She instinctively began to move towards what she saw by the wall but had taken only half a step when she felt the taste of blood in her mouth and the perplexing darkness that came from behind her eyes as her head rang and swirled and crashed. The view in front of her dropped dramatically as she pitched forward and the world ran psychedelic and out of focus until her head came thankfully to rest on a cooling pillow of snow.
CHAPTER 55
Cold. Cold and dark. And quiet. The first thoughts licked at her consciousness, nudging her awake inch by inch in dark and dreamy tones. She felt wonderfully relaxed, with a warm and woolly glow that defied the strange chill that nibbled at her outside. The warmth was on the inside, circling her head and muddling it, making her wonder if an empty bottle of wine was responsible for the pall of fuzz and fog. But it wasn’t wine; part of her knew that.
She really was cold. Her eyes flickered open but there was no more light than before, just a sea of black. Christ, her head wasn’t warm; it hurt. Cold. Snow. Deans. Memories poked their way through the snow and the fog, stirring proper consciousness. She opened her eyes again, still seeing darkness but this time seeing it shimmer.
She was on the island. Inchmahome. It was dark and yet light. As she struggled to lift a heavy arm to paw at the horizon, she heard the soothing sound of snow landing lightly, like the air being let gently out of a balloon. The noise was at first comforting but as her head cleared, it worried her more. Her arm struggled to move, sluggish like her thinking.
It was only when she felt the cold on her face that a real measure of awareness kicked in. There was dark beyond the immediate light and the wetness of the cold clung to her. Snow. She was under snow. The knowledge had her awake with shock, her arm flailing upwards in panic but held back by the weight of the snow on top of it. She pushed again and felt the snow move, forcing on until her hand was beyond it and in the open air.
She kicked with her legs too, feeling the same initial resistance but then the same movement. As she did so, the ground inches from her head rang with a thud that made it shake. She knew immediately that her hand being seen had triggered the attack and she had to move. She guessed left rather than right and scrambled as quickly as she could to that side, pushing up and rolling away, snow falling past her as she moved. The thud came again, crashing into her right shoulder, the pain dulled by the knowledge that the blow had landed where her head had been.
She continued to roll, desperately trying to move away from the attack that continued to come. A blow caught her on the top of her thigh, pounding into the flesh and sickening her. More swipes missed though, every sound of the weapon against the ground giving her hope as well as saving her from pain. She was on her back now, her hands behind her as she scrambled away, giving her a view of Deans as he stood over her, a golf club in his hand, at least now able to see it coming at her. A glance to her side told her that she’d been lying on the very spot where the girl’s body had been found, a large mound of dispersed snow signalling the makeshift grave that he had tried to form for her.
Deans’ eyes were wild and staring, almost unrecognisable from the man she had seen in the Western or his house in Vancouver Road. He swung the club back and then down, erratically slamming it into the ground as she just managed to move her leg to the side in time. She put a hand to the back of her head and found it wet; bringing it up she saw it was coated in thick red. As she looked up, he’d hoisted the club back above his shoulder, ready to strike again.
‘Why did you do it?’ she stopped him.
‘Never you mind.’
The club came down again, catching her a glancing blow on her foot as she failed to move it quickly enough. The club was immediately raised above his head.
‘You killed the girl, didn’t you? You killed Paton, Mosson, Bradley. They were your friends.’
‘They weren’t my friends.’ Deans strangled the words in a hoarse scream. ‘They would have ruined everything.’
‘So you killed them. Like you killed Barbie.’
‘Fuck you. You know nothing. You were as bad as they were. Would have ruined everything. Would have taken away my family.’
Deans was spitting in his rage, his words burbling out furiously, one tripping over the other. He advanced on Narey, the club high behind his head and gripped tightly in both hands. When he was stood above her, his legs straddling hers, she lashed her feet up and crashed them into his groin with as much force as she could muster. Deans yelped and staggered back, the golf club falling from his grasp and landing a yard away from Narey.
She got unsteadily to her feet, the pounding in her head increasing as she rose. She knew she couldn’t stand for long and doubted she would be able to wrestle Deans for the club. Instead she staggered across to where he stood, massaging his aching bollocks and clearly trying not to throw up. She grabbed his hair and lifted his head up, easily arcing out of the way of his flailing arm, and punched him full in the throat.
The effort was enough to send her crumbling back to the ground but, bad as it was for her, she was able to look up and see that it was much worse for Deans. A violent choke of air shot from his lips and he fell back clutching at his throat, all but immobilised. Narey let her head settle back onto the snow as she caught her breath, safe in the knowledge that Deans had none of his own, safer still that she was a lot nearer to the golf club than he was.
She felt the back of her head throb and wondered if the club that had caused it was also what Deans had used on Julia Corrieri. Christ, Julia. What had that bastard done to her? Narey propped herself up on her elbows, her head spinning and other spots of her body crying out in sympathy: knee, hand, shoulder, thigh, all aching in a chorus of pain.
‘Why did you kill Barbie?’
Deans answered in a hoarse gargle, ‘Fuck you.’
‘You know that you’ve nowhere to go. It’s finished.’
‘It isn’t.’
‘Yes. You’ve lost your family. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘Shut up’
‘You can’t sort this.’
There was a long silence from Deans and, when he didn’t respond, Narey started to get back to her feet.
‘Don’t move,’ Deans groaned at her.
‘Why should I do that?’
‘I’ll tell you.’
Narey eased back, as glad not to make the effort to get up as she was to hear what he said.
‘So tell me.’
Deans panted, struggling to talk. When he did, it came out croaky and weak.
‘We all met Barbie in the Lade Inn at Kilmahog. Like I said. And she came back to the bothy with us. Paddy and Adam, they were all over her. They’d made sure she was drunk before we left the pub and when they got back here…’
‘Who had sex with her?’
‘Paddy. Outside while the rest of us were in the bothy. And then, later, after more drink… she and Adam went out for a walk.’
‘And you and Paton?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t want to?
‘No. Well… I didn’t do it with her. Okay? Laurence liked her. A lot.’
‘And you liked her,’ Narey guessed. ‘But she didn’t like you, didn’t fancy you. What was it? Your red hair? Did she not fancy gingers?
‘Shut up. Just shut up!’
Narey laughed at him.
‘I see it now. Your mates had sex with her. You wanted to have sex with her too but she didn’t want you. You were snubbed. Resentful. Angry.’
‘I told you to shut up.’
‘And Laurence Paton… He went with Barbie to the Lake of Menteith. You told the truth about that. Yes. Laurence went with her and you thought he was going to get what Paddy and Adam had got. He probably thought that too.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘But not fuck Barbie, eh?’