Sacrifice

'Tora, please put that down,' Richard said. 'Someone's going to get hurt.'

'You are so right,' I said. And it isn't going to be me.'

Gair moved towards me. I jerked my hand up. He danced back and came at me the other way. I jabbed the weapon at him and he jumped back again. He moved, left then right, feinting attacks, always diving back at the last second. He was taunting me, trying to unnerve me, and it was working. He was also gradually moving round the cabin, away from the steps and closer to me, forcing me to turn my back on Richard.

I spun, jumping round and away from him, to Richard's other side. Richard reached for me and I ducked. Then I grabbed Richard by the neck of his pullover and pushed the gun up against the side of his face. If I pulled the trigger now I would miss his brain but still make a hell of a mess.

'Don't move. Don't move a fucking inch. Either of you.'

Gair froze. He held his hands in the air and stood poised, ready to leap, eyes glinting with excitement.

'Tora,' gasped Richard. 'Others are coming – they'll be here any second.'

'Good,' I spat, although I was still thinking coherently enough to know the news was anything but good. 'There are one or two things I'd like to say to Andy Dunn, not to mention my favourite boss.'

Gair frowned. Richard twitched his head in my direction.

'Do you mean Kenn?' he asked.

'Richard, can we just-'

'Kenn isn't coming,' said Richard.

I released the pressure I'd been applying to Richard's face, allowing him to turn his head and face me. Gair tensed, as if ready to spring.

'Don't try it, Stephen. I can pull this trigger before you get here.' I hadn't taken my eyes off Richard. 'What do you mean?' I asked.

Richard's eyes narrowed, as though searching for something in my face. For a moment or two he said nothing and I held my breath. Then, 'Kenn isn't one of us,' he said softly, as though breaking bad news. 'I can see why you might think so – he certainly looks the part – but he isn't.'

'How come?' I demanded, unwilling to let myself believe something that logic told me couldn't possibly be true. 'How come Duncan is… was… but Kenn isn't?'

'Richard, do we really have time for this crap?'

'I loved his mother,' said Richard. 'When it came to it, I couldn't hurt her. I helped her escape. She's lived in New Zealand for the past forty years.'

'Kenn knows nothing about this?'

Richard shook his head. 'He knows his mother. I helped them make contact a few years ago. But no, he's not one of us. It's a great shame in many ways. He is an exceptional man, very gifted. What he would have achieved if… Well, it doesn't do to dwell on these things. My fault, of course. I let myself get involved. It won't happen again.'

I could see Gair making impatient movements.

'You were never intended to be part of this, you know,' continued Richard. 'Elspeth and I are fond of you. We know Duncan loves you.' His eyes left me and his gaze seemed to turn inwards; I wondered if he was remembering Kenn's mother. 'A year from now you could have adopted a newborn baby. It could even have been Duncan's baby. You weren't supposed to be harmed.'

'Unlike the poor child's mother, of course. Did I meet her tonight? Which one was it to be? Odel or Freya?'

'This is getting us nowhere

'I wish you'd put that thing down,' said Gair, taking a step forward.

'And I wish you'd slit your wrists and jump over the side.'

A sudden movement, a noise – that none of us had made. Richard and I both turned as one to the port cabin. Gair leaped at us. Too late, I swung the gun up, just as his full weight came crashing down on me. I pulled the trigger, felt the bolt connect and then the gun was knocked from my hand as we both fell.

For a second I lay stunned on the cabin floor. Gair lay over me, pinning me down.

'Be careful with her, for heaven's sake,' said Richard. 'We don't want to lose that baby.'

'Richard, will you take care of the boat? God knows where we are right now.'

I heard Richard move, then the revs of the boat increased and we turned sharply to port. I heard the crackle of the ship's radio and him speaking into it, trying to make contact with another boat.

Gair was wearing a crumpled grey business suit, no doubt the same one he'd been wearing when he'd been arrested, questioned and charged with murder. He probably hadn't been allowed to change before spending the night in the cell. He'd have been wearing it that morning when he'd swallowed the sedatives that reduced his peripheral pulse, when he'd pretended to hang himself and had been carted off: not to the morgue, of course, but to Tronal. A dark stain on his right shoulder was spreading slowly, but if he felt any pain he wasn't showing it.

I think a thousand different ways of pleading with him came into my head that moment. I was all out of bravado. I didn't want to fight any more. I just wanted to live a bit longer.

I think I even got as far as opening my mouth, forming the first words, but I never got the chance to utter them. Because Gair's eyes left mine and searched along the cabin floor until he spotted the gun. His weight shifted as he raised himself up and reached out. Then he leaned back over me, pushed the humane killer against my left thigh and looked into my eyes. He smiled as he pulled the trigger and my world exploded in a mass of white-hot pain.

39

I COULDN'T SEE, COULDN'T HEAR, COULDN'T BREATHE. THE BOAT swerved again.

'… the hell are you doing?' I heard Richard calling out from some great distance away. 'She'll bleed to death before we can get her back.'

'Then fix it, Doctor. I'll drive the boat.'

Marginally, the pain was receding, leaving my head, my chest, my abdomen, and concentrating in one spot, the fleshy part of my upper thigh. The blackness in my head faded a little and I could see again. And hear again: a terrifying noise filled the cabin and I realized it was me – screaming. Richard pushed his hands under my shoulders and dragged me across the floor, into the starboard cabin. With a strength I'd never have believed he possessed, he picked me up and lay me on the bunk, beside the still form of a woman. Freya. Even through the pain I recognized her. Then he took hold of both my hands and pressed them against the wound.

'Push hard,' he instructed. 'Stem the bleeding. You know what will happen if you don't.'

Only too well. Crimson fluid was pumping from my leg. Gair had most likely hit an artery and I was in big trouble. I pressed hard but I could feel the strength draining from me. I felt like I do when I'm falling asleep, when keeping the mind focused on even the simplest thing becomes impossible. Except I could not sleep. I had to stay conscious. I could hear Gair on the radio and the crackle of someone responding to him.

Richard was back. He pushed my hands away and started wrapping something around my leg. He pulled tight, then tighter. I looked down – the white of the bandages was already soaked scarlet. I can never see fresh blood without admiring it. Such an amazing substance, rich and strong and vibrant; such a beautiful colour; so sad to see it leaking away, dripping down through the floorboards, into the bilges and out, to disappear without trace, amidst the cold salt waters of the North Sea.

Gair was giving the coordinates of our position. Reinforcements were on their way. I had lost. I was going back to Tronal, to spend the next eight months chained and drugged, while a new life grew inside me. A life I had planned for, longed for, prayed for. And now that it was here, it was to be my death. I wondered what they'd do with Duncan, whether he would be allowed to live, be given one last chance to come back to the fold. Or whether he was already dead.

Richard twisted me so that my head rested on Freya's shoulder and then propped my left leg against the wall, allowing gravity to do its job.

Then he leaned forward, put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. The room seemed to darken around him.