CHAPTER TWELVE

IT WAS not a good night to be out of the harbour mouth.

The sea, as flat as a millpond during the chaos of the tidal wave, had started to stir. A building sou’westerly was driving a strong, erratic swell in against the cliffs. As soon as the Minnow-Eater emerged from the harbour, the fishing boat started an erratic bucketing.

‘You do that life jacket up tight, lass,’ Marcus called, and she nodded and hauled the straps tighter as she huddled into her oversized waterproofs.

Marcus’s boat was one of the best equipped available. They were very lucky it hadn’t been in the harbour when the wave had come, but, then, most of the boats had been out. Thankfully. Otherwise they’d have been destroyed.

Marcus headed a crew of four, usually rostered down to three. The town had been lucky it had been Marcus who had been rostered off the day before, but Morag was grateful he hadn’t rostered himself off now. The big fisherman was calmly competent, and in this sea they needed every trace of competence they could get. It was a sea that would have an inexperienced fisherman running for cover.

Marcus and Grady were alike, she thought inconsequentially. The two men were separated in age by twenty years but they were really similar. Grady could be just like this in twenty years. But then…

Grady would never look as Marcus did, she thought bleakly. Marcus loved his wife and his kids and his island. He looked at life through calm eyes, with a placid acceptance and muted pleasure with his chosen lot in life.

Whereas Grady… Grady had been here for less than two days and already he was thinking about moving on.

The boat swung south. The moon was lifting over the horizon-thankfully the sky was clear so they’d have moonlight to search. As they rounded the headland Morag could see the brilliant beam from the lighthouse.

Her lighthouse.

If she moved away from the island, if she wasn’t here and something happened-another sea-eagle crashed into the lantern room, anything…

Stop it, she thought fiercely. Stop it.

Robbie…

Robbie. Grady. Her island. Her people.

So much to care about. So much to think about. So much, she felt ill.

They were moving fast. The boat was crashing over the cresting swells. Marcus took the boat wide of the rocks that jutted from the southern tip of the island, and then curved in again. Suddenly the sea seemed calmer, but that was an illusion. It was only because they were moving with the same motion as the swell.

‘You feeling OK?’ Marcus yelled over the noise of the big diesel engine, and she nodded.

‘Fine,’ she yelled back. Not seasick at least. Just sick with fear.

‘There’s the boyfriend.’ Marcus jabbed a finger skyward and she saw a faint light lifting off from the ridge. Grady had moved fast. It had been twenty minutes since they’d left and already he had his crew mobilised for take-off.

What had Marcus called him? Her boyfriend?

That was a joke.

‘We’re going in close now,’ Marcus told her, and one of the men came toward her with a clip and harness.

‘Lifelines,’ he told her. ‘We lay craypots in here, but not normally in weather as rough as this. It’s safe enough if you know what you’re doing-and we know what we’re doing-but we put the lifelines on anyway.’

‘Fine.’

They were nearing the cliffs. Morag had been out here during the day many times as she and her father and sister had fished the waters. She knew these cliffs. In the daytime they were steep and jagged and alive with a mass of seabirds. Now they were dark and forbidding. The sound of the waves crashing on the jagged rocks all but drowned the sound of the boat’s big engine.

Robbie. Hamish. The man who’d clipped her lifeline switched on the floodlights.

Where were they?

Their light swept up and down the cliff face in long searching runs. Over and over. Over and over.

Was this stupid? Morag was straining to see along the rockface. Had Hamish been washed out to sea long before this? Was Robbie even now searching somewhere on the island for a friend he’d never find? Alone-as he’d been alone for too long.

She wouldn’t cry. She hadn’t cried when she’d left Grady or when Beth had died. She mustn’t cry now.

But the thought of Robbie alone… Searching for Hamish as they were now doing, but with no one to hold onto him…

Her eyes were still desperately following the line of the floodlights, but she was becoming more afraid by the minute.

The helicopter had reached the cliff face now. Grady. His machine was hovering above them at the far end of the breeding grounds. The helicopter’s floodlights scanned to the cliff face and joined the raking, searching lines of light.

At least if the boys were somewhere here they’d know people were looking, Morag thought desperately. Everyone was looking.

Grady was looking. The thought gave her an indefinable comfort, though how one man could make a difference…

He couldn’t. Block out Grady.

Search.

Her eyes were straining upward until they hurt. They were only about fifty yards from the base of the cliffs now, as close as Marcus dared to go. Between the boat and the cliffs were rocks, freshly tumbled into the sea as the tsunami had smashed the cliff face and the ledge at the base of the cliffs had crumbled. Above the tumbled rocks in the sea there were jagged crevices filled with sleepy birds staring outward, indignant as the floodlight interrupted their sleep.

The floodlights raked on. The rockface curved in, out, in…Morag was holding the rail, leaning forward, her body swaying with the movement of the sea. Her father had spent so much of his time on the sea and she with him. And Beth. Her family.

Robbie…

The boat jerked, bows downward, as a breaker foamed over the stern and water rushed over the deck. Morag’s hold on the rail tightened but her eyes didn’t leave the cliff.

Please…

‘We’ll have to go further out,’ Marcus called, and Morag half turned toward him.

But as she did so, the man who’d adjusted her lifeline gave a hoarse shout, filled with disbelieving hope.

‘There. Two thirds of the way up. Shift the flood to the right. No. Hell, I thought I saw-I thought…’

The beam shifted. Shifted some more.

And then Marcus was hauling the wheel round and someone was lunging for the radio. For there on the ledge…

‘It’s Hamish.’ Morag was staring, as if at any minute the sight would disappear. But it wasn’t imagination. A little boy waving wildly, screaming, as if they could hear over the sound of the wind and the waves and the engine.

‘It’s Hamish.’ There were tears suddenly cascading down her cheeks. Here at last there was one happy ending. Hamish. She could tell Robbie… He couldn’t have found his friend yet, she thought wildly. Here was Hamish, and the land party would find Robbie as they searched the clifftops. They’d be able to tell him…

‘The chopper will be able to get him off,’ Marcus was calling. ‘They’ll lower someone by harness.’

Of course. Morag didn’t dare to take her eyes from the child-as if in losing sight of him she might lose him for ever-but she was aware that the helicopter had already changed course. Now it was zooming downward with its own lights. Grady was up there, she thought wildly, almost dizzy with relief. She’d be able to ring Christine and Peter with such good news. Grady would come down and swoop the child up and he’d be safe…

‘Is that a dog?’ Marcus asked, narrowing his eyes against the spray.

Hamish was standing on a ledge, half-hidden by a boulder that must be protecting him from the worst of the elements. He was still yelling and waving, as though he hadn’t realised they’d seen him, though it must have been obvious.

‘I reckon I can see two dogs,’ the man beside her said. He had a pair of field glasses in his hand and he wiped them clean and handed them to Morag. ‘Two bloody dogs. Where did they come from? Isn’t one that the dopey mutt of William Cray’s?’

William’s border collie. Of course. The big dog often got bored with William’s solitary writing, and he’d been known to take off with the boys on their adventures.

So here was another blessing. Morag lifted the glasses and saw the big black dog slink behind Hamish’s legs as if terrified of the noise and light. As well he might be.

‘I can only see one dog,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it’s William’s. He’ll be so pleased.’

But…

Something caught her suddenly. A jarring note amidst the joy.

Morag stared on through the salt-sprayed glasses. Hamish was still yelling. Screaming. He still looked terrified, Morag thought.

But why? Why terrified? Hamish wasn’t a kid who’d be afraid of a helicopter. The ledge he was standing on looked wide enough. Solid enough. He’d be hungry and thirsty and cold, but…terrified?

They were coming in to rescue him. Surely he should be starting to be reassured?

She took the glasses from her eyes and wiped the salt mist again. Refocused.

And then she froze. The man beside her had been right. From out behind the boulder came a second dog. A golden retriever.

Dear God.

‘It’s Elspeth,’ she whispered, almost to herself. ‘It’s Hubert’s dog.’

Her mind shifted to overdrive and then moved up another notch. Elspeth was with Robbie. Elspeth had left Hubert’s place with Robbie, and Elspeth would only have left Robbie to go back to Hubert.

Hubert was in hospital.

If Elspeth was down on that ledge, she’d have come down with Robbie.

Robbie must have tried to climb down from the top.

Her glasses swung back to the child’s face. To the unmistakable terror on Hamish’s face. To his frantically waving arms. The little boy was staring out at them, but every other second he was glancing down at the water.