Far North - Michael Ridpath [54]
He looked up the lush green flank of the fell. It was still dark, but the edges of the clouds gathering around its upper slopes were tinged with a bluish shade of grey. There was a breeze, but it wasn’t as strong as the day before. He hoped it would be calmer where he was going, and that he would be able to see.
Ten minutes later he was in the cloud. A further twenty minutes and he was out of it again. He was scrambling downhill into a valley, with steep sides but a flat strip of marsh grass running along next to a stream. Isolated. Quiet. And sheltered from the wind. Perfect.
It was definitely dawn now, although the sun was hidden by layers of roiling cloud. He paused and slid the bag off his shoulder. An unseen golden plover emitted a series of peeps nearby.
He unzipped the bag and lifted out the rifle, a bolt-action Remington 700. It was three years since he had fired it, and he was out of practice. He spotted a patch of dryish grass next to a stone, and laid the rifle to rest there. Then he took the empty petrol container out of the bag and paced out one hundred and twenty-five metres along the side of the stream. The elevation had dropped a few metres that far downstream, so he looked for a likely boulder on which to place the container so that it would be at about the same height as the stone. Then he returned to the rifle.
Tomorrow, he would only get one chance. He would be using a similar rifle, the same model, but not the same weapon. The ammunition was the same, he had checked that, 7 mm Remington. They had examined Google Earth to estimate the range, somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and fifty metres. At two hundred metres the bullet should go pretty much where he aimed it. At one hundred and twenty-five, there would be about a six centimetre rise, meaning he would have to aim a little low, only a little. Six centimetres was not much when compared to the size of a man’s chest.
Since he would be firing an unfamiliar rifle with no time to check that it was zeroed in correctly, he had decided not to use a scope. Plus a scope could get banged about and knocked off zero while the weapon was being concealed. So, open sights. Keep it simple, fewer things to go wrong.
It had been easy with the handgun, even though he had never fired one before that evening. At two metres he couldn’t miss the banker. Everything had been prepared perfectly then: the plan, the weapon, the motorbike. He hoped the preparation would work out as well this time. There was no reason to believe it shouldn’t.
He lay down on the grass, rested the rifle on the stone, and aimed at the petrol container. Then he lowered the barrel a touch to allow for the rise, and gently squeezed the trigger. He felt the familiar kick in his shoulder, heard the shot echo around the little valley, but saw rock splinter just below the container. A pair of golden plovers took to the air, complaining loudly.
He cursed. He had overcompensated for the rise. He operated the bolt mechanism. Aimed. Fired again. This time the container leapt backwards off the boulder on to the ground beneath. He aimed, fired again. Again the container jumped. And again. And again.
He smiled. He could do this.
‘That was quite a night,’ said Sharon. Magnus and she were sitting in the conference room nursing cups of strong black coffee. She looked like death. ‘It’s a while since I’ve had a night like that.’
‘Traditional Icelandic Friday night,’ Magnus said. ‘Or at least half of one.’
‘Half of one?’
‘Yeah. We went home at about one, I think. A lot of people don’t finish until four or five.’
‘Young people,’ Sharon said. ‘Oh, hi, Vigdís. You don’t look too bad.’
‘Gódan daginn,’ said Vigdís with a smile. She was carrying her own cup and took a seat with them. ‘Og takk fyrir sídast.’
Sharon laughed. ‘Oh, I get it. It’s like last night never happened, is it?’
Vigdís glanced at Magnus. ‘Já.’
‘That means “yes”,’ said Magnus. ‘Where’s Árni?’
‘He’s got the weekend off,’ Vigdís said.
‘Was it my imagination, or was my son arrested last night?’ Sharon asked.