S Bolton - Sacrifice

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.

Tub 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.