Laurie King - The Language of Bees

I was aware of a hollow feeling within. “You think the wind is that bad?”

“D'ye think we're in the habit of taking a holiday every time there's a wee breeze?”

“I see. So, where did he go?”

“He's on a boat.”

“But-”

“You're willin' to pay enough, there'll be a man desperate enough for yer gelt.” The heavy disapproval in his voice gave a different cast to the thick silence in the next room: This Englishman's need threatened to take one of their own.

“Just him, or another man and a child?”

“Just the one.” Although Brothers could have been waiting along the coast, with E'stelle.

“When did they leave?”

“Two hours. Maybe more.”

“They should be there by now, then.”

“If they're not at the bottom, or in Stavanger.”

Norway? I hoped he was making a grim joke.

“I am sorry. It's… I'm sorry.”

“It was a lot of money.” He made no attempt to hide his bitterness. “Enough to keep a family a year or more. A young man'd be tempted. Young men always think they'll come back safe, don't they? E'en when they have two wee bairns at home. Ach, at least he had the sense to leave the purse with us, in case he's not around to bring it home.”

I thanked him and went back out into the wind. What more was there to say?

We were halfway to Magnuson's farm when I remembered the telegraph office. Should I bother to go back, on the chance something had come through? I already knew where my quarry was.

But Mycroft didn't. So I had the driver turn back into the town, and went into the office to compose a telegram. When I had it written down, I took it to the window. The man recognised me.

“Miss Russell, was it? There's two come through for you. Shall I send this for you as well?”

“Wait, there might be an answer for one of these.”

I carried the flimsies to one side. The first was from MacDougall:

IDENTITY OF TRIO CONFIRMED STOP ATTITUDE

QUOTE FRIENDLY ENOUGH BUT SOME

ARGUMENT AND YOUNGER MAN SEEMED

IMPATIENT STOP MESSAGE FROM LONDON

QUOTE TWO PIECES ORKNEY NEWS FIRST

CATHEDRAL STAIN TREATED WITH QUERY

SODIUM CITRATE TO STAY LIQUID AND SECOND

CREMATED REMAINS ARRIVED STENNESS HOTEL

WITH REQUEST TO SCATTER THEM AT BRODGAR

RING ON FOURTEEN AUGUST STOP

The other message came from Mungo Clarty in Inverness:

TWO ADULT ONE CHILD STEAMER TICKETS

PURCHASED TUESDAY MORNING ABERDEEN STOP

SELF WENT ABERDEEN FOUND TRIO BOUGHT

TICKETS TO KIRKWALL STOPPING WICK FIRST

STOP FOUR PIECES NEWS FROM LONDON STOP

ONE CATHEDRAL STAIN TREATED TO STAY LIQUID

TWO CREMATED REMAINS SCATTERED BRODGAR

RING FOURTEEN AUGUST THREE GUNDERSON

RELEASED FOUR PALL MALL FLAT RAIDED NO

ARREST STOP GOOD HUNTING STOP

Raided? Mycroft's flat? Had Lestrade completely lost his mind? I did not even want to think of Mycroft Holmes in a rage. Or was something else going on in London, something larger and darker than my current hunt for a religious nut-job?

I tore my eyes away from that part of the telegram, and tried to concentrate on the rest.

The fourteenth of August was the day of the lunar eclipse, the day before Yolanda had died. The news must have come out of London Thursday night-why hadn't Clarty learned of it earlier? Then I remembered the head-lamps racing towards the air field as we took off, and thought that perhaps he had received his wire at dawn that day.

I realised someone was addressing me, and raised my head to see the telegraph gentleman gesture at the form on which I'd written to Mycroft. I shook my head and tore the page across: Anything I sent to Mycroft now would be intercepted by Lestrade.

“No,” I said. “There won't be a reply.” I went slowly back to the car. The idea of Scotland Yard raiding the flat of Mycroft Holmes was as puzzling as it was alarming, but I found it difficult to take it as a serious threat. Would Lestrade be walking a beat when we returned, or just fired outright?

And Brothers: Why had he moved about the countryside so much? Was he afraid they would be spotted if they sat in one place too long? Did he fear that Damian would see a newspaper, and finally learn of Yolanda's death? Had he perhaps felt someone on his tail and hoped to shake them off?

Or-what if the person he had been shaking off had been Damian? What if Brothers had taken Estelle and deliberately slipped away from Damian in Aberdeen, after buying tickets for Orkney but before boarding the ship? That would explain why Damian was here in Thurso by himself, a frantic father who had spent the past three days searching the northern tip of Scotland for his daughter and Brothers. And if Damian knew that something was going to happen tomorrow in Orkney, it would explain why he had been desperate enough to buy the services of a young fisherman to take him across.

Back at Magnuson's farm, I paid off the pleased driver and walked to the door, which opened before I could knock. The odour of roast lamb and potatoes swept over me, poles apart from my bleak mood; it was not made any easier by the cheeriness of the woman who urged me inside, tempting me with a hot meal.

“Thank you,” I said. “Mrs Magnuson, is it? I'm not actually hungry, so I won't join you. Can I just ask you for a bit of writing paper and an envelope?”

“Are yeh sure yeh won't have a wee bite?”

“It smells delicious, but no.” Actually, the rich aroma was making me queasy, and I wanted to be alone. She showed me into the cold, disused parlour, lit the fire, and left me with stationery and pen. I warmed my hands in front of the flames, and eventually removed my coat and hat, taking up the pen.

Dear Holmes,

I write from Thurso, about to set off for Orkney. Something must have delayed Brothers on the way-they were seen in Edinburgh on Monday, yet Damian was here just this morning, hiring a local fisherman to cross them over. The wind is powerful, unusually so, and the reproving locals were not sanguine about their chances of success. If I do not make it home, would you be so good as to locate the family of the man whose boat Damian hired, and see that they are recompensed?

R

I looked at the inadequacy of that ending, and added:

P.S.: I do not know if Damian is acting alone and against Brothers, or if he was under duress as the man's agent. If the latter, I can only believe he had good reason.

Again I hesitated, tempted to black the postscript out, or change it for something more affectionate, less bleak, but in the end I sealed the flap and wrote the Sussex address, leaving it with a coin for the stamp and a note instructing Mrs Magnuson not to post it until the end of September. It felt like one of those letters soldiers were encouraged to write before a battle. I regretted the melodrama, but I did not wish to take chances with the young fisherman's family.

I sat in the slowly warming room until I heard voices in the hallway, then went to join Captain Javitz for the final assault north.

JAVITZ AND MAGNUSON HAD CLEARED THE FUEL LINE, the culprit in our faltering engine, and used the farmers horse to drag the aeroplane back to the start of the rough field. The laundry was still veering wildly back and forth, but I thought it was not quite so rigid in its pull.

Perhaps that was self-delusion: I decided not to ask.

Once airborne, we turned east, so as to be over land as long as possible, and battled the wind until we ran out of mainland. When there was nothing before us but sea until Scandinavia, Javitz turned due north across the Pentland Firth, and the wind seized us, shaking us in its teeth like a dog with a rat.