SHEONAGH had shown little surprise at the sick man’s recovery and the restoration of his sight, little surprise about anything at all. The cave was evidently known to her and had taken him directly from her cabin, where they had been hiding some miles away, bringing supplies along as well.
How she had managed to avoid detection by the Butlers? His father, perhaps too weak to give a full explanation, only smiled at first. But slowly the details emerged. There had been an ambushed as they returned from an inn. But somehow the woman had managed to fend off the attack, avoiding or perhaps even incapacitating the assailants, before taking flight with Strang to the hills, carefully backtracking and laying false trails on the way.
Jack tried as hard as he could to remember the cold, arrogant figure he had grown up resenting. Squeezing his eyes shut, he blocked away his father’s pale face and weak, trembling arms and focussed on the great wrong that had been done to him. The change that had been wrought in his own mind through deliberate exposure to the drug… the truth that his mother – a would-be murderess - was alive.
He listened as the shaking figure told of his attempts to make amends to the wrongs of the past. How he had hoped to share his discovery with the world. But Brown, his partner was always the worldlier, had already read the dangers. If his best friend’s wife could threaten her only son to get her hands on the designs for the first hydropower plant – what would a stranger do? Would Anne-Marie Strang return to carry out what she failed to complete.
The security arrangements were comprehensive. Strang and Brown were now rich and powerful men. Jack was shifted from school to school, always the most privileged, the most secluded.
“I was finally persuaded it was for the best that you were was introduced as Brown’s own child for fear your mother found out,” he whispered in the darkness. “He had no son of his own and he enjoyed the little chats you had. I felt I could still be part of your life and guide you from the sidelines. I see now how wrong I was, especially as the man who I trusted betrayed all the young ideals we had strived for. We swore we would share our findings with the world, regardless of profit or riches. Instead he wants to sit on our finding – our greatest finding – while whole cities and nations sink into darkness.
“But after so long, after so many years, why now? What made you stop going along with it?”
Strang explained about Liddell, the yellow press publisher, whose pamphlets had all of Edinburgh agog at the corporation’s business dealings.
“It was careless of me to help the widow of that poor man, knowing how your uncle’s spies were everywhere. I should have found a better way of easing my guilt but I couldn’t help thinking about my own family. The way I had let you down.”
There was a new element to his personality, a sort of glowing light. The old Strang, with his demanding scientific mind, would never have spoken this way about rights and ideals. Jack did not recognise the warm, fiery eyes which warmly welcomed Saira, clasping her hand and placing his own on her cheek, unperturbed that his teenage son was now married. Hearing of the deadly intent of the pursuers, she could not help but wonder why they wanted the harmless old man sitting amid the animal skins.
“Surely, they know you are now powerless. Why do they want to kill you? This is a company you helped create and the man who is chasing you is, was, your friend?”
“My dear girl, the man was once like a brother. He dearly loved me and I him. All I can think of is that the same level of emotion that was love has now returned as hate.”
“But you can’t do any harm to them. If they can erase your bracelet and force you from your home – they have already made you powerless. Why continue the chase?”
Finally Sheonagh voiced her opinion. “They continue the hunt because it is fun. They enjoy the kill. There is no other reason. Even with your sight, you will be lucky to confound them.”
They resolved to allow themselves one more day before beginning their journey but Sheonagh’s dark words lingered long into the evening.
“If you are to leave, we must leave tomorrow morning. I will be back before dawn. Get sleep because it will be a four hour walk to the town and you are still weak,” she spoke to Strang. A gale shook the curtain that covered their entrance so it flapped and crackled.
“Don’t go. It’s too bad out there”, Jack says. Sheonagh laughed and even John coughed a chuckle.
“Sheonagh is hardier than anyone I have ever met, if she says she will be back before dawn then she will be.”
Saira slept restlessly that night. Both men were too exhausted to be distracted by the entrance sheet as it snapped in the wind, but the lingering expectation of Sheonagh’s return kept her awake.
Above the ember glow, she was struck by the resemblance between the two men. Although the father was still weak, his brow and jaw were quite the same set as his son’s. She remembered her own homecoming, returning to her father in Media after her flight from London. The fire coughed its final sounds, sending out a faint orange mist which ebbed against the damp rock walls. How long had this cave been used as a shelter by those trapped in the mountains?
Did anyone else know about it or did the secret now belong to Sheonagh alone? Insulated from the world outside and far away from any human activity, there was something timeless about the space. Years could pass as hours without any changes to its appearance. Gradually she allowed herself to be hypnotised by the dying glow.