The Darkness and the Deep (12 page)

‘Aye, aye, Tam! Bad business, this!’

Turning his head, MacNee saw Jason Channell, one of the Anchormen he had recently played at darts and chief mechanic to the lifeboat, coming up the track behind him in one of the cars which had been supplying light. He had stopped and rolled down his window.

‘Bad, right enough.’ MacNee jerked his head towards the disappearing car. ‘What was all that about?’

‘That’s the Honorary Secretary. Elder – you know, him that’s built these.’ Channell indicated the five new houses, still blazing light. ‘He went clean gyte this evening when he heard it was Rob taking charge instead of Willie. He was like a hen on a hot griddle all evening and when the news came through he was out the shed and along here with the rescue party, yelling and swearing and getting in the way. Then he kinda collapsed and we got him back in his car but it looks like he maybe took another turn just now.’

MacNee frowned. ‘I’ve never come across the man, but surely he’s a reputation for being a bit of a hard man?’

‘Aye, well, there’s a story going round that him and the wee doctor were having a carry-on. He maybe wasn’t keen about his fancy piece going out on a night as fierce as this with just the acting cox.’

‘Rob? Good man, wasn’t he?’

‘I’d have said he was probably safe enough. But maybe Elder knew something we didn’t – I can’t see Willie being such a gomeril as to go into Fuill’s Inlat.’

‘But Rob obviously was.’

Channell scratched his head. ‘Beats me. There’s something funny about all this. They’ll be able to tell you better along at the shed. I wasn’t by the radio when it all went wrong – just there was a gey lot of shouting and we were on our way along here.’

‘Fine. I’ll have to phone my inspector anyway. She’s on a night out – she’ll not be pleased.’

The other man nodded, and drove on. The cortege bearing the bodies on stretchers, covered now, was plodding wearily up the hill to the second ambulance; other dispirited, silent men were getting back into the minibus that had brought them along. The cars which had been at the bottom of the track were lurching slowly up it now.

MacNee made his phone call, looking back down into the cove as he spoke to Fleming. Two of the team were packing up equipment; another had gone to reclaim the line from the higher side of the narrow bay. Watching him idly as he detached it, MacNee’s eye was caught by something.

Out at the point of the rocky ridge, behind and above where the man had been working, there was a flash of green light, then a moment later, another, and after the same interval, another. Whatever was emitting it was concealed by the bulk of the rocks – was it some sort of warning beacon visible from the sea, perhaps, to mark the danger of this entrance? He had finished his call and was still watching it when one of the men carrying equipment reached him, and he was curious enough to ask him about it.

‘That green light flashing there –’ he indicated it, ‘is that a warning light that the cox should have seen?’

The man followed the direction of his pointing finger, then said blankly, ‘There shouldn’t be a light there at all. Drew! Tommy!’ he shouted to the men below. ‘What’s that light out on the end of the rocks there? Come up here and you’ll see it.’

The two men climbed up to join them. ‘My God!’ one exclaimed. ‘Green, flashing light! That’s what you look for, coming into Knockhaven harbour!’

They took off at a run, heading in opposite directions, two along the flattish top of the ridge towards where the light was coming from and the other to the farther side beyond the shed, to see if he could get a view across. He reached his objective first; MacNee heard him shout and wave to recall them, but couldn’t hear what he said. He hurried down to the edge of the retreating sea himself and reached it just as the three men came back together.

‘What did you see, Tommy?’ one demanded.

Tommy’s face was grim. ‘Some bastard’s done this deliberately, Drew.’

‘Done what?’ MacNee demanded.

‘There’s a fixed red light on the end gable of that shed. There’s a green flashing light higher up on the other side. That’s the pattern of leading lights that tells you you’re on course for the entrance to the harbour at Knockhaven.’

Drew said slowly, ‘I thought it was queer – Rob’s a wise-like man. Though you’d expect to see the lights from the houses on the cliff before Knockhaven on your way in – you’d have thought he’d have maybe wondered about that.’

‘Look up there.’ MacNee gestured to the little development fringing the bay. ‘They’ve only just opened this up. It’s probably the first time they’ve had the lights on like that. You could easy mistake them – forget there were houses here at all.’

There was a heavy silence. ‘Right enough,’ one of the men said.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ MacNee warned them. ‘I’ll get someone down to secure the site.’

‘I’ll radio the coastguard to put out a warning to shipping,’ Drew said. ‘We’re not wanting anyone else landing in here.’

They fetched the line and coiled it up, then, with the last of the equipment, plodded tiredly up the hill. MacNee, summoning some unlucky constable for a cold, unpleasant night of duty, looked down at the sad remains of the
Maud’n’Milly. ‘“On Life’s rough ocean luckless starr’d
,”’ he murmured, then, ‘Control? I’ve a rare job here for somebody.’

By the time Marjory Fleming arrived after the twenty-minute drive down the coast, it was raining only fitfully and the wind was dropping. By half-past midnight on any normal night, most of the douce folk of Knockhaven would be either preparing for bed or in bed already, but tonight lights blazed from the windows and the streets were thronged with people, talking in sober groups or, as Marjory found when she reached the brilliantly illuminated lifeboat shed, just watching in silence. As she wound down her window to speak to the constable controlling access to the pier, she could hear a woman sobbing.

There were two patrol cars parked there already, blue lights revolving, and she spotted MacNee in earnest conversation with a couple of uniforms. He detached himself and came towards her.

‘I got a slightly fuller briefing on the way down,’ she told him. ‘Any relatives here?’

‘No. Luke Smith’s parents have been informed, but they live in Edinburgh. Ashley Randall’s husband was at the scene with his mother, apparently, but they didn’t hang about after the body was recovered. Rob Anderson’s wife’s gone to the hospital, but he’s in a bad way.’

‘If he made a mistake as crass as that I doubt if he’ll have the will to live,’ Fleming said crisply. ‘So who do I need to see? The Honorary Secretary, I suppose, since he’s technically in charge.’

‘That’s Ritchie Elder – local boy made good, so-called self-made man. God likely wouldn’t want to take responsibility.’

‘Must be in quite a state, with an accident like this happening on his watch.’

‘You could say that,’ MacNee said dryly, then, as Fleming made to go into the shed, went on, ‘but hold your horses! It’s a wee bittie complicated. They’ve packed him off home. Seems there may have been a touch of the hochmagandy going on with Ashley Randall and he’s not himself just at the moment.’

‘Ah. Difficult situation.’

‘That’s not the half of it. I noticed this green light flashing when I was over at Fuill’s Inlat and when they investigated they found someone had rigged up lights at the entrance to the cove.’

‘You’re not telling me this
wasn’t
a tragic mistake?’

‘They’re the same as the lights that lead you into Knockhaven harbour.’

Fleming stared at him, aghast. ‘You mean we’re looking for someone who deliberately tried to wreck the
lifeboat
?’

‘Hard to see what else it could mean. And with the way these things happen, the cox radioed that the teacher laddie was in a state, wanting to throw himself overboard, so they were distracted trying to restrain him just as they headed in.’

Fleming groaned. It was almost a truism that if things were bad, something else would happen that made them worse. Experience should have hardened her by now, both to the cruelty of fate and human wickedness, but the
lifeboat
! People die tragically every day, but in any locality with towns and villages where men go down to the sea in ships, the lifeboat service has a special place in the community’s heart and the loss of two, or perhaps three, lives in this context would have a particular resonance. The thought that this could have been the result of a deliberate act was hugely shocking.

‘Vandals, I suppose,’ she said bitterly. ‘We’ve become the sort of sick society where kids get their kicks out of trying to derail trains and dropping rocks off bridges on to passing cars.’

‘Could be. I was having a wee word with some of the locals,’ MacNee nodded to the group by the police cars, ‘and it seems they’re looking for Rob Anderson’s stepson. His mother reported he’d taken her car without permission and he’s under age. He’s a young tearaway and there’s no love lost between him and Rob. You might just wonder . . .’

‘Aye. You might. Tell them to take him in for questioning when they catch up with him. I’ll go and have a word with them inside but I doubt there’s much we can do before morning. Is the accident scene secured? Thanks, you’ve done a good job here.

‘Now away and get your beauty sleep, Tam.’ She smiled at him hopefully, but he just touched a finger to an imaginary forelock.

‘Right. I’ll be off then. Goodnight, boss.’

At least he hadn’t called her ma’am. With a sigh, Fleming went over to the open door of the shed.

It was a long, cold, boring night when you were sitting in a patrol car by yourself in the darkness in a deserted bay, looking out over a bare shore with only the eerie flashes of a green light for company, and around three in the morning even that stopped. There hadn’t been a sign of movement since PC Keith Ingles came on duty and he only realised he’d fallen asleep when the sound of a car’s engine wakened him.

He had parked the car at the further end of the area in front of the little row of houses, in darkness now. Still fuddled with sleep, he turned and saw a car’s headlights sweep round the corner and had to shut his eyes again as the beam caught him full in the face. The car braked sharply, and when he could see again it had disappeared back round the corner. A moment later he heard it take off fast towards the main road.

His first instinct was to go after it, but his orders were to stay here. He reached for his radio and reported the incident, though without any description of the car’s make, far less its number, this was more an exercise in clearing his lines than anything else.

He settled back into his seat, hunching his shoulders uncomfortably. He’d been saving his last Mars bar, but perhaps now was the time to eat it. It was meant to give you energy and it wouldn’t do to be caught snoring when the next shift arrived.

7

Marjory Fleming pulled on her overalls on top of her work clothes – an appropriately sober grey trouser suit over a black polo-neck – and glanced anxiously out of the window. The wind had dropped and it looked like being a fine autumn day but there was storm debris all over the lawn: leaves and twigs and even small branches broken from the garden trees.

Normally when there was a strong wind she checked the henhouse last thing to make sure it was secure, but it had been so late when she got back last night that she hadn’t a thought of anything except getting her head down. She’d crept in as quietly as she could so as not to wake Bill, but as she slipped shivering into bed he had turned over, gathering her cold body to his warm one in a close embrace. ‘Welcome home,’ he had murmured, and he hadn’t only meant from Knockhaven.

Marjory normally snatched an extra ten minutes after Bill had got up but today she was too anxious about her chookies to wait until after breakfast as usual to feed them. If the roof had lifted off or something . . . She beat a tattoo on the children’s doors, reaching in to switch on their lights and waiting for some sign of life before she hurried downstairs.

As she walked down towards the old walled orchard on the slope behind the Mains of Craigie farmhouse which was the hens’ domain, she could see that a huge branch from one of the twisted, lichened apple trees had been torn away. They were old trees now, not good for much except producing scabby windfalls for the hens to peck at. They had pretty pink-and-white blossom in spring, though, and when one of them fell victim to a winter storm provided the sweet-scented logs for the fire that Marjory loved. Perhaps they should be planting replacements, but making apple jelly and chutney and quantities of apple pies for the freezer wasn’t really her scene and the last thing she needed was something else to ratchet up her guilt about domestic inadequacy.

The henhouse at least was unscathed, though as she watched its occupants shove and squawk their way out she thought that it had probably taken quite a battering in the night. They seemed unsettled: Tony, the rooster, instead of shaking his wattle and crowing, immediately began preening ruffled feathers, while Cherie, the aggressive alpha hen, seemed to be giving him dirty looks as if holding him personally responsible for her disturbed night.

Marjory stood watching them affectionately for a moment, as she always liked to do. The social bickering, squawking protests, crooning exclamations of surprise and delight when their morning scratchings turned up some succulent titbit: her daily glimpse of their feathered world was somehow infinitely soothing.

At last, reluctantly, she fetched the pail of mash and tipped it out for them, leaving them to their pecking-order squabbles as she collected eggs, then went back up towards the farmhouse. The sun wasn’t fully up but the sky was a pearly colour and after the rain everything looked freshly minted, as if promising a cleansed and better world. But Marjory had no illusions about the day ahead: same old world, same old problems, with some new ones added.