Hammond Innes - Atlantic Fury

‘And you’re trying to break it?’ Money, I thought — this smooth-faced, hard-eyed little man’s whole life was money.

‘Well, wouldn’t you? Evie was my wife’s aunt, too — by marriage; and the ranch alone is worth a hundred thousand dollars. And the boy never wrote to her, you see. All that time. It’s taken lawyers six months to trace the guy. They thought at first he was dead.’

So that was it. Because the fellow hadn’t written…‘It doesn’t occur to you, I suppose, that Braddock might not be interested in a ranch in Canada.’

‘There’s more to it than the ranch — around a quarter of a million dollars.’ He gave me a tight little smile. ‘You show me the man who’ll turn down that sort of money. Unless there’s some very good reason. And in Braddock’s case I’m convinced there is. He’s scared of it.’ He got to his feet. ‘Now then. You draw me a portrait of your brother and then I’ll leave you. Draw it as you think he’d look now. Okay?’

I hesitated, my mind a confused mixture of thoughts.

‘I’ll pay you for it.’ He pulled out his pocket book. ‘How much?’

I damn near hit him then. What with his suspicions, the stupid allegations he’d made, and then offering me a bribe. ‘Fifty dollars,’ I heard myself say and even then I didn’t realise why I’d decided to take his money.

I thought for a moment he was going to haggle over it. But he stopped himself in time. ‘Okay, fifty it is.’ He counted five ten dollar bills on to the table. ‘You’re a professional. I guess you’re entitled to your fee.’ It was as though he were excusing himself for being too open-handed.

But when I came to draw it, I found it wasn’t so easy, I started the first rough in black with a brush, but it was too strong a medium; you need to have your subject clear in front of your eyes. And when I switched to pen-and-ink it required too much detail. In the end I used an ordinary pencil, and all the time he stood over me, breathing down my neck. He was a chain-smoker and his quick panting breath made it difficult to concentrate. I suppose he thought he’d be more likely to get his money’s worth if he watched every pencil stroke, or maybe it just fascinated him to see the picture emerge. But my mind, going back, searching for the likeness I couldn’t quite capture, resented it.

It didn’t take me long to realise that time had coloured my memory. Iain’s features had become blurred and in that first rough I was emphasising what I wanted to remember, discarding what I didn’t. I scrapped it and started again. And halfway through something happened — it began to take on a vague, shadowy likeness to the man in those photographs. I tore that sheet up, too. But when I tried again the same thing happened — something in the shape of the head, the way the hair grew down towards the forehead, the lines round mouth and eyes, the eyes themselves, particularly the eyes. A pity he’d shown me those photographs. But I knew it wasn’t that. It had been quite unconscious. I screwed the sheet up into a ball and threw it in the wastepaper basket. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I thought I could remember him. But I can’t. Not clearly enough to draw you a true likeness.’ And I picked up the fifty dollars and thrust the notes back into his hand. ‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid.’

‘You mean you won’t.’

‘Have it your own way,’ I said. I wanted to get rid of him, to be alone with time to think, and I thrust my hands in my pockets, for I knew they were shaking.

Donald my Donald. How Iain’s voice came back to me down the years — cruel and charming, gay and sombre, that queer Celtic mixture. And Laerg of our imagination that was like a Shangri-la, like a talisman — but still one thing to him, another to me. If I go to Laerg it will be to die. Aye, Donald my Donald — death to me and life to you.

A quarter of a century and I could remember the words, still hear his voice slurred with drink in that dirty little pub. And his face, lined already, sodden that night…

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I can’t do it.’ And I opened the door for him, anxious to be rid of the man.

He paused, staring at me hard. ‘Okay,’ he said finally in that flat voice of his. I thought he was going then, but he paused in the doorway. ‘If you should want to contact Braddock he’s in this country.’

‘I thought you said he was in Cyprus.’

‘That’s where I saw him on my way through to the Middle East. But he was due for leave. Now he’s been posted to the Hebrides.’ I didn’t say anything and he added, ‘You’ll find him at the Guided Weapons Establishment on Harris. Just thought you’d like to know.’ He was starting down the stairs when I asked him how he’d found out. ‘Private inquiry agent. They’ve been keeping an eye on him for me.’ He smiled. ‘Odd, isn’t it? Why should this guy Braddock get posted to the Hebrides now? And another thing, Mr Ross. I know why you wouldn’t complete that drawing. I was watching your face.’ He pulled his hand out of his pocket. ‘I guess I’ll leave these here.’ He placed the dollar bills on the top step of the stairs. ‘Tear them up if you like. But before you do, remember they’ll just about cover your fare to the Hebrides.’ And with that he left me, standing there listening to his footsteps descending the bare boards, staring down at those damned dollars.

And I thought I’d covered up. How many times in the past had I covered up for Iain when he’d acted on the spur of the moment without thought of the future? Father, the police, that poor little idiot Mavis …

I reached down and picked up the dollar bills, feeling like Judas. But I had to know. A brother is still your brother — hate and love, the old hero-worship still there, dormant, but leaving a vacuum. And I’d no one else. No one in the world I’d really cared for. I had to know.

(October 16 — I9)

I left for the north the following day; the night train to Mallaig, the steamer to Rodil in the extreme south of Harris. And all the way there thinking of Iain — Iain and Braddock. The rattle of the wheels, the thump of the screws; their names pounding at my brain, till the two were one. And that Canadian … walking up the street to the bus stop there’d been a man in an old raincoat; he’d been on the bus with me and I’d seen him at King’s Cross, just behind me waiting to get his ticket. Coincidence perhaps, but if I’d been Lane …

I pictured him sitting by the telephone in some London hotel waiting for a report, smiling gently to himself when he was told I’d left for the north. Well, to hell with that. It was natural, wasn’t it — that I should want to be sure?

I’d finished that jacket design in two hours flat and Alec Robinson had liked it sufficiently to pay me cash. Fifteen guineas. It had made all the difference. Camping out I could manage for a time and I had my return ticket. Something else I’d got from Robinson, too — an introduction to Cliff Morgan, a meteorologist working at Northton five miles north of Rodil. I’d done the jacket for his book, Airman’s Weather. It was a contact at any rate and Robinson had told me that Northton was where the Guided Weapons Establishment was.

I’d never been farther north than Ardnamurchan and all up through the islands, through the Sounds of Sleat and Raasay, I was conscious of a growing sense of familiarity, a feeling almost of contentment. The sea and the islands, and the great canopy of the sky — it called to me and my spirit sang with the smell of the salt sea air and the cold wind on my face. And then the mountains of Harris, rising abruptly from the rim of the sea, piled against a leaden sky, their tops blurred by a rainstorm. Rodil proved to be nothing but a hotel and a grass-grown quay falling into decay with an old stone church on the hill behind, built on the pattern of Iona. The boatman, ferrying us from the ship to the quay, looked at my tent and said, ‘If they’ve nae room up yonder, I could fix ye a bed maybe.’ His voice was soft as the rain that was beginning to fall and when I declined his offer, he said, ‘Och weel, it’s yer ain business. But it’ll be a tur-rible wet night I’m thinking.’