George is almost upon me. Just a few yards away when he slows to a stop, breathing hard. His ginger hair is darkened by the rain and his sweat, and falls in lank curls all around his forehead. He looks at me with such hatred and contempt that I very nearly wilt under the force of his gaze.
‘You little shit!’ he says. ‘Did you ever in your wildest dreams really believe you could be with my sister?’ He draws a long-bladed hunting knife from a sheath on his belt and extends his arm out to his right, the haft of it firmly grasped in his fist, the blade glinting in my direction. ‘I’m going to gut you like the animal you are.’ He glances over his shoulder back along the cliffs. There is no sign of the chasing constables. ‘And not a witness in sight to say it wasn’t self-defence.’
As he advances slowly on me, I plant my feet wide to brace myself for the assault, keeping my eyes fixed on his knife hand. He is so close to me now I can smell him. I feel that he wants me to meet his eye. But I won’t take mine off his knife, and decide on an impulse to take the initiative. I hurl myself forward, turning side-on so that my shoulder hits him full in the chest, and I grab his right hand with both of mine.
We crash to the beach, with me on top, and all the air is expelled from his lungs in a short, painful explosion. I twist his wrist and forearm, forcing him to release his grip on the knife, and it goes sliding away across the sand.
But he recovers quickly from his surprise and with his superior strength pushes me away. He gets back to his feet, grimacing with pain and gasping to find his breath. I stoop and scoop up a handful of sand to throw in his face. But he turns his head quickly to avert it, and I see his eyes flicker away towards where his knife lies half buried. We each make the calculation about which of us might reach it first. He dives to his right, tumbling to the ground, and grasping it almost before I can move. He is on his feet again in an instant, the sand in his clothes whipped away by the wind. And his confidence floods back.
He has me now with my back to the sea and no means of avoiding him. I move cautiously backwards as he advances and feel the incoming waves break around my ankles. His lips part in what I imagine he believes to be a smile. But it is more like a wild animal baring its teeth.
He lunges at me and I feel his blade slash the skin of my forearm as I try to grab his wrist again. We come together, faces almost touching, and stagger back through the water. Then fall into the ocean as it breaks over us. I twist and turn trying to avoid the blade, and for a moment we are completely submerged. When I break the surface once more, gasping for breath, I am momentarily confused. The ocean is red. George has released me, and I panic, staggering to my feet and looking for the wound that I cannot feel. Which is when I realise that he is floating face-down in the water, blood bubbling to the surface and eddying all around him.
I grab his jacket, and stumbling through the waves drag him up on to the sand and roll him over. Silver turns red beneath him, blood soaking his clothes from a wound somewhere in his midriff, where he has fallen on his own knife. He is still alive, eyes staring up at me and filled with fear. His lips move but there are no words, and I see his life leave him almost like a physical thing departing.
I feel the sea wash cold around my legs as I kneel beside him, and hear cries from the cliffs. I look up to see three constables looking down at us on the beach. It must be clear to them that George is dead, and with me crouched over his body this way there is only one conclusion that I know they will reach. No point in even trying to explain.
I stand up and sprint away along firm, wet sand. I hear them shout as they begin their descent, but I know now they won’t catch me. I turn away from the ocean and pound off into a sandy inlet overhung with soil and razor-sharp beach grass. Up and on to the machair again, heading for the cover of the hills, grateful for the rain that falls like mist and swallows me up to become a vanishing part of the landscape.
I have no idea how long it takes me to reach the crossroads. Water tumbles down the hill over fractured slabs of gneiss to gather here in what I’ve heard called the drowning pool. The old Sgagarstaigh road passes close by and branches off a little further down the hill towards Ard Mor. But it is little used now, fallen into desuetude since Sir John Guthrie built the castle and the new road leading to it from the east.
Kirsty is waiting in the shelter of the single rowan tree that grows there. She has a horse and trap, the beast stamping its feet impatiently and snorting in the cold. Her relief is almost palpable until she sees the state of me.
‘What’s happened? Where are your mother and sisters?’
‘Taken,’ I tell her. ‘With everyone else from the village who survived the attack. They’re probably all aboard the Heather by now.’
‘But why didn’t you leave before they came?’ I see strain all around her eyes.
‘My mother wouldn’t go. And then it was too late.’ I choke back tears and wait some moments to recover my voice. ‘Baile Mhanais is in flames. Some of my neighbours are dead. Everyone else was taken away to Loch Glas.’ I stare at the ground, afraid now to meet her eyes. To tell her the rest. Then I look up suddenly. ‘Your brother’s dead, Ciorstaidh.’
I see her eyes blacken with shock in the cold grey of this awful day. ‘George …?’
I nod.
‘What happened?’
‘I got away. He came after me. We fought on the beach beyond the cliffs. He had a knife, Ciorstaidh. He meant to kill me. Gut me like an animal, he said.’
Her voice was little more than a breath. ‘You killed him?’
‘I didn’t mean to. I swear. We ended up in the water and he fell on his own knife.’
I see silent tears run down her face. ‘Poor George. I always hated him. I don’t know if he deserved to die or not, but one way or another he brought it on himself.’ She bit her lip to fight back some inner grief that belied her words. There must have been some moments of affection between them when they were children.
‘They’ll say I killed him. No matter that he was the one trying to kill me. You can be sure they’ll want me for murder. And if they catch me it’ll be the gallows.’
I see the quiet determination that sets the line of her jaw. ‘They’ll not catch you,’ she says, and she turns to the trap and opens the trunk at the rear of it. There are two small suitcases inside it. She pulls one out and opens it on the ground. ‘I brought some of George’s clothes for you, and a pair of his boots. They might be a little big, but they’ll do. You can’t travel looking the way you do.’
I look at the folded trousers, and the jacket, and the pressed shirt in the case. And George’s shining black boots. And I can only imagine how he would have felt at the thought of me stepping into them. ‘I can’t travel at all,’ I tell her.
Her face creases in a frown of incomprehension. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t leave my mother and my sisters.’
‘Simon, you told me yourself they are probably already on the boat. There’s nothing you can do.’
I close my eyes and want to shout out loud. She is right, of course, but I find it next to impossible to accept.
She grabs my arm and forces me to look at her. ‘Listen, Simon. The Heather is bound for a place called Quebec City. It’s somewhere on the eastern seaboard of Canada. If we can get to Glasgow, then I have more than enough money to pay our passage on the next boat to Quebec ourselves. Once we get there, there’s bound to be shipping records or something. You’re sure to be able to track them down. But we’ve got to go. Now. We need to be on a sailing to the mainland before the police come after you.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX