The Kanchenjunga Manifesto—Chapter One

A serialised novel of dark deeds and the great outdoors.

Author's Note

The book was completed in 2017 and I've chosen not to update it. Perhaps most significantly, the timing of full moons, which is integral to the sequence of events, follows that year's calendar. Many other things, like ferry schedules, were carefully checked at the time but may have changed since. (Don't use this book as a travel guide!) References to politics and current events are also contemporary as of eight years ago.

All the locations of the Golden Horde’s ‘exploits’ are real and, I’m very glad to say, intact. However, the house above Loch Shieldaig is a figment of my imagination; there is no little tree-backed inlet along that shore. Similarly, Longsleddale is a real valley but the hideaway there is a composite of other houses in other parts of the Lake District; I’ve also taken liberties with the disposition of rights of way and stands of trees in the valley. Perhaps I’m playing games with geography similar to those which Arthur Ransome played so well in his ‘lake country’. Don’t look for a real-world equivalent to Peggy’s house on the outskirts of Lancaster either.

I'm very happy, for personal reasons (and because it was the right thing to do), that civil partnerships became available for mixed-sex couples in England and Wales at the start of 2020 and in Scotland from June 2021. If Leigh and Simon chose to follow this path, they would have had a bit of a wait—but not as long as ours!

I’d like to thank all those who have (unwittingly) aided my grasp of police procedure. I’ve drawn on sources from Dick Francis to Death in Paradise, but most significantly those great writers, Ian Rankin and Kate Atkinson. If Leigh occasionally strays from the straight and narrow of strict procedure, she’s still playing with a straight bat compared to John Rebus.

1: Simon

Hoy, Orkney Islands, May

None of the others actually saw the explosion, the momentary fire ripping out from the base of the Old Man. None of them saw the shards of rock spraying into the air, hurtling ahead of the billows of dust.

They all said afterward that they heard my shocked yelp before the dull, gut-punch, thump of the explosion, were already turning toward me as it hit: a salvo of booming detonations, reverberations in our chests, through the soles of our feet. Then for a brief suspended moment it all went quiet, the splash and rattle of falling debris merely backdropping the silence.

I suppose we all thought, in that unbelieving instant, that the Old Man was going to survive. But then there was an agonised grating sound, so low we felt it more than we heard it. The topmost blocks began to tilt and then, as if in ultra-slo-mo, the whole thing began to lean.

"Get back from the edge," said Jez urgently, but none of us could move, not even him. We stood there as the Old Man of Hoy slowly tilted to the north, coming apart as it crashed into the sea, sending waves halfway up the cliffs in ice-green foaming chaos.

“Get back," said Jez again and this time we ran.

A minute later, on the moor, it was as if nothing had happened. The breeze whispered softly in the sedges and, out of sight, the sea had resumed its restless murmur. It was as if we’d imagined that moment, a collective hallucination. As if in reality we’d just arrived, about to pose for the obligatory selfies ("is a group selfie a groupie?" Dino had asked). But no, we’d done that, I knew. I knew that I'd lingered a moment, phone still in hand. I’d been thinking about digging the SLR out for a proper photo, but first, I thought, a wee panoramic video. Any maybe I just wanted that moment all to myself, to take it all in. I'm finally here.

The Old Man of Hoy had been in my mind for half my life, a dream in Old Red Sandstone. Even Dino had been struck dumb for a moment. Britain’s grandest sea-stack, a hundred and fifty metres of rock, skinny as a skyscraper, looking like it should sway in the wind. I’d been glad the day was almost calm, though the sea still churned itself white on the rocks surrounding the base of the column.

For long moments more we just stood, staring at each other, silent. It almost seemed as if, as long as none of us said anything about it, it might not really have happened. Slowly, tentatively, we crept back to the edge; it seemed stable enough. We peered down into the gulf. We saw what none of us wanted to believe; and suddenly we were all talking at once.

"What just happened?"

"Didn't happen. Did—not—happen."

"I don't fucking believe it."

"Half an hour later and we'd have been on that thing."

And then Dino turned to me. "Did you get any pictures, Si?"

I looked at him a moment; then laughter was almost torn from me. "Fuck me, I videoed the whole fucking thing."

"That vid's going to be worth some serious money."

I just looked at him. I couldn't deal with it all yet. My knees went wobbly and suddenly I was sitting on the yellow grass trying not to weep. "I can't believe this just happened," I said. "Some fucker just blew up the Old Man of Hoy."

"Blew it up?"

"Are you serious? I thought it just…”

"You have got to be fucking kidding, mate."

"I'm not kidding. There was an explosion. You all heard it. You felt it. And I fucking filmed it."

They were still staring at me. “Look at this if you don’t believe me,” I said angrily—though it wasn’t really them I was angry with. We clustered together, heads close so we could all see, backs to the sun to shade the screen. There it was, unmistakable even in that tiny image, the flash, the rapidly-ballooning clouds of smoke or dust or whatever it was.

Another appalled silence.

“Shit,” said Dino, “What do we do now?”

“Well,” said Jez in his driest tones, “I don’t think we need to bother about the descent any more.”

We all laughed. I guess you’d call it hysterical. We were appalled, of course, that someone had blown up one of the most famous bits of rock in the British Isles, but there was also massive relief that we were all unscathed. As someone had just said, half an hour later and we would have been, if not actually on the climb, probably at the bottom uncoiling ropes and tying on. We wouldn't have stood a chance.

“We need to report this,” said Mel. She was right, of course. But—also of course—there was no mobile signal up there on the cliff-top.

And so, hours earlier than expected, we began the moorland trudge back to Rackwick. The three kilometres seemed longer this time. There were long, stunned, disbelieving silences, punctuated by sudden outbursts of ‘who the fuck would do a thing like that?’ or ‘thank christ we didn’t set the alarm like Simon wanted to’.

Just above the village, Mel stopped us. “Guys, I’ve got a signal. Who are we going to call?”

“Who ya gonna call?” chirped Dino in his best Ghostbusters voice.

“Shut up, Dino,” said Mel. She was right. It wasn’t funny. She looked at Jez, at me. “It’s not exactly a 999 call, is it?”

“Just call the local cops,” said Jez.

“Is there even a police station on the island?” I said.

“There must be one in Stromness,” said Mel. “I don’t suppose any of you have got 3G? No? God, when was the last time I phoned directory enquiries?”

Finally she got through to someone in Stromness. Even hearing only her half of the conversation, it was clear she was having difficulty convincing them that we weren’t time-wasters. “Listen,” she said finally, “We even have it on video. Yes, clear as anything… Right, we’ll do that, then. Bye.”

“Jee-sus,” she said, pocketing the phone, “You’d think it was a kitty up a tree or something. But listen, I think we need to get a shift on…”

This was the plan: we'd drive to the passenger ferry; with a little luck we’d make the 10.30 sailing. Mel and I would cross to Stromness, she because she’d made the call, I because I’d shot the video. Jez and Dino would go back to the bunkhouse, pack up the rest of our gear, then head to Stromness via the car ferry, a considerably more circuitous journey.

If you’re enjoying this chapter and you’d like to show appreciation without becoming a paid subscriber, you could always…

We reached the ferry with all of five minutes to spare. The short crossing was an interval of calm after the shock of the morning, the scramble to get here. We hardly spoke, still trying to take it in. Perhaps she was reflecting, as I was, that no-one else, passengers or crew, had any idea what had happened. Locals scanning their phones or chatting, visitors looking out for seals or porpoises.

I pulled out my own phone. Before we’d docked in Stromness, I'd sussed the route to the police station. Five minutes later, we found ourselves in front of a surprisingly elegant stone building, more like a grand house than a functional public building.

“Well,” said Mel, “Shall we?”

I understood her hesitation. It all felt crazy, unreal, here in the unruffled normality, the quiet bustle of a small island town. But I felt the weight of my iPhone in my pocket, the weight of the moment it had captured. “After you.”

Either the Sergeant on the front desk wasn’t the same one Mel had spoken to earlier, or he’d had a rethink. Perhaps people who show up in person are less likely to be time-wasters than those who just phone in. In any case, I had the video ready to go and within a couple of minutes he was on the phone to someone in Kirkwall. I couldn’t follow all the conversation, sotto voce in a strong Orcadian accent, but I clearly heard, “It looks real enough to me but I’m no expert.”

He listened a moment, looked up at me. “Can you email it to my colleague in Kirkwall?”

“The file’s probably too big for regular email. But there’s a thing called MailDrop.” I’d never sent anything that way myself but recently a client had sent me a video direct from their iPad. “What’s the email address?”

The call back came within ten minutes. “They’re on their way. Should be about twenty minutes. Can I just take a few more details and then I’ll sort you out with a cup of tea…?”

By twelve we were siting in an interview room, with an Inspector Tait, also Orcadian by his accent. A young, female, English-sounding Detective Sergeant was taking notes. We ran once more through sequence of events, timings, explained that the others would be arriving later, but not before one-thirty.

“Now,” said Tait, scratching a smooth-shaven chin. “What occurs to me is… it seems like an almighty coincidence that it went off just as you were pointing your phone in that direction.”

“Are you suggesting—?”

He smiled. “Are you confessing?”

“Hell, no,” I said. Mel was shaking her head, fury in her eyes. “If we’d just blown up the Old Man of Hoy would we walk in here and tell you all about it?”

He smiled again. Sharp teal-blue eyes. “Stranger things have happened. People who do this sort of thing—arson’s more common, but I imagine the Old Man’s fairly fireproof—it’s usually about attention. And reporting a crime yourself does add to the excitement for some… But at the moment that’s not my working hypothesis. No, I’m thinking that by being there, preparing to climb, you tipped someone’s hand. You definitely didn’t see anyone else about?”

“No, but we weren’t particularly looking out for anyone, except…"

"Yes?"

"Well, we wanted to be sure there was no-one ahead of us on the climb itself.”

“And someone on the cliffs further north, maybe with binoculars, could easily have seen what you were doing.”

“Or in a boat,” said Mel.

“Aye, both possible.” He moved, suddenly, decisively. “I need to speak to colleagues on the mainland. Give me five minutes, would you?”

It was longer than five, but less than ten. Apart from asking if we wanted more tea, the DS ignored us, going over her notes. “There’s a DCI flying in from Aberdeen," said Tait, re-entering the room. "But she isn’t due into Kirkwall until ten to five. Apparently they’ve been having a conference there about this kind of thing.”

“Is there a ‘this kind of thing’?” asked Mel. There is now, I thought, and almost laughed out loud: the hysteria still bubbling under.

He shrugged. “Well, we don’t yet know what this is all about, but somebody’s obviously got hold of a significant load of explosives and the means to trigger them remotely. That rings certain alarm bells, you might say. There are angles we need to look at… Now, what were your plans for tonight?”

“We were supposed to be in Stromness celebrating climbing the Old Man of Hoy,” I said, a sudden wave of sadness washing over me. Sadness… no, call it what it was: grief.

“So you’ve got accommodation booked locally?… Do you mind meeting with me and DCI Summers at about 5.30? Meanwhile, go get some lunch, try and relax if you can… but please don’t leave the island.”

Read Chapter Two Now