Ghosts of the Vikings

by Marsali Taylor

  ‘I will go down,’ Per said. He looked at the cup in his hand as if he had forgotten what it was for a moment. ‘Would you like tea, Cassandre?’

  I nodded, and Peter poured a cup and handed it to Adrien to pass across. Adrien hesitated, the cup in his hand. ‘D’you take milk or sugar?’

  ‘Milk, please.’ He rose to add it, and passed the cup across. I drank it gratefully.

  ‘She musta been severely allergic.’ Caleb said. ‘Not to respond to the EpiPens, I mean. How come nobody knew?’

  Per shook his head. ‘She did not tell me it was so severe. I must go down.’

  ‘She’d only had one attack, years ago,’ Adrien said. His face was white, his eyelids red, as if he was with difficulty holding back tears. ‘I believe that a second attack can be more severe than the first.’ He rose. ‘We can do her no good waiting here.’ His dark eyes turned to me. ‘You’ll tell us if there’s news? Just knock on my door. I won’t be sleeping.’

  It would be Dad they’d phone, not me. I looked at him, and he nodded.

  ‘If they are taking her away,’ Per said, ‘I will go with her.’ Adrien half-rose, and Per held out his hand, palm forwards, like a policeman making a ‘stop’ signal. ‘No, the company is my responsibility. I will let you all know how she is doing, and I will see you in Lerwick tomorrow.’

  There was an uneasy silence as his steps trailed upstairs. I rose. ‘I won’t be long, Peter – I just need to fetch Cat.’

  The helpful waitress was still in the kitchen, washing up and tidying away. I had an uneasy feeling, as if I should be stopping her. ‘I don’t suppose you know which glass the girl who collapsed drank from?’

  She gave me a sharp look. ‘I havena cleared the dining room yet. The doctor’s still there, wi’ the lass.’

  ‘It’s just a feeling,’ I said.

  ‘You and me both. It’ll do our business no good, even though everyone kens these allergies are nothing you can help. Still, someen’s bound to say we shoulda kept the fish sundry from the rest o’ the food. She canna have known, poor lass, for I asked most particular when she ordered seafood.’

  I felt the jolt of that go down my spine. ‘Someone ordered seafood?’

  ‘Just three days ago. I took the call myself. The French lady it was, saying she’d been telling the others how good Shetland seafood was, and they were all eager to try it, so she ordered mussels and the cullen skink for first course, and a choice of lamb or salmon for main. And,’ she repeated, ‘I asked most particularly if there was anyone with an allergy, and she assured me there was not.’

  I stared at her. She was obviously a Shetlander, in her forties, and with a reliable look. I had no reason to doubt that someone from the company had phoned ahead to order seafood, just as she said. I would be surprised if it had been Maman. You are mad ...

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I think for your own protection you should keep everything that she ate or drank from separate, in a box, unwashed. Let’s gather it up now, and tape it up, labelled.’ I picked up two of their catering boxes. ‘You keep them. You didn’t know her; you’d never met her. And look, for comparison, let’s take someone else’s place setting. Mine.’ I gave her a steady look. ‘She carried an EpiPen, so she knew she had the allergy, and anyone who knew that would have warned the people in charge of catering that they couldn’t go near seafood.’ Our eyes met. Hers were wide with startled, disbelieving horror. ‘Especially if it was so severe that she could have a fit like that, without even eating any of it. She’d have said.’

  There was a distant thrumming in my ears. We both looked towards the window. A star hung above the pier, blazing brighter even as we looked at it, and the wind swirled the noise of rotor blades towards us, louder, fainter, louder, until the drumming was a presence in the room,. Cat dived under the table. The wind buffeted the house, the helicopter’s light tilted and descended, and the drumming rose to a roar as it landed in the field I’d surveyed only this afternoon. It felt a long time ago.

  Two men jumped down, heads bowed, collected a stretcher from within and ran for the door. I hurried to fling it open. ‘She’s in there.’ They brought a chill wind in with them. It seemed only seconds before they had bundled Kamilla up on their stretcher and hurried out again, the doctor at their heels. Per came clattering down the stairs, his case in his hand, and ducked after them into the hatch. The rotors whirred, tilted, and the helicopter rose up again, hovered, then set off arrow-straight for Lerwick, leaving a heavy silence behind.

  I turned to meet the waitress’s eyes. She took the box from me without speaking, and we went together into the dining room. She picked up the larger glass fragments and the dessert plate, while I wrote the name on the box: Kamilla Lange. Then we packaged my own plate and glass. I wrote again: Cass Lynch. We stowed the boxes in the boot of her car, and then, still in silence, I helped her clear the table. Her thoughts, like mine, were with that crazy spinning metal ball in the sky, taking Kamilla to safety.

  Two trayfuls had the dishwasher filled. I helped carry boxes to the car, then put Cat in his basket, changed into normal clothes, and went back up to Peter. The men were still there: Dad on one couch, his dark brows drawn together; Caleb on the other, all smiles gone, mouth turned down. Fournier was frowning as if he was calculating. Peter rose as I came in, said a rather awkward goodnight to them all, and ushered me out.

  We were silent as the car swooped through the night, throwing its light before it. Peter only spoke as he set me down at the graveyard. ‘You’ll see all right to row out to the boat?’

  I nodded at the anchor light, a burnished star to guide me home. ‘I’ll just row for that.’

  ‘I’ll gie you a hand with the dinghy.’

  The tide was almost as far out as it could go. We lugged the dinghy to the water, and Peter shoved me off. Ten hard pulls of the oars and I was at Khalida. I tied the dinghy’s painter to her stern, fingers clumsy, and clambered aboard. Home, sanctuary. I was so tired that the world was spinning around me, and I staggered as I went down the companion steps. I made my hot water bottle, put down some tinned food for Cat to ignore, and got my sleeping bag out. I was still on duty, but I could doze in the cockpit, where I’d hear any sound, see any lights. Cat waited on the step, looking at me expectantly, but when he saw that I really was going to sleep outside, he padded up too and curled into the crook of my neck, and we dropped into the dizzying dark.

  I hae nae hauns, and strike nae blow,

  Yet kings and princes bring I low.

  ... death

  Saturday, 28th March

  Tide Times at Mid Yell, UT and at Dover

  High Water04.27, 1.8m;04.46

  Low Water11.15, 1.0m; 12.07

  High Water17.32,1.7m; 17.53

  Low Water23.49, 1.3m;00.08

  (Sunday)

  Sunrise05.44

  Moonrise11.00

  Sunset18.33

  Moonset03.04

  Waxing quarter moon

  Footless and horseless, I gallop abroad,

  Mouthless I cry, and handless I destroy.

  Chapter Nine

  It was light that woke me, just a brief flash of a torch somewhere on land that touched my face and was gone. I raised my head and waited for it to come again. The moon was still high, as if I hadn’t slept for long. I listened intently. There was the soft trickle of the water against Khalida’s hull, the shoosh of waves on the beach. Then, distinctly, a soft metallic chink.

  I sat up and looked towards the headland. Yes, on the point of the headland, where Adrien had taken out his trowel, there was some sort of directional lantern, for there was no light shining directly towards me any more, just a diffused glow that was warmer than the bleaching moonlight, with a dark shadow crossing it every so often. I heard the rap of a foot, then the metallic noise again, a trowel on stone. Somebody was digging in the darkness. I wondered if Adrien was really so determined that he’d crept out of the house, in spite of Kamilla’s seizure.

  I had a powerful la
mp at hand, ready plugged in. It was meant for shining into the bridge of large ships that seemed intent on running me down, or onto my own sails to make me visible if I needed rescue, and it lit up the dark shore and headland like a searchlight. I swept it round and thought I caught a dark figure hunched over among the grave rocks. I held it there, but there was no movement, just that darker rounded back among the pointed rocks. I shone it towards the house and gave the signal flashes, twice, then swept it back to the headland. If I wanted to leave it on for long I’d need to put the engine on, and that would take away my ability to listen for these tiny noises that told me where the person was. I held the beam on the headland for another half-minute. When I switched it off, the darkness seemed to smother me. It took a moment before I was able to see that the glow in the darkness was still there, brightening as the moon shadows lengthened. There was a long silence, then the faint chinking began again.

  Very well, I’d have to go over there. My arms felt heavy, my head muzzy, as if I was still half-asleep as I swung into the dinghy; not a state to be messing about in a small boat. I shook my head to clear it and slotted the oars into the rowlocks, then rowed quietly shorewards, heading for the headland end of the beach, aware that I’d be visible from above, a plump, black water-beetle on the silver sea. He’d know exactly how long he could keep digging for.

  I hadn’t thought about personal danger, but it occurred to me now. Whoever this was seemed prepared to keep going for the treasure in spite of my searchlight, and now, my presence. Perhaps he was preparing an unpleasant welcome. Take me out, and he’d have peace to dig all night. I paused at the thought, oars stilled in the water. I was thinking he, but there was nothing to say it wasn’t they. There might be a reception committee on the beach, hiding behind the ridge of stones. Where, I wondered wryly, was a ghost Viking when you needed one?

  I had a torch in the dinghy. At ten metres from the shore, I picked it up and flashed the light round. The sand was bare; no sinister figure waiting at the tideline, nor, as far as I could see, peering over the rocky dune. I set the torch in my lap and kept it trained on the beach as I back-watered ashore. Still nothing. I had to turn my back on the beach as I hauled the dinghy’s nose onto the sand. The hills seemed to open and close towards me like bellows, and then suddenly blackness rushed over me, and I just had time to put my hands out to break my fall, feel them go limp under me as I rolled on the sand ... then nothing.

  I awoke with a start. I was huddled up on Khalida’s long couch, fully dressed, with Cat snuggled at my neck, and my sleeping bag over me. The light was bright on the water, though the bay was still in shadow. My head felt thick, as if I’d been drinking, and there was a horrid cotton-wool taste in my mouth. I staggered as I rose to make a cup of tea.

  Once I was back in my sleeping bag, with the warm mug clasped in both hands, I tried to make sense of what had happened last night. Peter had driven me back, and I’d curled up in the cockpit, to keep vigil. A light had woken me. I remembered that. I’d heard the sound of digging on the headland, and flashed my lamp at them, but they’d taken no notice. I thought I’d rowed to the beach. I remembered the two headlands, Lund and Vinstrick, swaying towards me and away again as I stood up, then the rough sand under my face. Then nothing, until now, waking up back here.

  I put up a hand to explore my head, and found hard grains of sand under my hair. I could trust my memory. I’d got to the beach, and fallen on the sand. I felt round the back of my head, but there was no tenderness or swelling, so I hadn’t been hit. I remembered how muzzy I’d felt, clumsy with sleep, and concluded that someone had drugged me. Willpower had got me to the beach, then the drug had taken over. Some nefarious ‘someone’, who was going to be very sorry indeed once I found out who they were, had manhandled me back into the dinghy, rowed me out here and rearranged me on the couch, with my sleeping bag over me. Two nefarious ‘someones’; they’d have had to lift me from the dinghy and down into the cabin. One man couldn’t have done that alone.

  It was only then that I remembered Kamilla. I saw again her face turning blue, her hands clutching at her bag as she’d fallen. The shock hit again; my heart kicked, and I had a sense of something that I’d forgotten, something wrong. Then I remembered the waitress. The French lady ... she ordered seafood ... Maman had helped organise the tour, but I’d be very surprised if that included phoning the caterers about the menu. Her accented English would be easy to imitate. Someone who knew about Kamilla’s allergy must have done that, but who? Why?

  Bryony was jealous, Maman had said, but surely making Kamilla ill would destroy her own chances. Monday’s gig, in Edinburgh’s Georgian house, was the one the critics would be going to. If Kamilla was so ill that it had to be cancelled, or someone else substituted, Bryony would lose out too; unless ... for a moment I had the brilliant idea that if Kamilla was ill, Bryony could sing her part, be the understudy who stepped in to get the rave reviews from the critics and a starry career ever after, but then I remembered that Bryony was a soprano, like Maman, and Kamilla was a mezzo. Bryony wouldn’t be able to sing her role.

  Bryony, of course, was the obvious person to imitate Maman, but I wasn’t sure the men could be ruled out. Adrien, with his light tenor voice, probably could do a good female imitation. Caleb’s normal register was too low, but he could go into falsetto.

  Besides, it had seemed to me that Kamilla had collapsed later than I’d have expected if it had been an allergy. The fish plates had been cleared away before she began to have difficulty breathing. Her plate and glass could be analysed, in case it was something more sinister:someone who had organised the seafood, then given her a poison whose effects would be similar.

  I shook my head to try and clear the fuzziness from my brain. Drugged. Sleeping pills, I supposed. I didn’t see how anyone could have slipped a pill into my meal. The obvious opportunity was when I’d had that cup of tea up in the sitting room at Belmont, just before we’d left. It had been Peter who’d poured my cup of tea from the pot, and Adrien who’d brought my cup over to me. Yes! I could see it clearly in my mind’s eye. Adrien had paused, and asked if I took milk or sugar, and turned away for a moment, to add the milk, and stirred the tea. He knew I’d been watching him, and in spite of his distress over Kamilla he’d intended to have another go at his treasure.

  I’d wake myself up and listen to the forecast before I tried to phone anyone. I had a basin wash, and re-dressed in a fresh set of thermals under my jeans and jumper. By that time, Shetland Coastguard was crackling in. I changed to Channel 23, and got my pen ready.

  It wasn’t good news. The south-easterly gale was due to back westerly, and increase to gale nine, then blow right up to storm ten and violent storm eleven ‘later’ – nautical speak for after twelve hours – with visibility brought down to ‘poor’ by rain.

  Westerly would leave me being blown towards the shore. It was time I was out of here. Cullivoe, on Yell, had a marina. I flipped quickly to the Dover tide tables, and reached for my tidal atlas. HW Dover had been at 04.46. I did the sums; now we were at the start of HW +3. The tide was galloping northwards at six knots in Yell Sound, but the tidal atlas gave Bluemull Sound as okay for this hour. If I went now, I’d make it across.

  I hauled my oilskins on and went out on deck. The sky was clear, with rags of grey cloud stretching along the horizon; the sea was ominously still, with that oily gleam on the water. There was no wind at deck level, but when I raised the mainsail, the tell-tale ribbons fluttered at the masthead, and the boom jerked with a heavy clang. I dropped it to put two reefs in, reducing it to half its size; better safe than sorry. I winched the dinghy aboard, noticing that it had been tied with a round turn and two half-hitches instead of my usual bowline, secured it to the cabin roof, and left it to deflate. Three nautical miles, forty minutes. I set the engine clanking away to itself, and used the jib winch to get the anchor up, hauling it into the cockpit. The chain went into a deep bucket, to be hosed later. It was tempting to leave the anchor in
the cockpit too, but I knew that I’d regret it if I had any difficulty on the passage, so I took the extra minutes to store it for’ard. I set Khalida’s nose for the opening of the bay, hauled the mainsail tight to steady her, pushed the throttle forward and headed towards Bluemull sound.

  We’d just cleared the headland, and I was setting Khalida on a southerly course, low enough that the northbound stream would push her into Cullivoe, when my phone rang: Dad. Like me, unlike Maman, he was one of the world’s early risers.

  ‘Cassie? It’s not good news.’

  The wind tugged cold at my plait, and there were white horses around me now. It was still a shock, although I’d expected it.

  ‘She didn’t make it.They said we’d done everything we could. She had a severe reaction, and that was it.’

  ‘There’ll have to be a post-mortem?’

  ‘Yes. Here, your mother wants a word.’

  Maman’s voice was choked. ‘Oh, Cassandre, it’s awful. Poor Kamilla.I can hardly believe it. I knew that she had an allergy, but that it could kill her like that ... She was so alive.’

  I remembered the way she’d glittered in France, like a swarm of tropical fish.

  ‘I wondered if perhaps the shellfish was not good,’ Maman continued. ‘Bryony was sick, just after we went upstairs last night, and my stomach has been disordered half the night.’

  ‘Did anyone else know she had an allergy?’

  ‘It was not secret. Adrien would have known, if they had been lovers, and she could easily have mentioned it to the others. We have not had fish, so the question has not arisen.’

  She sounded so frail that I didn’t want to speak of my suspicions. I’d phone Gavin. ‘Take care, Maman. When do you leave for Lerwick?’