S Bolton: Sacrifice

The doctor was holding my arm, a syringe in his hand. I tugged free and hit him. He swore and dropped the syringe.

'No drugs. Don't you dare drug me!' I yelled.

'Sounds like she means it,' said a voice I knew. We all turned.

Kenn Gifford stood in the doorway. The others stepped back, away from the bed, unsure what to do next.

'Where am I?' I said.

'The Balfour,' replied Kenn. 'On Orkney. DCI Rowley and I thought you might all prefer to be off Shetland for a while.'

'Duncan,' I gasped, ready to start screaming again.

Kenn gestured across the room, a small smile on his face. The nurse had moved and I could see the man in the bed next to my own. Ignoring the pain, I pushed my legs over the side of the bed until I was standing.

Kenn put an arm round my waist and half steered, half carried me to Duncan's bed. My husband's eyes were open but dull. I didn't think he could see me too well. I reached out to stroke the side of his face. His entire head was bandaged. I didn't take my eyes off him as Kenn and the nurse settled me back down on my own bed.

'He took a nasty blow to the head,' said Kenn. 'We did a CT scan when you all came in this morning. The middle meningeal artery had been ruptured, causing an epidural haematoma.'

I watched as Duncan's eyes slowly closed. He'd suffered a fairly common form of head injury. The middle meningeal artery runs just above the temple on either side of the head; the skull is thin at this point, making the artery vulnerable to injury. An epidural haematoma, or build-up of blood between the skull and the brain, can compress the delicate brain tissue and, if not treated, lead to brain damage, even death.

'Will he be OK?' I asked.

'We think so. The blood had time to clot so he needed a craniotomy, but it was all fairly straightforward. They'll keep him sedated for another twelve hours or so.'

The younger doctor had picked up the syringe and was hovering.

'Don't even think about it,' I spat at him.

He and Kenn exchanged a look. Then he left the room. The nurse and the orderly followed and the door closed behind them.

Kenn sat down on the bed.

'Dana and the others? They're here?'

He nodded. 'Dana discharged herself a couple of hours ago. Alison and Collette are still here. Both doing fine.'

For a second I wasn't with him. Then I had it. Freya and Odel: of course, those hadn't been their real names.

'Alison and Collette,' I repeated. 'Tell me about them.'

'You need to rest.'

'No, tell me who they are,' I said, trying to push myself up and not managing it. Duncan's eyes were still closed but the steady rise and fall of his chest was reassuring.

Kenn got up and propped up the bed.

'Collette McNeil is thirty-three,' he said, sitting down again. 'She's married with two young children and lives just outside Sumburgh. Every morning she takes the kids to school and then walks the family dog along the cliff top, over on the west coast. A month ago she was doing exactly that when she was approached by some men. Next thing she can remember is waking up on Tronal. The dog found its way home and raised the alarm. Everyone assumed she fell over the cliff.'

'Her family. They know?'

Kenn nodded. 'Her husband's with her now.'

'And the other one? Alison?'

'Alison was a tourist. Came up here with some friends but split up from them to explore the islands on her own. She can't remember what happened, she's pretty traumatized, but she was apparently seen getting on the ferry from Fair Isle three weeks ago. No one saw her arrive back on the mainland. She was presumed drowned.'

'They couldn't afford bodies to be found this summer,' I said. Kenn frowned at me. 'Stephen Renney isn't one of them,' I explained. 'He's only been at the hospital a few months; he isn't even from Shetland. They couldn't risk faking a death at the hospital this year. They would all have been accidents, with the bodies never recovered.'

Kenn fell silent. We listened to the sounds in the corridor outside, to Duncan's breathing. 'I guess,' he said eventually. 'Look, that's enough now.' He stood up. 'You need to rest.' As he made to leave the room I felt panic rising again.

'No drugs, no sedatives, not even painkillers. Promise me,' I said.

Kenn held up both hands. 'I promise,' he said.

'You're not one of them, are you? They said you're not one of them.'

'Take it easy. No, I'm not one of them.'

'Richard, he's… I'm so sorry.'

He walked back and took hold of both my hands. 'Don't be.'

'Between four and five hundred, he said. They're everywhere. They could be in this hospital.'

'Calm down. You're both perfectly safe. I won't leave you.'

'I'm so tired,' I said.

He nodded and wheeled the bed back down again. Then he bent over and kissed me on the forehead. I managed to smile at him as he sat down in the chair beside me, but it was Duncan's face I was looking at as my eyes slowly closed.

A skylark had woken us, just as the silvery light of early dawn was beginning to soften and turn gold. Before breakfast we walked along the cliff tops, watching the waves break on the rocks below and hordes of seabirds bustle about building nests, preparing for the imminent arrival of parenthood. The day was unseasonably warm for late May. Sea pinks and the tiny, blue, bell-shaped flowers of the spring squill were scattered over the cliffs like confetti. Walking home along the roadside, we could hardly see the grass beneath the thick rug of primroses. Shetland was at its best and most beautiful. And a small army of English police officers were searching our land for the remains of Kirsten Hawick.

Duncan and I sat on the flagged area at the back of the house. Even from a distance we could see they meant business this time. The soil samples they'd taken previously had all tested negative for phosphate. Further analysis, on Helen's orders, had indicated the samples hadn't come from our land at all. Big surprise! So the process had begun again. More samples taken, tested at a different lab; and this time, several positive results.

Now, our entire field had been divided up into a grid. Metres of tape criss-crossed the length and breadth of it, held in place by tiny metal pegs. The officers, working in teams of three, were systematically checking square after square after square: measuring, probing, digging, paying particular attention to the areas where phosphate had been found. They'd been at it for four hours and had covered a good quarter of the field. They'd found nothing so far. But the world's media, who'd been camped on our doorstep for the past week, seemed to have swollen in ranks this morning. A sense of grim expectation hung in the air.

Two weeks had passed since our adventures on Tronal. My leg was healing well, Duncan had made a near complete recovery. We'd been incredibly lucky. My detour to Dana's house that night had saved our lives. Helen had instructed one of her constables to collect something she'd left behind there. He found the envelope I'd addressed to Helen and, on her instructions, opened it. Hearing what I was up to (and, I'm told, cursing non-stop for the following two hours), Helen had sent a dozen officers back to Tronal. They rescued Duncan from the basement and my stolen dinghy from the beach. Helen herself directed the operation from on board a police helicopter, the same one that picked us out of the water after the boat went down.

And then the fun really began.

Twelve island men, including the staff of the Tronal clinic, several hospital personnel, Dentist McDouglas, DI Andy Dunn and two members of the local police force, are being held in custody on various charges, including murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnapping and actual bodily harm, to name just a few. Superintendent Harris of the Northern Constabulary has been suspended from duties pending an internal inquiry. Duncan tells me that these men are the tip of the iceberg and I don't doubt him for a second. Of course, believing is one thing; actual hard evidence is proving as elusive as the Trowie folk of legend. These thirteen may be all we ever get.