Dark Waters(14)

And to his utter surprise, Mrs Holden laughed.

Denny was waiting for him in the corridor. ‘Hey, I don’t believe it. Was Mrs Holden actually being nice to you?’

Col laughed. ‘Sure was.’ He didn’t add the even more surprising fact … that he was being nice to her.





Chapter Nine


A few days later Col went back to the loch. Couldn’t for the life of him understand why. Mungo had warned him over and over not to go back there – and he certainly didn’t want to antagonise Mungo. But even stranger than that was the fact that he didn’t want to go there. He was frightened to be here. Yet, here he was.

There was still ice on the loch, the weather was as cold as it had been that awful day. He could have gone home after school and sat by the fire listening to his new CD player. Yet, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he walked past his street, up through the estate to the hills and the loch that lay nestled in the valley beyond.

It was beautiful up here. He had always thought so. Beautiful and eerily quiet with dusk falling and the lights of the town twinkling beyond the valley.

Col found himself standing exactly where he had stood that day, watching Dominic jump up and down on the ice. The ice was still broken, and the loch looked strangely peaceful. Would it look as calm, as peaceful, if he had been lying, floating like the reeds, deep down in that icy water? And, suddenly, in spite of the cold he began to sweat. The memory was too much for him to hold in his head. He wanted it away.

Bad idea coming here, boy, he told himself.

‘Remembering?’

The voice, so close to his ear, made him jump. He turned so quickly he stumbled and almost fell.

‘Sorry. Did I frighten you?’

It was Klaus, the young man who had come to see him in hospital.

‘What are you doing here? Did you follow me?’

Klaus shook his head. He badly needed a haircut, Col noticed, and a good wash. ‘No. I saw you, I wanted to thank you. You did not tell anyone about me. You did not tell your brother?’

Col snapped at him, ‘How do you know so much about my family?’

Klaus shrugged. ‘Everyone knows about the McCanns. Especially about your brother.’

‘But you’re not from round here. You’re foreign, ain’t ye?’

‘I’m Latvian,’ Klaus said simply. ‘I have been living here for a while, but I am not supposed to be here.’

‘What do you mean? Here … at the loch? Here … in this town?’

Klaus smiled. ‘No. Here in this country. I was … what do you call them?’

Col knew what Mungo called them. ‘Dirty illegal immigrants, them and asylum seekers. Bleedin’ this country dry. They should all get chucked back to where they belong.’

‘You’re an illegal immigrant?’

Mungo and his mates made life hell for the asylum seekers on a nearby estate. What would he do if he found out that an illegal immigrant was up here, alone? An illegal immigrant with no protection at all from the police? The thought made Col shiver.

‘I paid a lot of money to come to Britain,’ Klaus went on. ‘Everything I had. Transported in a crowded, dirty lorry with so many others. I was promised work. Peace too. So much poverty in my country. In my village, I have a mother, sisters. I came to find work.’

‘But why Scotland? Why here?’

Klaus crouched down and began picking at the icy ferns. ‘When we arrived it was up to every one of us to find somewhere to live, to hide, a place where we could disappear. Most of my comrades stayed in English towns. They thought I was mad to come here. I thought there might be others here in this town, like me, illegal immigrants. But no … I am the only one from Latvia. I stayed here because Scotland with its mountains and its lochs seemed so much like my own country. I thought, even alone, I would not be so homesick here.’

‘You look pretty sick to me, Klaus, son,’ Col said, suddenly feeling sorry for the young man in front of him. The feeling took him by surprise. He had always been like Mungo, hating them. He had always taken his lead from his brother.

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ Col was puzzled. ‘You’re taking a chance. If I told my brother about you, he would bring his mates up here. They don’t like your kind. Boy, you would be sorry.’

Klaus looked at Col for a long time. His eyes were a muddy blue and he didn’t blink – not once. ‘I don’t think you will. I trust you.’

Here was another first for Col. Someone actually trusted him.

‘I came here thinking I would find friends, someone to help me. Instead, I found only violence and hate. Just like at home.’ Klaus almost smiled when he said that. ‘I had lost all hope. I could find hardly any work, only odd jobs with the farmers around here. Always waiting for the police to find me, always hiding. I had had enough. I have wanted to go back home for so long.’ He closed his eyes. For a second Col thought he might be about to cry. Please, don’t let him cry, he thought. He wouldn’t know how to handle that.