Little Black Lies (25 page)

‘What do you want, guys?’ The question is polite enough. The tone of my voice says don’t mess with me. Privately, I’m shitting myself, but if I let them know that, it’s all over.

A torchlight shines directly into my face. Then another. Fuck’s sake!

‘We want to talk to your girlfriend. Get her out here.’ A woman’s voice and I’m pretty certain not an islander. That accent was estuary, not the soft, almost West Country burr that a lot of the locals speak with. I turn my head to one side. If diplomatic negotiations break down, I need to see what’s coming. If the police set out straight away, they’re ten minutes away at best. For now, I’m on my own.

‘Who wants to talk to her? And get that friggin’ torch out of my face or I’ll ram it up your arse!’

There are jeers from the oncoming line, but the beam falls. I can look directly ahead again. Shapes stand out against the remaining sculptural forms of the whale graveyard. Adults, wrapped up for the weather in thick coats. Hats and scarves partially covering faces. Anonymous. I hear more vehicles approaching but it’s too soon for them to be police.

‘Anyone here I know or are you all off that cruise ship? Because if you are, you probably want to think twice about getting yourself in trouble with the law here. That ship won’t wait while you get bailed.’

Silence. I sense an advantage. ‘You’ll pay a thousand quid a head for flights home. I doubt your travel insurance will cover that one.’

‘Nobody’s going to be in trouble with the law.’ A bloke steps forward. Big, though not quite my height, and soft around the edges. Not from the cruise ship. I’m pretty certain he’s Jimmy Brown’s father. ‘We just want to talk to her.’

‘She’s been talking to the police all day. They’re dealing with it. Go home.’

A woman comes striding towards me, pushing past the bloke. Then another follows her. I don’t know either of them. She comes right up to me. Mid forties, with the coarse skin and lines around the mouth that suggest a drinker. I can smell alcohol. This is trickier. A bloke would be wary of me. A woman less so. She’ll tell herself I daren’t touch her. She’ll be right too, not in front of so many witnesses, especially as I’m pretty certain, at the back of the crowd, keeping a very low profile for now, I can see the gleam of a camera lens. That frigging TV crew have followed this lot out here.

The woman stands inches away, trying to intimidate me with proximity. ‘There is a two-year-old kid missing.’ She points into my face with a gloved forefinger. ‘Four kids missing in three years. Do you even give a shit?’

‘Get her out here!’ The line of people presses forward again. These are not just visitors. The locals are hanging back but they’re here. The Brown family certainly, probably one or two of the Harpers as well. Behind the tarnished skull of the blue whale, I can see the black and white tufts of Bob-Cat’s hair.

Still too long before the police get here. These people are scared. Their children are being spirited away and they feel helpless. Fuelled by drink and bolstered by numbers, they’ve found an outlet for their frustration. There is no way on earth they’re getting the key out of me, but more than one window has already been broken. They can get in.

‘You want to talk to Catrin?’ I look over the woman’s head towards a man who I’m pretty certain is Archie West’s dad. ‘The woman who found your son, by the way. The woman who handed him back to his mother not twenty-four hours ago? Is she the one all this is for?’

He has the grace to look ashamed of himself, but others still feel they have the courage of anonymity. Some kids at the back actually start singing the Queen song, the one about the woman they call the Killer Queen. I hold up both hands.

‘OK, you win. I’ll get her.’

That surprises them. They stop with the stupid singing but they’re drawing closer all the time.

‘Give me two minutes. But she’s coming out to talk, that’s all. She’s one woman, who hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s had a hell of a day and you can treat her with respect.’

Gobby Cow pushes after me as I step back to the door. ‘How about I come in with you?’ she says.

I lean down, talk directly into her face, so that only she can hear me. ‘How about I break your ugly nose?’ I straighten up. ‘Two minutes.’ I call out as I unlock the door and open it. ‘And nobody hurts her, or you’ll have me to answer to.’

I slip inside and turn the key. Catrin is waiting in the hallway. She looks past me to the back door. ‘I’ll talk to them. I’m not afraid.’

‘Yeah, well I am.’ I drag her through the house to where I remember there being a laundry room. Washing machine, wire-framed dryers stacked neatly against the wall. And a large window, directly above the sink, that overlooks a secluded part of the garden.

I had sex with Catrin in this house more than once. Her husband worked less than twenty minutes away. Years ago, I had my escape route all planned out.

‘There are people at the back,’ she hisses at me, as I open the window and climb on to the sink.

‘They’ll be round at the front now, waiting for you to come out.’ Not without some difficulty – maybe I’m bigger now than I was three years ago – I squeeze myself outside and drop to the ground. I hold out my arms to help her down and she gives me Queenie.

Great.

Keeping the dog tucked under one arm, I help Catrin with the other. The wind will hide any sound she and I make. I just have to hope the dog stays quiet. Once we’re all three outside I give myself a second to take stock.

We’re in the small fenced area where Catrin keeps her bins. I leave the window open, so they’ll know we got out and, hopefully, won’t be tempted to trash the house, and then I push open the swing door and peer out. Nobody that I can see and, in any case, I can deal with the odd straggler. I give Queenie to Catrin and then drag them both along a narrow, paved path that leads to the bottom of the garden. Once over the fence we’re in open country. We’ve lost the cloud cover, though, and the quad bikes will follow us easily.

Back at the house the chanting has begun again. I hear a loud knocking and know they’re running out of patience, but we’ve reached the fence. I vault over it, take Queenie and put her down, then lean back to lift Catrin.

A rocket screams overhead, trailing tiny coloured sparks of fire as I pull Catrin forward. In Skye’s borrowed clothes she’s not exactly dressed for a hike across the moors but we have to get a move on.

Sensing a change in the mood behind us I glance back to see the torches dancing about randomly. Above the wind I can hear shouts of frustration.

‘Guess they know we’ve gone.’ At my side, Catrin sounds breathless already. Three years ago, she was fit as a flea. Now, I’m not sure she’s going to cope with a four-mile hike in the dark. Still, I’ve carried heavier weights across Falkland countryside at night.

A torch beam falls on to the ground directly in front of me and there is an answering cry from behind. We’ve been spotted. I pick up speed again but whatever Catrin’s got on her feet, it isn’t running shoes. She’s struggling to keep up and behind us I can hear the roar of quad-bike engines. This is bad. Back at the house, with the moral high ground, we might have faced them down. Now we’ve become prey, hunted by a mob, it’s an entirely different story.

Options? Hide? Turn and face them? Beat one of them up so badly the rest back off? Making a sudden decision, I switch direction and head for the road.

‘They’ve got cars. We can’t get away on the road.’

‘We’re not going to. We’re going to cross it.’

I wait for the protest. For Catrin to realize what’s on the other side of the road and tell me I’m insane. We push through gorse and Diddle Dee. There are still some clouds above us and every now and again one gets blown across the moon, effectively cloaking us in darkness. Every time that happens, there’s a chance we’ll slip out of sight and so I press on as fast as I dare. It’s not easy, tabbing across Falkland countryside at night when you’re under pressure. There are clumps of tussock, holes and burrows, great stretches of peat bog and even streams and ponds where you least expect them. And rocks, embedded deep in the ground, low but sharp, vicious as man traps.

The bikes are getting closer. When I look back I see the headlights. They’re heading straight for us.

Finally, the road. We can move faster, even without light. Mind you, so can the guys chasing us. I turn left, keeping a firm hold on Catrin. We have about forty yards to go but it’s uphill and she’s breathing heavily.

‘You’re out of condition.’

‘You’re out of your mind.’

We’ve reached the fence. I don’t normally enter this particular field at this point, so I haven’t prepared it. ‘Do you trust me?’ I ask. Over her shoulder, coming up the hill hard on our heels, I can count three headlights.

‘Seems the least I can do.’

I grin at her, then drop to the ground and roll. The barbed wire snags at my jacket but I pull free. The ground is soggy, but there isn’t time to find a better spot. She follows me and then Queenie scrambles through.

We’re in the minefield.

22

I keep close to the fence until I can get my bearings. There is a bare outcrop of rock a little way north of our current position and when we reach that, we can head west. A sheep trail takes us most of the way through. Behind me, Catrin is carrying the dog again.

‘Piglet won’t set anything off. Put her down.’

Woman clutches dog even tighter. I stop and face them. ‘Cat, the field’s full of sheep. They’re too light to set mines off and so is she. Just don’t let her chase them or we could all get shot.’

I’m not entirely joking. The minefield is rented by Chase Wentfield, a local farmer, who takes a zero-tolerance approach to dogs bothering his livestock. Meanwhile, the headlamps are still following us and, on the road side of the fence, they can move faster than we can. We reach the outcrop and I pull out a compass to double-check. I wouldn’t normally, and I’m not sure we can spare the time, but I sense Catrin is still pretty nervous.

‘This way,’ I tell her. ‘Stay directly behind me. And put that bloody dog down.’

I set off jogging along the sheep trail. Catrin’s so close behind me she’s practically tripping over my heels but that’s good. We need to disappear into the gloom before the headlamps catch up with us or those daft bastards might be tempted to follow. When I’ve run nearly a hundred yards I turn and look back. The headlamps are still there, shining into the field, but quad bikes can’t come in here. So far, no sign of anyone following us on foot. I pull Catrin low and after a few minutes we watch the bikes turn and head back down the hill.

‘I love it when a plan comes together,’ I tell her.

‘Brilliant.’ She’s still clutching Piglet. ‘And losing the odd limb will be a small price to pay.’

When I stand and start walking again she follows me like a baby elephant chasing after its ma. ‘Maybe we should spread out a bit,’ I tell her. ‘Then if I get hit, there’s a chance you’ll miss the worst of it.’

‘Oh, very funny. Are you going to tell me how you do this?’

‘Got a map.’

She thinks about this for a second. ‘You’ve got a map? Acres of the islands have been out of bounds for over a decade because nobody wants to get blown up and you’ve got a bloody map? Have you told anyone?’

‘Nobody asked.’ I look back. Nothing but darkness behind.

Catrin, too, has stopped moving. I know that look. If Queenie weren’t in her arms her hands would be on her hips.

‘Of course people know I’ve got it. Or rather, the military know. The trouble is they can’t trust it. I had it off an Argie prisoner at the end of the war. His squadron laid the mines, so he knew exactly where they were. The British government want to do their own sweep and until they can spare the funding, the minefield remains.’

She’s looking round. At the bumpy uneven ground, the scattered rocks, the ghostly white shapes in the distance that are probably sheep. ‘How many mines are there?’

‘A hundred and forty?’

‘You’re kidding me. And you remember where they all are?’

‘God no. I just know this path’s safe.’

She takes hold of my hand and looks back. ‘They’re gone now. They’ve given up. We can go back to the road.’

It’s been a long time since Catrin held my hand. I realize she’s shaking and I don’t think it’s just the fear of being blown up. I unzip my coat and pull it off. Wrapping it round her gives me the excuse to pull her closer, to do something I used to love. I tuck my hands behind her neck and pull her hair free.

She remembers. I see it in her eyes, in the tiny shudder she makes as my fingers touch the back of her neck. ‘I can’t believe you’re coming on to me in the middle of a minefield,’ she grumbles.

I want nothing more than to kiss her. Staring down, at the face that is little more than shadows, I have a sense that something is changing. For the first time in years, I feel something akin to hope.

‘Come on.’ We set off again. After several steps, we’re still holding hands.

‘All this time, I thought you were playing some twisted game of Russian roulette coming in here. I thought you were seriously disturbed. You could have told me you had a map.’

I had no idea Catrin even knew I came into the minefield. ‘You been spying on me?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

We walk on. Queenie, finally on the ground again, picks up a scent of the sheep and I have to growl a warning. She looks up at me like a wilful kid. I bare my teeth at her.

‘Stop bullying her. Hang on a minute. How can you be sure the map’s accurate? It only takes one your Argentinian friend forgot to mention and you’re gannet food.’

‘Actually there’s a few he forgot about. I set one off last May. Cracked a couple of ribs when I landed.’

She stops dead. ‘Really not funny.’

‘Really not kidding.’

I put her out of her misery. ‘The Argies weren’t very good at laying mines. They dug them too deep, and they completely underestimated the impact of the peat soil.’

As we walk on, I tell her the story of the night, not long after we landed, when we were heading for the Argentine defensive positions at Goose Green. We advanced on the left flank, close to a beach, across an area we were soon to learn that the Argies had mined. One of our company, an eighteen-year-old gobshite from Glasgow, set off an explosion and flew twenty feet into the air. He landed on boggy ground, picked himself up and carried on running forward. Several more mines exploded that night. Not a single one of our lads was harmed. Not by mines, anyway.