It wasn’t hard to hire a boat. The gig races were cancelled due to the impending storm, but there were no motor cruisers available, as many of the wealthy spectators and families of the international contestants had rented these for the week to supplement the shortage of accommodation on the island. All they could get was a smallish sailboat with an engine. It would have to do. They could see the ferry terminal from the jetty, and as yet it was empty. Aleksey left all the arrangements to Ben. He was having trouble walking and staying on his feet. He’d been so cramped in the plane that his leg pain had woken back up to play with his new injuries. A nice little party was being had by all. He was so stiff that he couldn’t move his arm or shoulder joint without extreme pain. It wasn’t quite as bad as the previous time he’d wrenched his back, but it was close—and now he had no drugs. Promises to Ben were all very well, but they were usually made while warm and entwined in bed in the afterglow of orgasm. They were a great deal more difficult to keep when they were actually being tested by the reality of pain.
The town was heaving with people, despite the rain and cold wind. Huddled under waterproof jackets or clutching umbrellas, many of them were making their way to the little gig museum. Aleksey pictured them all crammed in on the final day, cheerfully watching the presentations, and possibly hearing a tiny hiss, like a snake giving warning. They would suspect nothing. They would travel to the four corners of the earth and they would kiss wives and husbands on their return, swing children up and embrace them. And the third horse would be entirely loosed into the world to bring about his part in the end times.
He shook himself and checked carefully through the crowd for Madeline, but could not spot her. It occurred to him that she might be at the terminal, waiting for the ferry to dock. They didn’t have time to worry about her, which he reckoned was probably a good thing for that insane woman. Despite his injuries, possibly because of them, he’d rally a little if he could have a chat with her. He’d test her avowed devotion to human extinction.
They climbed aboard the little boat, which was already bobbing alarmingly, despite still being moored in an enclosed basin.
Harry stood on the dock, staring out towards the oncoming storm. Aleksey watched him for a moment, not so mired in the reality of his pain that he couldn’t sense another kind of suffering. He took his hand off his face, where he held it pressed in a futile gesture against his ravaged cheek, and held it out to the old man. ‘Come. We make our own destiny in life.’ Harry took a huge breath and then handed Snodgrass to him. Aleksey could feel the dog’s heart beating rapidly in his fragile little body. Seeing his friend now onboard seemed to shake Harry out of his indecision. He stepped down into the cockpit.
Once he felt the movement under his feet, he shook himself a little and murmured in response to such certitude, ‘No, son, we don’t; His arm doth bind the restless wave.’ Then he took the wheel from Ben. ‘Take your man below for a spell, lad, and do something with that face. Seems a pity to ruin one so fine and distinctive. The lassie here will help me, but I’d be grateful if you’d take The Snods below with you. Heart of Raleigh and Drake, but not the legs of either one quite yet.’
He then braced his feet as if he’d spent his entire life waiting for this moment, and motored them out of the lea of the harbour wall.
The swell drove them all off their feet, except for Harry who seemed, by his physical presence alone, to steady the little craft. He didn’t even flinch, set the course Aleksey gave him, and nodded to the cabin door.
Ben took the time to hand Rachel his jacket, which she looked in sore need of, scooped the little dog up under his arm, and then ushered Aleksey below into the cabin.
Aleksey fell more than sat on the narrow cushioned bench. He cast Ben a quick look, trying to gauge his mood. From the tightness in Ben’s jaw, he suspected it wasn’t a good one. Ben had been awfully quiet since he’d skidded the Merc into the car park of the little flight school. This could have been because they’d been on a shared radio in the plane, and Ben’s true thoughts on this latest fuck up had, naturally, been restrained by their audience, but it was more likely Ben was silently mining depths of fury for the mountain of it he was about to unleash uponhishead.
Was he to blame for any of this? He didn’tthinkhe was, but he could understand that in some lights it might be seen that he had contributed a little. There was definitely an argument to be made (and he was very sure Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen was quite capable of making it, suspected in fact that he was about to make it), that if you stopped staring into the abyss, the fucking abyss would mind its own business and not stare back. Ben wet a dishtowel and then came over and sat next to him, gently wiping away the mess on his face, pulling off the butterfly plasters which had mostly peeled loose anyway. He expelled a huge breath, the one he’d apparently been holding since waiting calmly and patiently for him at Exeter airport. An enormous swell took them both off the seat then threw them against the back wall of the galley. Snodgrass’s claws made little skittering noises as he slid uncontrollably from one wall to the other. Aleksey groaned, rose, and vomited into the sink. He hung his head, blood dripping into the vomit. It made him think of fleas. He picked up the trembling dog, and flopped back down, swallowing deeply. Ben brought him some water, his legs braced, slopping it over the floor. Then he pushed him and his little charge into the corner and sat down with his legs jammed against the counter. Nothing was moving any of them now.
‘Start from the beginning, from when you dropped me off this morning. From when you said you were going to find a café, and quietly read your book until I was done. Do you remember that?’
Aleksey closed his eyes and nodded. Then once more regretted this simple action. Ben handed him a freshly wrung-out towel, and he pressed it gratefully to his face.
‘They made a dangerous virus in their lab. They claimed it was necessary so they could then make a vaccine for it. I don’t know. It’s possible Maxwell stole this pathogen from a previous place they worked at. The professor and his animal nutters—remember that merry little band?—they raided this other site near London, and in the confusion it’s possible Max just took it then. That lab closed down, so maybe an inventory was taken and rather than have that damning information come out—that something so lethal was missing—they just closed down to avoid any liability. I don’t know. Maybe he did just reengineer it. It doesn’t really matter. He made it in Bellerophon.’
‘That’s his company. He was telling me about it at the party.’
‘They call this bug they’ve made a chimera. That’s a mythical creature, a hybrid of all the dangerous things that existed for ancient peoples—dragons, lions. And in myth, Bellerophon killed it. I told you, Ben, superb classical— Anyway, I think they were using the homeless to experiment on, testing the vaccine until one worked. Max said he has one now—they’ve all taken it. But Austin stole the virus so he and his batshit crazy wife can release it here, at this international event. They are part of an end-of-the-world cult. Voluntary be fucked. The competitors will take it home to their own countries and it will then spread incredibly quickly.’
‘And? Do what? Are we talking like the Spanish flu, chicken pox? Smallpox?’
‘We’re talking Armageddon, Ben. We’re talking end of the entire world—you will finally get your zombie apocalypse.’
The boat flung them together, and Aleksey groaned. It was not the way he liked to groan with Ben Rider-Mikkelsen’s weight upon him. Snodgrass wasn’t too impressed either. Ben levered off them. Aleksey opened his jacket and tucked the dog inside, feeling the trembling gradually cease against the warmth of his body.
‘And they think Molly has this thing? Why the fuck do they think Molly has it? She would never take something that didn’t belong to her!’
‘They are working on a sort of chain of custody theory, I suppose. He put it in a bag which he closed and locked in the boot of his car. Madeline opened the bag when she was in her accommodation on St Mary’s. Then the chimera wasn’t there, and the only time it was unaccounted for were those brief few moments when we turned up. He was…odd. I put his curtness to Miles down to his dumb philosophy, his anti-almonds and hemp something or other. It did not translate well, so I didn’t bother to think too much about it. I just assumed he was an arrogant bully—don’t want children; don’t like children; be mean to children. But that does not really make much sense, I admit. I think now he just wanted us away from there.’
‘But he overlooked Mol Mol.’
‘I would say more he underestimated her. Perhaps not having children left him vulnerable to the wiles of a baby tyrant. We would know better.’
His attempt at humour failed miserably. He had apparently only succeeded in making the little girl an almost tangible presence between them.
Ben pulled his legs onto the seat and lowered his forehead to his knees, wrapping his arms tightly around them. Aleksey put his palm to the dark, rain-slicked hair and stroked it. He only managed to make it tacky with blood so withdrew.
Ben pulled his hand back and just held it tight in his, the blood now sticking their fingers together.
Ben had justification for righteous fury, but this was better. This was just the way they were together.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Four
They emerged from the cabin into a howling wind.
