Chapters (94)
‘I’ve yet to bring that into the conversation, sir. Didn’t want to spook him.’
McNab was pretty sure he heard a ‘Fuck’s sake’ from Janice, and he hissed back, ‘So, you answer next time.’
Thankfully the heat had moved on and someone else was now in the firing line. McNab breathed a sigh of relief.
‘I suggest we talk to Jolly Jess again,’ he said. ‘You take the lead this time. Woman to woman. Maybe she’s heard of the Sandman.’
11
The Isles bar, Portree, the previous night
The pub was busy, with a group of young local musicians playing fiddles and uilleann pipes being the draw. For a while she imagined it would be okay. The games had all gone well earlier. She’d excelled at the knife and axe throwing, mostly because she’d carefully followed the instructor’s advice. The dog, too, had helped her feel at ease. She smiled at the memory of the big Border collie and its herding of her towards the target range. In the bar tonight, it had already come over to say hello to her and Sugarboy.
They had been their usual bullish and combative selves at A.C.E, laughing and mocking each other’s attempts at axe and knife throwing, but all the while gracious about her success.
They were, she realized, treating her with kid gloves.
She was trying not to study them openly, but joined in with the alcohol-induced camaraderie, all the while imagining what might be going on in their heads.
In his head.
They’d all had to undergo counselling after the event. The event. What a fucking way to describe it. The others had never openly discussed their supposed rehabilitation. At least not with her. She wondered, now, if they’d discussed it with each other.
If they’d talked about her.
Is that why we’re here, she thought? To check her out? Find out how much she’d revealed of what had happened?
She lifted her drink, more to stop herself catching anyone’s eye.
And she didn’t know the whole story, she reminded herself. Isolated as she’d been in her blue prison, she had no idea how bad it had been for the others after they’d been captured. One thing she did know. There had been seven alive before the attack. The magnificent seven. And now there were only five.
In her mind she made the group whole again, adding in Mitch with his crooked smile and deftly moving hands. The Stitcher, they’d called him, because of the speed he dealt with wounds. And big Gordo, who’d professed to having only one testicle, having lost the other one, or so he claimed, to a sniper’s bullet.
More likely gnawed off by a dissatisfied fuck, according to Mitch.