None but the Dead (39 page)

Ivan had moved on, unaware that he’d lost his followers. As she set a course to catch up, she told McNab what Magnus had said.

‘Fucking hell, why didn’t she tell me?’ he complained.

That wasn’t the only thing that had worried Rhona about this sudden revelation. If Hege was suddenly concerned about what might happen when the police located Joe Millar, might she, if she
could, try and warn him of their coming?

‘Did she have a contact number for Millar?’ Rhona said to McNab.

‘Just what I was thinking. She swore she didn’t, but . . .’

They had reached the beach, although this didn’t consist of the usual strip of white sand but a pile of debris that had fallen from the rock face above. Beside them, the waterfall rattled
over stones, as noisy as the waves that crashed to shore.

‘Now we get really wet,’ Ivan promised.

The curved rock that towered above them was greened by lichens and sea anemones clinging on for dear life. The water would, she was sure, have been a midnight blue had the sun been out. As it
was, there was nothing inviting about it.

This time she didn’t remove her boots, but waded in behind Ivan. Once in the shadow of the arch, they were plunged into an even deeper gloom. All sounds of their movement, the suck and
chug of the sea, became exaggerated, resonating against the jagged stone walls. Ivan moved on, wading purposefully forward, apparently ignoring the fact that the water was growing deeper with every
step.

Sensing McNab was biting his tongue, keen not to reveal his unease, Rhona put his fear into words. ‘It’s getting deeper, Ivan.’

He turned, his expression excited but unworried. ‘It won’t get any deeper than this. Once we turn the next corner, the ground rises towards the beach.’

She had almost got used to seeing only a few yards in front of her. Apart from an occasional drip of water from the roof of the arch, it was no longer raining on them, which was a small
consolation for her water-sodden feet. Eventually the gloom lightened and they emerged, within sight of the pitching boat.

Its rear was towards them, but the name
Antares
was clearly visible.

McNab moved past her, keen now to take the lead. If he had a plan, he hadn’t shared it with them.

‘So,’ Rhona said, ‘what do we do now?’

All the windows were covered by curtains. Rhona couldn’t imagine staying there in the pitching sea in the dark, when dry land was so close at hand. The cliffs alongside were dotted with
dark shadows. Some of which would no doubt prove to be caves. Maybe he’d come ashore and taken refuge in one?

She said as much to McNab.

‘We check the boat first,’ he said. ‘Have you got a signal?’

Glancing at the screen, it was obvious there was no chance, tucked down as they were with a wall of rock behind them.

‘Coming from the other direction, the others should reach here soon,’ Ivan told them. ‘Do we wait?’

Rhona could sense by McNab’s demeanour that that wasn’t in the plan.

‘If she’s on that boat, we get her off now.’ He turned to Ivan. ‘The maximum draught for the
Antares
is 0.6 metres. I assume that’s when it’s
loaded?’

Ivan nodded. ‘I estimate it’s sitting in around a metre at the moment,’ he advised.

Rhona used her binoculars, then handed them to McNab. ‘I can’t see a dinghy. Do you know where it’s stored?’

McNab’s recollection of that part of the spec seemed to be missing.

‘There’s no dinghy pulled up on shore that I can see.’

There wasn’t, although that didn’t mean it hadn’t been hidden.

‘Okay, here’s what we do,’ McNab said.

Rhona had insisted he discard his outer garments and boots to get rid of the weight. He quibbled about that, but she’d been adamant.

‘The cold will hit you with a vengeance. You’ll go numb, then it’ll get painful. By that time you want to be out of the water.’

‘I know what the North Sea feels like,’ he’d insisted. ‘I was thrown in it, remember?’

She’d smiled, and that smile made him feel better.

The swim ladder faced him at the rear. From where they were, he could reach it without being seen. McNab managed to discard the cagoule, but struggled with the boots. Eventually he released his
feet. By now he was already cold and trying hard to disguise it.

He plunged forward, exiting the safety of the arch. The plan had been to wade and not to swim. It was clear that swim or not, the waves would succeed in soaking him anyway.

The bottom half of his body already chilled and wet, the true shock of the cold only hit him when the water reached its freezing hand between his shoulder blades and took his feet from under
him.

Gasping, McNab muttered desperately under his breath, the order to swim.

Gradually, and despite the forward push and backward suck of the waves, the stern of the
Antares
approached.

He looked to shore, seeking Rhona, and saw Ivan helping her to clamber there via the rocks.

So Rhona was safe, at least.

The swim ladder sat to the right of the outboard motor. Reaching out, he found the bottom rung. Grabbing a hold, he floated there, listening. There wasn’t a sound from within. His memory
of the child included her talking, incessantly. There was nothing being said within his earshot, at least.

He reached for and gripped the ladder, two rungs further up, preparing to pull the heavy weight of his body and sodden clothes from the water. As he did so, the boat pitched in an incoming wave.
McNab lost his grip and fell back, submerging.

Caught unawares, he swallowed what tasted like a gallon of salt water, then broke the surface, trying hard not to cough his guts up and alert anyone on board.

His second attempt at the ladder brought him onto the back deck, which swam in a film of seawater.

There was no sound or movement from within, despite the arrival of his weight on the stern. The spec photos of the
Antares
indicated sleeping quarters forward, with a door between it and
the main cabin.

McNab checked the shore to find Rhona and PC Tulloch already there. Rhona raised her hand and McNab gave her the thumbs-up.

Seabirds screamed above him as though in warning, and he realized that the rain had stopped.

Water pooling round his feet to add to that which was already there, he reached for the main cabin door and opened it. As he suspected, it was empty. The wheel and pilot’s seat on the
right, a bunk partially made up into a bed on the left.

He stood for a moment, listening again.

Above all he wanted to call the child’s name, but what if he did and she was in the forward cabin with Millar? Shielded now from the sound of waves, the resulting silence seemed more
ominous.

McNab stood, hesitant. Then noticed something smeared on the forward door.

Fucking hell. Was that blood?

McNab grabbed the handle and wrenched it open.

There was something about the sight of a dead child that never left you. The image glued itself to your brain, reran in technicolour when you least expected it. He’d
viewed three such corpses and had hoped never to view another.

There was blood on the floor, some spots on the bed, which was made up of six blue cushions laid out on the floor. A pillow, with a blood smear. A sleeping bag with something inside it that gave
it shape.

His guts rising into his throat, McNab dipped his head and eased himself into that space. He imagined it smelt of little girl, of tears and terror.

Reaching out, McNab caught the end of the sleeping bag and tried to pull it towards him.

He emerged from the cabin and climbed back onto the side deck. All thoughts of being cold had left him. He looked for Rhona on the shore and found her there. Watching and
waiting.

‘Michael!’ she called, her voice wavering on the wind.

McNab shouted back that the girl wasn’t on board.

Of the three, this cave was the deepest. Its entrance swam with water, but only at ankle level. Ivan had indicated that the tide was on its way in and that at high tide, the
entrance would be wholly underwater.

‘If my memory serves me right, the very back stays dry. But don’t stay in there too long or you won’t get back out.’

The entrance was narrow, one person wide. McNab had sent Ivan back up the cliff to try and make contact with the other half of the search party before the dark descended, while he checked out
the other caves. Rhona’s insistence that they each carry a dry change of clothing in a backpack had paid off. Stripping, McNab had accepted his with open arms. Now reclothed, his outer
garments back on, the only wet items were his boots.

Her despair at the shouted message that the girl wasn’t on the
Antares
had been tempered by McNab’s arrival on shore with his tale of the bloodstains on the inner cabin. It
was clear from his expression that he’d been convinced he was about to find the girl’s body.

Which might yet be the case.

Emerging from the narrow entrance, her torch now picked out a heightened inner cavern. The water was less here, just a thin film over sand. Her every movement seemed amplified as though
she’d just entered a cathedral in the rock. Lowering her torch, she realized that it wasn’t completely dark, and the little light that existed wasn’t coming from behind her but in
front.

She moved forward, heading towards that dim light, to find the ground rising. Soon she left sand, and her feet found stones again, grey slabs like those outside. The stones were wet but not
under water. The passage had narrowed once more, barely wide enough for her to pass through. Ivan or McNab, broad-shouldered and clothed in bulky waterproofs, would have struggled to make it.

Around six feet in length, the passage deposited Rhona onto dry land. Above her, a vertical hole in the rock proved to be the source of the light.

She stood for a moment, listening. Somewhere in the distance was the scream of a seabird, the low boom of water against rock, the rattle of gravel as a wave shifted it. In here, only the sound
of her breathing.

She switched on her torch again and ran it around the space.

A scattering of feathers and droppings bore witness to the detritus falling from the bird life on the rocks above. No evidence however of human habitation. She had turned to go when she caught a
sound.

A breath or a sigh?

And not her own.

‘Inga,’ she called softly. ‘Inga, are you here? It’s Rhona. Everyone’s out searching for you. Your mum wants you to come home.’

She didn’t expect an answer, but felt it important to say the words.

The sound of her voice died in the silence, and with it the vague hope that she might have been right.

Then a small voice said, ‘Daddy’s gone to get Mummy. He’s going to bring her here and we’ll all leave together on our boat.’

She was nestled in a crack in the far wall of the cave.

The torch beam found her face, making her blink. Wrapped in a dark blanket, she looked dry and unharmed. Rhona, keen not to spook the child, came slowly forward.

‘Are you okay?’

The eyes that met hers were tired and a little afraid.

‘Daddy told me not to show myself, if anyone found the cave. He told me he would be back soon with Mummy.’

To Rhona, Millar’s instructions sounded more like a threat than a command.

‘Did he tell your mummy he was coming for her?’

She shook her head.

‘No, he said he wanted it to be a surprise.’

‘The bastard,’ McNab hissed under his breath when she told him.

‘Magnus warned that he was a danger to the child’s mother,’ Rhona said.

‘How long ago did he leave?’

‘He brought Inga ashore last night. Told her to hide and wait for him.’

‘How the hell does he get from here to the top of the island without being spotted?’

‘He planned to walk through the night.’

‘What?’

‘It’s three miles cross-country to Lady Village. All on the flat. From there to Lopness Bay, say another three miles. Two more and he’s at the Sinclair place.’

‘So he could be there by now?’

‘Yes.’

‘And I took PC Tulloch away from sentry duty. What a fucking idiot.’

‘We need to get a message to Erling.’

‘You stay here with Inga,’ McNab said.

‘We can’t stay in the cave, the tide’s coming in,’ Rhona reminded him. ‘I think we should all go together.’

The child had taken some persuading to abandon the cave. However her father had put it, she wasn’t keen to cross him.

Rhona had explained about the tide and how she would be cut off, but it had taken McNab to convince the child. He’d reminded her of how she’d agreed to be a detective like him and
that had helped lead them to the skull.

‘You found it?’ she’d said, and for the first time Rhona had seen a light in her eyes.

‘Yes. And because of that, we think we know who it was.’

‘Who?’ she’d said.

‘Your great-aunt.’

She hadn’t been surprised by that. ‘I knew it was something to do with me. I knew it. And the flower? Did Mr Flett find out about the flowers without my help?’

McNab had been at a loss to answer that one and had turned to Rhona for help. She’d decided to tell the truth. The child would hear it soon anyway.

‘Sam was drowned on the causeway, when he went out looking for you.’

She looked stricken at this. ‘Daddy didn’t tell me that.’

‘Your daddy didn’t tell you a lot of things,’ McNab said. ‘How sad and worried your mum is. How everyone is searching for you. How much your friends miss you.’

‘Daddy told me you all knew I was with him. That Sam had loaned him the jeep to pick me up.’

Rhona had suspected as much.

As they made their way back to the entrance, McNab had held the girl’s hand, lifting her in his arms when they met standing water. Ivan was right, the tide was coming in. In the outer
section of the cave it now reached as far as Rhona’s knees.

Emerging, they found dusk falling.

Rhona looked up at the sea wall they’d climbed down earlier.

Could they get back up there in the dark, without Ivan to guide them?