The cab was toasty warm and Brodie felt himself propelled into the passenger seat, barely conscious. Then the driver was beside him on the other side, a big man with a cloth cap and silvered whiskers that caught the light of the courtesy lamp. ‘You need a doctor, man.’
But Brodie shook his head. Through chittering teeth that he could barely control, he told the driver that he only needed to get back to the International Hotel. It could be no more than a few hundred metres away.
The driver exhaled his exasperation. ‘You’re mad, fella. I’m going to the power plant at Ballachulish A. There’ll be snow later, and we’ll have to keep the road clear. But there’s a duty doctor there.’
The words fell from Brodie’s mouth like marbles from a jar. ‘Just... just to the h... hotel.’
The driver took his snow plough right up to the front door, pulling in behind Brannan’s SUV, and with chittered thanks, Brodie fell out into the snow. He was only vaguely aware of the plough reversing away as he staggered up the steps to the door and almost collapsed into the hall.
It was fully dark outside now, and the lights were on in the hotel. It was warm here, and Brodie stood for a minute, supporting himself with a hand on the wall, to try to catch his breath. ‘Brannan!’ His voice sounded inordinately feeble in the vast silence of the hotel. ‘For fuck’s sake, Brannan!’ Still nothing. So much for waiting in for a call. With a great effort, Brodie pushed himself away from the wall and staggered to the stairs, using the banisters to pull himself up one step at a time.
When he reached his room, he was spent, hardly able to prise himself out of his wet clothes with hopelessly trembling fingers. He made it naked to the bathroom, flesh turning almost blue, and very nearly fell into the shower. It seemed almost impossible for him to turn the taps, but eventually he managed to start a stream of hot water tumbling from the showerhead, and he slid down to sit in the shower tray and let it cascade over his head and shoulders.
He could not have said just how long he sat there in that stream of hot water, but very gradually the feeling returned to his body, and with it, pain. Aching pain that seemed to infuse every muscle, every joint. And he reflected on how extraordinary it was that the icy waters of the tailrace and the river had so nearly taken his life, while the hot water that rained on him now from the shower was restoring it.
Finally he found the strength to get back to his feet, and stepped out to towel himself briskly dry. He wiped the steam from the mirror, and the face that stared back at him was bruised and battered from his encounter with the walls of the tailrace. Everything was stiffening up now, and he knew he needed to keep moving. He staggered painfully back to the bedroom and changed into his only remaining dry clothes. Clothes inadequate to protect him from the weather that powered unremittingly up the loch towards the village. He heard the first hail crackling against the window, and saw his reflection in it bulge with the force of the wind. With fingers that felt like bananas, he pulled on a pair of shoes, and searched through his sodden North Face to retrieve the Geiger counter zipped into an inside pocket. He had no idea if it would still function, but he wanted to take it to his meeting with Jackson to ask if he knew why Younger would have had it in his car.
He picked up the iCom earbuds that he had discarded on the floor and wondered if they had survived their underwater ordeal. He worked them back into his ears and asked iCom to connect him with the duty controller at Pacific Quay. Nothing. Either they had succumbed to the waters of the tailrace or the batteries were out of juice. He found the protective case that contained his glasses and took out the charging cable. After connecting the parts, he set it charging on the dresser. A winking green light offered the hope that it might actually still be working, and he headed off downstairs in search of something to eat, and more importantly, something hot to drink. He needed to warm himself up from the inside, too.
In the kitchen he found a coffee maker and brewed a tall mug of piping hot coffee, sweetened with several teaspoons of sugar to try to restore some of his energy. In a frying pan he cracked open several eggs he found in the fridge, fried them in butter, and sat down at the table to wolf them down. Between the coffee and the eggs, he was starting to feel vaguely human again. And his thoughts returned to McLeish. That he had killed both Younger and Sita seemed undeniable now. Though Brodie had no idea why. And the fact that McLeish had almost certainly been swept out to his death in the loch meant that the only person left who could throw any light on it all was Jackson.
He checked his watch. At least it was still working. It was almost time to leave for his rendezvous with Younger’s contact. He stood up as the kitchen door swung open and a harassed-looking Brannan hurried in. ‘Where have you been, Mr Brodie?’ he began, before his voice tailed away and his eyes opened wide. ‘What happened to you?’
And Brodie realised he must look even worse than the vision which had greeted him in the mirror. He said, ‘Getting swimming lessons.’ And as consternation creased Brannan’s face, added, ‘More to the point, where the fuck have you been?’
‘Trying to find you.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s gone.’
‘Who’s gone?’
‘Dr Roy.’ He jabbed a finger towards the door to the anteroom. It stood ajar, revealing darkness beyond. ‘I locked that door after you’d gone this morning. Just to be safe, because I had to go into the village for some provisions. Then this afternoon, after you’d left again, I thought I’d just check.’ He paused breathlessly. ‘The door wasn’t locked. Someone had forced it. And... she was gone.’
Brodie pushed past him and into the anteroom, reaching for the light switch. The lid of the cold cabinet had been lifted, and leaned back against the wall. The cabinet was empty.
‘What do you think?’ Brannan said.
Brodie turned back towards him. ‘I think someone’s fucking with us.’ And he held out an open hand. ‘I’ve got to go. Give me your car key. And I’m going to need to borrow a waterproof jacket.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
He seemed to be driving headlong into the gale. Hailstones flew out of the darkness like sparks, deflecting off the windscreen. The outside temperature displayed on the dash of Brannan’s SUV was minus two. He could barely see the road ahead of him, hail blowing around and drifting like snow on the recently cleared tarmac.
It took him longer than the ten to fifteen minutes predicted by Brannan. Several times he stopped to consult the map that lay open on the passenger seat, and to try to identify landmarks in his headlights. Finally he spotted the lay-by that Brannan had marked with a red cross on the map, and he pulled in off the road.
He sat for a while, steeling himself to face the storm outside, summoning his last reserves of energy, and felt the vehicle buffeted by the wind. The door was nearly whipped from his grasp as he opened it, and he had to battle hard against the wind to close it again.
He pulled up the hood of Brannan’s anorak, and slipped the elastic of his headlight around it. Now at least he could see where he was going, hail slicing through its beam almost horizontally as he clambered down off the road to stumble through trees and a tangle of dead ferns towards the loch somewhere unseen ahead.
He very nearly ran straight into the bunker as it loomed suddenly out of the dark — a concrete pillbox that stood almost three metres high, just beyond the line of the trees and within sight of the water. It was hard to imagine a more inhospitable time and place to meet anyone. He felt his way around the walls to the front side facing the loch. A heavy steel door stood partially open, and electric light angled out from behind it towards the shore.