Kate Delaney had a slash of green paint running from her eye to the curve of her chin, and a clown dab of red on her cheek as though she had deliberately drawn it there. Her hair was pulled back and tied in a casual knot, copper bronze gleaming in the afternoon glow. Fast confident brush-strokes streaked the white wall, making the picture come alive like a slow fade-in. He watched her from the other side of the street, hands jammed in his pockets, shoulder against a lamppost.
Bend and dip, raise and stroke. She was lithe in faded, paint-spattered pants with big pockets on the thighs and an old shirt tied in an old-style sixties knot, showing a five inch band of silky summer tan.
She was halfway along the hundred yards of old brick railway wall whose crumbling surface had been patched up and whitewashed bright. The bunch of kids were doing their own thing, talent from the primary schools, daubing and spattering as the sun quick-dried the paint..
Kate felt his look on her back and turned, backhanded her brow and put the pot down on the crusted sheet. He waited until she came across the street, leaving the youngsters and the other teacher to get on with the slap and dash.
"It's coming along," he said. She leaned into him and slipped a thumb over his belt. The sun gave her hair the sheen of new-stripped copper.
"Art for arts sake, money for god's sake."
"You've been listening to too much of that old stuff."
"We've the same taste, retro man" she said. Her eyes swept the wall scene, east to west. "You get a perspective from here. Up close it's just paint and you have to imagine it. But you're right, it is coming along."
The Heritage Wall. The project had fought off dozens of other contenders for Millennium money from the arts council and then it had been forced to wait all this time to get the cash and the permissions needed to take a bunch of kids and some pots of paint to cover a decaying eyesore and put some colour on it.
"When will you finish it?"
She laughed, cocking her head to lean it light on the side of his arm. "By the next millennium probably. It'll be like Stonehenge."
He could admire it from here, the whole town spread in a foreshortened panorama with an almost medievally distorted perspective that gave the highlights an arbitrary prominence. The castle on the big basalt rock that sat at the mouth of the river overshadowed the whole scene, as it did the whole town, black and green and grey, all angles and planes of fissured and fallen stone and ancient battlement. The silver meander of the river snaked between the tall buildings, each one an unmistakeable landmark, the old Ballantyne's distillery and its high retort tower, the old tenements on River Street, the big gasometer. All of the old companies had their names and insignia neatly done in exaggerated emphasis. The Latta shipyard, closed in the fifties. Carden's engineering, down in the sixties. McMillan's forge, a late survivor that finally fell its length in the eighties. The old glass factory that still stood but nobody living remembered bustling. The dye works that had used the soft river water for global success before synthetics knocked it on the head. All of them remembered on the heritage wall. A history of boom-times past.
"It's good."
"Sure it's good," she agreed. "It's a history lesson, but that's what they wanted. I argued that we should be looking to the future. Put in a couple of heliports. A rocket pad. A touch of pizzazz, inject some damned ambition."
"Or you could put in the call centre, the supermarket, Ferguson's scrap yard and the Corrieside team shooting up and drinking superlager and buckfast tonic wine."
"Oh, we are a true cynic this sunny day." She gave him a quick squeeze, more friendly than anything else. "What's up?"
"I've got to go in later on. Andy Kerr wants to talk to us."
"Is this the big crunch?" She pulled back and looked up at him, shading her eyes from the sun.
"Same for Don and Jed. Sproat's called a mass meeting at the distillery, no surprise."
She pointed to the long street-art mural. "I'll have to red ring the distillery and the dairy now, how our town used to work. In the good old days. What do you plan to do?"
"Let's wait and see what Andy says. We might have some time left. After that, well I've got a couple of ideas that I'm still kicking around in my head."
He couldn't tell her any of them. Nor anyone, yet.
"I hope they still include getting your degree."
He gave a short laugh. "Don't nag. Sure, I'll go for it, but it's time I branched out. I'm thinking of setting up on my own."
"Doing what?"
"Observing the two golden rules for success."
"And they are?"
"Don't tell people everything you know."
"What's the second one?"
He clapped an arm round her shoulder and put a finger to his lips. For a second she wondered what he meant and then the penny dropped and she elbowed him in the rib.
"Oh, big secrets now? Well, things don't look as if they could get much worse."
A couple of the kids across the street turned round to watch them and she moved herself out of his grasp, almost imperceptibly, making it casual. The children were dressed, despite the sun, in coveralls and rubber boots, and the multi-coloured splashes showed this had been a well thought precaution.
"Like you say. We're living on history and nostalgia, hanging on to the past when we should be fixing things for the future. Our Mike should breeze his highers and there's enough on place to see him to his honours if he wants to go the distance, so that lightens the load a bit. I can do whatever I want."
"I agree, Jack Lorne. You can do absolutely anything you want. I've told you that before."
"Ye of plenty faith. No, what I meant is that this might be the best thing that's happened to me. Sometimes you need a kick in the backside."
"Or you need to hit bedrock."
"That too. Look at this place." He pointed at the heritage wall, whitewash bright, brilliant with acrylic colour that was somehow too day-glow to be a true depiction of the old town, as if an alien sun gave it a chromatic boost. He moved his finger up and down, shooting off at the old company signs. "Closed. Closed. Shut. Bust. Gone away. Receivership. Closed. Shut."
"My my, Mr Lorne, we are pessimistic."
"No, just realistic, and just waking up to it. We have to turn this around or we'll be living in a ghost town. You're lucky there's a wall still standing for you to paint on."
"That was touch and go. They were set to rip this down before we got the grant."
"Anyway, I'm working something out."
"Ah, ze beeg secret." She elbowed him in the ribs. "And I hear you've got more secrets. I hear you made it big with two blonde bimbos."
"You hear wrong." He felt his face redden. The guys knew he had a thing for Kate. He just hadn't pushed it, not while he was still delivering milk in the mornings. Maybe it was pride.
"Not wrong. My sources are impeccable. Astrid and Britt, something like that?"
"Ilse and Ingrid," he said and she laughed again. She had suckered him so easily.
"Big tits, long legs, sveedish accents, helium brains. And two of them? A bit ambitious, Jack the lad, or are you ambidextrous?"
"Tempted, but I didn't go the distance."
"Oh, you vonted to be alone?"
"I needed some time to myself. Give me a break."
"You think Gus Ferguson will give you a break?" She kept her hands over her eyes and fixed on him, suddenly serious. "You have to watch yourself."
"Jesus! Does everybody in the whole town know about that? I was just helping a mate."
"I know you were. Come on Jack, it's not New York. You're better known than you think. Everybody knows what they did to Donny, and what Don Watson knows, everybody knows. He's a mobile phone on feet. He should carry a bell and shout oyez."
She was still holding his eyes with her own. "I do mean it though. You watch yourself."
"My uncle told me that already."
"Well listen to him. You don't get to that old fox's age without having some brains." She slipped a hand round and gave him a quick and surreptitious hug, maybe a gesture of solidarity, but it felt like more. She smelt of paint and turpentine; faint flowers and hot woman sweat and if the kids hadn't been watching he might just have tried a response, tried a try, but it was still the middle of the day. She patted his backside, squeezed a tease.
"Back to work, some of us have to. You go find out whether you're on the dole or operating secret plan number one."
She started to cross the road and was half-way to the kerb when she turned. "Come down to the corner at five and I'll treat you to a coffee. Deal?"
"Wish I could, but we'll have some things to chew over, me and the boys. But I was thinking of going to Stirling tomorrow to watch Jed on the stock circuit. Want to come?"
"And watch macho loonies smash metal?"
"If you want to go up by Creggan way, I'll buy you an ice cream."
"You know the way to a woman's heart, you smoothie." She laughed and added more light to the day's aggregate. "You're on."
He held up a thumb and waited until she picked up the brush again and slashed another clear green line, no hesitation, no pondering, as if she had the complete picture all in her head. He knew she most likely did.
He wished he had.
Andy Kerr had a face like granite, grey and rough, matching his hair. It was amazing what a couple of months on the edge could do for a man. Whether his cousin Billy had been a chancer or a thief, it made no difference. The walls were closing in on all sides.
"I won't lie to you guys," he said. The stress made him hoarse. "It's not looking too clever."
"Is our national insurance paid?" The demand came from the back for the group. Jack turned to look. It was a legitimate question, sure enough, but a bit early in the day.
"Hear the man out first," he said.
"No, Jake, that's fair enough. You've all got a right to know. You're right. We discovered a discrepancy in the national insurance contributions," He nodded to Jake who had helped him go through all the books in the past couple of weeks. "but I've been on to the Inland Revenue and that's all been taken care of. So no matter what happens here, you are all up to date. That's a personal guarantee from me."
"I was just saying...." the man at the back piped up, embarrassed now. Andy was known to be straight, no matter what folk thought of his slimy cousin Billy. The rest of the guys shooshed him to silence.
"Right, let's get down to business, so much as it is. I have to raise a hundred thousand minimum in six weeks, pure and simple as that. Sproat wants me off the ground so he can sell it and the lease is up for renewal. I still have the option, but everybody knows he wants the ground and it's a big hike, so for the next little while, I'll be trying to get some backing, and Jim McGuire will be running the show on a day to day basis."
Andy wiped his face with a dry hand, flattening out wrinkles on his brow that seemed to have sneaked up and dug furrows overnight.
"But we still have the problem of the contracts. They're cutting the price to the bone and the farmers can't operate at that level. My guess is that if we can't squeeze a couple of points, some of them will go over to barley and potatoes and cull the herds. Under the circs, it's a real bastard, so I'm not going to bullshit you. Things are not looking hunky dory. Not good at all."
"Tell us straight Andy, are we in a job or out?"
"You're in for six weeks, but not all of you. I've got a choice to go on short time, or short staff, and short time just won't work. I have to lose half of you as of now."
"That's twenty men."
"Men and women," one of the girls chipped in, making the point, as if it mattered.
"Twenty. For the time being. If we survive this and pick up, then I'll do my best to bring you back. If we don't, then there's no point in talking about it."
"Who's the twenty?" Big Trevor Hannah wanted to know now. Everybody was angry and worried and some were scared more than a little.
"I could do last in-first out, but I won't. I need Jim, Fergus McCann on the bottling, Sally on the phones and paperwork. George and Bill on the tankers, but only for two weeks or so because we're giving them up and I'll get a lease deal on old stock. I need two deliverymen door-to-door and two bulk. A couple of others. What I've done is put the names in a hat, for apart from the key people, I'm not going to say who's out and who stays. It's only fair."
Jack had no quarrel with that and hoped nobody else had. He'd find something to pay the bills and hit the books hard. And in his mind he was out of here, on to the next plan. On to the first real plan in his life.
He made it to the bank just before it closed, trying to shake off the hollow sensation of disquiet that had transmitted itself from the rest of the dairy people. He could only empathise, soak up their anger and apprehension. Most of them had worked nowhere else but the dairy, and all of them would have a hard time getting something new. It had always been a job for life. Dairies and distilleries, they never closed, did they? You left school, you got a job when one was going, and you stuck to it and it saw you through. That was the way it was. Used to be.
Now, it was all changed.
He had the passbooks with him, jammed in the back pocket of his chinos, and he had decided not to waste any time. He'd seen all this coming and he had to pick himself up, move right along. No time to lose.
Janey Cooper, Jed's cousin was behind the counter in the bright building society, all glass and wood and red corporate blazers. She gave him her usual big smile and he handed over a wad of notes and the book. Getting the money out of the bank had been a matter of moments. In, out, and years of savings were wedged into his front pocket. When you thought about it, it didn't amount to a hell of a lot, but then again, he'd had other things to do with his cash.
"I want to make this a joint account," he told Janey.
"Oh really? Is there something I should know?"
"Yeah. I've met a really nice boy and we're moving in."
Her eyes widened in disbelief, saw he was kidding and went along with it.
He handed over the little form he'd filed in and she changed the passbook without demur. He was well enough known on River Street.
He could have gone back along through the town, but word would be out by now and he didn't want to face all the people who would clap him on the back and condole.
Your friends all come running, clap you on the back and say....
Not please. Not this time. They say sorry mate, something will turn up. Tough break.
He went down by the river and strolled along by the railing, watching the flow of the deep black water, swirling down under the low bridge. Across and downstream, the old boatyard still stood, but there were damn few Rinkers and Bayliners there. A couple of sea trout broached the surface and snatched at flies, and a pair of diving birds surfaced and scattered them and the old river went rolling right on down to the castle and to empty itself out into the Clyde.
You could go with the flow. You could let the flow just catch you, like Franky Hennigan and Tig Graham over by the water edge, side by side on a bench drinking cheap rotgut wine, lost in the current, unable to stand against it.
Or you could maybe find a way of going against the current, moving under your own power, haul out somewhere and find your feet.
Maybe, maybe.
He went home and his mother had heard the news. She gave him a tight hug that said it all and asked him what he was going to do. He said he had some things to think about. Sheena came down and told him she would light a candle for him and say a prayer, which was what Sheena always did in times of crisis and every other time besides. He ruffled her hair and then went up to the room he shared with Mike. His brother was still down in the supermarket, stacking shelves until he went to Uni in the autumn. Jack sat on the bed and brought out the second thick wad of cash.
Very methodically, he took them note by note and crumpled them up, until he had a thick, unruly ball of money. He jammed it in an old syrup tin he'd used as a kid to keep loose change.
At Aitkenbar Distillery, a fair crowd had formed around the gatehouse, muttering the way they do when they're not happy and unsure of what to do next. Disorganised dismay.
Alistair Sproat was less blunt than Andy Kerr had been, but everybody knew he hadn't been just as honest. He flanked himself with a couple of the suits from the offices and James Gilveray who headed the customs post, while the rest of them faced him in the canteen, stacked in rows on plastic chairs. Everybody was there, coopers, bottlers, the maltmen and distillers, three forklift drivers and the barrel rollers who did everything from that to slungeing out the mash bins and scaring the seagulls from the roof.
Donny Watson sat listening to the Sproat drone on, watching Gilveray survey them all as if he expected them all to be leaving with a dozen bottles down the legs of their overalls, which, considering the state of things, wasn't so far fetched. Gilveray would be just fine and dandy, because come what may, he was just a civil servant and they'd squeeze him in somewhere else. He treated every drop of whisky as if it was from his own personal hoard and like every boss in a uniform he could be a mean-minded bastard.
"We're gathered here today," Sproat had started and some of the coopers had laughed at that, even though there was nothing much to laugh at. "Because there are great changes in the air, and it's best for me to tell you about them personally. It's a great opportunity for Aitkenbar to progress and diversify, and frankly, it will be a great wrench to me in a personal way, having grown up in this business, here in Levenford."
There was plenty more of the same and the upshot was that Sproat was moving on and up, investing his money in designer drinks and to finance that, well Aitkenbar and Dunvegan distilleries had to go. A team of the maltmen had come down from the little distillery on the far edge of the Isle of Skye, a handful of angry workers who had travelled two hundred miles to be told it wasn't worth their while going back up north again. Their shop steward, Donald Munro stood with his shoulders hunched and his arms folded, glowering like the Cuillin Ridge on a November day and muttering under his breath. He'd have to take the word back up to Skye that two hundred years of history was washed up and washed out with this tide.
Mac's bar was full at five, full of long faces and wall-to-wall resentment, but the beer was going down fast enough, faster than it ever did at this time in the afternoon.
"Jack Lorne, meet Donald Munro," Donny did the introductions.
"Too many Donalds here," the big islander said. "You call me DJ."
He was drinking dark single malt and that figured, seeing he had grown up with the stuff up there on Skye where the water ran though miles of peat and turned the whisky a rich tawny dark. Jack wasn't in the mood for a big drink, but solidarity was a great primer and, well, it seemed the thing to do under the circumstances.
Now he knew he should be drinking coffee, but it was still hot in Mac's and he thought he'd keep an eye on Donny who was making a short-term career of getting drunk. Ed Kane matched him drink for drink and while he was a good couple of stone lighter, he could hold it a whole lot better. Jack remembered he'd offered to give them a hand against Cullen and Foley. He'd a steady look in his eye then and now. Tough. A good man at your back.
"Me? I'll get a job somewhere. They always need people to roll barrels and drive a fork-lift."
"That's very good for you," DJ said solemnly. His full black beard made him look ten years older than thirty. "But up at Dunvegan, there's nothing at all, at all. "
"I heard about the cheese plant," Jack put in. "That was a shame. It's happening all over, especially with ScotMilk taking everything over."
"That was the problem. It's my cousin's place and he's facing a hard wall, I can tell you. They said it was too far to collect the milk and cancelled the contract and now he's left with a herd of five hundred pure jersey milkers he'll have to put to market if something doesn't come up. The cheese market's never big enough to use it all."
DJ lifted his whisky and looked at the lights though the dark amber.
"It's like the highland clearances all over again. It's true what they say. Human beings are worth less than damned sheep."
"You're right," Ed Kane came in. "What Sproat's doing to this town is a pure crime. Flattening the place and making a shopping centre car park. That'll be forty shelf stacking jobs paying peanuts."
Jack hadn't been there, but he'd heard the gist of it. Sproat had told them the new closing date was in two months time, but they would all be getting a special presentation bottle of the last historic blend of the finest whiskies made at both distilleries, a one-off bottling that would be a historic occasion.
"I think we should strike," DJ said in his measured island tones, "and fuck the smarmy bastard. It's well seen what he's up to. Same thing happened at Corrievreckan when it closed. They took every barrel from the warehouse, almost all of it twenty years old and they made a special presentation box. There was a huge demand for it from collectors all over the world, because it was the last whisky ever to come out of there. I heard they were selling it for a hundred a bottle."
"They must be crazy paying that," Ed said, but that was understandable, because most of the boys at Aitkenbar came out almost every night with a thin sauce bottle of the finest blends and malts stuffed down the legs of their overalls and they never paid a penny for it. The Angels' share.
"Well, I say we shouldn't let him away with that. We should get everybody on strike and picket the place."
"What good would that do?" Donny's face was red with the heat and the drink. His bruises were healing well. "There's too many women on the lines anyway. They never strike."
"It's time we did something," Jack said. "He's screwing you lot and killing the dairy. That's too much power in one man's hands."
"Did something," Donny demanded truculently. "Like what?"
"It's time we went into business for ourselves."
"And what business would that be?"
"The success business."
She picked him up at two in the little red Volks. He had waited in the corner caf\u0061, going over the stories in the Levenford Gazette. Blair Bryden, who ran the paper had got the stories right, and he'd made a good, if subtle attempt in his leader column.
Jack had smiled. It was easy to read between those lines, but it was a triumph of hope over experience to expect Jamieson Bell or any of his snout-in-the-trough burghers to go against Sproat and his old money. Jack remembered the old saying. A good politician stays bought, and that lot were right in the cash-bag with the draw-string tight.
It was good of Blair to give it a try, stand up and be counted, rather than taking the free whisky Sproat sent out to anybody he thought he could hook. It was good, but it was only words. What they needed was some action.
Kate pumped the horn and got his attention. He crossed and got in the passenger side. They talked of a few things on the way north, with the sun flashing stabs of pure light through the tall sycamores that lined the shore road towards Arden, and then they were on the high road that curved inland and then came out at Creggan, a small village at the end of the picturesquely rugged peninsula that jutted down into the sunlit estuary.
She pulled in at Julio's caf\u0061 and they had a fine Italian coffee, watching the waves lap the smooth rocks. She bought him a piece of millionaire's shortcake and the irony of that made him laugh. It was rich and sweet. He might not be getting too much of that in the near future.
"Not good news then?" She had finely tuned antennae. He shrugged. He'd been thinking all the way down the line.
"Some people got upset. They've been there longer than me and they'll be on the dole a long time, them and the Aitkenbar crowd. It's really a shame."
"So what's your plan?"
"A big Swedish guy says I can come and work on his boat any time."
"That's the big plan?"
"I'll speak to him anyway. It could be something new."
"And what about your degree?"
He shrugged again. There were some things he couldn't say. Kate shook her head. "So really, what will you do?"
"I'm going to develop anti-gravity, so I can pull myself up by the bootlaces. That's the trick. Everybody can do it. All you need is an idea, create a demand, find a supply, screw the competition, beat the tax-man."
"And you can do all of this on a boat?"
He laughed aloud and the old biddies having their afternoon tea turned round, curious.
"You never know."
She slapped his arm and told him to get serious, but he didn't want to talk about it any more. He steered the conversation away.
The ice-cream was the best Kate had tasted, so she asserted.
"You are a super smoothie," she said as she licked a circle round it, savouring it right down to the wafer. They had taken a walk on the south side of Creggan strolling along the path on the high red cliffs that overlooked the sunlit reach, and he'd already decided to give the stock-racing a miss. He wouldn't dare tell Jed, or Neil who was a mechanical magician, but today, this was better than watching the boys. He needed the quiet, to think and reflect.
They sat for a while, watching the gannets wheel and dive, folding their wings back into cruciform shapes to spear into the water, graceful lances. Out on the firth, a few sleek yachts caught the breeze and billowed their spinnakers, puffed with pride and money. Over close to the Creggan pier wall, a couple of the usual suspects on jet-skis buzzed the shore, irritating wasps.
The air was clean and fresh, with that tang of bladderwrack and kelp and everything else that makes the sea. He sat at the edge, peering down the straight hundred feet to the rocks below, while she warned him to beware, concerned he'd be too careless.
"That's what I want," he said. She eased closer, nervous of the height. He slipped an arm round her shoulder and she went along with it, leant a little closer. Down below, half inside the natural harbour formed by the jutting red sandstone wedges, a big Moody forty-footer lay at anchor, sail furled, streamlined, like a fast fish that could suddenly flick and be gone in a surge. A couple of people sunbathed on deck.
"You want a boat?"
"If you can afford that boat, you've got the freedom to do what you want. That thing will take you round the world. You could keep going forever and never have to stop."
"Sounds like you want to escape."
"Don't you?"
She turned to face him and the sun lit emeralds in her eyes.
"Travel maybe, keep on going if you like, but not escape."
"I suppose you're right. Escape isn't the answer."
"What is?"
He tapped his temple. "You have to escape in here. Free yourself up."
She smiled, slipped a hand round his waist, just a gentle touch, but it made him feel okay.
"You're free to do what you want, Jack Lorne. I told you that before. There's nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it. I'm a good judge of character."
"I'd take that as a compliment, if I had a character to judge." He eased her to her feet, pulled her back from the edge. "I just have to get out of the way of thinking that other people control my life. Once I do that, it's anti-gravity. Only one way, and that's up."
Further along, a narrow trail led an easy way down to the sea level. She held his hand all the way, trying not to slip on the dry earth, and when they reached the bottom, he walked along by the water, skipping the flat stones, while she hunted for pieces of shells and water-smoothed rocks. She had an artist's eye.
Ahead of them, the tall spar of the big yacht pendulumed slowly in the rising tide, the hull hidden by the big line of house-sized rocks that pushed out into the firth. He made his way up onto the boulders and followed the line out.
She had razor shells and a big gannet feather when she joined him out at the edge. A hundred yards out, somebody in a wet-suit was diving down in the clear green depths, sending up a shoal of bubbles. The drone of the jet-skis got louder as the riders scooted out from Creggan.
"If you had a boat, where would you go?"
"Out to sea," he said. She punched his shoulder.
"Don't get smart, smartass. Anyway, I can't join you. I've got things to do."
He raised an eyebrow, waiting.
"We're trying to set up an organisation to protect the harbour. I spoke to a few friends and we have a constitution going. Charter 1315, we'll call it."
"Catchy name."
"You think? That's the year after Bannockburn, when Bruce gave us the Royal Charter, made the town a real Burgh, and gave the river and everything on it to the people."
"Sure, I remember. I went to school too. Don't let the unemployment fool you."
She punched again, gentler now.
"Sproat wants to dump those old buildings in the harbour inlet and reclaim land, which is sheer vandalism. It's going to destroy our heritage."
"It will get him another three prime acres and make him a couple of million. That way he gets to build his new spirit distillery and wipe out Donny and Ed, kill off Andy Kerr's business and screw up a lot of good honest working people."
"But if we can show that the harbour really belongs to the people, we could try to stop him filling it in. And then the mall developers won't see it as such a good proposition."
"Sounds like a plan," Jack conceded. "But you won't be able to take Sproat on, not without money. A whole lot of money. It's the only language these days."
"And I thought you were a scrapper, Jack Lorne. We plan some fund raisers to...."
Jack was suddenly on his feet. "What the hell are they doing?"
She was stopped in mid sentence. He stepped forward on the big rock, looking out at the water. The two jet-skis left froth trails behind them, each weaving past the other, both skittering fast on the surface. The engines whined like hornets.
"Jesus!" Jack was waving his arms now. He bawled out a warning.
Out there where the shore sloped away into the depths, the line of bubbles showed where the diver was getting close to the surface.
"Fucking idiots," Jack said, almost snarling. Kate had never heard him swear. She was up beside him, shading her eyes against the glare.
Whatever prescience he had, Jack saw it before she did, saw it before it happened. The nearest speeder came in close to the jutting point, hopping across the troughs. The kid on the back was howling arrogance. His pal tried to catch up.
Jack was moving, running across the uneven rock.
The jet ski hit the surfacing diver with such a thump they heard it twice when the echo threw it right back from the high cliff.
"Oh my god," she blurted.
He was off, sprinting for the edge. She followed, keeping to the flat sandstone, watching him move, shirt pulling out from his jeans, feet thudding on stone. The jet skis veered away, seemingly unaware of what had happened, though the boy couldn't have failed to notice. He didn't even look back. A patch of pink tinged the water out from the point.
Jack dived, no change of pace, no hesitation, a long, low arc, out and down and he was under. She saw the splash and hurried to the edge. The diver was just a dark shape in the water, not moving. Jack reached him in twenty seconds, got an elbow round the swimmer's chin, hauled for the low shore on the lee of the rocks. It took him ten minutes of hard struggle to drag both of them to the shingle and he stopped just on the waterline, shoulders heaving, lungs hauling.
She ran for them and got down beside the diver, flipping off the mask.
A bright stain of blood pulsed from a gash high on the crown, blurted through the wet fair hair. He was only a boy, sixteen maybe, not much younger than Michael, deadly pale. His eyes were rolled up, showing whites. The breather mask hung uselessly where it had been torn free.
Jack got himself to his elbows and knees and flipped the boy on to his side while she loosened the suit. He pushed him onto his face and started to press his weight under the shoulderblades. Water trickled from pallid lips.
"Come on, son. Come on. Give it a go."
He pushed again, harder this time, got no response and flipped the sagging youngster back over, grabbed his nose and breathed into him.
He felt the reaction and pulled back. The boy spasmed, every muscle trembling like a taut wire, coughed hard and a gout of seawater just missed Jack's face.
Over by the rocks people were shouting. Jack rolled the youngster back on his face and pushed on the ribs, forcing him to lie still, helping ease the rest of the water out. The eyes were still wide and blank, but at least the kid was breathing again.
A man with iron grey hair came pounding up.
"Jason. Dear God, Jason." They could hear the dread in his voice. A woman was not far behind, screaming her son's name.
The boy was suddenly violently sick, just as his parents scrambled down on the shingle to get their hands to him.