continues to sprinkle intermittent illumination across the beach beyond the French windows, and his face is mired in darkness. Not, it occurs to me in a moment of absurd lucidity, that I would recognise it even if I could see it. And along with this clarity comes the realisation that I am not going to be able to prevent him from plunging his knife into me as many times as he likes. It is one of those moments when your own mortality becomes, perhaps for the first time in your life, more than something to be locked away and dealt with in a distant future. It is here and now, and death is just a breath away.
I make one last attempt to roll over and get to my knees, and find myself knocked back down by a shape that seems comprised only of darkness. But it is a darkness both solid and human, and it flies at the man with the knife. Bran is barking incessantly and my confusion is crowded with the noise of his bark and the crashing of two men locked in physical struggle. Merged into a single entity as I try to make sense of what is happening.
My attacker, and his, fall together on to the coffee table, which shatters beneath them. I feel flying glass cut my cheek, and one of them is up on his feet and running. Through the kitchen and out into the boot room. The second man is slower to rise, winded, and I can hear him gasping for breath before he sets off in pursuit. Bran follows them, barking all the way to the door, and I lie for a moment, breathing heavily, letting my head clear before I try to stand up. I stagger into the kitchen, supporting myself on whatever I can reach, before stumbling into the boot room and out through the open door on to the steps.
The cold air is a physical assault, but it revives me sufficiently to enable me to step down on to the drive, from where I can see the shadow of a man sprinting away along the road in the direction of the cemetery. Just one, and I don’t know whether it is the first man or the second. I spin around, scanning the horizon, and then the beach, for any sign of the other. But as the clouds overhead blow across the moon in the stiffening breeze, the night settles again in a blanket of darkness that smothers the land.
A light comes on in the cottage opposite. The old lady with the yappy dog awakened from her sleep. I turn and shout at Bran to shut up, and he stops his barking. And beyond the wind, I can hear the distant yapping of the old lady’s dog, muffled by doors and windows.
I usher Bran back into the house and slam the door shut, turning the lock to secure it from the inside, and feel my way along the wall of the boot room to where I know the fuse box is set into a cavity above the boiler. Its plastic cover is down, and I fumble for the master switch. There is no light as I flick it up, but I hear the hum of the boiler as it springs back to life. Two steps to the door and I find the light switch, then stand blinking in the sudden painful glare of electric light.
I takes me some time, to come to terms with the fact that I am still alive, and that, apart from the mess in the other room and a gash in my head, nothing has changed. Except that it has. For someone has just tried to kill me. Some person, unknown, has come into my house in the dead of night and tried to put a knife between my ribs. Only by the grace of God, and the intervention of a second intruder, has my life been spared.
Nothing, absolutely nothing since I found myself washed up, semi-conscious, on the Tràigh Losgaintir, has made sense. My memory loss. My failure to find a single clue to my identity, beyond my name, even in my own home. My affair with Sally. The book on the Flannan Isles mystery that I am not writing. Beehives on the coffin road. My missing boat. Now someone trying to kill me. And someone else stepping in to save me. The weight of it all is very nearly crushing.
Bran is still excited and excitable, dancing around me, snuffling and snorting, still on the brink of barking. But I hold him in the
I make one last attempt to roll over and get to my knees, and find myself knocked back down by a shape that seems comprised only of darkness. But it is a darkness both solid and human, and it flies at the man with the knife. Bran is barking incessantly and my confusion is crowded with the noise of his bark and the crashing of two men locked in physical struggle. Merged into a single entity as I try to make sense of what is happening.
My attacker, and his, fall together on to the coffee table, which shatters beneath them. I feel flying glass cut my cheek, and one of them is up on his feet and running. Through the kitchen and out into the boot room. The second man is slower to rise, winded, and I can hear him gasping for breath before he sets off in pursuit. Bran follows them, barking all the way to the door, and I lie for a moment, breathing heavily, letting my head clear before I try to stand up. I stagger into the kitchen, supporting myself on whatever I can reach, before stumbling into the boot room and out through the open door on to the steps.
The cold air is a physical assault, but it revives me sufficiently to enable me to step down on to the drive, from where I can see the shadow of a man sprinting away along the road in the direction of the cemetery. Just one, and I don’t know whether it is the first man or the second. I spin around, scanning the horizon, and then the beach, for any sign of the other. But as the clouds overhead blow across the moon in the stiffening breeze, the night settles again in a blanket of darkness that smothers the land.
A light comes on in the cottage opposite. The old lady with the yappy dog awakened from her sleep. I turn and shout at Bran to shut up, and he stops his barking. And beyond the wind, I can hear the distant yapping of the old lady’s dog, muffled by doors and windows.
I usher Bran back into the house and slam the door shut, turning the lock to secure it from the inside, and feel my way along the wall of the boot room to where I know the fuse box is set into a cavity above the boiler. Its plastic cover is down, and I fumble for the master switch. There is no light as I flick it up, but I hear the hum of the boiler as it springs back to life. Two steps to the door and I find the light switch, then stand blinking in the sudden painful glare of electric light.
I takes me some time, to come to terms with the fact that I am still alive, and that, apart from the mess in the other room and a gash in my head, nothing has changed. Except that it has. For someone has just tried to kill me. Some person, unknown, has come into my house in the dead of night and tried to put a knife between my ribs. Only by the grace of God, and the intervention of a second intruder, has my life been spared.
Nothing, absolutely nothing since I found myself washed up, semi-conscious, on the Tràigh Losgaintir, has made sense. My memory loss. My failure to find a single clue to my identity, beyond my name, even in my own home. My affair with Sally. The book on the Flannan Isles mystery that I am not writing. Beehives on the coffin road. My missing boat. Now someone trying to kill me. And someone else stepping in to save me. The weight of it all is very nearly crushing.
Bran is still excited and excitable, dancing around me, snuffling and snorting, still on the brink of barking. But I hold him in the
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