Twenty-Seven

Mayor Wilkes found the doctor sitting on a garden bench, staring at a phone in his hand. From the expression on Dr Nazra’s face he might have expected the device to turn into a spitting cobra at any moment.

Instead of beginning with a greeting, Wilkes barked, ‘You know that pad of death certificates you keep in your safe? Get one. June Benyon has just died.’

Dr Nazra’s face had turned a washed-out grey. ‘I need more than one.’ He inclined his head to the cottage. ‘Mrs Hollander died ten minutes ago. Before that I’d been in Mr Kowalski’s house. He’s passed away, too.’

‘This epidemic’s got nasty, then?’

The doctor nodded, exhausted.

Wilkes clicked his tongue. ‘You’ve called in more help?’

‘Yes, I’ve just spoken to the director of emergency planning.’

‘Good, because this is more than we can handle.’

‘No . . . bad is the relevant word here. It seems as if the island has been struck by a mutant version of the virus that’s been infecting people on the mainland. There, sick people are getting better. Here they become worse. Much, much worse.’

Wilkes fumed. ‘My God. All the medical expertise we have is you and one qualified nurse, the woman from Badsworth Lodge.’

‘And that’s all we will have until the virus is identified. At the moment, the infectious diseases specialist doesn’t know what this is. Or how it can be treated. Until they find a treatment for the condition we remain under quarantine.’

‘Surely they can send medics in those bloody space suits you see them wearing when they’re playing out their biohazard scenarios?’

Wearily, the doctor shook his head. ‘Too risky, even for protective suits. We’re a code red. Nobody is allowed on to the island, or off. We’re locked out of the rest of the world. We might as well have been exiled to the dark side of the moon.’

‘Surely this can only be temporary?’

‘How long we’re isolated here, I cannot say. Medical specialists have seen nothing like it . . . I’ve seen nothing like it. Not in all my thirty years as a medical man. You’ve heard of pneumonic plague and bubonic plague, Mr Mayor? Well, this is a psychoactive plague. It starts in the digestive system then it attacks the brain.’

Wilkes began to understand. ‘I wondered why June Benyon couldn’t comprehend a thing I was telling her.’

‘It begins with vomiting,’ the doctor said, ‘with a high fever, episodes of hallucination, then it appears to vanish from the body. The patient feels much better. Only the virus is in the process of occupying brain tissue. Within hours the patient experiences lethargy, confusion, forgetfulness; the condition worsens until they lapse into coma. Ultimately, the virus switches off the part of the brain that governs respiratory function.’ His bloodshot eyes were grave. ‘Its victims stop breathing. They suffocate. They die.’

‘Wait a minute, June was only forty-two. We’re not talking about geriatrics croaking here, are we?’

‘That we are not, Mr Mayor. Every single person on this island is at risk. We must assume, also, that everyone who suffered the first stage of the disease will enter second stage within hours. That’s everyone, whether they be elderly or young.’

Victor had been to White Cross Farm to check on his sister and brother-in-law. Mary was her old self. However, Graham had tried to do too much farm work after leaving his sickbed. Now he was so weary that all he could manage was to mutter a word or two here and there.

Shaking her head, Mary had complained, ‘Can you believe he’d forgotten that we’re supposed to be celebrating our wedding anniversary on Sunday? Now he’s taken himself back to bed, just as the animals need feeding.’

As Victor took the shoreline path back to the village he felt much better. The queasiness had vanished. Before leaving, he’d been able to help his sister out by feeding the goats and pigs. On the beach the Saban Deer were grazing on kelp now it was low tide. Few land animals could stomach the salty estuary weed but then the Saban weren’t your regular animal. Few creatures in the animal kingdom have blue eyes. Some humans do. Siamese cats certainly, but the Saban have eyes that are electric blue. Despite the gloom, due to thick cloud, he caught flashes of sapphire as they lifted their heads to watch him pass, still munching on leathery kelp fronds as they did so. In his role as island ranger, Victor habitually scanned the terrain for anything amiss. As he passed the Saban he noticed specks of silver at the water’s edge. Anything that didn’t resemble the natural shore required further investigation.

This stretch of beach consisted of brownish pebbles, so those silver glints looked anything but natural. Quickly, he jogged to the water’s edge. Lucky I checked, he mused as he bent down to carefully remove what had threatened the safety of the animals, and humans, too, if they chose to paddle here barefoot. For there, tangled in a spray of twigs, was a yellow fisherman’s line adorned with a dozen steel hooks. Victor handled the line carefully; the points of the hooks had been filed for extra sharpness, while the barbs would grip their prey with a bloody-minded tenacity. Once that hook slipped into your flesh it wouldn’t be coming out in a hurry.

Clearly, the hooks were intended for big sea fish. What’s more he counted ten hooks on the tangle of line. Probably a commercial fisherman had left the baited hooks attached to a buoy way out to sea. They’d broken free, then an incoming tide had swept them up the estuary. Victor checked further along the shoreline. Sure enough he found a line with eight more viciously sharp hooks. The havoc these would cause to the soft muzzle of a deer didn’t bear thinking about. Victor picked up the line. Dear God, he’d be entering a whole world of pain if he accidentally impaled himself on one of those. He saw the ends of the tough nylon line had been cut. Probably by the propeller blades of a speedboat that had got too close to the fishermen’s buoys.

Victor carried the tangled lines, with their barbed weaponry, to one of the bins near the path. Gusts of wind shook the trees by the time he started out again for the village. A pall of cloud obscured the hills. The River Severn rose into angry peaks, as if the water tried hard to form sharply pointed pyramids. At the tip of the island the castle had begun to vanish into a grey murk of water vapour carried by the westerly. As Victor neared the village the path narrowed. Here the beach was narrower, too. The path was raised a couple of feet above the shore on wooden piles. To the landward side a steep-sided mound flanked the path. This constricted section of pathway ran for around two hundred yards until the ground opened out just before the village.

Through the mist he glimpsed a figure almost a hundred yards away. He recognized it as Laura Parris. She headed toward the village, her back to him. He remembered only too clearly the painful conversation with Lou. He hurried after Laura determined to clear the air with her. Damn it, he was so annoyed with himself. Laura was beautiful. They’d got on so well together – both shared the same sense of humour. Then he’d retreated into his shell. You’ve effectively blown it with her, Brodman, he scolded.

‘Laura,’ he shouted. If anything, Laura quickened her pace. Had she heard, and decided to hurry away so he couldn’t speak to her? ‘Laura.’ The figure dwindled as it moved along the narrow path between the shore and the bank that rose a good twenty feet to one side. ‘Laura!’

At that moment the ground quivered. Victor paused. He frowned. It did it again. The earth shuddered. A deep rumble throbbed through the air. Victor found himself remembering Solomon’s words about what to do in an earthquake. An earthquake? Here? That’s impossible. He’d barely registered the thought when a huge cry wailed through the sky. Victor spun round to see a vast object racing by the island. This dark mass of steel had no right to be here, or to be so close, or to be travelling so fast. ‘The idiots! The stupid idiots!’ Victor took a moment to absorb the shocking sight. A huge tanker pounded along the river. Dangerously close to the island, too. The ship must have been seven hundred feet long – and with a displacement of thousands of tons it hurled a bow wave more than ten feet high at Siluria. Victor watched as the foaming wave roared up the beach. The Saban Deer fled before it. Fortunately they were fast, managing to escape the killer wave.

Victor glanced back at Laura. She wouldn’t be so lucky. For some reason she hadn’t heard the rumble of the ship’s engines, or the cry of its foghorn. And because she walked with her back to it she hadn’t seen the hulking vessel.

‘Laura! Watch out!’

She didn’t react. Then again, the roar of the winds must have overwhelmed Victor’s cry. His first instinct was to clamber up the banking. He’d make it just in time but that wouldn’t grant him the precious moments to reach Laura before the bow wave struck. Already this man-made tsunami had hit the path a hundred yards behind him. Now it raced along this strip of land faster than a man could run. At six feet high that massive body of speeding water would shatter your bones before it swept you into the river. Then a combination of natural current and turbulence created by the ship would ensure that you drowned very quickly indeed. Victor dashed along the compacted shale. At one side of him rose the twenty-foot-high bank. At the other was the narrow ribbon of beach. Then closing in behind him at a furious rate was the tidal wave. The dirty-cream coloured wall of water ripped up the path like a plough blade. The concrete bin containing the fish hooks shattered as easily as a wine glass.

‘Laura!’ Still she didn’t hear. Behind him the liquid wall shattered timbers that held the path in place. He knew the wave gained on him. The only thing in his favour was that he’d got a head start. If he could reach Laura, he might be able to save her. Because if that thing hit it would kill her as surely as a bomb. Instead of shouting her name he sank all his energy into running. Vibration shook the ground. To his left the huge black flank of the ship slid past. Water foamed at the bow as the captain broke every safety rule in the book. Victor risked a glance back. The tidal wave was now perhaps fifty yards behind him. When it struck a bush it wrenched it from the ground. Debris in the menacing curl of water would act like a meat grinder if it hit a human being. Ahead of him, Laura walked; she’d got something on her mind that distracted her from the outside world. Once that tsunami struck she’d be gone. Victor, too. He glanced at the river. Ghorlan’s waiting. A cold embrace. Liquid eternity . . . He drove the thought from his mind. Ahead of Laura a line of bushes concealed steps up the banking. Being a stranger to the island, it was unlikely she knew they were there. If he made it in time, that would be their escape route.

Seconds later he caught up with her. No time for explanations. Nothing but this. He grabbed her. Without slowing he ran with her in his arms.

‘Victor? What the hell are you doing? Put me down! Put me down, you . . .’

Then her eyes went wide. She’d seen the ship. The tidal wave, too. Its sheer violence vibrated the earth under them. It thundered. A ripping sound reached their ears as it stripped turf from the banking.

Victor reached the steps. By now, the tidal wave displaced the very air. A hurricane struck them that stank of river mud. The ship’s horn cried out again – a lament for dead souls. Bounding up the steps with Laura in his arms, Victor tried to outrun the lethal barrage of water. Bushes writhed to his right as the wave struck.

As he passed the ten-foot mark, halfway up the banking, the crest of the wave smacked against his heel. Then it gouged out a muddy chunk of mound. Half-stumbling, Victor regained his balance, then carried Laura to level ground where they collapsed on to soft grass. Still, with their arms round each other they sat, trembling, as the man-made tsunami roared along the path, channelled by the earth incline. The wave only died when the ground opened out into fields. Even then a wash of brown water, at ankle-depth, swirled its way through stems of wheat.