Chameleon. Mark Burnell
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who’d taught her that was Iain Boyd, a reclusive figure cut from Sutherland granite. Boyd’s past lay with the military. The details of that past were consigned to files that had been conveniently lost so that his career was now a matter of sinister silence. More than any other individual, he’d been responsible for turning Stephanie Patrick into Petra Reuter. He’d taught her how to survive in the harshest conditions, how to kill, how to feel nothing. Under his supervision, she had become stronger, faster and fitter than she’d ever imagined she could be. As teachers went, Boyd had been harsh, sometimes cruel. As curricula went, the lessons had been distasteful, sometimes brutal. As pupils went, Stephanie had never been less than exceptional.
She saw him through the carriage window as the ScotRail train slowed to a halt at Lairg Station. Big-boned but lean, with weather-beaten skin, he was leaning against a Land-Rover, arms crossed, a stiff wind raking thick blond hair. He wore old jeans, hiking boots and an olive T-shirt.
Stephanie was the only passenger to disembark. Boyd opened the Land-Rover door for her but made no attempt to help her with her rucksack. They pulled away from the station, passed through Lairg and travelled along the east flank of Loch Shin. Boyd drove fast, squeezing past other vehicles in the narrow passing spaces, occasionally allowing two wheels to chew the sodden verges. Stephanie clutched the door handle tightly and hoped he wouldn’t notice.
The clouds raced them north, allowing occasional patches of brilliant sunlight. For a moment, there would be a shimmer of gold, purple, emerald green and rust, then the reversion to slate grey. The wind made the white grass a turbulent sea. They drove past the crumbling shells of stone houses left derelict since the early nineteenth century, past the boarded windows of houses more recently abandoned. The scars of progress. Intermittently, near the road’s edge, they passed stacks of peat, cut in rectangles, piled high, awaiting collection and a slow burn in some local grate.
As they overtook a yellow lorry – the local mobile public library – Boyd said, ‘Alexander tells me you’ve been living in the south of France.’
‘Yes.’
‘Under the surname Schneider.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Your mother’s maiden name.’
‘Yes.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s very disappointing. You of all people, Stephanie.’
At the Laxford Bridge, they turned right, then right again, onto a rough track. It twisted and turned, compromising to the demands of the terrain. Over jagged ground, around vast boulders of granite sheathed in soggy moss, through pools of peaty water, across uneven bridges constructed from old railway sleepers.
She knew what lay ahead: bruises, strains, cold, exhaustion. Despite that, she felt at home. Or rather, she felt a connection. The further north she’d travelled, the clearer her mind had become. It was three days since Martin Palmer’s failed assessment of her. She’d seen the resignation in Alexander’s eyes; Boyd had been the only option. She was under no illusion about the regime but she was glad to be back.
The lodge was close to the loch, on a gentle grass incline, high enough to be safe from floodwater. Fifty yards away were three long cabins with new tarpaper roofs. Between them and the lodge, a large garage doubled as a workshop. Behind the lodge, there was a general outhouse and a second, smaller outhouse containing a diesel generator.
When she’d been here before it had been winter and she and Boyd had been alone, but during the summer months he ran corporate outward-bound courses, designed to foster teamwork among jaded office workers. Sometimes, the company client asked him to identify specific qualities among individuals in each group. Who’s a natural leader but doesn’t know it? Who thinks they’re a leader but won’t carry the others? Who’s the subversive troublemaker?
The courses ran from May to the end of September. The men and women Boyd hired as help were all former colleagues from the armed services. During the winter, when the place was closed, Boyd remained open to friends. That category included special requests from the military. Or from climbers looking for tough physical conditioning. Or from Alexander.
Boyd brought the Land-Rover to a sharp halt outside the lodge.
‘We’ve got a group in just now so you’ll be staying with me. You might see them from time to time, but you’re not to speak to them. Understood?’
‘Yes.’
‘Same goes for the staff. Not a word.’
‘Whatever you say.’
His look was withering. ‘That’s exactly bloody right, Stephanie. Whatever I say.’
The first fortnight was a routine that didn’t vary; the bedroom door banging open in the darkness, the cold dawn run, the medicinal heat of the shower, breakfast at a scrubbed wooden kitchen table. Boyd tended not to eat with Stephanie. Between breakfast and lunch, they sparred, self-defence or attack, mostly with hands, sometimes with blades. He reminded her how to transform a household implement into a weapon, how to kill with a credit card, how to incapacitate with a paper clip. They studied points of vulnerability: joints, arteries, eyes.
These sessions usually occurred in the garage, a space large enough to take three trucks. There were kayaks stacked on racks along two walls. At the far end, there was a wooden bench, a heavy vice, trays of oily tools. A punchbag was suspended from the ceiling. He began to instruct her on elements of Thai boxing. He had no interest in the sport itself but admired it for the flexibility and speed of its best practitioners.
Lunch tended to be meagre, a little vegetable soup, some bread, water. Too much food and Stephanie knew she’d throw up during the afternoon. Which most often happened anyway. Boyd didn’t feel he’d worked her hard enough unless she was on the ground, retching. They ran through coarse thigh-high grass that hid the treacherous ruts beneath, up and down scree slopes where even the surest footing failed constantly. Each tumble was marked by a new graze. They ran shin-deep through peat hags of liquid black earth. Stephanie remembered now what she had discovered then: nothing saps energy faster than a peat hag.
They ran in howling winds, through horizontal rain, under crisping summer suns. Even when cold, a northern Scottish sun tanned a skin as quickly and painfully as any other she’d experienced. Mist was the only exception, confining them to areas close to the lodge and loch. There were no patterns in the weather. It was not uncommon to experience all four seasons before lunch and another full year in the afternoon.
Knowing what to expect made it no less painful. The muscles she had allowed to soften burned in protest. Aches matured into cramps. Grazes and cuts were constantly aggravated and so never healed. Boyd kept her on the edge of exhaustion and she understood why; he wanted to provoke a reaction. Physical or emotional, either or both.
Four years before, Boyd had bullied her. That had been his task – to make her quit. The regime had been executed to a score of abuse. This time, it was different. Too much had passed between them the first time. From RSM and raw recruit, to mentor and understudy. Behind the granite façade, Boyd had been proud of her then. And she had felt some pride, too. In the end, he’d treated her with respect. There’d been equality. And with that, there had been something else. A subversive sexual undercurrent.
Neither had acknowledged it. Neither had wanted to.
Now, Boyd retained the power to intimidate but not indiscriminately. He’d tried to break her once and failed. They understood something of each other. They were not so different. The element of hostility upon which Boyd’s training regime relied felt contrived. He knew that Stephanie would never do anything less than he ordered. She would always try to do more to show that her spirit had always been beyond his reach and, by proxy, beyond Alexander’s.
In the evenings, Boyd allowed her to have a bath instead of a shower, to cleanse and soothe her collage of cuts and bruises. While she was soaking, he prepared supper. Some nights he ate with her, most nights he didn’t. Afterwards, he read by the peat fire in the sitting room, or went to his small office, shutting the door on her. She was free to do as she pleased. That meant going to bed