CHAPTER TWELVE

The short fall between the deck of the sloop and the sea seemed to last an eternity as Mendick waited for the impact, and then the sound of the splash deafened him and he was sinking down forever. Water roared in his ears, louder and louder until the terrible noise dominated his brain and his thoughts. He let the sound take over, embraced it with all his being and became part of it. Noise and pain and he were one being, sinking in the chill waters of the Tay as the world ended. He swallowed water until the pain was like fire enclosed in his chest and then he surfaced in an agonising explosion of water and air.

“Jesus God in heaven!”

He was still alive but for how long? More than that, he was moving. A current gripped him, pushing him further out to sea, away from the Tay and to his death. He was sinking, helpless against the force of the Tay when he felt something firm beneath him, the sea surging back in a sucking hiss that left him gasping but only half-submerged. He looked around. He was on the edge of one of the shifting sandbanks that made the entrance to the Tay so treacherous, but he was not alone. A small colony of seals howled and wailed on top.

Mendick rolled out of the sea onto the yielding sand and lay still as the waves splashed over him. His throat and lungs burned from the salt water he had swallowed, his head thumped as if it would explode, but he was safe, at least for a while. He knew the tide would change soon and this sandbank would vanish but he had a few minutes, perhaps a few hours grace. Mendick didn't care – he was alive.

He wriggled further up the sand and looked straight into the face of a seal. He had seen seals by the thousand as a seaman and had never paid them much heed. Now, close to, he saw them as they were: wild animals, and with their young to protect, they were dangerous.

Close to, a seal was not pretty. However much children and their nannies might exclaim and point to them as they lie on the shore, they were ugly creatures, particularly with their mouths open and their vicious teeth exposed. Mendick tried to move away but, tied hand and foot as he was, his movement was restricted and there was nowhere to go. He looked over his shoulder, hopeful that some miracle had improved his situation, but nothing had changed. He was still lying on a sandbank at the entrance of the Firth of Tay, shivering violently and so cold he could barely move at all. He had had a temporary reprieve but when the tide rose he would certainly drown. His life had come full circle from birth in some festering close in Dundee to death in Dundee’s own river.

High up, an easterly wind drove clouds across the moon. Mendick could no longer see the seals or the sandbank. Only the faint phosphorescence of the surf illuminated his predicament as the tide hushed in from the North Sea to meet the powerful current of the Tay. Mendick struggled to sit and then to stand but his legs, numbed by the freezing temperatures, would not respond to his brain’s commands. Maybe, he thought, maybe if he could get to his feet somebody would see him? Somebody might be standing on the Fife side of the Firth or on the long beaches of Broughty and notice his pale, white figure against the black of the sea? It was a forlorn hope, the only one he had. The reality was that anybody looking to sea would be searching for ships and no ship would dare attempt the entrance to the Tay at night, with its notorious sandbars and treacherous currents. He was alone, save for the seals.

There were a whole family of these seals sharing his sandbank: huge grey things with snub noses and wicked teeth, capable of tearing his arm off without any difficulty. One began to flop across the sodden sand with so little grace it was hard to believe it was the same creature that slid so effortlessly through the seas. Mendick wriggled backwards, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and this creature. He knew men hunted them for their oil and pelts. Now he was the prey as the seal closed in, its nostrils distended and mouth open.

Mendick opened his mouth to shout, hoping to drive the creature away, and instead vomited an acrid gush of salt water onto the dull sand. He lay there, gasping and shuddering, but at least the noise had given the seal pause. It stopped for a second before it moved again, now joined by one of his companions. They approached, eight-foot-long monsters with sharp shining teeth, totally at home in this environment in which he was so obviously the intruder.

Over to the north, the lights of Broughty glinted through the dark. The village was only a mile or two away. A long swim for a strong man but impossible for a man with his limbs securely fastened. Mendick looked and longed but knew any attempt would merely hasten death. The lights teased him and he imagined the comfortable houses of the wealthy and the crowded, tar-scented cottages of the fisher-folk with the women redding the long lines and the men preparing to go back to sea.

The surf was rising. Spindrift sprayed his freezing legs. He crawled crabwise, yards further from the sea, but equally, closer to the waiting seals. Which was best? To die in screaming agony under those sharp teeth or to choke as the sea burned his throat and lungs? It was sickening to die knowing he had failed. China Jim would continue to terrorise Dundee; the murders would continue and the police would chase their tails and find nothing. Mendick grunted in terrible frustration; it was worse now he understood how China made his money. If he had only been granted another few weeks he could have had China Jim hanged.

The patch of sand diminished as the tide rose. Each surge of the sea meant a few seconds less to live, yet still Mendick planned his campaign. He knew now that China Jim was a large-scale whisky smuggler and certainly not Chinese, but he could not yet work out the connection between the criminal activities and the murders. There must be one; those unfortunate men must have crossed China Jim in 1842. That was the only possible conclusion. He had to discover what they had been doing in 1842.

But he could not. He would drown here, naked and alone, a few miles from the place of his birth. Would anyone ever find his corpse? Or would the sea spirit his dead body away and drive it deep under water for the fish to slowly devour? The tide rose fast, forcing him further up the sandbank, still closer to the seals. They were calling now, cracking open the night with their eerie, high-pitched voices sounding like the souls of the damned. Mendick shuddered. This was not how he wanted to die, alone and uncared for, surrounded by wild beasts and in this place of evil memories. He moved closer to the gaping jaws of the seals.

The rising easterly wind brought rain, increasing from a smirr that had smeared the friendly flickering lamps of Broughty to a skin-lashing torrent that erased the lights completely and left Mendick alone with the dark and the leaping waves, the crash of the surf and the hoarse wails of the seals. Unable to stand, he lay, feeling the water rise around him, and then the seals were gone. One second they were there, a terrifying presence all around him, and next they had vanished into the sea as if one mind controlled all their bodies. In their place came the most sickening smell Mendick had ever experienced. He looked up, just as the sea covered the last few square inches of the sandbank and surged the length of his naked body. A shift of wind tore a gap in the clouds, he could see the lights of Dundee glimmer faintly to the north. Christ, but he hated that place and now he must die on its sea gate, unloved in death as he had been in life.

Unloved, that was, except by Emma. He spat the salt from his throat. “I’m coming, Emma,” he shouted. “Hold out your hand for me!”

But what was that terrible stench?