None but the Dead Read online

  ‘The cold will hit you with a vengeance. You’ll go numb, then it’ll get painful. By that time you want to be out of the water.’

  ‘I know what the North Sea feels like,’ he’d insisted. ‘I was thrown in it, remember?’

  She’d smiled, and that smile made him feel better.

  The swim ladder faced him at the rear. From where they were, he could reach it without being seen. McNab managed to discard the cagoule, but struggled with the boots. Eventually he released his feet. By now he was already cold and trying hard to disguise it.

  He plunged forward, exiting the safety of the arch. The plan had been to wade and not to swim. It was clear that swim or not, the waves would succeed in soaking him anyway.

  The bottom half of his body already chilled and wet, the true shock of the cold only hit him when the water reached its freezing hand between his shoulder blades and took his feet from under him.

  Gasping, McNab muttered desperately under his breath, the order to swim.

  Gradually, and despite the forward push and backward suck of the waves, the stern of the Antares approached.

  He looked to shore, seeking Rhona, and saw Ivan helping her to clamber there via the rocks.

  So Rhona was safe, at least.

  The swim ladder sat to the right of the outboard motor. Reaching out, he found the bottom rung. Grabbing a hold, he floated there, listening. There wasn’t a sound from within. His memory of the child included her talking, incessantly. There was nothing being said within his earshot, at least.

  He reached for and gripped the ladder, two rungs further up, preparing to pull the heavy weight of his body and sodden clothes from the water. As he did so, the boat pitched in an incoming wave. McNab lost his grip and fell back, submerging.

  Caught unawares, he swallowed what tasted like a gallon of salt water, then broke the surface, trying hard not to cough his guts up and alert anyone on board.

  His second attempt at the ladder brought him onto the back deck, which swam in a film of seawater.

  There was no sound or movement from within, despite the arrival of his weight on the stern. The spec photos of the Antares indicated sleeping quarters forward, with a door between it and the main cabin.

  McNab checked the shore to find Rhona and PC Tulloch already there. Rhona raised her hand and McNab gave her the thumbs-up.

  Seabirds screamed above him as though in warning, and he realized that the rain had stopped.

  Water pooling round his feet to add to that which was already there, he reached for the main cabin door and opened it. As he suspected, it was empty. The wheel and pilot’s seat on the right, a bunk partially made up into a bed on the left.

  He stood for a moment, listening again.

  Above all he wanted to call the child’s name, but what if he did and she was in the forward cabin with Millar? Shielded now from the sound of waves, the resulting silence seemed more ominous.

  McNab stood, hesitant. Then noticed something smeared on the forward door.

  Fucking hell. Was that blood?

  McNab grabbed the handle and wrenched it open.

  There was something about the sight of a dead child that never left you. The image glued itself to your brain, reran in technicolour when you least expected it. He’d viewed three such corpses and had hoped never to view another.

  There was blood on the floor, some spots on the bed, which was made up of six blue cushions laid out on the floor. A pillow, with a blood smear. A sleeping bag with something inside it that gave it shape.

  His guts rising into his throat, McNab dipped his head and eased himself into that space. He imagined it smelt of little girl, of tears and terror.

  Reaching out, McNab caught the end of the sleeping bag and tried to pull it towards him.

  He emerged from the cabin and climbed back onto the side deck. All thoughts of being cold had left him. He looked for Rhona on the shore and found her there. Watching and waiting.

  ‘Michael!’ she called, her voice wavering on the wind.

  McNab shouted back that the girl wasn’t on board.

  55

  Of the three, this cave was the deepest. Its entrance swam with water, but only at ankle level. Ivan had indicated that the tide was on its way in and that at high tide, the entrance would be wholly underwater.

  ‘If my memory serves me right, the very back stays dry. But don’t stay in there too long or you won’t get back out.’

  The entrance was narrow, one person wide. McNab had sent Ivan back up the cliff to try and make contact with the other half of the search party before the dark descended, while he checked out the other caves. Rhona’s insistence that they each carry a dry change of clothing in a backpack had paid off. Stripping, McNab had accepted his with open arms. Now reclothed, his outer garments back on, the only wet items were his boots.

  Her despair at the shouted message that the girl wasn’t on the Antares had been tempered by McNab’s arrival on shore with his tale of the bloodstains on the inner cabin. It was clear from his expression that he’d been convinced he was about to find the girl’s body.

  Which might yet be the case.

  Emerging from the narrow entrance, her torch now picked out a heightened inner cavern. The water was less here, just a thin film over sand. Her every movement seemed amplified as though she’d just entered a cathedral in the rock. Lowering her torch, she realized that it wasn’t completely dark, and the little light that existed wasn’t coming from behind her but in front.

  She moved forward, heading towards that dim light, to find the ground rising. Soon she left sand, and her feet found stones again, grey slabs like those outside. The stones were wet but not under water. The passage had narrowed once more, barely wide enough for her to pass through. Ivan or McNab, broad-shouldered and clothed in bulky waterproofs, would have struggled to make it.

  Around six feet in length, the passage deposited Rhona onto dry land. Above her, a vertical hole in the rock proved to be the source of the light.

  She stood for a moment, listening. Somewhere in the distance was the scream of a seabird, the low boom of water against rock, the rattle of gravel as a wave shifted it. In here, only the sound of her breathing.

  She switched on her torch again and ran it around the space.

  A scattering of feathers and droppings bore witness to the detritus falling from the bird life on the rocks above. No evidence however of human habitation. She had turned to go when she caught a sound.

  A breath or a sigh?

  And not her own.

  ‘Inga,’ she called softly. ‘Inga, are you here? It’s Rhona. Everyone’s out searching for you. Your mum wants you to come home.’

  She didn’t expect an answer, but felt it important to say the words.

  The sound of her voice died in the silence, and with it the vague hope that she might have been right.

  Then a small voice said, ‘Daddy’s gone to get Mummy. He’s going to bring her here and we’ll all leave together on our boat.’

  She was nestled in a crack in the far wall of the cave.

  The torch beam found her face, making her blink. Wrapped in a dark blanket, she looked dry and unharmed. Rhona, keen not to spook the child, came slowly forward.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  The eyes that met hers were tired and a little afraid.

  ‘Daddy told me not to show myself, if anyone found the cave. He told me he would be back soon with Mummy.’

  To Rhona, Millar’s instructions sounded more like a threat than a command.

  ‘Did he tell your mummy he was coming for her?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, he said he wanted it to be a surprise.’

  ‘The bastard,’ McNab hissed under his breath when she told him.

  ‘Magnus warned that he was a danger to the child’s mother,’ Rhona said.

  ‘How long ago did he leave?’

  ‘He brought Inga ashore last night. Told her to hide and wait for him.’

&nbs
p; ‘How the hell does he get from here to the top of the island without being spotted?’

  ‘He planned to walk through the night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s three miles cross-country to Lady Village. All on the flat. From there to Lopness Bay, say another three miles. Two more and he’s at the Sinclair place.’

  ‘So he could be there by now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I took PC Tulloch away from sentry duty. What a fucking idiot.’

  ‘We need to get a message to Erling.’

  ‘You stay here with Inga,’ McNab said.

  ‘We can’t stay in the cave, the tide’s coming in,’ Rhona reminded him. ‘I think we should all go together.’

  The child had taken some persuading to abandon the cave. However her father had put it, she wasn’t keen to cross him.

  Rhona had explained about the tide and how she would be cut off, but it had taken McNab to convince the child. He’d reminded her of how she’d agreed to be a detective like him and that had helped lead them to the skull.

  ‘You found it?’ she’d said, and for the first time Rhona had seen a light in her eyes.

  ‘Yes. And because of that, we think we know who it was.’

  ‘Who?’ she’d said.

  ‘Your great-aunt.’

  She hadn’t been surprised by that. ‘I knew it was something to do with me. I knew it. And the flower? Did Mr Flett find out about the flowers without my help?’

  McNab had been at a loss to answer that one and had turned to Rhona for help. She’d decided to tell the truth. The child would hear it soon anyway.

  ‘Sam was drowned on the causeway, when he went out looking for you.’

  She looked stricken at this. ‘Daddy didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘Your daddy didn’t tell you a lot of things,’ McNab said. ‘How sad and worried your mum is. How everyone is searching for you. How much your friends miss you.’

  ‘Daddy told me you all knew I was with him. That Sam had loaned him the jeep to pick me up.’

  Rhona had suspected as much.

  As they made their way back to the entrance, McNab had held the girl’s hand, lifting her in his arms when they met standing water. Ivan was right, the tide was coming in. In the outer section of the cave it now reached as far as Rhona’s knees.

  Emerging, they found dusk falling.

  Rhona looked up at the sea wall they’d climbed down earlier.

  Could they get back up there in the dark, without Ivan to guide them?

  56

  He’d told Muir to go home not long after they’d begun the search. Watching him struggle against the wind, Erling had realized that the stuffing had been truly knocked out of the Ranger. Any sure-footedness was also missing, making him more of a liability than an asset.

  Questioning Muir closely, map in hand, he’d had most of his questions answered before he let him go. Despite time spent here as a child, Erling wasn’t as familiar with the western coast of Sanday as he was with the north. PC Tulloch, on the other hand, had professed to know this shoreline well, and they would meet up with his group soon enough.

  Their own search had proved fruitless. Rough seas and deserted bays were all they’d found. They were less than halfway south when PC Tulloch had appeared out of the driving rain, striding towards them, his rosy cheeks belying the weather he’d come through.

  His news that they’d located the Antares had been welcome. That there was no sign of the child, not so good. Every bone in Erling’s body was screaming at him that she was already dead. And the blood McNab had apparently discovered in the cabin pointed that way.

  Dusk was falling, and he knew that would bring an end to the search. The latest forecast suggested the weather would deteriorate overnight. It was time to get everyone inside. Whatever evidence lay on the Antares would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Having delivered his message regarding the boat, PC Tulloch had made his way back to help guide DS McNab and Rhona up the cliff.

  Bringing Ivan home to Sanday had proved to be the right decision, despite McNab’s concern about familiarity between police officers and the public.

  On Orkney we will always be close to those we serve. Neighbours, friends, relatives.

  He marshalled his troops and set them walking back the way they had come. Drenched, and disappointed at their lack of success, they needed to dry off and get something to eat.

  The call reached him at the campsite. Rhona’s voice was broken in parts, but he picked up the gist of it. The girl was safe and well. Her report of Millar’s probable location brought a chill to Erling’s heart.

  He had come here to be with her and tell of their search. Show Claire that they hadn’t given up on her daughter. Weakened by his own guilt, he was losing any sense of himself. Any notion that he had been part of this community.

  It seemed to him in that moment that the Sinclair house stood at the edge of their world. At the edge of their sanity. He approached with trepidation, aware he wasn’t bringing hope, only an indication of their continued determination.

  Through the window he saw her, sitting there, as still as death.

  A trickle of blood ran down from her mouth. She was tied, as he had tied up Jamie Drever. The sight of it reminded him of his own cruelty. Even as he stood transfixed at the window, she turned her eyes slowly in his direction and, seeing him there, forbad him with a shake of her head to enter.

  ‘Get help,’ she mouthed, before a shadow crossed the path between them.

  Millar was as big and powerful as Derek remembered. Claire was right. He couldn’t take him on his own. Derek stepped back into the shadows.

  The police were all on the western seaboard, out of range.

  He thought of the girl. Where was she, if not with Millar?

  He stood hesitant. Everything he’d learned as a Ranger seemed to melt into indecision. He couldn’t go in there, and he couldn’t stand out here and watch Claire taking the beating that had already begun.

  He had hurt Jamie Drever in his anger. Twisting the rope tightly against the bony wrists, demanding to know the truth about his father. He had been capable of such cruelty, even found himself empowered by it.

  Just like my father.

  Just like Millar.

  And what of Inga? What had Millar done with the child?

  I can’t let this happen.

  There were three houses other than his own and Sam Flett’s within sight of here, and he knew a place he could get a signal.

  It was time for Sanday folk to look after their own.

  The first to arrive was old Mrs Skea’s grandson, Nele’s father. Nele might be a timid wee thing, but Rognvald was anything but. It had been he, together with Millar, who’d given the Glasgow policeman a ducking, something Derek had chosen not to reveal. The surprise arrival was Torvaig. The younger man wore a determined expression.

  ‘This isn’t your fight, son,’ Derek said.

  ‘It is. We told him where Inga was. We believed his lies about Jones.’

  Next up was Lachlan Dunlop’s dad, Fergus, and his younger brother, John.

  Derek looked round the complete company.

  ‘He has a knife,’ he told them. ‘He was playing with it, flicking the blade. We’ll have to be careful.’

  Creeping up on the building silently was a lot more difficult with five than one. Every step sounded loud in his head. The wind was on the rise. He could smell the impending gale, feel the crackle of energy in the air. The faces around him felt it too.

  Whatever happened tonight would end in a storm.

  Derek motioned the others to stay back and moved to the window. He dreaded seeing her there, more blood on her face, her arms tied, reliving in that sight his own viciousness.

  But the room was empty.

  The chair sat in the same place. On its arms hung the rope used to bind her. But she wasn’t there.

  The wind whipped his words away as he tried to tell them. Not believing him, the
y barged past and into the house. The kitchen where they’d met the night the child had gone missing was empty. The floor was bloodied and the air smelt of fear, but Claire was no longer there.

  Bellowing with anger, the men split up and began to search the place.

  Derek sent two of them outside to check for Claire’s car.

  If he’s driven her away in it …

  He cursed himself for taking so long to organize her rescue. She’d seen him at the window. Waited in fear for him to come back with help. And he’d let her down.

  Panic seized him. He felt himself drowning in his own indecision again.

  Then Torvaig caught his arm.

  ‘Listen!’

  The scream was grabbed by the wind, its impact splintered by its force.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Tor demanded.

  The others had gathered round them. Tense, listening.

  The scream came again, high and piercing.

  ‘Where the fuck did it come from?’ Tor said.

  ‘The beach. It came from the beach.’

  They all turned in that direction. Tor took off, followed by the others. Derek struggled to keep up. It was pitch black and now blowing a gale. The wind on his chest felt like a punch.

  Before them the waters of the bay heaved, the white of the sand already consumed. In the distance the lighthouse blinked its beam only to see it swallowed in the dense sheeting rain.

  They halted at the water’s edge, searching the dark mass of water for their prey.

  Then he saw them. Two figures in the waves. Millar’s hand in Claire’s hair, jerking her head under the water, then out again. Derek imagined her holding her breath until the moment she might scream.

  And scream she did, though the sound was weaker this time.

  She was drowning.

  They plunged in en masse, the younger Tor making the biggest headway against the waves. Derek felt his boots fill, his clothes growing sodden, both becoming a weight to drag him down beneath the waves.

  Sheet lightning lit up the sky with a crack.

  In it he saw Millar’s face, white, demonic even as he jerked Claire’s head back, exposing her pale neck. In his other hand the knife glinted, two-pronged, blade and spike.