The priest's pleading look left Dan with no option but to nod emphatically.
“Morag is my … housekeeper, sort of,” the priest babbled on. “She helps around the church and … and so on.”
“And it's a remarkable church you've got here,” Dan said, smiling at Morag. “Quite an achievement for such a small community to build something so impressive.”
Morag walked over to the table, taking her time, fixing Dan with an unblinking gaze. Her face had what Dan was already thinking of as the 'Soray look'. As well as her big, dark eyes, her nose was oddly flattened, her lips thin, her skin pale. Her hair seemed lank and rather thin. When a ray of light from the window fell on the side of Morag's head Dan could make out her scalp.
“It's amazing what people can accomplish if they have to,” she said, her voice lilting and strongly-accented. “But what brings you and your friends to our little island? Surely not just some old paintings?”
Dan took a breath, and stood up, laying his hands flat on the table.
“Apart from sightseeing in your lovely town? Well, we're going to be doing some recreational diving,” he said. “Just exploring the coast, looking at the marine life.”
“But what if the marine life doesn't want to be looked at?” Morag asked, with a hint of sharpness.
“Surely there are no dangerous beasts in these waters?” Dan countered. “This is Scotland, after all. Or does Nessie vacation around here? I heard she was a vegetarian, but I guess anyone could fall off that wagon. Right?”
Morag smiled at the feeble attempt at humor. She turned to Malahide.
“Aren't you going to pour the tea, Michael?”
The rest of Dan's visit to the church consisted of weak tea and stilted conversation. When he got up to go, thanking the odd couple for their hospitality, the priest insisted on accompanying him to the church door. Morag tagged along, remaining close to the priest. As they passed the altar, Malahide gestured at the gold crucifix.
“That's another example of local artwork,” he said. “Quite unusual.”
Dan paused. He had barely glanced at the cross before, but now he saw it was peculiar. The style did not seem European at all. Indeed, when he walked closer he could not place the technique or the odd imagery. Its obvious asymmetry did not suggest ineptitude in the maker, so much as some aesthetic that was alien to every kind of art Dan knew.
Is this the Soray treasure? That would make sense. That looks like solid gold, plus those stones seem genuine.
As he studied the cross, Dan was reminded of a monument he had seen in an English churchyard. It was a rare example of a stone cross combining Christian imagery with that of Dark Age tribes, showing the pagan god, Woden, alongside Jesus. The blending of two such disparate religious images was jarring. But this was even stranger.
It's as if someone set out to disguise a totally alien idea within a familiar form. There's no way these people are regular Christians. That is not Christ. So who, or what, is it?
He reached out, without thinking, to feel the contours of the weird ornament, and to assess its weight in precious metal. But Morag moved with startling speed to grab his wrist. Her fingers were strong, and surprisingly cold given the pleasant summer weather outside.
“Sorry,” she said, as he pulled his hand free. “But we are a little touchy about our sacred symbols.”
“Oh, I understand,” he replied. “I get the same way about my Star Wars collectibles. Nobody fingers my Boba Fett.”
He felt a slight twinge of satisfaction at the bafflement on her face. He wondered how much, or little, of modern global culture was known to the islanders. Then it occurred to him that they might be supremely indifferent to Star Wars and a great deal else besides. It could be that Malahide was telling the truth, and that they had no reason to feel part of the normal, human world Dan knew.
Okay, he thought, as he walked back into town. The priest may be a little crazy. Even a lot crazy. But that doesn't make him wrong.
***
When Dan got back to the boat, Steve and Lisa were stowing away provisions while Chad looked on and gave feedback that consisted largely of 'No, you're doing it all wrong!' When Steve saw Dan, he seemed to come to a decision.
“Okay,” he said, holding up a jar of peanut butter. “How about Dan and I finish the chores while you two lovebirds take a practice dive in the harbor?”
Lisa did not look pleased at the idea, but Chad was all for it and she soon came around. Within minutes, the couple were checking each other's dry-suits, while this time Steve looked on and provided critical commentary. When the pair had both plunged over the side, Steve gave Dan an expressive look.
“Yeah,” Dan said, “He's the kind of guy you want out of sight as much as possible. Putting him underwater works for me.”
“Yes, but there's a reason I wanted them both out of the way,” Steve said, reaching into the pocket of his windbreaker. “Take a look at these.”
Frowning, Dan took the postcards and spread them out on a small folding table. All three seemed typically bland examples of their kind. One was an old photograph of Soray taken from out at sea. Another was a Victorian artist's drawing of the church. The third was a picture of a seagull on a rock that could have been taken anywhere.
“Not a great selection, I'm guessing,” Dan said, unsure of what he was supposed to be looking at. “These things are sometimes interesting when they're terrible, but these are just plain dull, so–”
Dan stopped, looked more closely at the first card. There was something slightly off about it.
“Good!” Steve said, holding up his phone. “See? I took this picture before we upped anchor this morning. Light was good. Same position, roughly, as the photographer back then. What's different?”
Comparing the two images, Dan's trained eye immediately detected the anomaly. To the right of the harbor, from their current position, was a line of low cliffs. In the old photograph a low, triangular aperture was visible.
“It's a cave! Right at the base of the cliff, just under the church,” Dan said. “But it's not visible on your picture, so of course it was taken at high tide. The cave is only just visible at low tide. Or maybe not at all now, if sea levels have risen.”
“Bingo! You win a goldfish,” Steve said, retrieving the cards.
Dan looked up at the Englishman, puzzled.
“Why's this so important?” he asked. “A cave's a cave. There must be hundreds in these parts.”
Steve found an image on his phone, held it out. The picture on the screen looked to Dan like some kind of nautical chart, with details in the sea and the land left almost blank. Soray town, however, was clearly marked.
“See the prevailing ocean currents?” Steve asked, pointing to a curved line. “No? Well, take my word for it. It's quite clear to me. In these circumstances, any debris lying on the seabed would tend to get carried into that cave.”
Dan felt a sudden exultation, coupled with a slight smugness at having recruited Steve in the first place.
“So if there was any treasure remaining, that's where it would be?”
Steve nodded, then did a double-take.
“Remaining?” he asked. “Why? What happened to the rest?”
Dan looked back at the port, saw locals clustered around the store, no doubt getting updated about the outsiders.
I need an ally I can trust, he thought. Gotta take a gamble, here.
“Dan?” Steve asked. “What's up? What did you find at the church?”
“How long do you think they'll be down there?” Dan asked.
Steve checked his elaborate diver's watch, shrugged.
“A good long while, at least if we assume Chad isn't going to screw up. Plenty of Nitrox, enough for an hour. Why?”
Dan went into the cabin, got two cans of beer, handed one to Steve who had followed. Dan closed the cabin door so they could not be seen from the land.
“Steve,” he said. “You ever encountered what you might call, the supernatural?”
&nbs
p; Steve sat down on the bunk opposite Dan.
“I've seen some weird things, yeah,” he said. “And I've heard some tall stories. Whether there's a supernatural explanation for weird happenings – well, let's say I've got an open mind. Why? Did you see a ghost?”
Dan took a deep breath.
“No, or at least not here. Something else. Ever hear of creatures called Deep Ones?”
Twenty minutes later, after much discussion, they heard Lisa and Chad calling for help to get back onboard. Steve had heard Dan's entire story since his sighting of Tim Burdus on the Tube platform. He had only one comment as they made their way up.
“I wouldn't share this with someone like Chad,” Steve said. “So clearly we can't tell Lisa.”
Dan felt vindicated.
It's amazing what not being called crazy can do for my confidence, he thought.
***
“What's that?” Lisa asked, after she and Chad had been helped out of their suits.
The others looked to where she pointed. A sleek, white vessel had appeared around the point to the north of Soray harbor. It was much larger than the Dulcibella, a luxury motor yacht. The newcomer, Dan thought, reeked of ostentation.
“Not the sort of craft you'd see around here, normally,” mused Steve, picking up some binoculars. “But this has been kind of a weird day, I suppose.”
“Too flashy for my taste,” said Chad.
“Jealous?” said Steve, with an innocent-seeming smile.
“No!” snapped Chad. “I love sailing. That thing is just a floating condo, or maybe a whorehouse.”
Dan looked sidelong at his host. Chad seemed more than jealous. If anything, he appeared nervous.
“Named the Demeter,” Steve said, handing the binoculars to Dan. “Seems more like a floating brothel than a condo. Quite a few naughty-looking ladies draped around some very shady guys.”
Dan felt a sinking sensation as he raised the glasses and scanned the yacht. Sure enough, he could see several scantily clad women drinking what he guessed would be fancy cocktails. Their male companions were all of a recognizable type. Fake tanned, shaven-headed, muscular, in designer leisurewear. At the back of his mind, Dan felt himself amused by a scene that a Hollywood director would dismiss as too clichéd.
Boats 'n' hoes must mean Korochenko, he thought. Or friends of his. I guess even gangsters have pals who'll help them out. But how could they know I was here? Have they got a line to the spirit world, too?
“That yacht's too big to get into this harbor,” Steve was saying. “Any sign they're launching a small boat?”
“Yes,” said Dan, tonelessly. “Looks like three big guys are getting into it. None of the women. They're all wearing sunglasses, and I think one of them just shoved a gun in his waistband.”
“Shit!” moaned Chad, suddenly whiny and very loud. “Oh shit, man, this is not happening!”
Dan lowered the binoculars to see their host pacing back and forth, slapping a hand to his forehead, shaking off Lisa when she tried to take his arm.
“Darling,” she said soothingly, “it might just be a coincidence.”
“What is this?” Steve demanded, stepping in front of Chad. “Do you know them?”
“It wasn't supposed to work out like this,” Lisa said to Dan.
“What have you done?” he asked, grabbing her by the arms.
“Leave her alone you asshole!” shouted Chad.
He lashed out at Dan, catching him a glancing blow on the side of the head. Steve grabbed Chad from behind, pinning his arms, as Lisa kept protesting that nobody had wanted Dan to get hurt.
“It was just that Chad was so deep in debt,” she said. “And Korochenko found out, and bought up his debts, and the–”
“You kept transmitting your position, all the way here,” Steve finished. “I noticed that, thought you were being very diligent, Chad. Turns out you weren't informing the Coastguard of our location, were you? Scumbag!”
He wrenched Chad's arms back so that the American squealed in pain.
“You bastard,” said Steve, throwing Chad onto the deck. He looked at Lisa as she helped her boyfriend back onto his feet. “In fact, you're a pair of bastards.”
“While we fight, they get closer,” Dan said. “We need a plan, Steve. And we can't rely on these clowns.”
Lisa looked hurt. Any anger Dan might have felt against his colleague was drowned in a rising tide of panic fear. He felt nothing for Chad, but felt a faint hope that the approaching thugs would simply kill him out of hand.
“What about the police?” Lisa asked timidly. “Can't we call them?”
“You know there aren't any on the island,” spat Steve. “And we can't outrun them in this boat. If we go ashore, we might be able to hide inland. But we don't know the terrain any better than them.”
“And we've got no weapons,” Dan pointed out. “And the locals might help those guys find us. That's the way my luck's been running.”
It seemed clear to Dan that the men in the motor boat were willing to go to extremes, presumably because in such an isolated town as Soray, no help from the authorities could come in time.
And the Demeter would be well out of British waters before anyone here can report a small massacre. Assuming the locals even bother. They don't want official attention, after all.
The realization that the Soray folk would not care if outsiders murdered each other in broad daylight on their quayside triggered another thought. It was unlikely that the Russian mob had much information on the Outer Hebrides. And Chad and Lisa did not know what Dan had discovered that morning.
“Can we suit up and get under water?” he asked Steve. “Before they arrive? Then we can check out … that place you mentioned?”
The Englishman looked puzzled, then nodded.
“True,” he said, “that's the one place they can't follow us out here.”
“What do you mean?” Lisa asked.
“We think there's a safe refuge, somewhere to hide,” Steve explained. “But we'll have to go there underwater, so if you want to come–”
“That's crazy!” exclaimed Chad, looking from one to the other. “I'm gonna stay on my own goddam boat and tell them you overpowered us, escaped. They can't blame me for that.”
Of course they can, you spoiled jerk, Dan thought. But he said nothing.
The suiting up process was hasty, but thanks to Steve's expertise, they were ready to dive by the time the boat from the Demeter nosed carefully around the rocks at the harbor mouth. The men on board must have had binoculars too, or very keen eyesight, because as Dan prepared to roll backwards off the stern of the Dulcibella there was a sharp ping and a sliver of fiberglass flew across the aft deck. There was a sharp crack from the direction of the gangsters' boat.
“They're shooting at us!” shouted Chad, diving for cover along with Lisa.
“What are you, the narrator?” growled Steve, before giving Dan a thumbs up. “See you down below, buddy.”
The sound of the shot reached Dan just as he struck the water, then he was adjusting the buoyancy valve on his suit to take him down to the bottom, about fifteen feet. He assumed that none of the thugs would be able to shoot at him underwater, but was not going to risk his life on an assumption. A trail of silvery bubbles shot near his head at a steep angle.
They catch on quickly, he thought. Hope they didn't bring any depth charges.
Steve plunged past him, heading down a lot faster. Dan kicked and thrashed to try and catch up, but the loose-fitting suit made speed impossible. Another bullet arced past them, losing momentum to the water, its trail vanishing as it became just a lump of hot metal falling into the harbor mud.
When Steve reached the bottom, he waited for Dan to join him, then set off at a steady pace towards the harbor mouth. Dan tried to estimate how far the sea cave was from their current position, concluded it was depressingly far off. He glanced up, expecting to see the Russian motorboat cruising above them. But instead, it he could make out its ta
pered shape alongside the Dulcibella. It seemed certain that Chad's yacht had been boarded.
Dan tried not to think of what might happen to Lisa. She had known that Chad was putting them all in danger, including herself. She had not acted like a friend, or even a human being with basic decency.
She said she was my buddy, he thought, with a furious resentment he recognized as childish but could not set aside. He recalled Melinda's warning. Lisa must be the 'she' I couldn't trust.
After what seemed like an hour, but might really have been a third of that time, they reached the harbor mouth. The silt gave way to cleaner sand, rocks, and man-made debris such as bits of nylon netting. Steve turned right.
Now that they were well and truly on their way to the cave, Dan began to think about what they might find there. To quell lurid imaginings, he wondered how much of Malahide's talk came down to drink-induced madness. Perhaps the islanders were simply inbred and suspicious of strangers. It was possible that the priest's fingers had always been slightly webbed. The weird murals proved nothing in themselves, nor did the crucifix.
The only facts I can be sure of is that most of the Soray treasure was spent long ago, he thought. And that some people are trying to kill me. So I have, quite probably, screwed up my life on a grand scale.
Dan tried to stop thinking, and concentrated on the rhythm of the swim. He focused on the trail of bubbles left by Steve, on the sound of his own breathing, and on the strange, half-heard noises of the ocean. Gradually, the latter started to preoccupy him. It might have been his imagination, but the underwater noises slowly began to seem louder, more insistent, something like articulate speech.
***
“We are told Fox is here,” said the leader of the Russians. “And now he is not here. That was not the deal. The deal was, you deliver Fox.”
Chad, nervous and his voice trembling, held up his hands in a cool-it gesture.
“Hey, guys,” he said, “how far can he get in a diving suit? I mean, he can't just sit on the bottom of the harbor forever, right? So I kept my part of the bargain, and now Korochenko can keep his, and get those other guys off my case–”
Dark Waters (Mephisto Club Series Book 1) Page 12
