Peter May: Coffin Road

‘What was that, George?’

Gunn turned. ‘What was what?’

‘Something banging.’

‘The wind, probably.’

‘No, there it is again.’

And this time Gunn heard it too. It seemed to be coming from the nearest of the boats. The two men walked along the quay and stood listening intently. There were three sharp bangs from inside the white motor launch tied up below them. A blue canvas awning was stretched tightly over the driver’s console, and the banging came from beneath it.

‘Give me a hand,’ Gunn said, and the old sergeant grasped his hand to support him as he clambered down on to the rise and fall of the vessel. Morrison jumped down behind him, and together they began releasing the poppers that held the awning in place. When they peeled it back, they saw Coinneach Macrae lying curled up in the bottom of the boat, ankles and wrists bound by duct tape, a strip of it stuck across his mouth to stop him from calling out.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Morrison said, and he fished in his pocket for a Swiss Army knife, selecting a blade to open and cut through Macrae’s bindings.

Gunn eased the duct tape away from the man’s face, and saw the blood that had dried among his thinning hair from a gash in his head. ‘What the hell happened to you, man?’ And he turned to Morrison. ‘Better radio for medical assistance.’

Macrae took a moment to regain his composure, breathing deeply, straightening and stretching stiffened limbs. ‘The fucking wee bastard!’ he said finally.

‘Who?’ Gunn heard the crackle of Morrison’s radio behind him, and the sergeant’s voice requesting an ambulance.

Macrae pulled himself up into the driver’s seat and fought for a breath. ‘Carr. That’s his name. I remember it from his boat licence. Hired a boat from me a week or so ago. Had all the right paperwork, so I’d no reason to doubt him.’ He fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes and lighter, and lit one with trembling hands. ‘Said he was going to spend a few days exploring the east coast. Do the Golden Road, but from the sea, going ashore to camp at night. Paid up front. But he was back the next day. Said the weather was too bad.’ He shrugged. ‘Didn’t even ask for a refund.’

‘I take it he showed up again today, then?’ Gunn said.

Macrae sucked on his cigarette, then curled a lip in anger as he blew out the smoke. ‘Aye, damn right he did. This afternoon, wanting to hire another boat. I told him there was a storm on the way, but he said he’d be safely berthed somewhere sheltered before it came. Wanted the same boat he had last time, with an inflatable tender for getting him ashore. But it’s out on a hire, so I showed him another one.’ He howked phlegm up into his mouth and spat over the side into the water. ‘He’s taking a look over it when I hear this thumping coming from inside his motor.’ He nodded towards the far quay. ‘That’s it, over there. The red Mitsubishi.’

Gunn glanced up and saw the SUV he had spotted when they first arrived.

‘So I go over to take a look. There’s definitely something alive in the back of it, kicking and rocking the bloody thing. I’m peering through the smoked glass, and I see this... I don’t know, kid, a girl or something. All tied up, a bag over her head, kicking shit out the tailgate. I’m turning to go and open it up, when, wham, that bugger goes and cracks me on the bloody head.’ He lifts a rueful hand to the gash in it. ‘Don’t know what he hit me with, but he just about split my skull.’ Another drag on his cigarette. ‘Next thing I know, I’m lying in the dark, trussed up like a bloody chicken. Not even the first idea how long I’d been there. Started kicking the side of the boat like mad when I heard your voices.’

Gunn held out a hand to him. ‘Come on, let’s get you back on dry land. Can you stand up okay?’

‘Aye.’ But still he staggered as he stood, and it took both policemen to help him up on to the quayside.

Gunn said, ‘I take it he took the boat?’

Macrae cast his eyes over the boats in the harbour. ‘Aye, it’s gone alright.’

‘Any other boats missing?’

Macrae seemed surprised, glancing at Gunn, then passing his gaze over the harbour again. ‘Aye, there is,’ he said. ‘Harrison’s boat’s gone.’

Gunn said, ‘You never mentioned that he had a boat here.’

Macrae gave him a look. ‘You never asked, Mr Gunn. And why would I even think to mention it? He’s been berthing a boat at Rodel for about a year. Don’t know why, though. He’s hardly ever out in it.’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘I suppose I must still have been unconscious when it left. Never heard a thing.’

‘There’s an ambulance on the way, George,’ Morrison said.

Gunn nodded and turned back to Macrae with the heaviest of hearts. He heard himself sigh before he said, ‘Is there anyone, sir, who could take us out to the Flannan Isles?’

‘What, now?’ Macrae seemed incredulous.

‘Aye.’

‘You think that’s where they’ve gone?’

‘I’m pretty sure it is, sir. Both boats.’

Macrae shook his head, then winced from the pain of it. ‘You’ll not get anyone to take you out there on a night like this, Mr Gunn. Yon folk might have reached the Flannans before the storm broke, but they’ll not get back tonight, and the only way anyone else is going to get out there now is by helicopter.’

Gunn couldn’t help feeling something like relief.

No words have passed between us during the last hour as Jon’s boat ploughs through mounting seas and the dying embers of the day. He has deferred to my superior seamanship and I am at the helm. But even I am afraid of the coming storm, for this is just the beginning of it. Only my fear for Karen is greater, and that is my single focus.

For some time now we have seen the beam of light fired out at regular intervals from the lighthouse on Eilean Mòr, piercing the gloom, reflecting on the underside of the dark, dangerous clouds that gather all around us. The Seven Hunters are shadows huddled along the horizon, intermittently obscured by the ocean swell.

Our silence is full of tension. I have given them the barest outline of the circumstance which has led me, and them, to make this journey that no sane person would undertake on such a night. They listened in grave silence, neither asking questions nor making comment. All colour and animation left Sally’s face, and I caught them once exchanging glances, a dark, troubled exchange conveying an unspoken understanding that I could not interpret.

But I have held my peace. I cannot afford to confront them with what I know before we reach the island. And they must realise that their success depends on my getting them and me there safely. They also know by now that I have my memory back, for I have told them. And so our silence preserves the pretence. But in my head a voice is screaming, and had I the means I would strike them both down, and hit them. And keep hitting. And hitting. Until I had extinguished all sound and movement and life.

We are upon the Flannans almost before I realise it, the sea breaking luminous and white all around the ragged contours of the rocks. The sound of the sea breaking over them from the south-west and the cry of the wind is very nearly deafening.

I have no choice but to turn on the spotlights mounted on our crossbar to light the way ahead. I know it means that Billy will see us coming, but without them we would founder on the rocks.

From the merest shadows fifteen minutes ago, the Seven Hunters have risen above us now, as if they have somehow pushed up out of the sea, crowding around us, overlapping, dangerously obscure as I try to navigate between them. There is the merest lull in the force of the storm as we slip into the lee of Eilean Tighe, and I keep a wary eye on Gealtaire Beag, away to our starboard side. But then the sea gathers momentum and anger again as it rushes through the gap between the two Làmhs, and I try to hold a course for the south-east side of Eilean Mòr and the more sheltered of the two landing sites.