Harry tried to answer, but for a second was unable to speak.

  ‘Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chipchase.

  ‘Yes,’ Harry hoarsely confirmed.

  ‘Good. Listen carefully. I won’t repeat myself again. You should know I’m armed with a Browning nine-millimetre automatic pistol. Standard issue to RAF officers and air crew during your days in uniform. The very weapon either one of you might have misappropriated fifty years ago … and kept ever since. This one’s in perfect working order. With me so far?’

  ‘Yes,’ Chipchase and Harry replied in reverberating unison.

  ‘Excellent. Now, I want you to leave the house and walk back along the road to the jetty you passed on your way there. There’ll be a boat waiting for you. I also want you to open the garage as you leave and look inside. Then you’ll have no doubt of the gravity of the situation. Clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One more thing. If you’re not at the jetty within ten minutes, I’ll kill the hostages, then come looking for you. And I’ll find you long before the police get here — should you decide to phone them. But I wouldn’t, if I were you. I really wouldn’t.’

  The line went dead in that instant. The one-sided conversation was over.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  Chipchase reached the kitchen while Harry was still holding the telephone. He looked as shocked and irresolute as Harry felt himself.

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘You mean apart from what he’s told us to do?’

  ‘Yeah. Apart from that.’

  ‘Do you believe he meant what he said?’

  ‘Every word.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘In that case…’

  ‘We don’t have much choice, do we? And we don’t have much time either.’

  —«»—«»—«»—

  Harry led the way out of the house and round to the front of the garage. He took a deep breath, turned the handle of the up-and-over door and gave it a tug.

  The mechanism was well lubricated. It rose smoothly and silently into position. Grey light spread into the garage, over and round the rear of a red pick-up truck.

  A sheepdog lay huddled and motionless near the driver’s door to the truck, blood pooled beneath it on the concrete floor of the garage. A few feet further on the boiler-suited lower half of a man was visible. He was slumped across the wing of the truck, head down in the engine cavity, partly shielded from them by the raised bonnet.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ murmured Chipchase. ‘It’s Murdo, isn’t it?’

  ‘Reckon so.’

  ‘I’ll take a look.’

  Chipchase moved apprehensively along the narrow corridor between the truck and the garage wall, grasping one of the struts supporting a shelf loaded with paint pots as he stepped gingerly over the dead dog. He peered down into the shadowy recesses of the bonnet, then turned, grimaced at Harry and shook his head.

  A few seconds later, he was back outside. ‘Bullet through the temple,’ he said, his eyes reflecting the horror that his matter-of-fact tone did not express. ‘Must have been tinkering with the engine when Frank arrived. Probably never knew a thing. Lucky sod. Then Fido came to see what the noise was. Bang. We’re looking at the work of a cold-blooded killer here, Harry. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘And we’re going to walk calmly down the road and go for a cruise round the bay with him, are we?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Unless you’ve got an alternative to suggest.’

  ‘No. I haven’t.’

  Harry sighed. ‘Thought not.’

  FIFTY-THREE

  They saw the boat standing offshore as they rounded a bend in the road and headed down towards the jetty. It was a smartly painted, newish-looking launch. A figure was visible on deck — a tall, broad-shouldered, darkly clad man, his head in shadow. He moved out of sight as they approached. Then the launch nudged in towards the jetty.

  ‘You want to know what I think?’ Chipchase enquired in a gloomy undertone.

  ‘No,’ replied Harry.

  ‘This is suicide.’

  ‘I said I didn’t want to know.’

  ‘But you already knew.’

  ‘True enough.’

  ‘As a betting man, I’ve got to tell you—’

  ‘Don’t tell me, Barry. Please. Don’t tell me.’

  They reached the jetty. The launch was bobbing in the gentle swell of the rising tide at its far end. The man they had glimpsed earlier stepped into view and nodded faintly in greeting. He was dressed in black jeans and sweatshirt, his clothes filled out by a muscular frame. His face was gaunt and raw-boned, his hair a close-cropped thatch of grey-flecked black. He studied them with chilling impassivity as they walked slowly down the ramp of the jetty.

  ‘Frank?’ Harry called.

  ‘You’re a little late.’ Frank remained expressionless. But he moved his right arm, which had been folded behind his back, so they could see the pistol clasped in his leather-gloved hand. ‘I’ll overlook it, though. Seen Murdo, have you?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve seen him.’

  ‘So, you know I’m serious.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Good. Come aboard.’

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Just come aboard, Harry.’ Frank raised the gun. ‘Or I’ll shoot you where you stand.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Chipchase under his breath. And, silently, Harry echoed him.

  It was an awkward step from the jetty down into the launch. Harry managed it in a stumbling stride. As he looked round, he was astonished to see Howlett sitting calmly at the wheel, smiling over his shoulder at him, without the least sign of duress. Indeed, he was in control of the vessel, a fact that loosed a cascade of sickening thoughts in Harry’s mind.

  The slack-jawed look of amazement on his face had caused Chipchase to hesitate. But Frank was having none of that. ‘Get down here, Barry. Now.’

  Chipchase cannoned into Harry as he scrambled aboard. Then he too saw Howlett, screened from him until then by the cockpit roof. ‘Bloody hell. Marky. You’re—’

  ‘Not Marky. And not a hostage. You’ve got it, Barry.’

  ‘Where are the hostages?’ Harry demanded, anger simmering beneath his fear.

  ‘There’s just the one actually,’ Howlett replied. ‘Ailsa Red-path. She’s in the cabin.’ He nodded towards a pair of closed doors sealing off the fo’c’sle.

  ‘What about Karen?’

  ‘Probably cataloguing a mummy in the British Museum even as we speak. All that crap I served you about her going missing was just a come-on. And you fell for it big time, I have to say. I put on a pretty good show, didn’t I?’

  ‘You lured us all the way up here?’

  ‘Correcto.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Never mind,’ snapped Frank. ‘Unbolt the cabin doors and go through.’ His gaze flicked up to the shore, then back to them. ‘Move.’ He gestured with the gun.

  Harry edged past Howlett, slipped the bolts holding the doors shut and pulled them open. A cramped triangular cabin revealed itself, a narrow bench running round either side to meet at the end, with a table in the middle. A slim, grey-haired woman dressed in jeans, trainers and fleece was seated awkwardly on the bench, her hands tied with rope behind her back, the rope fastened in turn to one of the table legs. A strip of brown tape had been placed across her mouth. She flinched at the sudden invasion of light, closing her eyes for a second, then turning to blink at Harry in obvious alarm.

  ‘Keep moving,’ barked Frank. And Harry did, stepping down into the cabin and making room for Chipchase, who stumbled in after him.

  ‘What are you—’ Harry’s question was cut off by the slamming of the doors behind them. Darkness descended on him like a hood. He heard the bolts slide back into place. Then the woman moaned. ‘Don’t worry, Ailsa,’ he said, to raise his own spirits as much as hers. ‘You’re not alone now.’

  ‘I spotted a switch here somewhere,’ said Chipchase, fumbling around the door frame. ‘Yeah. Here we are.’

  An overhead light flickered into life. As it did so, the engine revved throatily and the launch reversed away from the jetty. Then the sound altered again to a smooth, surging rumble. The boat changed direction and accelerated forward.

  ‘Snug quarters we’ve got here,’ said Chipchase. ‘Snug as a bloody tomb.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Barry,’ said Harry, shooting him a glare before moving round the table to where Ailsa was trapped. Gingerly, he removed the tape.

  ‘Thank you,’ she gasped, grimacing at the taste the tape had left on her lips. She was, Harry saw, a good-looking woman who had once been beautiful, with high cheekbones, a heart-shaped face, gentle features and grey-blue, far-seeing eyes. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Harry Barnett. And this is—’

  ‘Barry Chipchase.’ Chipchase moved round the other side of the table. ‘I’ll untie you.’

  ‘Ah. Of course.’ Ailsa sighed, as if some dismal expectation had only now been fulfilled. ‘Barnett and Chipchase. The scapegoats.’

  ‘Too bloody true that’s what we are,’ said Chipchase, his voice muffled by the tabletop beneath which he was crouching.

  ‘Have you read Maynard’s statement?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Their version of it, yes,’ Ailsa replied.

  ‘You realize we didn’t kill your father and brother?’

  ‘Of course I do. This entire exercise is designed to conceal the identity of the real killer. He’s who these people work for. And now he’s responsible—’ She broke off, squeezing her eyes briefly shut. When she opened them again, they were moist with tears. ‘Now he’s responsible for killing both my brothers.’

  ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘No. And I doubt I’m going to get the chance to find out. I doubt any of us is.’

  ‘Where are they taking us?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But…’

  ‘Haskurlay?’

  ‘That’s my guess.’

  ‘What are they planning?’

  ‘Our deaths,’ said Chipchase, still struggling with the tightly knotted rope. ‘That’s what they’re planning.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ailsa. ‘I fear they are.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  The southerly turn the launch took after they had headed east for long enough to clear the Vatersay coast made Haskurlay an ever likelier destination. The ride became rougher as they entered the open sea, forcing Howlett to slow slightly. Ailsa reckoned it would take an hour or so to reach the island. For that hour, at least, they were probably safe.

  There was time enough, then, for them to discuss what had brought them to such a desperate plight. Ailsa sat hunched on the bench, massaging her chafed wrists, as Harry told her of the Operation Clean Sheet reunion; of the crop of mysterious deaths it had sparked off; of the house fires in Cardiff and Swindon; of the attempts he and Chipchase had made to discover the truth; and of their ill-fated journey to Vatersay.

  Much of this Ailsa already knew. ‘I moved to Glasgow long ago, thinking I could put the mystery of Father and Andrew’s disappearance behind me. But I never quite succeeded. The ache of not knowing ruined Mother’s life. Murdo’s too, I think. When Lester Maynard, a total stranger, left me a house in Henley and a good bit of money besides, I tried to tell myself it had nothing to do with what had happened to Father and Andrew. But I knew in my heart it had to be connected. Then Dougie McLeish told Murdo that Maynard had been to Barra a few years before, enquiring about the drowning of a man called Nixon. And Murdo told me. There was no doubt in my mind at that point. The rumours of some sort of military exercise on Haskurlay were true. But still I couldn’t be sure Father and Andrew had fallen foul of it. Not till four years ago, too late for Mother sadly, when their bodies were found at last, buried on the island. And even then certainty wasn’t proof. The authorities did as little as they could get away with doing. The case was filed and forgotten. It’s what I tried to do with it myself. It’s certainly what my husband wanted me to do with it.

  ‘Then, two weeks ago, Peter Askew contacted me. He said he was an old friend of Lester Maynard’s and was in possession of information he felt he ought to pass on to me. He wondered if I’d agree to meet him. Naturally, I did. He came to London the following day. This would have been a couple of days before he turned up on your doorstep in Swindon. We met at a cafe near South Kensington Tube station. He was nervous, hesitant, unsure, it seemed to me, of what he should or shouldn’t tell me, how much of the truth he could afford to reveal. The upshot was this. The discovery of the bodies on Haskurlay had confirmed the accuracy of a statement Maynard had arranged to be sent to him after his death. They’d been very close at one point, he said. I didn’t pry into exactly what that meant. I had the impression that if I put any pressure on him he might clam up completely. He knew who was responsible for the deaths of my father and brother. He wanted to give that person a chance to come to terms with his responsibility, which, bafflingly, he said he might well be unaware of. An RAF reunion they were both to attend the following weekend would give him the opportunity to broach the subject. Then he’d feel free to show me the statement and explain everything.

  ‘He was never able to do that, of course. It wasn’t me or Karen Snow he met on his way up to Scotland later that week. I believe it must have been the man who killed Father and Andrew. But he didn’t react as Askew had hoped. He decided to suppress the evidence of his guilt by eliminating Askew and anyone else he had reason to believe might know what he’d done.’

  ‘Lloyd was beginning to remember things,’ Harry observed. ‘That made him a target. And our man probably suspected Dangerfield had an ulterior motive for arranging the reunion in the first place. But three killings were never going to be written off as accidents or suicides. Someone had to take the rap.’

  ‘And by going to ground I effectively volunteered for the role,’ grumbled Chipchase. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘With me lined up as your accomplice,’ said Harry. ‘Askew must have seen or heard something on the train that alarmed him. He must have realized our man was planning to move against him. So, he tried to ensure the truth would come out whatever happened to him by posting the disk containing Maynard’s statement to me during the stopover in Edinburgh. But why send it to me?’

  ‘He must have trusted you to bring the truth out in the open,’ said Ailsa. ‘Perhaps you were never on Haskurlay and therefore had no reason to conceal what happened there. Perhaps neither of you were. If so, our man may be punishing you for having no share in his guilt.’

  ‘It has to be Tancred,’ said Chipchase. ‘He could easily have met Askew in London on the q.t.’

  ‘So could Judd,’ Harry pointed out.

  ‘But he’s in Fuerte-bloody-ventura.’

  ‘That proves nothing. He—’

  ‘For the moment, it doesn’t matter who it is,’ Ailsa cut in. ‘What matters is what he’s arranged for us.’

  ‘A nasty end,’ muttered Chipchase. ‘That’s what.’

  ‘These men he’s hired are utterly ruthless. They kill without hesitation. I came up here when I heard of Askew’s death and the two deaths that followed it because I thought I’d be safe so far away from everything. I dare say I would have been but for our man’s uncertainty over whether Askew might have sent me a copy of the disk. But all I actually achieved by taking refuge with Murdo was to put him in the line of fire.’ Ailsa’s voice faltered. She blinked away some tears. ‘It was all so sudden. I thought the gunshots were backfires from the engine of the truck. Then that man… Frank… burst into the house and clapped a gun to my head. I thought he meant to kill me there and then. In some ways, I wish he had.’

  ‘He needed us on the scene,’ said Harry. ‘He’s putting together a set of circumstances and a sequence of events that will persuade the police we killed your father and brother fifty years ago, then Askew, Lloyd and Dangerfield last week, then Murdo and…’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Yes. Hence the old RAF pistol he’s using. Hence the statement left on display. He said he had the doctored disk, but he’s more likely to have hidden it in the house, where the police will eventually find it. They’ll conclude you were in possession of it all along and we came up here to destroy it and… to eliminate you and Murdo.’

  ‘Why take us to Haskurlay?’ asked Chipchase.

  ‘I’m not sure. But they don’t intend any of us to come back. That’s clear. This case has to be closed down. Because of the security angle, the police will be happy to do that. If there’s no-one around to be charged or tried. So, what’s the story they’re setting up? We’re losing it. We’re no longer in control. We steal this boat, kill Murdo, kidnap Ailsa, take her to Haskurlay. And then… your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘Or as bad. For our long-term, medium-term or even bloody short-term health.’

  ‘Yes. They mean to end this on Haskurlay.’

  ‘To end us.’

  “Fraid so.’

  ‘How do we stop them, Harry? Tell me you have an idea.’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Great. Just great.’

  ‘But maybe… in however long we have left…’

  ‘We can come up with one?’

  ‘Yes. Maybe.’

  ‘Or maybe not.’

  Harry nodded in reluctant agreement. ‘Exactly.’

  FIFTY-FIVE

  A despairing silence settled over them. There was no more to be said. The launch surged on towards Haskurlay, its bow bucking through the waves. Chipchase smoked a cigarette, the vibration of the hull masking the tremor in his hand, while Harry’s thoughts turned to Donna, waiting for news of him in Swindon, and to Daisy, asleep in her bedroom in Vancouver, unaware that her silly old daddy had been sillier than usual today — and was shortly to pay for it with his life.

  They would be landed on the island where this whole tragic, tangled tale had begun and executed one by one. Harry no longer hoped for any other outcome. There was no point. That was how it was going to be. He was sure of it.

 

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