Sacrifice

'Relax now,' he said. 'The pain will go.'

I struggled hard and forced my eyes shut. 'You're hypnotizing me?'

'No.' He stroked my forehead and my eyes opened. 'Just calming you, helping you with the pain.'

He continued stroking my forehead and, remarkably, the pain did seem to ease. But with it went what was left of my focus; I was starting to drift. Didn't want that to happen.

I reached out and caught his hand.

'Why?' I managed. 'Why do you kill us? Why do you hate your mothers so much?'

He held my hand in both of his. 'We have no choice,' he said. 'It's what makes us who we are.' He leaned closer. 'But never think we hate the women who bear our children. We don't. We mourn our mothers, honour their memories, miss them all our lives. We are not a religious people, but if we were, our mothers would be our saints. They made the ultimate sacrifice for their sons.'

'Their lives,' I whispered.

'Their hearts,' he said.

I tore my eyes away from his, back to the poppy-stained bandages around my leg. And knew what he was about to tell me.

Oh God, please God, no.

Richard sat down on the bunk beside me. He was still holding my hand. 'When I was nine days old,' he said, 'I drank the blood of my mother's heart.'

He paused, giving me a moment to understand what he was saying. I couldn't speak, I could only stare at him.

'It was given to me in a bottle,' he went on, 'along with the last of her milk.'

Bile rose in my throat. 'Stop. I don't want…'

He hushed me, stroking a finger gently across my cheek. I swallowed hard; concentrated on taking deep breaths.

'Of course, I knew nothing about it at the time; it was much later, on my sixteenth birthday, that I learned of… shall we say… my extraordinary heritage?'

Breathe in, breathe out. It was all I could think of. I heard his words but I don't think I was really registering them. Not then, not till much later.

'You can imagine the shock. I'd grown up with my father and his wife, a woman I loved very much. I had no idea she wasn't my biological parent. And the horror of what they were telling me, of what had been done to the woman who… I think it was just about the darkest day of my life.'

A derisory phrase sprang into my head, was on the tip of my tongue: my heart bleeds, I nearly said. Jesus, who on earth came up with that one?

'But at the same time, it was the start of my life, of understanding who I really was. I already knew I was special, brighter by far than any other child in the class. I was a gifted musician and I could speak four languages, two of which I'd taught myself. I was stronger, faster and more able in just about everything I did. Every sport I attempted I mastered. And I was never ill. Not once in all my sixteen years had I ever had a day off school because of sickness. When I was twelve, I broke my ankle playing soccer. It healed in two weeks.'

I found my voice. 'You were just lucky; a fortunate combination of genes. It had nothing to do with…'

'And I had other powers too, stranger powers. I'd discovered I could make people do what I wanted, just by suggestion.'

'Hypnosis.'

'Yes, that's what some of the younger ones like to call it.'

I shook my head. I wasn't buying it, but I couldn't find words to argue.

'I was introduced to two other boys who'd already turned sixteen. One was from the main island, the other from Bressay. They were just like me, just as strong, just as clever. I was told about four others, a few months younger, who were the rest of my peer group. And I met six older boys who had just turned nineteen. They knew what we were going through, had been through it themselves three years previously.'

'Every three years,' I said. He nodded.

'Every three years, between five and eight boys are born. We have just one son, in our lifetimes, one son who will become one of us.'

'Trows?' I wanted to scoff, tried to scoff, but it was hard.

He frowned. 'Kunal Trows,' he corrected. Then he relaxed, even half smiled. 'So many stories, so much nonsense: little grey men who live in caves and fear iron. Yet tucked away inside all legends, a kernel of truth can be found.'

All those women. All those deaths. How do you do it?'

He smiled again. I think he was even starting to show off.

'The practicalities are remarkably simple. The key is having people in the right places. Once a woman has been identified, we watch her very closely. We may stage an accident, or her GP might discover an illness. Not all GPs on the islands are with us, of course, so it depends. Once she's in hospital it becomes very straightforward, although obviously every case has to be handled differently. Typically, a high dosage of something like Midazolam is given to slow the metabolism right down so the life-support machines automatically sound the alarm. If relatives are present, the medical team make a great show of trying to save the patient, but fail. The unconscious woman is taken to the morgue, where our people are on standby to take her to Tronal. The pathologist produces a report and a weighted coffin is either buried or incinerated. Naturally, we encourage cremation.'

'Naturally. What about Melissa?'

He sighed. 'Melissa was a special case. Like you, never intended to be part of all this.' He glanced towards the open door of the cabin, glaring in Gair's direction. 'We do not use our own wives.'

'She found out?'

He nodded. 'She learned Stephen's passwords and went through his computer files one night.' He stretched out a hand, stroked my forehead again. 'Melissa was a very clever, very stubborn woman,' he continued. 'She was like you in so many ways. It struck me as the deepest irony that you should be the one to find her. Her mistake, of course, was in confronting Stephen, telling him what she knew. We had to act fast. At first, we planned to eliminate her, but she'd told Stephen she was pregnant and he didn't want to lose the child. It was his idea to substitute the other woman, the one from Oban. I was against it. Too many complications. But we'd pretty much run out of time.'

'And Kirsten Hawick. I know she's in my field too. Did you stage that accident? Did one of you drive the lorry?'

He shook his head. 'No, Kirsten's accident was genuine. We just exaggerated the extent of her injuries. She had a son. He lives on Yell now, a fine boy.'

Kirsten might have recovered. The almost unbearable grief I'd seen Joss Hawick enduring could have been totally unnecessary. I wanted to scream, but knew that if I did, I wouldn't be able to stop.

'Why do you bury the women? Why not just dump them at sea? Or burn them? If you'd done that, I'd never have found Melissa.'

'No, but we can't. It's against our beliefs. Our mothers lie in what is for us sacred ground. It's part of the way we honour them.'

'And I suppose it was just too great a risk to bury them all on Tronal. So you've created burial grounds all over the islands?'

He inclined his head, acknowledging the truth of what I was saying.

And Duncan? Duncan did this too? Drank…'

Richard nodded. 'He did. So did his father and his grandfather before him, and my father and grandfather and great-grandfather. We are the Kunal Trows, stronger and more powerful than any other men on earth.' He stood up, ready to return to the main cabin. I was so tired. I wanted nothing more than to slip into unconsciousness. And I knew that if I did so I would die. I had to keep talking.

'How many? How many of you are there?'

He paused at the door.

'Around the world, between four and five hundred. Most live here, but about a hundred years ago we started to colonize. We prefer islands, remote but with a strong local economy.'

My body was trembling and I felt a strong urge to vomit. I was going into shock but I was no longer in danger of losing consciousness. The pain was hell but I could deal with it.

'You're not special,' I said. 'It's all in your head.'

Richard's voice had fallen, as though he was trying to comfort a distressed child. 'You have no idea of the powers we have. Influence you couldn't even dream of. These islands, and many others around the world, belong to us. We do not flaunt our wealth but we possess it in immeasurable terms.'