They could still hear him when they reached Ben’s Bottom and continued to make out a faint trace of his frantic cries as they entered the woods.
Aleksey jerked his head towards something in the trees. ‘The only one we do not know is actually dead is the woman who fell. We should check.’
Ben nodded and was about to reply when they both heard the sound of furtive concealment ahead of them, and caught a glimpse of something moving in the trees.
They slid together into the shrubbery and went down, equally hidden. Whatever it was, it was on the move again. Aleksey indicated to Ben to go left and he crawled right. He saw it before Ben did, and with a final last push of his strength surged up from his position and crashed into it, taking it down. ‘Fuck!’
‘Fuck!’
‘What the fuck, Crusoe!’
Ben pulled Squeezy off him. ‘You made it? Is she safe?’
Squeezy pinched Ben’s cheeks, grinning. ‘Safe and sound and tucking into an ice cream on St Mary’s as I speak. Here?’
Ben let him go and moved away, keeping his back to them.
They stared at each other. Squeezy wrinkled his nose. ‘You look like shit.’
Aleksey shrugged.
‘Mind you, you should’ve seen the cabin when we got to shore.’ He smirked. ‘Fucking puke everywhere, but no one’s dobbing anyone else in. What’s that noise? Sounds like a seagull being strangled.’
Aleksey only shrugged again, and began to hobble towards Ben. Squeezy instinctively put an arm out to help him; Aleksey went to take it, but then changed his mind and flung his arm around the moron’s shoulders and kissed into his hair. ‘Thank you.’
He moved swiftly over to Ben and murmured slyly, ‘Hungry?’
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Two
After they’d eaten, washed, eaten again, and then checked to see if they’d left anything worth eating, they caught up on news. Obviously, most importantly, they wanted Squeezy’s story first. Squeezy didn’t make too much of the incredible voyage, as Aleksey termed it, but did relate a few salient snippets. He’d gone into the cabin once to find Molly clutching Snodgrass, being gripped firmly in turn by Emilia, who was sitting squashing Babushka behind her like a bizarre but very effective Matryoshka doll. Enid, they had apparently decided, couldn’t be risked on the seats. She’d been nested into a corner on the floor with all available blankets, cushions and spare clothing. With Radulf on one side and PB to the other, their warm, soft bodies had kept her entirely secure, especially with Miles sitting to the front, not noticeably so hairy as the canine helpers, but equally squishy.
When Squeezy had stuck his head into the hatch a second time to check that all was well, Enid was the one who appeared to be enjoying the experience the most, and had wanted to tell him all about a similar trip she’d taken with her mother and father to the Outer Hebrides when she was seven. Emilia had been distracting Molly by getting her to sing a version of ten green bottles that she’d switched the lyrics to be ten little sail boats sailing on the sea, and she’d apparently started the three year old with a fleet of a hundred ships, so there’d been some way to go. Squeezy had left them all to it.
The entire family was now very happily ensconced in the Castle Hotel, even the dogs, for Emilia had solved the canine embargo by declaring that they were service dogs, and that if the staff wanted to check compliance with the disabilities commission, she could give them the number. Quite which dog was aiding which human was anyone’s guess, as after the trip they’d had and the amount of vomit one of the cabin occupants had produced, they all looked equally in need of radical assistance.
He did not include any mention of Harry in his tale, and Aleksey didn’t push. He had his own agenda now on the topic of Commodore Henry Staveley-Bathurst, but that would have to wait.
They told their news more visually by walking Squeezy down to the boatshed to start the tale. Aleksey was surprised not to see the moron’s boat tied up somewhere, but Squeezy only gave him a derisory eye roll when he asked, and explained, ‘Yeah. Duh. I anchored it behind the Old Man of Hoy and swam in. Didn’t want them to see my boat and take it, like, did I?’
Ben huffed. ‘I didn’t know you could swim.’
Squeezy responded by a swift and painful assault and a claim that he had many secrets, but that if he told them he’d have to kill them both.
Aleksey reckoned there was some truth to this, but he also suspected he now knew more about the cretin’s past than Ben’s friend would probably want him to. But, again, he put these thoughts to one side. There was more of their tale to be told and work to be done.
They dragged the dead man out of the boatshed and deposited him on the dock. One down, nine to go.
The scene by the pond was pretty grim, even Aleksey had to admit, and he wasn’t surprised when Squeezy uttered a simple, ‘Shit,’ when he saw the bodies, then added, ‘You’ve been busy.’
Ben gave an ironic huff. ‘Not us actually. This was a kinda mutual self-destruction.’
Squeezy went over to Rachel’s body and turned her over. ‘Why this lass? The professor liked her; he’s gonna be gutted.’
Aleksey kept his thoughts to himself. How could he explain to anyone, even Ben, that she might have found the cure to death itself? And that she had been killed for this discovery. Obviously,hedidn’t believe this. He was a rational man with no faith in anything. But her lunatic brother might have believed it… Light Island…the Order of the Light…the Light of the World.
However, just because it was hot and he still felt grimy, he stripped off and waded into the pond. He swam down to the bottom and turned, holding onto a rock and watching the sunlight streak down through the crystal-clear, cool water. He put a hand tentatively to his cheek. Madeline had ripped the wound open from its tacky scabbing. He probed it gently then opened it some more, twisting and somersaulting in the beams of light.
