Part 25 (1/2)

There was traffic, but it was all from the mainland. Unsurprisingly, theirs seemed to be the only boat out in the area. He turned the tuning dial and got onto the wavelength he wanted and listened intently to the silence. There was a low scratch of static. And then the static clarified into what resembled, more than anything, a childlike wail. It was a disconsolate moan of infant grief.

Then as he listened, it changed in character. It turned slyly into a whisper. He s.h.i.+vered. It was a spooky sound. If you were fanciful, it sounded like words, the phrase no hope repeated like a mantra over and over again. It was not something he could endure down there in the gloom of the galley on his own.

A colossal wave broached then and the boat shuddered along its length with the impact and lurched so that he had to grab the table to keep from being flung to the cabin floor. The enamel mug clattered away into a corner and he heard the rivets of the old hull groan and ping in the roar of the wind. Sea water from the swamped deck above deluged down the steps of the companionway and he feared with sudden and overwhelming dread they were simply going to wallow engulfed and sink.

Under him, he sensed the craft slowly righting herself. He felt her level off and rise as the weight of water on the deck diminished, sloughing away. Moments earlier he had been pondering on fate. Fate might think it funny to store a keeper of marine artefacts forever aboard a rusting vessel on the ocean floor. It might seem fitting, somehow. It was a comfortless thought, one that brought fresh terror clutching at his cold, wet skin.

Horan's journal was down there, in a shallow draw designed for charts built into the table at which he sat, snugly housed now in a waterproof case designed to carry a laptop in. With an incredulous shake of his head, he remembered his daydream of helping Jane Chambers clarify its arcane 18th century phraseology. He had indulged in that particular fantasy before he had read very much of it. He had not known when he'd done so of the unholy danger its pages would tell him she faced.

Not for the first time, he wondered would they even get there in time. a.s.suming the old trawler didn't succ.u.mb to the storm and sink, a.s.suming they could safely berth her in the raging surf around the bleak rock they were destined for, would there be anyone left alive when they got there to save? He remembered how bereft young Edie Chambers had sounded over the phone to him. He thought the death of her mother now a blow from which it would be impossible for the girl ever to fully recover.

He switched off the transmitter. This wouldn't do. He needed to find some fort.i.tude from somewhere within himself. He would steel himself and swallow back the bile and make his lunatic s.h.i.+pmate something hot and fortifying to drink.

When he did so, he discovered McIntyre's mood had grown more sombre. There was no song bellowing forth from him now. He was watchful and tense, his hands caressing the wheel as he coaxed their elderly craft through the cavorting seas. Every plate and stanchion of her seemed to groan, as she shuddered through the turmoil of the waves. Despite this, the wheelhouse seemed to Fortescue almost a cosy refuge from the havoc of the elements outside. Within it, they could watch the storm welter and rage, dry behind the decades of scratches dulling its toughened Perspex windows.

'I like young men,' McGuire said, sipping the cocoa his companion had made him.

'Is this really the moment for a confession of that sort?'

'I don't mean s.e.xually, you b.l.o.o.d.y idiot. I like the energy of young men, when they have something about them that reminds me of myself when I was young.'

'Why are you telling me this?'

'Recently, my judgement has been impaired, in that particular area. I'm telling you, professor, because should we survive this experience, I would very much like for you to regard me as your friend. I am a good friend, loyal and generous, as I hope you will live to discover.'

'I'm not much like you, Mr McIntyre.'

'Perhaps you're not. But you possess great courage and that's a quality I admire in a man.'

'Do I?'

'You do.'

'I don't feel particularly brave.'

'Really courageous men never do, I don't think. Only the stupid are truly fearless. The rest of us struggle to overcome our instinct to s.h.i.+rk or to flee.'

'I'm familiar with that struggle.'

'Yet you're here.'

Fortescue shrugged. The queasiness had left him. He thought that he might have found his sea legs, suddenly. He felt grateful for the reprieve. 'I've surprised myself, really,' he said. 'I'm not greatly suited to this sort of task.'

'No one is,' McIntyre said, looking at him.

Fortescue could only nod in agreement.

'Should we become friends, I would vastly prefer you call me by my Christian name.'

'Alexander?'

'Alex to you,' McIntyre said.

'In that case,' Fortescue said, 'you'd better call me Phil.'

There was a silence between them. Outside, the wind withered. Spume scattered on the Perspex s.h.i.+eld sheltering them from the elements.

'Do you think they're dead?'

'If they are,' McIntyre said, 'I've killed them. You reach a level of power and influence and people become p.a.w.ns you can s.h.i.+ft about in whatever capricious game you decide to play. They become pieces you manipulate at will, nothing more. It's taken this experience to open my eyes to that reality. So I hope with all my heart they're not dead. I'll get us through this voyage, I promise you that. Beyond that, I can only pray and beseech and beg we are in time.'

'Actually pray, you mean? Do you believe in G.o.d?'

'At this precise moment, Phil, it seems expedient to do so.'

There was no sign at all of the four man sentry patrol Napier had detailed before they closed down the compound for the night. When he went outside they had gone. It was as though they had never been there.

He went to rouse Davis. He wanted to know had there been any talk of slipping away, taking their own chances, among his men. It seemed unlikely to him. Given the ferocity of the gale that still battered the island, it seemed an outlandish prospect. They couldn't have got off New Hope and they were surely no more secure anywhere on it than here, where there were solid structures and at least the illusion of safety in numbers.

Davis looked sheepish. 'There has been a bit of speculative planning,' he said. 'By that I mean last resort talk. A couple of the boys have suggested fitting out the rigid inflatable we found and scarpering in that.'

'We put sand in the outboard's petrol tank,' Napier said.

'No. We didn't. You instructed one of the lads to do it but we took an independent line on that one, Paul. We're none of us any longer obliged to obey your orders. This isn't the army and in the circ.u.mstances, sabotaging our only viable means of escape seemed a bit foolhardy.'

'Not foolhardy,' Napier said, 'completely b.l.o.o.d.y stupid. It was a bad decision and you were wise to ignore it. The boat wasn't holed?'

'It was left intact.'

'Do you think they've taken it?'

Davis looked around. The wind was buffeting them both even in the substantial shelter of the unpacked crates of gear. The rain was a deluge needling into them at 45 degrees, the rubberised fabric of the ponchos both men wore snapping and rippling wetly. 'No, I don't,' he said. 'I suspect they've gone the way of Carrick and Kale. I hope I'm wrong, but that's what I honestly think. We need a f.u.c.king miracle, Paul.'

Napier said, 'We've got a priest. Let's hope he can provide us with one.'

Davis said, 'He doesn't look up to it. Not to me, he doesn't.'

'We'll know soon enough.'

'I don't believe for a second he can make any difference to what's happening here,' Davis said. 'I don't think he does either.'

'The French had faith in him in Africa.'

Davis shrugged.

And Napier sounded to his own ears like he was down to clutching at straws. They had no idea really of what it was they were up against. All they knew was that they were disappearing. Something was taking them one by one. They were confronted by something monstrous and cunning and it was devouring them.

Davis had been with him that day when he'd discovered the malicious scrawl of graffiti on the hearth of the cottage that had once been home to the crofter, Shanks. They had both sensed the evil, palpable, almost paralysing in the dread it inflicted on a man. It had been nothing earthly. The approach to the cottage door had been a wade through a mora.s.s of clutching fear.

Davis said, 'Last night, when the ladies described Shanks speaking through that shapely psychic of ours, they said he called the magic Ju Ju, like in Africa. But this is different from what I saw there, back then. The tribesmen in that village were just dabbling.'