Sacrifice

30

I WAS BROUGHT UP IN THE COUNTRY, MY FATHER AND BROTHERS were members of the local shoot, I'm even quite handy with a shotgun myself and I know the damage one of those things can do at close range.

It was a tense moment.

Helen held her right hand out in front of her. For a second, I thought it was a gesture of surrender.

'Police. Put your weapon down immediately, sir.' She was holding out her ID. Slowly, I dug my hand into my jacket pocket, found my hospital ID and brought it out. I held it up, confident that Jogging Pants would never be able to make out the details.

Far from sure, he lowered his shotgun. 'What's going on?'

'Night patrol, sir,' said Helen. 'Now, I need you to put your weapon on the ground. Right now, sir. Aiming a weapon at a police officer is a very serious offence.'

I had to bite my lip. Night patrol! He seemed to be buying it, though. His knees buckled under him and his shotgun slipped to the ground. With an effort, he straightened up.

'Will I just be phoning the local station?' he muttered.

'Certainly, sir,' said Helen. 'They'll need you to go in to sign a statement, so you may prefer to leave it till morning. And you should take in your shotgun licence. They'll need to check the serial number.'

I loved this woman. Although shotgun licences could be obtained reasonably easily, it was common knowledge that numerous farmers hadn't bothered.

'We'll be on our way now, sir. I'm sorry to have disturbed you. Please give my apologies to your family. Sergeant, will you get the gate?'

I rode forward, jumped down and pushed open the gate that led from the farmyard into the valley. Helen rode past without looking at me. I pushed the gate shut and jumped back into the saddle. I trotted forward to catch up and we walked in silence until I judged we were out of earshot. Looking back, I saw that Jogging Pants had gone inside and closed the door but the light still shone from an upstairs window. As I watched, it flicked off.

'You couldn't have made me an inspector?' I asked.

She glanced over and seemed to force a smile. 'Night patrol,' she said. 'Oh God, Dana would've loved that.'

And then she crumpled, from the top down. First her face collapsed, then her shoulders sagged forward, then she fell until she was leaning against Henry's mane. Her body jerked in great, racking sobs and she began making the sound you only ever hear from someone suffering the deepest grief: a primitive noise, halfway between a howl and a scream. Henry shuddered in protest. Charles, the more highly strung of the two, whinnied and started to jump sideways. I steadied him and, leaning over, took Helen's reins from her hands and pulled them forwards over Henry's head. We walked on, I leading Henry, as Helen's sobs gradually grew softer and less insistent. After a while she was quiet. I glanced back; she was wiping her face on her sleeve. She looked like she'd aged ten years.

'Sorry,' she muttered.

'No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be putting you through this. You can't possibly be up to it.'

She straightened in the saddle. 'Was Dana murdered yesterday?'

I thought very carefully before I answered her. I wasn't playing at Nancy Drew any more. This was real and very, very serious. 'Yes,' I said, 'I think she was.'

'I'm up to it. Can I have my reins back?'

We walked on for a few minutes. On either side the hills loomed high above us, deep shadows against a charcoal sky. We were about as far from the sea as it is possible to get on Shetland – which isn't far, three or four miles at most – but it seemed the landscape had changed when we entered the valley: the scents became those of land rather than sea, the musty dampness of peat, the ripeness of fresh vegetation. The wind had lost some of its ferocity, just buffeting us gently every few minutes, lest we get complacent.

Every now and again the moon appeared from behind a cloud and in its light the ground sparkled as though showered with broken glass. We were walking over flints gripped tight by the land, and they shone around us in the moonlight.

We came to the first of several streams that we had to cross. As I urged Charles over, he tugged his head forward and bent to drink. Henry copied him.

'Is this water drinkable?' asked Helen.

I was pretty parched too. The wine I'd drunk earlier had had its usual dehydrating effect.

'Well, these two seem to think so,' I said, jumping down. Helen followed suit and the four of us drank the ice-cold, slightly peaty- flavoured water. Helen washed her face; I splashed copious amounts over my head and felt better immediately. Still starving hungry, though.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving towards us; something too large to be a sheep. I cried out, every nerve-ending in my body prickling. Helen was beside me in a second. Then we both relaxed. The one shape had become several and they were all heading our way. They were a dozen or more native Shetland ponies. I'd forgotten this valley was home to a large herd.

Horses are immensely social creatures and the herd, spotting two strangers of their own kind, had come up to say hello. They seemed not remotely perturbed at finding two humans as well. Two of the bolder ones started nuzzling my legs; one even allowed Helen to bend down and pet her.

'You know it could catch on,' I said, watching Henry rub muzzles with a grey mare that could only have been nine hands high.

'What could?' said Helen.

'Mounted police on the Shetlands,' I said. 'There's a whole mass of terrain that's totally inaccessible by road and no shortage of native livestock.'

'Worth thinking about,' agreed Helen. 'Course the mounties would have to be midgets.'

'You'd need to rethink the height rule.'

'Maybe special dispensation for Shetland. How many of these ponies do you have up here?'

'Not sure anyone knows. They breed like rabbits, apparently. A lot are sold – to pet centres, model farms, that sort of place. And as children's mounts. They're incredibly popular. Exported all over the wor-' I stopped, realizing what I was saying.

'Like Shetland babies?' asked Helen.

'Possibly,' I said, 'except

'Where are they all coming from?' she prompted.

I nodded.

Helen frowned, appeared to think for a moment. 'Let's just say there are more babies being born there than appear on your register,' she said at last. 'Let's say that Stephen Gair, Andy Dunn, Kenn Gifford… all the men whose records we checked earlier…'

'It's OK,' I interrupted. 'You're allowed to mention Duncan and Richard.'

She gave me a half smile. 'Suppose they are involved, making a whole packet of money from it, and somehow Melissa Gair found out, threatened to go to the police. That would be motive enough, wouldn't it, to get her out of the way?'

'I guess.'

'But why not just kill her, stage an accident? Why fake her death and keep her alive for so long?'

'Because Stephen Gair knew she was pregnant. He wanted his child.' I explained Dana's theory about the boy Stephen Gair called his stepson being, in fact, his own son by Melissa. Helen seemed to shrink a little inside herself at the mention of Dana, but managed to hold it together.

'Hell of a risk,' she said. 'And why cut out her heart? Why those weird symbols on her back? Why bury her in your field, for God's sake? Why not just dump her out at sea?'

'Because they have to be buried in sweet, dark earth,' I whispered, not really intending that she should hear.

She gave me a look. Are we back to trolls again? I can't do trolls right now. We need to get moving.'

She gathered up her reins and lifted her foot to the stirrup. She was mounting from the wrong side but I didn't say anything. Henry would probably go with it. Then she stopped.

'Do you want me to hold him?' I offered.

'Shut up,' she hissed. 'Listen.'

I listened. Soft whinnying from the ponies, gentle slurping as several of them drank, whistling of the wind down from the hill tops. And something else. Something low, regular, mechanical. Not a sound of nature. Something insistent; something approaching.

'Shit!' Helen threw the reins forward over Henry's head and started pulling him towards a steep overhang of rock at the valley's edge.

'Come on,' she urged. The noise was getting louder. The ponies could hear it now and didn't like it. Several of them kept breaking away from the group, sprinting off and then back again. Helen had reached the outcrop. I made it a few seconds later. We backed close to the rock, pulling the horses up against us. We held their heads and tried to keep them still as we waited for the helicopter to approach.

'The farmer phoned the police after all,' I whispered, as though people in a helicopter still half a mile away could hear us.

'More likely they found your car,' said Helen. 'Does everyone know you have horses?'

I thought about it. Duncan, of course, would know immediately that the horses were missing, but he was off the islands. Gifford! Gifford knew. And Dunn, of course. In fact, pretty much the entire Shetland police force. Richard. Yes, just about everyone knew I had horses.

The helicopter was close now and we could see the searchlight, a huge beam of brightness lighting up the valley. I tightened my hold on Charles. The Shetlands, seeking security in numbers, had all followed us to the overhang. Unlike Charles and Henry, though, they were far from still: they pushed and bustled each other, jumping around and squabbling in their efforts to stay as close as possible to the bigger horses.

'Skit! Scram! Get out of here!' hissed Helen. 'Little buggers are going to draw attention to us.'

The chopper was directly above us now. The cascade of light was alien, terrifying in its intensity, illuminating the landscape in a ghostly parody of daylight. Outside the light, though, all appeared pitch black, unnaturally dark for Shetland, and for the moment the dark cloak covered us.

The helicopter passed overhead. I held my breath, hardly daring to hope. It travelled maybe half a mile to the north and then swung a 180-degree turn and headed back towards us.

'They've seen us,' I whispered again. I couldn't help it; it was instinctive to keep my voice low.

'They've seen something,' said Helen. 'Stay still.'

This time the chopper wasn't lighting up the centre of the valley but had shifted twenty metres or so to the west; a small but crucial adjustment, given that this time the searchlight could hardly miss us.

'I should have untacked the horses when we first heard it,' I said. 'No one would think twice about finding two untacked horses out here. Without them, we could have hidden behind rocks.'

Helen shook her head. 'They'll have surveillance equipment,' she said. 'They'll be able to spot body heat. Actually, these little tykes might just save the day'

The Shetlands seemed to fear the light more than the noise. As it grew closer they broke cover, scattering across the valley, seeking the safety of darkness. The chopper swerved and followed them just as the light touched on Henry's brown tail. The dominant stallion set off south at a gallop, most of the herd veering round to follow him, and, like a new recruit, the chopper went too, increasing the panic among the scared little animals. The herd turned, so did the chopper. It began to circle; the light edged closer. A mare and her foal that had stayed with us broke away at this point and the helicopter circled again. It rose higher in the sky and moved north. It turned back but this time kept clear of our rock overhang and headed north again.

Charles and Henry started to fidget but Helen and I hardly dared move as the noise of the helicopter's engines faded.

'I can't believe we got away with that,' I said, when it felt safe to breathe again.

'They saw movement and probably body heat but assumed it was the ponies. God bless them.'

The ponies had calmed down but were staying clear of us.

'Will they come back?' I asked.

Helen shook her head. 'Impossible to say. They've got a lot of terrain to cover. I think we need to get moving. We'll hear them if they head back.'

We mounted and set off again. The tension of the last few minutes seemed to have sapped me of energy. It was all I could do to point Charles in the right direction and urge him forward.

'How much further do we have to go?' asked Helen.

I looked at my watch. It was coming up for three a.m. The incident with the helicopter had slowed us down.

'Another forty-five minutes,' I guessed.

'Christ, my ass is sore.'

'Wait till tomorrow. You won't be able to walk.'

At that moment the world around us changed.

We'd been travelling through a landscape of black and grey shadows, of cliffs topped with scrubby remnants of vegetation, silhouetted against a deep indigo sky. Of subtle hues there was an endless variety, of real colour there was none.

And then a great draper in the sky unleashed a roll of finest green silk; it hung in the air, several miles high, stretching as far as we could see, shifting and gleaming, changing constantly, giving off and reflecting back a light that was all its own. The sky grew blacker around it. Trees and rock formations were thrown into harsh relief as the draper shook his cloth, the silken sky rippled, and shades of pale green I'd never dreamed of danced before us.

The horses stood, frozen to the spot.

'Oh my God,' whispered Helen. 'What is it?'

From the north-west came a soundless explosion of colour, as though heaven had thrown open a window, allowing awestruck mortals below a glimpse of the treasures beyond. Cascading down came beams of silvery green, of a rich deep violet, and of the warmest, softest, rosiest pink you could imagine; it was the colour of love, of girlish dreams, of a warm and happy future that I would probably never know. It was colour so incredibly rich, and yet so fine that through it we could still see the stars.

And so we joined the ranks of the few privileged souls who, thanks to a lucky coincidence of time, geography and atmospheric conditions, have been permitted to glimpse the Aurora Borealis.

'The Northern Lights,' I said.

Silence.

'Wow!' said Helen.

'Doesn't nearly come close,' I agreed.

Silence again.

'How?' she said. 'How does it happen?'

I took a deep breath, ready to reel off a lengthy and extremely tedious explanation of charged particles from the sun colliding with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. Then I changed my mind.

'The Inuits called them gifts from the dead,' I said. Then, surprised at my own daring, let alone the sentimental depths to which my normally cynical nature could plummet, I added, 'I think Dana sent them.'

Helen and I watched the lights glimmer and ripple for a further ten minutes before fading. We lost more time but it didn't seem to matter. We had gained strength.

'Thank you,' whispered Helen, and I knew she wasn't talking to me.

Shortly before three thirty we arrived at my friend's livery yard in Voe. The stable-block was empty but I could see her two horses peering at us from a nearby field. I slid off Charles and ran my hands over his injured leg. It had held up but he was going to need a few days rest. I found buckets and gave both horses a long drink and an armful of hay. Then I untacked them, released them into the field and carried the saddles and bridles over to the tack room. The key was where I expected to find it, beneath an earthenware flower tub.

My friend's tack room doubles as an office and there was a phone line. I pointed it out to Helen, closed the door behind us and headed straight for a drawer in the desk. I was in luck. Half a packet of Jaffa cakes, a nearly full box of Maltesers and three tubes of Polo mints. I divided the bounty and we ate ravenously for five minutes. Feeling slightly better but still sore and weary, we plugged in Dana's laptop.