The Skin Game - 03 Read online

  An iron grip held me around the neck. My attacker put his face up close to mine, and the Black Elf stared at me. He wasn't a big man, but he was wiry and lithe, and hard as nails. His face was thin, almost skeletal, pock-marked and ravaged by teenage acne long since dead.

  His free hand came up and took the trilby off my head, tossing it away out of sight.

  "Ah...his Lordship's drinking partner. Welcome."

  He forced my head to one side and exposed my neck. Then he sniffed, twice, close together, as if checking my after-shave.

  "Where is it!" he said.

  His voice was rough, harsh, almost a bark.

  I tried to speak, but the grip around my throat was so tight that all I could manage was to keep breathing.

  "Where is it!" he said again, almost shouting this time. His breath smelled of stale food and stagnant water, but I guessed now wasn't a good time to tell him.

  With his spare hand he went through my pockets, fast and methodical, like a pro. When he didn't find anything, the hold on my throat tightened further still. I tried to break the grip, but my strength was going fast. I punched him, hard, just below the heart, but he didn't even wince.

  He laughed in my face.

  "Is that all you've got, lad?"

  He threw me away like a discarded rag. His hand barely moved, yet I flew, a tangle of arms and legs, crashing hard against the far wall and falling to a heap on the floor. Something gave way in my lower back, a tearing pain that I knew meant trouble.

  I hoped I'd live long enough to see it.

  I turned away to my left...and came face to face with the black-haired girl sitting slumped on the floor.

  She wouldn't be playing to any more audiences...her baby-blue eyes were open, but there was nobody home. There would never be anybody home again.

  "Tonight's little diversion," the man across the room said, pointing at the slumped body. "You caught me at a bad moment, and I had to finish her fast. Too fast."

  He came after me, like a cat after a mouse.

  "If you're smart, you'll tell me where it is," he said. "But I don't mind if you're stupid. That way I'll get to play with you for a while."

  Once more he lifted me up to stare into his face. His eyes were green; the smoky light green of the sea on a cloudy day.

  "Do you know who I am?" he asked.

  "I have no idea. I was just looking for the bathroom," I said.

  He laughed.

  "Spare me the cabaret, son. You handled it today. I can smell it all over you."

  "Handled what?" I managed to say, just before the iron grip squeezed and threatened to choke me.

  "Playing the daft boy, are we? Well...as I've already said, I don't mind that."

  He leaned closer and whispered in my ear. "I don't mind that at all."

  CHAPTER 3

  History Lesson

  His hand gripped me by the balls and started to squeeze. Pain threatened to lift the top of my head off.

  I did the only thing I could think of...I butted him across the bridge of the nose. More pain flared in my forehead, but the grip on my scrotum loosened. I brought up my left knee, hard as I could. It wasn't enough to hurt him, but did knock him off balance.

  I butted him again, and felt bones crack, unsure whether they were his or mine. He fell away from me, and I kicked out, taking small joy in the grunt of pain I raised.

  I stepped to one side just as he came for me again. I grabbed his arm and, using his own speed, swung him against the wall.

  He tripped over the dead girl, and I took my chance. I turned and ran.

  A howl echoed down the corridor behind me...rage and pain, but mostly rage.

  I kept going.

  I burst out onto the stage in the middle of a song. The crowd, seeing me, howled in anticipation. But I wasn't ready yet to be another volunteer. I leapt from the stage and ran through the crowd, which parted to let me past. I had got to the door when I heard a voice from the stage behind me.

  "I have your scent," he said.

  I turned.

  The Dubh Sithe stood at the front of the stage, smearing blood across the lower part of his face.

  "Run, little deer," he said. "The pack needs some exercise."

  The crowd howled.

  I left them to it.

  *****

  Well, you wanted to meet him.

  I had only myself to blame for the sorry state I was in as I trudged back to the Twa Dugs. I'd learned little, and lost an advantage. I had a bruise on my forehead that was already the size of a small egg, and my balls hurt with a dull ache that throbbed with every step.

  But it did give me something to focus on other than my own predicament. The cops were still after me, and I was no nearer clearing the case. I knew in my heart that I'd met the perp.

  Proving it was going to be another matter.

  I got back to the bar just after two in the morning, but it was still open for business. George saw me at the door, and hustled me through the back fast.

  "The cops have been around again?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  "Right after you left. They're all over you like a bad suit. I haven't seen them this worked up since Lefty Joe got hold of those pictures of the Chief Constable with the dwarf."

  "I'm still going to be okay in the back room, though?"

  He nodded, and took a look at my face.

  "It looks like you're not safe out on your own anyway," he said, smiling. "I'll bring you through a bottle. I found some reading material that'll keep you busy for a wee while, and we'll get you out of town tomorrow."

  *****

  The room looked the same as I'd left it, apart from a small leather-bound book on the arm of the chair. I lifted it and read the spine.

  "The Campaign Journal of Captain John Fraser, May, 1755."

  Inside the front cover was an ornately illuminated plate that said the book was the property of the Collins family library.

  The book itself was a hand-written Journal. The writing was faded and gray, but it looked perfectly readable. I held it up to George as he came in carrying a whisky bottle and a glass.

  "Is this from where I think?"

  He smiled. "He won't miss it. And I've had a wee look...I've marked a place where I think it's what you need."

  I motioned at the whisky.

  "Stay and help me polish this off?"

  He shook his head. "There's a game going on through the back, and Wet-nose Erchie is up ten grand. The rest are getting twitchy and need some watching."

  He left me to it.

  I thought of catching up on the TV News, but George would have told me if there had been any changes. I poured myself a drink, lit up the first of many cigarettes, and opened the book. There was a yellow sticky note attached to a page near the end that must have been George's placeholder.

  I opened the book at the marked page. After a while I noticed nothing, lost in a world of cold forests and frozen rivers more than a quarter of a millennium ago.

  *****

  March 11th, 1755. Somewhere north of Fort William Henry.

  When I started this Journal, it was with the specific purpose of talking to you, my darling Jennie. But you must forgive me. There will be no more endearments, no more holding of hands across the ocean. No, the perils I must relate are of too horrendous a nature for you, my dear. Indeed, as I write this, I have no great hope that it will ever be read; it will be lost forever, like our party, in this desolate empty place where even God has forsaken us.

  I know not even whether I will survive this night, but the very act of writing lends distance from the horror, and mayhap will even give me courage for what must be done on the morrow.

  It was all so different just three scant days ago.

  I was called into the general's office. My spirits were high, for, as you well know, Jennie, I was hoping for a posting back home, having already spent these two long years apart.

  But it was not to be. Major Thomson was already there before me,
and we stood, silent, while the general laid out our orders. We were to be sent north to the wild countries, where the French army was deployed.

  Even though my hopes of returning to your soft arms had been dashed, still we left Fort William Henry in good spirits, the twenty of us tasked with this matter. We had been cooped up for far too long in the draughty hallways of the Fort, and all of us were keen to be about our duty and in need of a view other than that of rough wood and sawdust.

  Major Thomson employed the services of two Mohawk scouts, and we were confident that we could reach French lines without being spotted and gather the intelligence the top brass required on their troop movements.

  The major kept us on a fast march all of that first day, but in truth, I scarcely noticed, so full was I of the natural wonder of this country. It is a beautiful place, Jennie, so like our Scotland, yet so much larger and grander in every way. But there are things in the woods here that have not been seen in Scotland for many a year...if ever.

  That first night we made camp at the foot of an escarpment. The major set guards in fours every three hours, and I managed to get six hours of fine undisturbed sleep before I was woken for my duty.

  On another night I might have grumbled and moaned, but I was once more transfixed by the beauty that lay around us. The moon hung over the trees and the milky-way lay like a silken sheet across the roof of the heavens. The sky blazed with stars, and the night was so still that I heard an owl hooting even though it must have been more than five miles distant.

  The first two hours passed without note except for an ever increasing chill in the air, and I was looking forward to my turn by the fire and a return to sleep when a man walked out of the forest right in front of me.

  I was so startled that I almost shot him there and then, but I had enough composure to challenge him.

  "Who goes there?" I called.

  I heard scuffles behind me as others of the troop awoke at my call, but I remained intent on the man ahead of me.

  At first I took him for an aboriginal, for he was dressed in deer hides and leather, and he carried a long bow rather than a musket. But when he called back to me, I was astonished to hear that his accent was undeniably Scottish.

  "His Majesty's servant Sergeant John McNab of the Fifth Fusiliers, reporting for duty, sir!" he said, a huge grin lighting up his face.

  He came forward and made to take my hand, but I stepped back two steps and showed him the point of my bayonet.

  He didn't flinch.

  "Dinna worry, man. I'm no' here to murder you in your beds. I have been wandering long in these woods, and I know I must seem strange to good Scottish eyes, but I'm damnedly happy to see another white man, and a fellow countryman to boot!" he said.

  "Captain?" Major Thomson said at my back. "What do we have here?"

  McNab stepped forward and starting pumping the major's hand.

  "God bless you, sir. God bless you all."

  The major looked at me, but I could only stare back at him...I had no answer for the question in his eyes.

  The major tasked Sergeant Woods with the remainder of my guard duty. He took the newcomer to his tent and motioned for me to follow.

  Over a glass of rum, both the major and I tried to get to the bottom of the man's story.

  "I canna tell ye much," he pleaded. "The bloody Frenchies ambushed us, and I was the only one to walk oot of there alive."

  "When was this?" the major asked.

  The man shook his head as he helped himself to more of the major's rum.

  "I canna tell ye, sir. It was many weeks ago, just at the start of the winter."

  I was astonished.

  "You have been alone in the wilderness all this time? How did you survive?"

  He looked me in the eye. "I'm from Aberdeen, sir. They breed a tough lot up there."

  There was something about his manner that had me on edge, something that reminded me of a card sharp I'd had the misfortune of running into in Jamaica. But the major did not seem to see it. Indeed, when McNab mentioned the fact that he knew the positions of the French to our north, and could take us to a place where we could be able to view the enemy from a position of safety, the major rewarded him with more rum. He even went so far as to give him a position in our band as a scout.

  "The men will be breaking their fast," the major said. "I'm sure we can find a share for our latest recruit."

  McNab shook us both by the hand again, and left. I berated the major while McNab introduced himself to the rest of the men. But the major would have none of it.

  "Don't you see, man? He can lead us straight to the Frenchies. We can save weeks of stumbling around in these woods."

  And that was all he would see.

  I watched McNab with the men. He smiled and smiled; he did quicksilver conjuring tricks, picking gold guinea pieces from behind ears; he told men what they had in their sporrans without looking. In all ways he worked at making himself welcome.

  But all I could see was that smile...that card player's smile that told me there was something else going on behind the eyes...something I was not going to like when it became public.

  And when we broke camp in the morning, I found that not all the men had been taken with the newcomer. One of the Mohawk scouts approached me.

  "You should kill that man. Kill him now and never look back," he said, pointing at McNab.

  "I can't do that," I replied. "Not without good reason. Can you give me one?"

  "He has been rolling in the wrong shit," the man replied, and turned away. I could get no more out of him.

  We set off north, McNab having given the major directions. In the clear light of day my misgivings began to evaporate. Indeed, McNab kept all of our spirits high with tall tales of adventures in the wilderness; of the forty-foot long bear, of apples the size of melons, and of Indian maidens so compliant that a man could lose himself for months.

  And he could sing; a fine high tenor that would not have been out of place in our church. But his songs were too bawdy for your ears, my Jennie. You who know nothing of the maiden from Brest, or the Mayor of Bayswater and his daughter.

  All through the day he sang, the men keeping time in their march, and we were almost surprised when we noted the sun was low on the horizon and that the second day's march was almost over. What none of us quite realized at the time was how far McNab had led us into uncharted territory. We were off all the known maps.

  "Just five more miles, lads," McNab called out. "Five miles before dark and we will be in a safe place, snug and warm for the night."

  And he was as good as his word. Just over an hour later, and just as darkness was enveloping us, we came into a clearing on a high plateau. A wooden stockade; bigger than a cabin, but too small to be called a fort, stood on a pinnacle of rock looking out over the view. The ground fell away steeply beneath us to a plain that stretched far off into the night, its ends lost in evening mist.

  Far in the distance, fires burned in the night...a small forest of them.

  "There's your Frenchies, Major," McNab said with a smile. "And on the morrow, you'll be able to count them at your leisure."

  *****

  I was dragged out of the story with a start as George came into the room.

  I glanced at the clock; it was already past 3:30 in the morning.

  "The game's finished already?" I asked.

  "No," he said, smiling. "Erchie is losing fast now, and the lads are at him hard. This smells like an all-nighter. But that's not why I'm bothering you. This came for you."

  He handed me an envelope. It was plain white manila, with just my name written on it in a fine artistic hand.

  "For me? Somebody knows I'm here?"

  George shrugged.

  "This is Glesga. Word gets around. You know that."

  "How was it delivered?"

  He shrugged again.

  "I went to let Joe out the front door and it was sitting on the mat."

  Inside the envelope was a single shee
t of paper, and the same, neat, precise writing.

  "Bring the belt to us. There's $100,000 waiting with your name on it."

  It was signed, McBarnette and Arcand, and gave an address of a legal office in Newfoundland, Canada.

  "Word certainly does get around," I said, and showed George the letter.

  He whistled.

  "A hundred grand!" He paused. "It's too good to be true...you know that?"

  I nodded as I lit a cigarette.

  "Aye. But it gives me a reason for leaving the country without it feeling like running. And possibly a lead on what to do next. Can you get me out of town in the morning?"

  George nodded.

  "Leave it to me. I'll see what I can do."

  George went back to the game.

  I sat and smoked for a while, staring at the envelope, but I couldn't figure out either what a couple of Canadians would want with the belt, or how they knew I had it.

  I soon gave up wondering about it, and went back to join Captain Fraser in the wilderness.

  *****

  We set up camp on top of the plateau, and even managed to light a small fire inside the stockade that was invisible from the outside.

  It soon became apparent that we were not the only visitors in recent times. Fresh blood spattered the interior walls, and a heavy, musty smell hung in the air.

  "What is this, McNab?" I asked.

  The man merely shrugged.

  "I don't know...I've only seen this place from a distance before today."

  One of the Mohawk scouts spat at McNab's feet and left the stockade.

  I followed him out.

  "I say it again," the Mohawk said. "Kill that man. Kill him tonight, before the moon comes up."

  "I cannot," I said. "Not without just cause."

  This time he spat at my feet.

  "You are too weak for this country," he said.