Free A Thousand Suns by Alex Scarrow Page A

was then that he heard a cough behind him. Not an honest, out-loud bark, but a short, brittle grunt that sounded smothered.
    He spun round. Amongst the dimly lit silhouettes of dead hulls around him, he could make out nothing. He debated whether to call out a challenge. But he knew his own voice would unsettle him even more. He held his breath, and listened intently for any noise other than the tide on the pebbles and the occasional clatter of wind-borne debris. A few seconds passed, and Chris was prepared to believe it was his over-active imagination playing the devil when he heard the clatter of pebbles and the crunch of a clumsily placed foot.
    ‘Okay, who the fuck is that?’ he growled in a voice he hoped sounded menacing.
    He heard another footfall, and then, his eyes growing keener, he picked out an indistinct form moving slowly between two of the beached vessels.
    ‘You’re the news man, aren’t you?’ said a voice coming from the dark shape; an old man.
    News man? Chris found himself grinning in the dark. The natives were gossiping.
    ‘Yeah, I’m the news man.’
    Chris heard the crunch of feet drawing closer, and the dark form grew until he could make out a lined and weathered face framed by the hood of an old canvas raincoat.
    ‘My name’s McGuire,’ he said. Chris could see by the fading light of the overcast afternoon that he was holding out a hand.
    He grabbed it awkwardly. McGuire’s grip was surprisingly strong.
    ‘You’re here about that plane out there, aren’t you?’
    Chris wondered whether to play it dumb, but then Port Lawrence was a small town. Undoubtedly old Will must have been spreading the news about his two passengers, like some old dear in a salon.
    ‘Yeah, you got me.’
    ‘I can tell you a story or two about that,’ said McGuire as he pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and offered one to Chris.
    ‘No thanks. I’m five months quit.’
    The old man laughed, a wheezy cackle that degenerated into a rattling cough. It sounded like something loose and leathery rattling in a cage. ‘Five months quit, eh?’ he said finally. ‘Not bad, but you know, you’re never “quit”, you’re just resting between smokes.’
    Resting between smokes just about summed it up perfectly. Chris was tempted, but resisted the urge to reach out for one.
    ‘Don’t mind if I poison myself, then?’
    ‘No. Poison away.’
    McGuire sheltered his cigarette and lighter from the wind and lit up. From the flickering glow of the flame Chris could see his face. It was long and narrow and weathered. He suspected the old man looked ten years older than he was.
    The wind gusted and Chris shivered.
    ‘So? You going to tell me what it is you know about that plane, then?’ asked Chris.
    McGuire took another long pull on his cigarette. ‘We found the pilot of that plane out there, on the beach just along the way from here. Found him on the sand rolling in the waves . . . pretty much in the last week of the war that was, if I recall correctly.’
    ‘How do you know it was the pilot of that plane?’
    ‘Well, it was Sean who got a good close look. Sean said he was an airman, one of ours. I went off to town and found Sean’s dad and told him we’d found the body of one of our boys down on the beach. Then, within only a few hours, they arrived.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Goddamned near everyone by the look of it. Army first, then later on some navy ships and still more army. They closed off the beach and spent several days out there looking for the plane that poor lad had come from. They never found it, though. Those navy ships trawled this way and that way out to sea for near on a week. Then overnight, in fact, the night before VE day was announced, they just disappeared. Ships, army, barbed wire, everything . . . just vanished into the night.’
    ‘And you’re certain they were looking for the plane?’
    ‘Yessir, that’s what it looked like. They sure as hell wanted to find that plane out there. And I