“Has this got to do with why we’re out here in the first place?”
“Not a clue,” the orderly said. “All I know is that it’s a bloody mess. Just get your arses over there. The colonel is on site, and he’ll brief you.”
The fact that the colonel had left the safety of his office sent a chill down Banks’ back. The man spent his whole working life behind his desk since redeployment from Northern Ireland and didn’t move barring a disaster. Things had just got a lot worse.
- 4 -
Banks checked the map. If they pushed hard, they’d make it back to their vehicle at the reservoir in six hours from where they were, then it was another hour more to drive back to Foyers. A four, maybe five-hour hike north across the hill would bring them down to Foyers far sooner than that.
“Gear up, lads, we’re moving out hard and fast.”
The squad had relaxed to have a smoke while Banks was on the phone, and now got back into their rucksacks and crowded around him as he traced a route on the map. “We head over the hill to here at Errogie, then we’re off the rough stuff and can make double time down the farm roads to the loch-side. I want us there before it gets dark.”
The squad had only heard his side of the conversation on the phone.
“What’s going down, Cap?” Hynd asked.
“The shite has hit the fan over at Foyers. They didn’t say so, but my guess is that our boy’s been moving faster than we have, and he’s found something else he likes to snack on. The colonel’s waiting on scene for us.”
“The auld man’s out of the office? Things must be bad.”
“Aye, and the shite will be flowing downhill fast again, so let’s try to avoid it and get a move on. Cally, lead us out.”
Now that they weren’t actively searching for anything, they made good time, although by the time they topped the largest hill on their route two hours later, Banks’ calves were crying out for relief, and the pack felt like he was carrying a large man along with him. They’d managed to follow a deer track for the last few miles, which had made the going slightly easier. It had also allowed them to find two more piles of faeces as big or even bigger than the one that had been left at the cottage.
“Are you not stopping, Sarge?” Wiggins said as they passed the first one. “I thought shite inspection was your thing.”
“Nah, I see enough of that on your underwear in the laundry,” Hynd replied. “Besides, we can guess what’s in this one. More polar bear, and maybe a bit of some of yon deer we saw dead back at the park, and plenty of it. He’s making room for the bison to move through.”
Banks allowed them a quick stop for a smoke at the top of the hill. There wasn’t a view to appreciate, for the clouds had drawn down again, lowering gray overhead, lending a trace of moisture to the breeze and spreading a misty dimness across the landscape. With clouds that low and added mist, dusk was going to come all the sooner, and they had miles to go yet.
They headed out as soon as they finished their smokes.
Banks’ sense of direction proved up to the task, and they only had to stop twice to check the GPS on the sat phone. They arrived at a gate out onto a tarred farm road at Errogie at a quarter to four, and set off faster, almost jogging, on the downhill tracks that led them out at the side of Loch Ness in the middle of Foyers village just after four-thirty.
Almost immediately, they had to fend off the attentions of reporters and TV crews. Microphones were thrust in their faces and questions were shouted at them that they had no answers to. Banks didn’t even bother with a bland ‘No comment,’ just plowed his way through the crowd until he came to a security barrier. A young corporal from their own base was manning it with two privates, and Banks’ squad got waved through, much to the chagrin of the reporters who were immediately closed off from following.
They found the colonel standing with a senior policeman and another man that Banks only recognized from the TV as the local member of the Scottish Parliament.
“You took your damned time,” the colonel said.
“Sorry, sir,” Banks replied. “We were off the gird. We came as quick as we could.”
“I suppose so,” the colonel said. “And the bloody tourists were already dead before I tried to call you anyway, so there was nothing you could have done. Anything to report?”
The colonel led the squad away from the policeman and the MP, and heard Banks’ report in silence.
“And you’ve still no idea what it is?”
“No, sir, beyond that it’s big, and it likes meat.”
“I knew that much already,” the colonel replied. “It flattened a campsite in the field beside the church here just before dawn this morning. Luckily, it’s late season so it was relatively quiet, but there’s six dead and two missing. One of the missing is a five-year-old child.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Not a one. A local heard a rumpus, but by the time he got to the site, there were only trampled tents and the dead to see.”
“Prints?”
“Same as the ones you reported,” the colonel said and ran a weary hand through his thinning hair. “The government is going to slap a List D notice on the whole thing, so the press will have to keep their mouths shut for the time being. We’re going to seal off the road and start to evacuate everybody on this side of the road from Inverness down to the bottom end until we know it’s safe, but that’s going to take most of the night. I need you and your men to find this bloody thing and take it out before panic spreads any further.”
“Yes, sir,” Banks replied.
“And the first man that mentions Nessie gets a long spell in the brig. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Banks said, knowing better than to argue, although he didn’t have a clue where they might make a start.
“We’ll be sealing off all local roads up the hills too, to keep nosy buggers out, and placing men all along the loch banks at strategic points north and south. The police will be scouring the countryside looking for the missing woman and child, and I’ll be setting up a base of operations for the duration at Castle Urquhart. You’ve got a roving brief. Do what you need to do, no questions asked. Just don’t piss off too many people, don’t get dead, and get the job done fast before the story gets too big to contain. Understood?”
“Understood, sir,” Banks replied, and the colonel returned to his conversation with the policeman and the politician, leaving Banks to wonder, yet again, where they might make a start.
His first move after briefing the squad on the colonel’s orders was to lead them over to the small field by the church for an inspection of the campsite. Tall, trailer-mounted floodlights lit the scene, and the rhythmic thud of a generator echoed ‘round them as they stood over what had once been a family tent. The canvas was torn to ribbons, bloodied in places, and the ground had been heavily gouged, the thin grass now churned and muddy. Two other tents lay in a similar state, circled by crime scene tape, some 10 yards away closer to the church, but it looked like the forensics teams were finished here, as the squad had the area to themselves. Something caught Hynd’s eye and the sergeant bent down for a closer look at a track in a smoother patch of mud.
“Same as before, Sarge?” Banks asked.
“Aye, Cap, and there’s something else.” He traced the outline of the splayed toe marks and drew their attention to a marking that looked to have been made by a fold of skin between each of them. “I’m not surprised you heard something in the loch last night. I think these are webbed feet.”
“So what is it then? A giant fucking duck?” Wiggins said.