He shuddered and knotted his fingers together, wringing his hands painfully to try to focus his mind, watching as his fingers turned in some places red, in others white. The colours of blood and bones.
‘Are you here to see the show, mate?’
One of the boys had addressed him, a skinny youth with dyed black hair swept severely across his face, almost hiding his eyes.
‘The show?’
The teenager looked embarrassed as his friends sniggered.
‘Oh, sorry. I thought you might be here for the wrestling too… just wondered if you wanted to share a taxi there with us. Never mind.’
‘Is the wrestling on tonight?’
‘Yeah, bell time was seven o’clock. We’re running late because of this knobhead.’ He playfully smacked his friend’s shoulder, and received a blow back in return. ‘We had tickets for last night’s show too, but it was cancelled.’
‘That’s a shame – why was that?’
One of the other boys, with a chubbier frame and a shaved head, interjected.
‘Vic Valiant had a heart attack in the ring! It sounded fucking intense. The show got called off and an ambulance turned up and everything.’
A suspected heart attack was how the papers and internet had thus far been reporting Schultz’s death.
‘Will be weird tonight to see if they mention it,’ the boy continued.
‘Do they often have shows on the island?’
‘No, this is a special double-weekender – AAW is doing like a cross-promotional thing, and they’ve got some proper big names over from America. The winner of the tournament gets a shot at the title next weekend!’
‘AAW?’
‘All Action Wrestling,’ grinned the lad in response.
‘The island seems a strange place to hold a big tournament.’
‘Not really,’ said the third member of the group, as though keen to get involved in the discussion. ‘The promoter was born here, so it’s like a sort of coming-home show for him. They normally tour all around the south west, and we try to get to as many shows as we can. Plus the island’s got a really cool history anyway.’
‘Yes, I’m a tourist myself,’ Sigurdsson lied. Much easier than trying to explain that he was a policeman investigating the death of one of their heroes, and that the gathering storm was too severe for air travel to the island, and so his DCI had thought the passenger ferry would be quicker than trying to organise a speedboat. Sigurdsson suspected Wells just couldn’t be bothered. ‘I heard about the rabbits and thought it would be an interesting place to go.’
‘Yeah man,’ said the third boy. Sigurdsson realised they were all wearing T-shirts that were something to do with the wrestling promotion, bearing names and slogans he didn’t understand. This boy’s said ‘Maniac’ in blood-dripping letters above a stylised AAW logo. ‘You know the story about those, don’t you?’
Sigurdsson shook his head, and the lad’s face lit up with malevolent glee.
‘The story goes that the island used to be a secret poison gas development site during the war. That hospital? They weren’t just rehabbing old soldiers, man. They were testing fucking gas on ‘em, nerve toxins and all sorts.’
Sigurdsson felt the noose of anxiety slowly tightening around his neck as the youth continued.
‘The rabbits were all kept there for the testing, underground. Then when the place got bombed in the forties, the rabbits escaped and overran the island, and bred like… well, you know.’
He sat back smugly, as though he had just unveiled an ingenious conspiracy theory.
‘You’re full of shit, Joe,’ the shaven-headed boy responded, and they all laughed.
Sigurdsson forced a smile too. His forward view was obscured by the ship’s wheelhouse, but through the window he could see the swirling mists ahead of them begin to darken, as if giving form to some imagined horror.
‘Well, have a great time at the show, boys.’
‘You should come and check it out, honestly, you’d have a great time. Wrestling’s making a big comeback, I’m telling you.’
The shadow was solid now, and Sigurdsson realised that it was Salvation itself looming out of the fog. He could see the sprawling outlines of buildings along the promenade, crowned by the tree-lined hilltop at the island’s centre. The silhouette of a Ferris wheel looked like the skeletal remains of some giant sea creature.
‘And you’ll have to go and visit the statue too.’
‘The statue?’
‘Man, you need to do your research! Saint Drogo? He’s on top of that big hill you can see. He’s like the patron saint of the island, or whatever. He has a golden foot, and if you rub it your wish comes true.’
‘Bollocks,’ said the boy with the dark hair.
‘It’s true! We used to go all the time when I was a kid.’
‘In that case I’m going to go and wish for your mum to stop phoning me for sex.’
‘Fuck you!’
Sigurdsson left them to their childish scuffles and looked again through the window as they neared their landing point. The jetty seemed like an outstretched finger, jabbing accusations at him. A shiver danced through his body as he thought about nerve gas drifting across war-torn battlefields, men choking and gasping as their blood oozed into the soil. He forced his brain onto the present, heard pleasantries forming on his lips as if spoken by someone else, someone not riddled with fear and neurosis.
‘Well, here we are then… it was nice talking to you all.’
They wished him a nice trip and dashed away as soon as they disembarked, keen not to miss too much of their show. Outside, the sky was rapidly darkening and the air seemed to hum with the threat of the lurking storm. Standing on the jetty, he watched the ferry’s small crew mooring the vessel, their movements hurried as if they too were afraid of the impending squall. As he watched, he saw a woman emerge from the gloom behind them, dressed in full police uniform. She strode confidently towards him, and as she approached he discerned a youthful face hardened by the strictures of formality and responsibility, this severity softened by a pixie-like crop of red hair cut short above her ears, the colour of peeled sweet potatoes.
‘Are you Sigurdsson?’ she asked, extending her hand as she neared him.
‘Yes, that’s me. Good to meet you,’ he replied, returning her firm handshake. ‘You must be Inspector Mason?’
‘That’s right,’ she said, snatching her hand away as though she couldn’t bear to be in contact with him for longer than was absolutely necessary. ‘All right, let’s get moving, we can exchange niceties in the car. If we hurry we might catch the show.’
‘You’re going to go to the All Action Wrestling event?’ he asked, following her along the pier with his travel bag slung over his shoulder.
‘Yep, and so are you, if you’re supposed to be helping out. It’s the last one of a weekend run tonight.’ Her voice was deep, in contrast to her slender frame and elfin looks. ‘Schultz was meant to be performing in all three. A bloke called Howard Penman runs the promotion – creepy little bastard to be honest – and I’ve arranged with him to keep the performers behind at the end so we can address them all together.’
Sigurdsson nodded, gazing at the faded signs and facades of buildings along the seafront, all of them seeming somehow sad and maudlin. There appeared to be no one out enjoying an evening stroll along the promenade, although