by Paul Finch
“I can understand your position, Jo,” Nug finally said, in the stress of the moment using the Professor’s first name. “But while we’ve got the means to contact the authorities, people are certainly going to wonder why we didn’t.”
“Of course they are,” Alan added. “Even a couple of days’ delay, and they’ll be asking questions.”
For the first time, the Professor seemed unsure of her position. She gazed thoughtfully down at the body, then glanced sidelong at Clive. “They have a point, I suppose,” he finally said. “People will ask questions, and if it turns out we’ve delayed because we were too busy with the find, it won’t look good.”
Again, she relapsed into thought, though clearly Clive’s reasoning had made sense to her. “All right,” she eventually said. “We’ll inform the Coast Guard station. This isn’t an emergency, so it’ll probably take them a day or so to get out here, anyway. Come on. Help me get something to cover him with.”
And with that, she turned and set off back towards the camp. The others went with her, all except Alan and Nug, the latter of whom now sank onto his haunches.
“Jesus,” Alan said, half to himself, “talk about priorities.”
Nug, however, wasn’t listening. He was crouching by the corpse, staring at it, a far-away look on his face. Finally, he stood up and turned. “Listen, I don’t particularly think there’s anything in this, but you’re sure Craig’s death was an accident?”
Alan raised an eyebrow. “Well … obviously. I mean, he must have fallen. It’s hard to see how he could have hit the tree, but what else could have happened?”
Nug stared up at the rock-face. “It’s just that … well, this is obviously a big coincidence, but his spine’s been broken, yeah?”
“I think so.”
Nug mused on this. “If he’d fallen down through the upper branches, wouldn’t there be other marks on him, cuts, grazes and such?”
“I suppose.”
“And there aren’t.”
“What are you saying, Nug?” Alan was suddenly too tired for word-games.
Nug looked him in the eye. “Ivar Ragnarsson sacrificed Mael Guala, the king of Munster, to the gods, by having his back ritually broken over a millstone, then hanging his body from a tree.”
8
They wrapped Craig’s twisted body in the groundsheet of his tent, then zipped him into his sleeping bag, before carrying him down the slope and finally depositing him just inside the mouth of the cave.
There was no ceremony, no-one made a speech or said any words. It was a forlorn and desolate little moment as they laid him there, but it occurred to Alan how much Ivar the Boneless would have approved. The Christianity the ferocious Dane had striven so hard to destroy by sheer barbarism, had eventually fallen to sophistication; the Godless wilderness he’d sought to create with fire and sword, had finally arrived through discussion and intellectualism. Such, it seemed, was the prize of progress.
Alan stood there for a moment, looking down at the shrouded form. Then he glanced up into the opaque darkness at the back of the cave. “Perhaps we should move him further in?” he said. “We don’t want some animal to come and mess with the body.”
“And what kind of animal would that be?” Barry Wood scoffed. “A grizzly bear?”
Alan turned sharply to face him. “Do you have to try and score points off everything!”
Barry sneered in response. “Do you have to find problems with everything!”
“I think we’ve got problems enough, without having to find them!”
“Will you two pack it in!” the Professor snapped. “This is an upsetting incident, but we can only put it behind us and get on with our work if we stick together as a team. Now just simmer down, the pair of you.”
The two students backed off and did as they were told, Barry moving over to Linda, putting an arm around her, Alan finding solace in Nug’s company. One by one, the group drifted out of the cave, making their tired, uneasy way back around the bog-pools towards the encampment. Eventually, only Alan and Nug remained.
“He was a good lad,” Alan said. “A bit obsessive at times, but a good lad. There was certainly no evil in him.”
“He didn’t deserve a death like that, that’s for sure,” Nug replied. Then he glanced up. “So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About what I told you.”
Alan gave him a quizzical stare. “I never had you down for the superstitious type.”
Nug shrugged. “I’m not. It’s just, well, this whole business seems wrong to me.”
Alan was about to reply, when they heard raised, heated voices from the direction of the tents. They looked at each other, then dashed out of the cave and scurried around the marsh, trying not to muddy themselves any more than they already had, in the process.
Two minutes later, they were back in the camp. The first person they met was David. He had a pale, vaguely child-like look about him. “You’re not going to believe this,” he blurted out. “The satellite phone’s gone.”
Alan felt his hair prickle. “What?”
The others were standing around between the tents, gazing at each other in bewilderment. Professor Mercy stood in the centre, holding the waterproof satchel, which was now open and empty.
“I’ll ask again,” she demanded of them, “is someone playing some kind of joke?”
“It’s a bloody unfunny one, if they are!” said Nug.
“Where was it?” Alan asked.
She threw the empty sack on the floor. “In the satchel, along with my mobile.”
“Has that gone too?”
Clive nodded grimly. “They both have.”
“There’s a surprise,” said Alan.
The Professor glanced sharply up at him. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged and waved it away. “Nothing … I’m just getting paranoid. Look, Craig had a phone, didn’t he?”
There were a few mumbles in the positive. Uncomfortable glances were then exchanged.
“Well someone had better go and get it,” Linda finally said.
No-one moved, until Alan lurched off back in the direction of the cave. Dejectedly, Nug went with him.
Getting Craig back out of his shroud was harder than they expected. First off, the zip on the sleeping bag jammed, then the ground-sheet somehow got twisted and knotted beneath the body, so they actually had to lift and turn his dead-weight over, in order to free it. He slumped back and forth as they moved him, nothing now but clay – cold, ghoulish clay, for his flesh was hideously clammy to touch, and, in the dusky half-light, had turned the colour of bleach.
For all this, it was a futile endeavour. They went through Craig’s pockets and searched inside his clothes, even going so far as to strip off his sweater and take down his pants … but though they found a wallet and two spare reels of film for his shattered camera, there was no trace of his mobile phone.
Alan knelt back up, now bathed in chill sweat. “Not here,” he said simply.
Nug stood. “Obviously he dropped it when he fell.”
Alan gave him a cynical stare. “Oh, obviously!”
“I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“It’s bloody convenient, isn’t it?” Alan said.
Nug shook his head. He clearly didn’t want to believe what his friend was implying.
Now Alan stood up too. “Nug. No-one’s nicked the sodding satellite phone! You know how expensive that piece of gear is. Don’t you think she’d have gone absolutely fucking berserk if it had really gone missing?”
“Any luck?” Professor Mercy asked them from the cave entrance.
They both turned quickly. Her silhouette almost blotted out what little light there was filtering in.
“Er … not much,” Nug said awkwardly
. “We’d better go and check where his body was.”
She considered for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll go through his tent and his rucksack as well. Even if we don’t find it, it’s no disaster. The boat’ll be here the day after tomorrow. I think we can manage for that long.”
And then she was gone, marshalling the others, audibly sending them back to the camp. Nug made to follow her, to Alan’s further irritation. “I’ll wrap him up again, shall I?” he said pointedly.
“Sorry, mate.” Nug came back in to help.
A moment passed as they re-swathed Craig in his groundsheet. When Alan was sure the Professor was out of earshot, he leaned over. “I thought you were the one who was worried something was going on?” he said quietly.
“It’s not her, though, is it,” Nug protested. “I mean, we know her.”
“What the hell’s got into her, then?”
Nug shrugged, and pulled the sleeping bag up over the corpse’s still booted feet. “Same as has got into everyone else, I suppose.”
“Which is?”
“Grief. Worry.” Nug drew the zip up. “Look … she stands to carry the can for this cock-up, whoever’s fault they decide it is. It’s already fucked up the biggest find of her career. She’s probably just bottling it all in.”
Neither of them spoke further, but, inside, Alan was in deep distress. He’d long been entranced by Professor Mercy. It wasn’t just the fact that every heterosexual male who laid eyes on her wanted to take her to bed, or that she was a dominant figure in her field, with a knowledgeable and charming manner that made her seminars a pleasure to attend; it wasn’t just the care and concern she showed, and the fact that she was always there for those to whom she was personal tutor. It was the combination of all these; the blend of professional yet motherly control she exercised over those in her charge. Yet how different things suddenly were now. Alan didn’t feel disappointed by her, so much as betrayed … betrayed that she was so interested in her career, betrayed that at the end of the day that meant more to her than the lives of her students, betrayed that this perfect person wasn’t as perfect as he’d imagined.
What other revelations awaited them?, he wondered. At least 32 hours had to pass before they could get off this island. How many other startling stress-cracks would start to show in their fine façade?
9
The howl was long and low, and it hung on the night air with a mournful resonance.
At first, Alan thought he was dreaming. He had been dreaming earlier; dreaming that they weren’t camped out on a teeny island just off the northern British coast, but were actually in some vast wilderness of mountains, glaciers and snow-deep pinewoods. How natural that a howl should have sounded in a place like that, but now, as he lay in that vague state between slumber and wakefulness, there came a bustle of movement from the other tents, and a low mumble of voices, and at once he realised that the howl he’d heard hadn’t been part of any dream.
Hurriedly, Alan shook himself to clear his head, then glanced at his watch. In the still-pitch dark, the luminous dial told him it was just past two o’clock. He hadn’t been asleep that long. By the voices outside, however, the others were clearly up and milling around. He wormed out of his sleeping bag, pulled his boots on and slid from the tent. Various torches had been switched on, which fleetingly had the effect of concentrating the darkness around them, so it was several moments before he was able to recognise who was who.
“I suppose you all heard that, did you?” came a tremulous voice. It was David Thorson. He hadn’t yet put his sweater on over his t-shirt, and was hugging himself, either from the cold or from fear. Probably a mixture of both. His normal irreverent humour already looked like a thing of the past.
Alan glanced around, his eyes slowly attuning. Nug was present, looking sleepy and dishevelled, alongside Professor Mercy, who was shining her torch out into the surrounding pines, but finding nothing unusual.
Nug yawned. “Someone playing stupid games again?” he said.
“Where’s Barry Wood?” Alan asked.
Nug shrugged.
“Here. Any problem with that?” came a terse reply.
Everyone looked round and saw Barry weaving his way down through the trees on the higher slope. A moment passed, then Linda appeared behind him. She looked a little sheepish. Barry on the other hand was his usual brazen, swaggering self.
“Someone’s farting about,” Alan said, biting his lip on what he really wanted to say. “Don’t suppose you know anything about that?”
Barry grinned as he ambled up to the remnants of the fire and warmed his hands. “Nah … I’ve had better things to do.”
Alan glanced at Linda, but she averted her eyes.
Now Professor Mercy came forwards. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea wandering off in the dark. We don’t want any more accidents.”
“No problem,” Barry replied. “Everything’s done and dusted, anyway.”
Linda made a move to her tent, but saw that Alan was still watching her. “What are you looking at?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he replied, meaningfully.
“Woaa!” David shouted, suddenly bug-eyed. “Someone’s over there! Who’s that?”
Again, everyone turned, and this time they were transfixed by a humanoid figure, immensely broad and unwieldy, coming slowly and quietly up through the veils of mist hanging over the bog-pools. It was a nightmarish shape, with a burly outline and foggy aura, reminiscent of a hundred cheap and nasty horror movies.
“Who’s that?” David shouted again, his voice breaking like a prepubescent schoolboy’s.
“It’s me,” said Clive, suddenly recognisable in the torchlight, and not a little baffled at the panic he’d caused. “I’ve been for a pee. That okay?” He was still in the process of zipping himself up.
“You didn’t hear anything odd while you were down there, did you?” the Professor asked.
Clive shook his head. “Such as?”
“A wolf,” David told him.
“Bollocks a wolf,” Alan said, still glaring suspiciously at Barry’s broad back. “It was someone pretending to be a wolf.”
“Put the bloody wind up me whatever it was,” David replied.
Clive shrugged. “I didn’t hear anything.”
Everyone pondered this, then Professor Mercy flicked her torch off and moved back towards her tent. “In that case it’s probably a false alarm,” she said. “It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of other explanations. For one thing, Craeghatir has been a sanctuary for rare seabirds for quite some time.”
“Yeah,” Alan muttered, “like poor Craig told us.”
One by one, the others moved back and clambered under canvas. Aside from Alan and Nug, Barry was the last to go. He didn’t seem concerned that Linda had already disappeared into her tent without so much as a goodnight kiss. Once the athlete had vanished, Nug turned to Alan.
“You know that was no seabird,” he said.
“I know.”
“So what’s going on?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Alan replied, though he was now gazing at Barry’s tent. Briefly, there was a light on in there, then it was extinguished.
Nug shook his head. “Why are you trying to pin it on him? I mean, apart from the fact you hate his guts.”
Alan looked at him, surprised. “He was out there when we heard that howl.”
“So was Linda, so was Clive.”
Alan snorted. “Linda and Clive aren’t tosspots interested in fucking with everyone else’s mind.”
“But why would Barry do that? What’s he got to gain?”
“I just think he’s a prat,” Alan said, “and that he’s capable of doing anything to keep himself amused.”
“And you’re absolutely certain your judgement isn’t being clouded by … something else?” Nug wondered.<
br />
Alan gazed at him hard. “Whatever I think about that goon is irrelevant,” he said. “Just consider the position, Nug. Someone is fucking around in the wake of a fatal accident. Now, call it moronic insensitivity, call it bad taste, call it silly thoughtlessness. Call it whatever you want, but at the end of the day who do you think it’s most likely to be?” And with that he went back to his own tent, leaving his pal alone and thinking by the fading glow of the fire.
But sleep wasn’t to come easily for the remainder of that night. Despite the emotional drain of the previous day, Alan’s brain was now too alert to be closed down. He rolled over and over in his sleeping bag, did everything in his power to relax, but always now his ears were primed for the slightest sound, each one of which caused him to tense up and listen warily. If he heard so much as a flutter of leaves on the breeze, or a snap or pop in the burnt-out embers of the fire, it set his nerves on edge.
As the night wore on, Alan began to feel like a first-time camper. The cold was suddenly getting to him, the dankness was an irritant; he found lumps under his mat which were surely imaginary but which discomforted him nevertheless. His wide-awake eyes constantly scanned the inner nylon skin of the tent for the faintest sign of movement or shadow. Repeated checks with his watch revealed only that the night was slipping steadily past. The first time he looked, it was just past three; the second time it was almost four; the third time it was half past four, and now the pale light of sun-up was infiltrating the camp, the dawn chorus twittering madly in the branches overhead. Still, sleep eluded him.
Some time between five and six, he gave up on it. He climbed out of his bag again, drew on his boots and went outside. It was another glorious summer morning, the sun already high and throwing dazzling light on the bog-pools, dappling the shady areas under the trees. Nobody else was astir yet, so Alan took a long drink of water, then a leak. After that, it crossed his mind that he might again busy himself clearing the ashes from the night before and preparing another fire. But it was still a little early even for breakfast and, in any case, why should he be the one to do all the work?
