dark. ‘And,’ Harald said, ‘Alvis made the call. The Solstice will be boarded and escorted into Stavanger by the Norwegian navy.’

  ‘There’s a Hagen Corporation helicopter in the hangar,’ Rhona said.

  At that, Harald moved forward to where Olsen stood by the opening, looking down. Their rapid interchange sent Harald forward to give the pilot whatever orders Alvis had just issued.

  The Hagen helicopter was a perfect escape vehicle for whoever on the Solstice was deemed important enough to be saved, and a helicopter like that might set down anywhere along Norway’s coastline, or even further afield.

  A small flotilla of Norwegian Sea Rescue Society speed boats dotted the surface below. In the rear of the chopper, in its emergency medical berths, were two of the children they’d pulled alive from the waves, and one, a young boy of perhaps ten, who hadn’t survived.

  Olsen sat with them, his face only occasionally lit by the flash of lights from the cockpit.

  ‘He counted eight in that container, although there may have b
een more on the ship,’ Harald told her.

  ‘Someone wanted them to live.’ Rhona indicated the oversized life jackets that had been hastily pulled about the rescued children.

  ‘They didn’t want it hard enough.’

  Olsen looks like a dead man himself, Rhona thought, as a blinking red light illuminated his face.

  Olsen came through then and spoke to the pilot. There was no doubt in Rhona’s mind that they were about to abandon their search. That those bodies they had pulled from the water might be the only ones they ever found. The Norwegian Sea Rescue Society would continue the search alone, and the NH-90 would take its live and deceased casualties back to Stavanger.

  84

  Olsen finished his coffee, and rinsing the cup, placed it upside down next to the sink. Through the window, he could make out the lighted glass roof of the cultural centre rising above the neighbouring buildings. Although officially day, it was still dark enough to require the lights on. He hadn’t slept on his return from Sola airport, although he had closed his eyes, in between checking his mobile for updates on the Solstice, and from further afield.

  The news that had arrived had been both good and bad. More bodies had been pulled from the sea, ten in total, which suggested that there had been other children hidden on the Solstice. Ones he hadn’t discovered. The ship itself had now been boarded and was currently being escorted towards the harbour at Stavanger. As suspected, the Hagen helicopter had gone from the hangar. Where it was now, they didn’t know. Neither did they know who had been on the aircraft when it had departed the ship.

  They’d also learned on landing at Sola that a tug from Aberdeen had been intercepted by the UK Border Agency with the assistance of the Norwegian Coastguard as it had crossed into Norwegian waters. On it eight children had been found, one of whom was the Syrian girl Amena Tamar who Detective Sergeant McNab had saved, then lost, then apparently found again.

  A smile played on Olsen’s lips at the tenacity and success of his Scottish counterpart, something which didn’t altogether surprise him.

  The jigsaw, the uniform grey and white pieces so difficult to distinguish and to align, seemed closer to completion. Although the picture was far from clear yet.