The helicopter was close now and we could see the searchlight, a huge beam of brightness lighting up the valley. I tightened my hold on Charles. The Shetlands, seeking security in numbers, had all followed us to the overhang. Unlike Charles and Henry, though, they were far from still: they pushed and bustled each other, jumping around and squabbling in their efforts to stay as close as possible to the bigger horses.
‘Skit! Scram! Get out of here!’ hissed Helen. ‘Little buggers are going to draw attention to us.’
The chopper was directly above us now. The cascade of light was alien, terrifying in its intensity, illuminating the landscape in a ghostly parody of daylight. Outside the light, though, all appeared pitch black, unnaturally dark for Shetland, and for the moment the dark cloak covered us.
The helicopter passed overhead. I held my breath, hardly daring to hope. It travelled maybe half a mile to the north and then swung a 180-degree turn and headed back towards us.
‘They’ve seen us,’ I whispered again. I couldn’t help it; it was instinctive to keep my voice low.
‘They’ve seen something,’ said Helen. ‘Stay still.’
This time the chopper wasn’t lighting up the centre of the valley but had shifted twenty metres or so to the west; a small but crucial adjustment, given that this time the searchlight could hardly miss us.
‘I should have untacked the horses when we first heard it,’ I said. ‘No one would think twice about finding two untacked horses out here. Without them, we could have hidden behind rocks.’
Helen shook her head. ‘They’ll have surveillance equipment,’ she said. ‘They’ll be able to spot body heat. Actually, these little tykes might just save the day.’
The Shetlands seemed to fear the light more than the noise. As it grew closer they broke cover, scattering across the valley, seeking the safety of darkness. The chopper swerved and followed them just as the light touched on Henry’s brown tail. The dominant stallion set off south at a gallop, most of the herd veering round to follow him, and, like a new recruit, the chopper went too, increasing the panic among the scared little animals. The herd turned, so did the chopper. It began to circle; the light edged closer. A mare and her foal that had stayed with us broke away at this point and the helicopter circled again. It rose higher in the sky and moved north. It turned back but this time kept clear of our rock overhang and headed north again.
Charles and Henry started to fidget but Helen and I hardly dared move as the noise of the helicopter’s engines faded.
‘I can’t believe we got away with that,’ I said, when it felt safe to breathe again.
‘They saw movement and probably body heat but assumed it was the ponies. God bless them.’
The ponies had calmed down but were staying clear of us.
‘Will they come back?’ I asked.
Helen shook her head. ‘Impossible to say. They’ve got a lot of terrain to cover. I think we need to get moving. We’ll hear them if they head back.’
We mounted and set off again. The tension of the last few minutes seemed to have sapped me of energy. It was all I could do to point Charles in the right direction and urge him forward.
‘How much further do we have to go?’ asked Helen.
I looked at my watch. It was coming up for three a.m. The incident with the helicopter had slowed us down.
‘Another forty-five minutes,’ I guessed.
‘Christ, my ass is sore.’
‘Wait till tomorrow. You won’t be able to walk.’
At that moment the world around us changed.
We’d been travelling through a landscape of black and grey shadows, of cliffs topped with scrubby remnants of vegetation, silhouetted against a deep indigo sky. Of subtle hues there was an endless variety, of real colour there was none.
And then a great draper in the sky unleashed a roll of finest green silk; it hung in the air, several miles high, stretching as far as we could see, shifting and gleaming, changing constantly, giving off and reflecting back a light that was all its own. The sky grew blacker around it. Trees and rock formations were thrown into harsh relief as the draper shook his cloth, the silken sky rippled, and shades of pale green I’d never dreamed of danced before us.
The horses stood, frozen to the spot.
‘Oh my God,’ whispered Helen. ‘What is it?’
From the north-west came a soundless explosion of colour, as though heaven had thrown open a window, allowing awestruck mortals below a glimpse of the treasures beyond. Cascading down came beams of silvery green, of a rich deep violet, and of the warmest, softest, rosiest pink you could imagine; it was the colour of love, of girlish dreams, of a warm and happy future that I would probably never know. It was colour so incredibly rich, and yet so fine that through it we could still see the stars.
And so we joined the ranks of the few privileged souls who, thanks to a lucky coincidence of time, geography and atmospheric conditions, have been permitted to glimpse the Aurora Borealis.
‘The Northern Lights,’ I said.
Silence.
‘Wow!’ said Helen.
‘Doesn’t nearly come close,’ I agreed.
Silence again.
‘How?’ she said. ‘How does it happen?’
I took a deep breath, ready to reel off a lengthy and extremely tedious explanation of charged particles from the sun colliding with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. Then I changed my mind.
‘The Inuits called them gifts from the dead,’ I said. Then, surprised at my own daring, let alone the sentimental depths to which my normally cynical nature could plummet, I added, ‘I think Dana sent them.’
Helen and I watched the lights glimmer and ripple for a further ten minutes before fading. We lost more time but it didn’t seem to matter. We had gained strength.
‘Thank you,’ whispered Helen, and I knew she wasn’t talking to me.
Shortly before three thirty we arrived at my friend’s livery yard in Voe. The stable-block was empty but I could see her two horses peering at us from a nearby field. I slid off Charles and ran my hands over his injured leg. It had held up but he was going to need a few days rest. I found buckets and gave both horses a long drink and an armful of hay. Then I untacked them, released them into the field and carried the saddles and bridles over to the tack room. The key was where I expected to find it, beneath an earthenware flower tub.
My friend’s tack room doubles as an office and there was a phone line. I pointed it out to Helen, closed the door behind us and headed straight for a drawer in the desk. I was in luck. Half a packet of Jaffa cakes, a nearly full box of Maltesers and three tubes of Polo mints. I divided the bounty and we ate ravenously for five minutes. Feeling slightly better but still sore and weary, we plugged in Dana’s laptop.
31
THERE WAS ONLY room for one at my friend’s cramped desk so Helen took the chair and I lowered myself on to a straw bale and leaned against the stone wall of the tack room. I didn’t think I’d ever been on a less comfortable seat, but I knew I could be asleep in seconds if I allowed my eyes to close. From the saddlebag I retrieved Dana’s copy of The Woman in White. As I did so, several folded sheets of A4 paper fell out of it.
At the desk Helen broke off typing to cough and then spit into her hand. She caught me looking at her.
‘Bloody Maltesers are covered in hairs,’ she grumbled before resuming typing.
‘Dog hairs if you’re lucky, horse hairs if you’re not,’ I muttered.
‘’Scuse me?’ she said, her fingers still tapping away.
‘Something my dad used to say at mealtimes,’ I said. ‘I grew up on a farm. With horses. Food hygiene wasn’t something we worried too much about.’
‘If I find another I’ll pass it your way. What are you doing?’
‘Staring vacantly at a sheet of paper, hoping the words might come into focus some time before dawn,’ I answered.
‘You should sleep,’ she said. ‘You should probably still be in hospital.’ She leaned to
one side and spat again, less delicately this time. ‘Shit, what is this?’
‘You eat a pound of muck before you die,’ I said.
This time she let her hands fall on to her lap and turned round to me. ‘What?’
‘Dad again. He got it from his dad. It’s called a Wiltshire Wisdom. When I was young, I took it literally – you know, imagined that when I’d eaten exactly my pound of muck, that would be it – curtains – even if I was only seven and healthy as a horse. It terrified me for a while. I used to scrub fruit till I bruised it. One time I even tried to use bleach on a biscuit I dropped on the floor.’
Helen was staring at me. I dropped my eyes to the floor, feeling ridiculous.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked tentatively, as though not too sure she could deal with an honest answer.
I nodded without looking up.
‘You’re allowed to have a good howl. I did.’
I bit my lip, took a deep breath. ‘Not sure I’d be able to stop,’ I managed after a second or two. Helen said nothing but I could feel her staring at me. ‘Duncan’s leaving me,’ I said. ‘He’s met someone else. I suppose I should be thankful, really, given everything that’s . . .’
Helen started to push herself up from the desk to come towards me.
‘When can you phone for a helicopter?’ I asked.
She said nothing for a second, then sat back down. ‘An hour or so. Not too long.’
I forced myself to concentrate on the papers in front of me. After a minute or two, I was able to blink away the tears and read them.
Right at the start of Dana’s investigation I’d given her a print-out of births on the islands. She’d transferred it all on to her laptop but had kept my original and I was looking at it now. She’d gone over several entries with a pink highlighter pen. The four highlighted entries were all births that had taken place on Tronal between March and August 2005. I’d done exactly the same thing some hours previously.
Again, I noticed the initials KT. Seven entries. What had Gifford said they abbreviated: Keloid Trauma? It had made a certain sort of sense the way he’d explained it but it wasn’t a term I’d come across before. Wondering if the entries had anything else in common, I checked the timing and found nothing; they were spread fairly evenly over the six-month period. Next I checked locality; three had been born at the Franklin Stone, another elsewhere in Lerwick, one on Yell, one on Bressay and one on Papa Stour. The weights of the infants varied but all were within the normal range, if anything slightly on the heavy side. A couple had been Caesareans but the rest were normal vaginal deliveries. They were all boys. I checked again. Not a single girl among them. Race of males.
I’d had it. I settled myself down on the straw and drew my jacket up around me. My consciousness closed down just about the same moment my eyes did.
‘Tora.’
Didn’t want to wake up. Knew I had to.
‘Tora!’ Firmer this time. Like Mum on a school day. Had to be done. I pushed myself up.
Helen was standing over me. The door to the tack room was open and it was light outside. Helen had packed both bags and had one slung over each shoulder.
‘We have to leave,’ she said. ‘Can you walk a mile?’
I stood up. Speaking seemed like too much effort so I didn’t try. I drank some water, scribbled a note to my friend and then walked out into the sunlight. Helen locked up behind me and replaced the key. I glanced over to where Charles and Henry were grazing and felt as though I was leaving my children behind. Helen set off towards the yard gate and I followed. She held it open for me.
We started to walk down the road towards the tiny town of Voe. My shoulder blades felt as though someone had put a knife in between them and my legs were shaking. I was light-headed again, but this time with exhaustion and lack of food rather than panic. I hadn’t the energy left to panic.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked. I looked at my watch. Five-thirty a.m.
‘Pub at the bottom,’ Helen replied. ‘There’s a car park. Chopper can land there.’
In spite of everything I was impressed. She was going to get us out of here. I’d be safe. I could rest. We could work it all out. Or maybe I’d let someone else do it. Maybe I didn’t really care too much any more.
We heard the chopper when we were still about a quarter-mile from the pub and I had to fight an urge to run and hide.
‘Helen, what if it’s not your people? What if it’s them? What if they tracked your phone call?’
‘Calm down. If that sort of technology even exists outside the movies, it’s certainly not in common use.’
The noise of the chopper was getting louder. Helen took my arm and frogmarched me across the street and into the car park. The helicopter was overhead now. It started to circle.
I looked round. There was no one in sight but it was only a matter of minutes before the noise of the helicopter’s engines would draw the curious. Someone would phone the local police. They would come and check.
Slowly, the helicopter began its descent. It continued to circle around the car park, getting lower with each circuit. In the street a delivery van had pulled over. A woman walking two lurchers approached. The dogs started to bark but instead of moving them away from the noise she stopped and watched, shading her eyes against the early sun.
The helicopter – small, black and yellow, not unlike the one the medical team used to get around the islands in emergencies – was about fifty feet above us now and the wind from the blades whipped my hair up around my head. Helen’s, still plaited, stayed put. A car had pulled over now and two men jumped out to watch. One of them was speaking into a mobile.
Come on.
Finally the chopper touched down. The pilot signalled to Helen, she took my arm and we ran towards it. Helen opened the door, I jumped into the back seat and she followed, closing the door behind her. We were in the air before either of us could even locate our seatbelts, let alone fasten them.
Helen yelled something at the pilot that I didn’t catch; he shouted back and then swung the chopper round. We were heading south, back over Shetland. I really didn’t care, just as long as when we put down again we were off the islands.
Helen smiled at me, patted my hand and then raised her eyebrows and nodded her head in an everything all right? sort of gesture. Speech was just about impossible so I nodded. She settled back in her seat and closed her eyes.
The helicopter bounced around as it sped south. Neither Helen nor I had been offered headphones and the engines were painfully loud. I started to feel nauseous and looked around for a sick-bag. Saliva gathered in my mouth and I closed my eyes.
Helen had said nothing but I guessed we were going to Dundee, where she was based. On her own patch she would have the best use of resources and be better able to look after me if (or rather when) Dunn and his gang came after me.
After a while the nausea faded and I risked opening my eyes again. Another ten, fifteen minutes passed and I was feeling well enough to watch the coastline go by. In the early sun the sea sparkled and the white of the foam had turned to silver.
The first time I saw Duncan had been at the coast. He’d been surfing and was walking out of the water, board tucked under one arm, his wet hair gleaming black, eyes bluer than the sky. I hadn’t dared approach, thinking him way out of my league, but later that night he’d found me. I’d thought myself the luckiest girl in the world. So what did that make me now? There were a dozen questions that I really didn’t want answers to, but I just couldn’t get them out of my head. How deep did Duncan’s involvement go? Had he known about Melissa? Had we bought the house so that he could keep an eye on the place, make sure nothing disturbed the anonymous grave on the hillside? I couldn’t believe it, would not believe it, but . . .
Soon Dundee drew nearer and I prepared myself for the stomach-sinking, ear-popping descent. Instead, the pilot banked sharp right and headed west. We left Dundee behind us and started to gain altitude. A minute later I glanced down and realized
why. The Grampian mountains were directly below.
I’ve probably made it clear already that I’m not a great fan of Scotland, particularly the north-eastern corner of it. But even I have to admit that if there’s anywhere on earth more beautiful than the Scottish Highlands, I have yet to see it. I watched those peaks sail below us, some capped with snow, some with heather, I saw glinting sapphires of lochs, and forests so deep and thick you might expect to find dragons in them, and I started to feel better. The pain between my shoulders became an ache and when I looked down my hands were no longer shaking. When we could see the sea again the helicopter at last started to go down.
Helen opened her eyes when we were twenty feet from the ground. We put down on a football field. Fifty yards away sat a blue and white police car. My heart started to thud but Helen didn’t bat an eyelid. She yelled something at the pilot and then jumped out. I followed and we ran to the police car. The constable in the driving seat started the engine.
‘Morning, Nigel,’ said Helen.
‘Morning, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘Where to first?’
‘The harbour, please,’ replied Helen.
We drove through a small, grey-stone town that looked vaguely familiar. When we arrived at the harbour I realized where we were. A few years ago Duncan and I had taken part in a flotilla cruise of the Highlands’ whisky distilleries. The week-long junket had begun in this town and I remembered a drunken, wonderful evening. It felt like a very long time ago.
Helen gave the driver some directions and we drove along the harbour front, stopping just short of the pier, for no reason I could see. We got out. Helen led me to one of the small stalls that line the front of most seaside towns.
‘Do you like seafood?’ she asked.
‘Not usually for breakfast,’ I replied.
‘Trust me. Do you like seafood?’
‘I guess,’ I said, thinking what the hell, a good chuck-up will at least get rid of the nausea.
Helen pointed out a bench overlooking the sea and I sat down. I could smell the sour, slightly rancid aroma of sun-dried seaweed and the leftovers of yesterday’s catch. And something wonderful. Helen sat down beside me, handing me a large cardboard mug of coffee, several white paper napkins and a grease-stained paper bag.
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