North Star

CHAPTER ONE

There was no sign of the rig when we arrived at the location shortly after 11.00 on Sunday, 20th April. The Decca ship was lying hove-to ahead of two marker buoys in line. The dan-buoys marking the position of the eight anchors were already laid, spread uniformly round the drilling site, which itself was marked with a yellow-flagged buoy. All the dan-buoys had lights. I steamed within hailing distance of the Decca ship and asked her skipper when the rig would arrive.

'You on stand-by?' He was a small man with a bright red woollen cap on a round bullet head. 'Last I heard the ETA was 17.00. But she'll be later than that. The tug's under-powered for the job, and even with the two supply ships towing they made barely a knot and a half yesterday. The wind veering may help.'

They'll be anchoring at night then?'

'Sure they will, and that could be a fine balls-up, so keep well clear unless they start hollering for help.

Only a few weeks ago I fished one poor bugger out. It was black as a crow's arse and when we did get him we found the anchor hawser had taken half his head off. You tell your crew to watch those boys doing their stuff on the flat-iron decks of the supply ships, then they'll realize what cushy jobs they got.' He grinned, waving and turning back into his bridge.

The cook was standing at the rail below me and I heard him say, 'Aye, but they're in town several nights a week, not stuck out here for three bluidy months.' His name was Flett and he came from Orkney.

We could hear the rig's radio traffic, but none of it Voice, and shortly after midday we picked the blip of it up on our radar. By then the sea had gone down, only a slight swell. The wind was south-easterly, light, visibility good, and about an hour later she began to come up over the horizon. The shape of her grew very slowly and we lay wallowing in the swell playing cribbage until late in the afternoon the Decca ship steamed up alongside and asked us to take station four cables on her port side to form a 'gate' leading to the location marker buoys. By then the rig was standing out of the sea like a colossal steel water beetle, her size accentuated by the fact that she was riding high on her four 'torpedoes', which had been de-ballasted to within about twenty feet of the surface. She was still more than two miles away, and as we moved into position, a last watery gleam from the setting sun shone on the high antenna of the drill tower, the name North Star showing clear on the side of the platform. She was turning now, very gradually, to enter the 'gate'

against the tide, our radio picking up the barge engineer's instructions to the two supply ships and the tug, which was already dropping its tow.

'North Star to Bowstring — as soon as we are in position over ze marker I tell you, then you leave Rattler to hold us and lay out ze first anchor, is it?'

'Roger North Star.'

'Is Number Two anchor ze virst one.' A Dutchman by the sound of it, and in that last gleam we could see two figures on the helicopter deck, one with a walkie-talkie to his mouth as he acted as towmaster.

'Roger — out.'

And then the other ship's captain: 'You're relying on the tide to hold her, but suppose we get a cross-wind?'

'Ze forecast is good — so ve lay anchors vast and everyzing okay, is it.'

'Is it?' The voice crackled with emphasis. 'You don't have to lay the bloody anchors in the dark, mate.'

'Then ve lay them again tomorrow if zey are no good,' the Dutchman replied imperturbably. And, much fainter, another voice — 'See they lay them right first time, Pieter. I don't want any hold-up when the drilling crews…' The voice faded, but something in the crispness of it made me wonder if that was Villiers standing up there beside the barge engineer. I remembered reading some years back that he had had a narrow escape when the prototype belonging to a small aircraft company he had acquired crashed while doing landing and take-off tests. He was the sort of a man who would get a kick out of being on the spot at the start of a new venture.

The lurid gleam of sunlight vanished, the rig moving ponderously. Dusk came fast with low cloud rolling in, the huge structure abreast of us, twenty steel columns riding high on submerged pontoons with the derrick a latticed finger thrusting at the overcast, the ruby glow of its warning lights giving it a festive air. Decca to North Star, North Star to Rattler — our bridge radio crackled with instructions as the rig, a blaze of lights now, approached the tiny pinpoint of the location buoy.

It was night before North Star was in position and Bowstring, the smaller of the two supply ships, closed stern-on for her towing hawser to be let go. The time was 21.17. An arc light swung as the rig's crane moved, one of the crew clinging like a fly to the deck rails, hand on the heavy hook, guiding it into the eye of an anchor pennant. The brontosaurus-like head of the crane reared up to lift the anchor clear of its housing on the underwater section of the column, then bowed downwards as Bowstring backed in, men moving on the flat deck of the supply ship, balanced on the stern just clear of the roller, reaching out with gloved hands to connect the pennant to their winch hawser, and the mate standing with his walkie-talkie to his ear.

I had closed in to watch how it was done, the crane head rising again and Bowstring pouring a white froth from her stern as the winch roared, the pennant dragging at the 15-ton anchor till the big shackle at the top of its stock came clear of the water, held hard against the fat round barrel of the stern-roller. The heavy clamp, secured by a strop to the bulwarks, was snapped on, the men on deck shackling on the long pennant wire attached to one of the three-ton anchor buoys and a winch drum high up on the corner of the rig paying out cable as the tow began, out to the pinprick light of the anchor position marker rising and falling in the swell.

It took almost an hour to lay that one anchor, the men on the supply ship never still, moving so nimbly as their flat craft wallowed with its load that they looked like ballet dancers on the lit stage of the after deck. By midnight the second anchor was down and Rattler, released from her tow, had joined Bowstring, the crane in almost constant motion as it fed pennants and buoys to the two of them. And all the time we lay hove-to and rolling just clear of the anchor cable lines, our radio tuned to the walkie-talkie talk. There was only one hitch, and that was towards dawn.

'North Star to Duchess… close in to No. 5 — ve haf No. 5 anchor jammed and are zending divers down.'

Two divers in wet suits, with aqualungs on their backs, were lowered by crane in a steel cage, their torches shining like sea luminosity as they swam around the column housing of No. 5. The pennant wire had wrapped itself round one of the anchor flukes and we lay there, with the rig towering above us, while the pennant was cleared and dropped and a new pennant shackled on, the anchor hoisted clear by an auxiliary winch on the rig's deck.

It was daylight by the time that last anchor was laid and the rig held by all eight winches under correct tension. Bowstring was already over the horizon, Rattler hull-down, both on their way back to Aberdeen. The Decca ship had gone during the night. Only ourselves left now, a lone trawler keeping watch around the rig. It was 06.28 and I handed over to Johan and turned in.

I had hardly closed my eyes, it seemed, before a hand was shaking me and Henrik's voice said, 'The rig has sent a boat for you.' It was an inflatable rescue boat with one of the divers at the outboard motor, an Italian with dark curly hair and thin olive features. 'Issa Mr Villiers. 'E wanta speak wiz you.'

It was a bumpy ride, and the boat driven at speed and the northerly breeze kicking up small waves, only snatches of talk possible. His name was Alfredo and he was one of the divers who had been down clearing the anchor. 'Issa very cold, si… Where is my 'ome? It is Milano. But not in a long time, I mean.' He had been in the North Sea for two years now, before that in Nigeria. 'Si, I have a wife and two bambini. Those-a boys, they are growing with a Scotch accent.' White teeth flashing with laughter and the bows dropping as we swept in under the giant pier-shadow of the rig. The slop of waves against the columns, the swirl of the tide running, and then the rusty iron of an endless stairway embracing a column and rising to the distant glint of sky high above. 'You go to toolpusher's office. They tella you where is Mr Villiers. Okay?'

Even though the ballast tanks had been blown and the torpedo-shaped pontoons sunk from the towing to the drilling depth of almost sixty feet, I reckoned it was well over fifty feet from sea level to the helicopter deck. I came out just beside the monstrous drum of No. 4 winch. The toolpusher's office was a steel shack, the entrance leading off the helicopter deck, and behind it was the pipe deck piled high with pipe, steel casing, drill bits, all the ironmongery of drilling, some 2,000 tons of it. Beyond the pipe deck was the steel skid for lifting pipe to the derrick floor, and reared above it, like an enormous pylon, the derrick tower itself.

I pushed open the door of the toolpusher's office and a leathery-faced man wearing a bright red peaked cap looked up from the girlie picture mag he was reading. Behind him was a complicated diagram with the emergency indicators for blow-out prevention. Of course, they would have precautions, and that diagram, so detailed, so comprehensive — I stood there for a moment staring up at it. Pipe rams, blind shear — I can't remember all of them, but four or five fail-safes, each with a red warning light to beam out its danger signals once action had been taken. With all those safety measures there did not seem much danger of a dragging anchor causing oil pollution.

'You looking for somebody?' The man in the peaked cap was regarding me suspiciously.

'Mr Villiers,' I said. More than anything else the sight of that diagram brought home to me the nature of this colossal machine, the complications of operating deep under water and deeper still into layers of rock below the seabed.

Offhandedly he directed me to the barge engineer's office. This was one deck down into the crew's quarters, right opposite the ballast control room. I caught a glimpse of an engineer seated at an enormous console full of pressure gauges and the whole wall facing him taken up by a diagram panel with red and green lights, flanked by ballast indicators that looked like giant temperature gauges. Then I was into the office and two men were standing at a table in the corner, poring over a large design sheet, their white safety helmets perched on a pile of books. They turned as I entered and one of them, a short bulky man with hair that stood up like a brush and very blue eyes in a crinkled sun-worn face, folded the design, leaning on it with his hands. He wore a faded anorak over a grubby T-shirt. The other was dressed in a sky-blue sweater, with the clean collar of a white shirt showing above it, and neatly creased, immaculate trousers. He was taller, thinner, with livelier features. 'You the skipper of that trawler?' he asked. I nodded and he held out his hand. 'Vic Villiers.' His grip was firm, his eyes on my face, summing me up. 'A long night, eh?'

'I had just turned in,' I said.

'Sorry about that. How would you like to be running one of those supply ships?'

'I think I might have a nervous breakdown.'

He laughed. 'You've never seen a rig laying anchors before?'

'No.'

'Nor had I. Fascinating!' There was an undercurrent of excitement in his voice. 'This is Pieter van Dam.' He turned to the man beside him. 'God knows how many times he's done it, eh, Pieter? And not an ulcer in his belly.'

The Dutchman's stolid face broke into a smile as he made an exaggerated effort to pull in his protruding stomach. 'The ulcers only come ven you begin losing lifes, is it?'

'Well, you're not losing any here.' There was a subtle change in Villiers's manner, the smile gone and the moment of humour with it. 'You're off on the first flight, aren't you? I'll see you before you go.' He gave a brief nod of dismissal and turned to me. 'Sit down.' He waved me to one of the chairs drawn up round a low table littered with empty coffee cups and oil industry magazines. The door closed behind the Dutchman and we were alone. The room was stuffy, full of stale cigarette and cigar smoke, the glare of fluorescent lighting. I was nervous and suddenly very tired, the all-pervading hum of machinery a soporific.

'You wanted to see me,' I murmured. He was standing there, staring at me, and I wondered whether he suspected anything. 'Is it about the work permits?' If it wasn't about the work permits…

'We had a report, of course. Putting to sea like that was a little high-handed, the sort of thing that upsets the locals.' But he was smiling as he sat down opposite me. 'I've had Fuller open an office in Scalloway now. He'll fix it for you. In any case, you don't have to worry about work permits here.' He stretched out his legs, leaning back, the light on the dark stubble of his jaw. 'What did you think of Fuller by the way?'

I shrugged. What the hell did he expect me to say? 'He's a good man from your point of view.'

'No hard feelings?'

'What about?'

His hand had moved to the table, long sensitive fingers beating a light tattoo. 'That charter. He pulled a fast one on you, didn't he?'

'I imagined it was your idea to buy the mortgage.'

'Well, that much of it is to your advantage, so long as you do the job and stay on station.' He sat there for a moment, staring at me, not saying anything, and I had a feeling he was trying to make up his mind about something, the fingers still tapping at the table top. 'You're wondering why I got you over here, after we've both of us been up all night.' His tanned face was handsome, almost boyish, his eyes dark under dark brows, his hair almost black. 'You probably think that because I deal in company finance I'm not interested in people. But running a business or running a trawler, it's the same thing — everybody's got to fit. You, for instance.' He shifted a little forward in his chair. 'What made you salvage that boat and then take on a three-month charter?'

'It's suitable employment for an old trawler.'

'And you like the sea.' He smiled, leaning back again. He knew it didn't answer his question, but he let it go, asking me instead about the salvage and how we had managed to get her off the rocks and repaired in time. He seemed genuinely interested. It was a side of him I hadn't expected, an enthusiasm for physical practicalities, and as I tried to answer his detailed questions, I began to understand what it was that had induced him to gamble in oil, why he was out here taking a personal interest in the anchoring of this rig he had acquired more or less by chance. And because he seemed impressed by what we had done, I found myself warming to him.

It was very naive of me, but I was tired and the atmosphere relaxed. And when he progressed to enquiring about my background, it seemed quite natural. I suppose I was a little flattered, too, and because I thought his questions stemmed from a businessman's desire to make the fullest use of anybody associated with him, I told him just enough about myself to give him confidence.

'So your stepfather was an industrialist?'

'Yes — a small arms factory. That was during the war. Afterwards he switched to consumer durables.'

'And you came over to England to study at the LSE and work as a financial journalist.' But instead of asking me why I hadn't stayed in journalism, he began discussing the present economic outlook, the fuel situation and the future of the country in a monetary world dominated by the oil revenues of Middle East potentates. He was even more optimistic than the press, or even the politicians, believing that offshore oil could solve Britain's whole balance of payment problems. It was a long time since I had talked to anybody of his calibre and, tired as I was, I found it immensely stimulating.

'So we have this chance to become rich again, to change the whole economic climate of the country. But what about the political climate? Will that change?' And without thinking I said, 'Yes. The political climate depends on the economic, doesn't it?' And I added, conscious that I was now giving form to thoughts that had been vaguely in my mind for some time, 'This is something our political leaders, certainly our union leaders, have been slow to grasp. The mass of the people, of course, they haven't a clue — not about economics. But the political climate, that's different. They are the political climate, and in some subtle way they sense a change without understanding the cause.'

'You really think that?'

'Yes, I do. You change the economic climate, then the political climate must change, too.''

He shook his head. 'I see your point. But I can't go along with you. It's the chicken and the egg. The economic climate is dependent on union co-operation. No union co-operation, no change in the country's economy. Maybe that's what they want, eh?'

'The militants, yes,' I said. 'They want anarchy.

But that's not what the rank and file of the trade union movement wants. I'm convinced of that.'

He looked at me, a quick, appraising stare. 'Changed your spots, haven't you?'

The question brought me up with a jolt. 'How do you mean?'

'Your background,' he said. 'You missed out on a few details.' His manner had toughened, the friendliness gone. 'Perhaps if I tell you an Inspector Garrard came to see me at my offices in London — to warn me about you…'

The tiredness came back, a sense of weariness, of deflation. 'Why the hell didn't you tell me?' I got to my feet, suddenly furious — furious because I knew Garrard had been right to warn him. But to spring it on me like this… 'If you want to break that charter agreement, you'll have to buy me out.'

'You'll fight, is that it?'

'Yes. I haven't spent a month of my life slaving to get that trawler ready for sea…" But what was the use? Everything I did — all my life… that devil Stevens had been right, the past would always dog me. 'I have a police dossier. But how you read it depends whose side you're on.' I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice, seeing him, sitting there, a man who had got himself to a position of power by using money the way a militant like Scunton would use a mob — what was the difference?

'Sit down,' he said quietly.

But I didn't move, seeing him as representing everything I had fought against, and that voice of his, so accustomed to command he didn't have to shout. It was men like Villiers who turned youngsters into anarchists.

'Sit down,' he said again. And as I hesitated, he added, 'Now I've talked with you I have a proposition.'

He waited until I was seated, and then he said, 'Garrard showed me your file, yes. And I agree that most of it is open to different interpretations, according to whether you're a capitalist or a socialist. But it was somewhat alarming from my point of view.' He paused. 'Except for one thing. It doesn't explain what induced you to become a trawlerman, or why a man with your record of industrial action should commit himself so wholeheartedly to the salvage and management of a vessel for gain. That's capitalism by my reckoning.' He raised his hand. 'No, don't interrupt me please. And don't look so stubbornly defensive. I'm not going to enquire your reasons. I wouldn't get a sensible answer anyway. In fact, I doubt if you really know yourself.'

'What's your proposition?' I said.

But he ignored that. 'I have to consider the safety of the men on this rig. And that's not all. There's a lot of money locked up in the rig itself that would be better employed elsewhere if there were any real risk. Also, of course — and this is between ourselves — we are very confident that we are sitting on oil — right here, this minute.' His fingers were drumming a tattoo again as he stared at me speculatively. 'Suppose you were going to sabotage North Star, how would you go about it?'

The question, so abruptly flung at me, came as a, shock. 'I haven't thought about it,' I told him.

'Well, I have,' he said. 'It's something all rig operators have had to face up to for several years now. Indeed, everything going on to a rig has to be checked for the possibility of explosives. It would have to be explosives, wouldn't it? Pieter van Dam and I were discussing it just before you came in.' Abruptly he got up from his chair and crossed to the corner table. 'Come and have a look.' He unfolded the design sheet again. It was a drawing of the rig's underdeck lay-out. 'There, and there,' he said, stabbing his fingers on the junction points of the cross-struts. 'Two large limpet bombs. Mines perhaps. But if those struts go, then the column towers will fold inwards with the weight of the drill tower and all the mud and fuel and pipe we carry.' He gave me a sidelong glance. 'Our Achilles heel. That and blasting holes in the pontoons.'

'Why are you telling me this?' My mouth felt dry.

'You don't have to be an engineer to identify the weak points of a rig like this one,' he said quietly. 'Anybody with any imagination can see it at a glance. It would mean divers, of course, and they'd have to be transported out here by sea. You're the guard ship. The orders you'll be given require you to make sure no vessel comes within the circle of the anchor buoys, only the supply ships. The crews on those ships have been thoroughly screened.' He turned, looking me straight in the face. 'That leaves you, doesn't it? That trawler of yours is the only ship that has a right to be here — and that I'm not sure about.'

Put like that I could see his point. 'If you don't trust me,' I said uneasily, 'then you'd better find another ship.'

He shook his head. 'As you say, it's very suitable employment for that trawler of yours. You'd require compensation, and anyway, there isn't another in Shetland, not that's available.' He turned away and began pacing the room. Finally he said, 'No. What I've got to do is make certain of you.' He had stopped and was facing me again. 'That's the answer, isn't it?' He went back to his chair and flopped into it, drumming with his fingers on the table top. 'Vulnerable was the word Garrard used. You're vulnerable — because of an incident in Hull. There's a suspicion you might have set fire to the house yourself.'

'Is that what he told you?'

'He didn't put it as bluntly, but that was the implication.' He stared at me, waiting, and when I didn't say anything, he went on, 'Fuller went into this charter blind, knowing nothing about you. It was a mistake, and now I have to make up my mind — whether to employ you or not. You weren't there by accident, were you?'

'Have you been in touch with the police handling the case?' I asked.

'Yes, I phoned Hull myself.'

'What do they think?'

'Either you threw that petrol bomb, believing the house to be empty, or you were there because you knew something like that was going to happen. They haven't made up their minds, but don't imagine they've closed the case.'

It was almost two months ago, the memory of that night blurred and unreal here on an oil rig, cocooned in power plant heat, the smell of oil and the background hum of the rig's machinery. 'You may not like my record,' I said, 'but I don't go around throwing petrol bombs.'

'But you were there. Why?'

L I hesitated. He had no right to question me, but it could be a way of clearing myself with the police so I told him about the meeting I had attended in Hull that evening, how it was packed with militants, most of them brought in from industrial towns farther north and some who had no right to be there at all. 'It was a particularly ugly meeting. A union official, who had come up from London, was howled down and virtually kicked off the platform. They'd got pickets on all the shipyard gates, a busload of them from the Tyne, and some from Liverpool, even the Clyde. Pierson & Watt were non-union. They whipped themselves up into a mood where they were ready to march on the offices and smash them up, and a man kept yelling for them to be set on fire. Then somebody, I don't know who — it was just a voice — shouted that the foreman was the bugger to get. The mood was pretty violent by then, half the room on its feet and everybody worked up. Somebody else shouted, "I'll fix the bastard." That was when I left.'

To go and watch the foreman's house.'

'To warn him. I knew Entwisle. I'd been mate on a trawler when it was into Pierson 8c Watt for repairs. But there was no answer when I rang the bell. I thought they were all out.'

'So you hung around.'

'Yes — fortunately as it turned out.'

'And afterwards, why didn't you wait for the police?'

'Why should I? Nobody was hurt.'

'A man's property was set on fire. That's arson.'

'The Fisher Maid was sailing at first light. And my hands hurt. They were cut and slightly burned.'

'So you went off on a distant water trawler. And when you got back, instead of returning to Hull, you headed for Shetland and got involved in salvaging the vessel we've now chartered.' He smiled, shaking his head. 'Some people would regard that as pretty strange behaviour.'

'But you don't?'

'Depends what your motives are. I think I can guess, knowing your background — and now that I've talked to you. You want to make something of your life before it's too late. I could help you there.'

I started to tell him I didn't want his help, that his whole outlook was entirely opposed to mine, but he stopped me. 'Of course our outlooks are different. You've been switching from one thing to another, experimenting with drugs and ideological theories. I've kept to one single basic tenet, the profit motive. You probably abhor that. But you're running your own business now. You'll learn. You can't run even a broken-down old trawler unless your cash flow is sufficient to keep the damn thing afloat.'

I stood there, silent, knowing it was true and that I hadn't considered what would happen when the charter ran out. The scrape of his chair as he got to his feet interrupted my thoughts.

'You're an awkward cuss,' he said. 'I was going to make you an offer — a gamble I suppose you'd call it.'

'I don't gamble,' I told him.

'No? Then why did you salvage that trawler?' He I i was smiling, his tanned, strangely handsome face suddenly alive. 'I'm not talking about cards or betting on horses. I'm talking about pitting one's wits and one's energies against the odds in life. That's what I'm doing drilling out here with this rig. It's what you're doing with that trawler. The rig's old, and so is your ship — both of us taking a chance.' He turned abruptly towards the door. 'Had any breakfast this morning?'

'No.'

'Nor have I.' He pulled it open. 'Let's go and feed. I'll tell you what I have in mind over our bacon and eggs.'

We went down a flight of metal treads to the lower deck of the crew housing. It was hot and airless with the same stale smell of food and oil combined with salt to be found on a ship. The shower was running in the men's room, the glimpse of a fat white body towelling itself, and inside the mess a long aluminium counter with two cooks in white chatting behind it. 'Bacon and eggs twice,' Villiers said. He handed me a plate. Try the rolls. They bake their own on the night watch.'

The room, with its three long, bare-scrubbed tables, was almost empty. We got our coffee from a machine set between windows looking out to an empty sea. The wind had freshened, occasional whitecaps breaking across the low line of the westerly swell. The barge engineer was there, sitting over his coffee with a Dutch cigar. We joined him and the talk centred on the drilling crew coming in on the first helicopter flight. A man named Ken Stewart would be relieving him.

The tool-pusher was American, a hard driver, van Dam said. 'Ed don't waste any time.'

'How long before we start drilling?' Villiers asked.

'Depends on the zeabed. The divers are going down in the bell now. If the zeabed is okay, then maybe tomorrow.'

'Pity, I have to be in Holland tomorrow.'

'Then you give my love to Rotterdam, eh?' And he added, 'Better you go today. Iz full 'ouse ven both drill crews are 'ere.'

The bacon and eggs came and Villiers began discussing gale conditions, up to what wind force the supply boats could keep going and whether the proper tension could be maintained on the anchor cables so that drilling could go on uninterrupted. Except that he was unshaven, it was hard to believe that he had been up all night, his voice quick and concise, his brain sharp. He was brimful of energy and I wondered how many years it would be before he burned" himself out. Every now and then I glanced out of the windows, but the sea remained empty, no sign of the trawler, or any other vessel, in that cold northern light.

At last van Dam left, the whiff of his cigar lingering as Villiers reached for another roll. 'How do you ever keep your ship stocked?' he asked. 'Three nights at sea, no exercise, and I'm so damned hungry… You know, the time I've spent on this rig, it's given me an idea. City rents have reached a point where it would pay to build an office block on pontoons and moor it off the coast. No rents, no rates, and with the sort of radio equipment we've got on North Star there's not ISO much business you can't transact. What do you think of that?'

'Personnel,' I said. 'Drilling, I imagine, is like trawling, it's a way of life.'

He nodded, his mouth full. 'A week on, a week off. Can't do that with office staff. But what about Sparks? His stint is three weeks. It's what you get used to, isn't it?' He was silent a moment, chewing over the idea. 'Sea City… The idea's not new, of course. And there are problems, as you say. But this rig is obsolete now. An easy conversion — and if the experiment came off we'd do a lot better than the scrap value.' He glanced at me. 'Where's your wife now? You're not divorced.'

'I've no idea. She was brought up a Catholic.'

'Irish, I believe.'

'Yes.'

'Communist?'

I didn't answer.

'So you hide yourself away at sea. Well, it would make a nice job for a man like you — the first ever sea office block skipper.'

'Is that your proposition?' I asked him.

He threw back his head and laughed, a gold tooth showing.

'No, not really. But it's an idea.' He pulled out his diary and made a note. 'You go and talk to Sparks. If you've got a girl-friend, ring her up — tell him I said you could. I know a lot about planes, nothing about ships or rigs. But I got through to Frankfurt and Sydney yesterday just as quickly as I could from my office in London, and with the fax machine scrambling teleprint messages can be made safe.' He buttered the other half of his roll. 'That reminds me. I said I'd call Rotterdam…" He glanced at the clock over the door and I knew his mind was switching to whatever business deal it was that required his presence in Holland.

'You said something about an offer,' I reminded him.

He looked at me, the eyes shrewd and calculating. It was a mistake, I had been too eager. He smiled. 'Are you prepared to stay on station until we finish drilling?'

'How long will that be?'

'You tell me how many holes we have to drill before we strike oil and I'll tell you how long. We could strike it first go, but if we don't, then we'll go on drilling till we do. There's no other rig available. Not for this year, anyway. And no other trawler, none as suitable anyway. Did you know that when you told Fuller your plans for salvage and took him down to see her?' He smiled, shaking his head: 'No, of course you didn't, otherwise you wouldn't have been such a fool as to sign that charter.' He leaned back, wiping his mouth and screwing up his paper napkin. 'Nor, did Fuller. We only discovered that after Garrard had been to see me.'

'You looked for a replacement then?'

'Of course we did. But it would have meant delay, and it would have cost more. On a gamble like this I don't believe in spending a penny more than I have to. But if it comes off…' He looked at me, a slight lift IS2 to his dark brows. 'If it comes off, I'll see you get a fat bonus, over and above the charter. That good enough for you?' He wouldn't say how much. 'Depends on the strike, but large enough to give you a future.' It also depended on our remaining on station throughout the period of drilling.

I didn't say anything. To him money was the answer to everything. He'd worked it all out, striking a proper balance in that clear, calculating mind of his. But he didn't have to lie out there in the seas that we should have to face if North Star continued drilling beyond the end of the summer. 'Well, that's settled then.' He took my consent for granted. He was that sort of man, so sure of himself. 'I must go now or Sparks will be paging me on the Tannoy.' He got to his feet. 'I wouldn't want anybody out there in charge of the guard boat who bears me a grudge.' He was smiling, making a joke of it, but then he added, 'Just don't try anything, Randall. You look after my interests and I'll look after you. Paternalism, I think you people call it. But loyalty to one man can be a lot better than owing allegiance to a faceless bureaucracy. Nobody who has worked for me has ever had cause to regret it. Okay?' He nodded, turning quickly and walking to the door.

I watched him as he went out to his appointment over the ether with some executive in Rotterdam. God! How I envied him that self-assurance! I got myself another cup of coffee, lit my pipe and sat there wondering where it would all end. Would they strike oil?

And if they did, would I still be here? I was remembering what he had said about offshore drilling and the country's future, his incredible optimism. By 1980, he had said — a saving of perhaps £5,000 million in foreign exchange… the envy of the world, our industry booming, our currency the strongest in Europe. Tell that to the men in the shipyards or the docks! But he had believed it, that bloody overbearing self-confidence of his. And I had been swept along by his optimism into making statements just as wild. Did I really believe that the political climate was governed by the state of the country's economy? You change the economic climate, I had said, and the political climate must change, too. If I were a capitalist, knowing what I did of grass-roots politics, would I back that statement with my own and other people's money?

A sudden scurry of feet in the passageway outside and a voice shouted, 'Coming in now, Rod.' I got up and went out, past a door marked Sick Bay and up two flights into the open where men were already gathering with their suitcases. The sun was shining and there was an air of expectancy. Van Dam appeared at my side looking diminished and somehow ordinary in a dark blue suit and.a velour hat. 'Iz come yet?' he asked, and at that moment I heard it. A shadow passed across the pipe deck, the roar of engines growing, then a rush of wind and dust blowing.

Three men in safety helmets dashed out from the shelter of the toolpusher's office. The engines died, the whip of the rotor blades subsiding to a whisper. The passengers began to appear, a motley crowd that would only achieve the coherence of a team when they had changed into the rig gear of overalls, rubber boots, gloves and safety helmets. I watched their faces as they passed me, piling down the stairway to their quarters. Somebody dropped a bundle of newspapers at my feet and I saw the headline — North Sea Rig Strikebound. But as I bent down to see what it said, a voice hailed me, a short, tubby man with sandy hair and a bright yellow sweater. 'Remember me? Glasgow, wasn't it?'

I nodded. He was one of the Clydeside men who had been with me when we had clashed with the police outside the Marston yard. 'What are you doing here?' I asked him.

'I'm a motorman now. And you?"

I told him, and he said, 'Aye, I heard ye'd gone into trawlers. Weel, I'll be off now and get settled in.' He gave me a quick grin and I remembered his name as he hurried on down the stairway after his mates. It was Rory — Rory Sullivan. He had been a member of the Boilermakers' Union when I had last seen him. I turned to look again at the packet of newspapers, but it was gone now. The helicopter's engines were roaring and in a moment it lifted clear of the rig, slanting skyward. I watched it disappear behind the derrick, dwindling to a speck as it headed south-east on the sixty-mile flight back to Sumburgh Head. Then I went down to the radio room, thinking about Sullivan and unconscious of the bustle around me.

The radio room was on the lower deck of the crew's quarters and had telecommunications on the door. Villiers was no longer there, only the radio US operator seated at the double-sideband, earphones clamped on his head, his thumb on the key rattling out a message. He wore a white nylon shirt, open-necked and with sleeves rolled up. His arms and face were pale, a cigarette burning in a tobacco tin beside the telex.

There was a chair at a desk in the corner and I sat down, staring at the bank of equipment that filled the far side of the room from floor to ceiling, trying to think out what I was going to say, how I was to get the information I wanted.

It was too good an opportunity to miss. There was so much traffic going out from North Star that it was unlikely anyone would take note of what I was saying, and though Sparks would probably be standing at my elbow listening, it wasn't the same as having my own crew overhear the conversation, rumours flying round the ship and endless speculation.

I was still thinking how I was going to frame my questions when the door opened and two men entered, one of them with a sheet clipped to a board. 'Well, there it is, Ed. Two of them, so you'd better keep your fingers crossed that nobody jams their hand in a winch or gets hit on the head by the kelly.' He was a soft, rather old-maidish little man with a high, piping voice. The other was a big, hard-fisted looking American.

'Split 'em up then, will'ya. Their room mates'll soon tell 'em enough about your ideas of first aid to keep 'em outa that li'l sick bay of yours.' The belly laugh was without humour. 'An' tell 'em this, Lennie — anybody starting a strike on this rig swims for it.'

IS6 His voice was harsh and grating. 'One Scotch, one Irish, you say. Jeez!' He gave a shrug and walked out.

The sick bay attendant pulled out a bench and flopped on to it, taking a pencil from behind his ear and making a note on his pad. 'Poor bastards,' he muttered to nobody in particular. 'Ed'll pass the word to his drillers and they'll drive those boys so hard…" He turned to the operator as he finished sending and spiked his message. 'Any news on Sunray II? Ed's feeling sore about it. He knows the toolpusher.'

Sparks nodded, his eyes magnified by his glasses. 'From what I've picked up so far it appears two of the roustabouts came to blows and were ordered off the rig. One of them refused to board the supply ship and his mates stopped work until the order was cancelled.'

'So the strike's over.' The little man got to his feet. 'I'd better tell Ed. He wants to know what happened.'

'Tell him his pal gave in to them. That'll put him in a fine good humour.' And as the sick bay attendant went out, Sparks turned to me, a look of enquiry on his pale face. I asked him if he could get me a London number and I wrote it down for him.

'You from that trawler?'

'Yes.' I gave him my name.

He nodded. 'Mr Villiers mentioned it. A girl-friend, he said. Haven't you got RAT on board?'

'It's old equipment,' I said. 'I can talk to you. But Stonehaven and the GPO are outside my range.'

He nodded again and moved over to the big single-sideband set. He had to wait his turn to get through to Stonehaven. Then he asked for the number, listening with the phone to his ear while I stood beside him. 'Ringing now,' he said, and handed it to me.

My mouth felt dry, the ringing tone very clear. Then a voice said, 'Can I help you?' and I asked for Inspector Garrard. There was a long pause. Finally a different voice came on the line. 'I'm afraid Inspector Garrard is not available at the moment. If you care to give your name and tell me what it's about…' But it was the voice of officialdom, abrupt and businesslike, and no chance he would understand what I was talking about. 'It doesn't matter,' I said and handed the phone back to the radio operator.

'Not there?' He terminated the call and hung the phone back on its hook. 'Just as well perhaps. I have a message for you.' He rummaged through the papers beside the Morse key and handed me a telex sheet:

INFORM MASTER DUCHESS OF NORFOLK MRS RANDALL BOOKED ON AIR ANGLIA FLIGHT ARRIVING SUMBURGH 09.15 tomorrow. The dispatch time was given as 16.35 the previous day, but no indication of who had sent it.

'Do you know where it came from?' I asked.

'Our Aberdeen office.' He hesitated, then said, 'You forgotten to pay the rent or something?' He was looking at me, smiling, and I was suddenly reminded of the radio operator on Fisher Maid, his love of gossip. I glanced down at the telex again, wondering who had sent her to the Star-Trion office. And where had she come from? London? Dublin? Belfast maybe. But why? She was city-born. She hated the country, the sea, anywhere that was empty of people. She liked crowds, intrigue, excitement — and argument. I could hear the quick clatter of her tongue voicing the thoughts of her sharp brain, incisive, persuasive, unstoppable as a gorge full of water tumbling over rock. And there had been other times when the Celtic lilt in it was gentle as rain, the hard tinkle of her words softening to seduction. Then she'd had a lovely voice, warm, full-bodied… Christ! How was it possible to love and hate a woman at one and the same time?

'Do you want me to contact the office for you? They may know where she's planning to stay.'

'No,' I said. 'No, it doesn't matter.'

Fiona in Shetland. Why? Why now? But I knew. I knew it in my bones. They weren't sure of me and they were stepping up the pressure. How else would she have known where I was or how to contact me? I turned, walking blindly to the door, and almost collided with the sick bay attendant. He handed me a sheaf of typescript. 'Standing orders for the guard boat,' he said. 'Ken Stewart asked me to give them to you.'

I nodded and went down the passage. I wanted somewhere quiet, time to think. But the quarters were pandemonium, with men changing, moving to their work stations, calling to each other, asking questions, home news mixed with technicalities, like the first day in college. And out in the open there were men already on the pipe deck, climbing the long stairway to the derrick floor, and Villiers in the open doorway of the corrugated iron shelter, a safety helmet on his head.

Only the helicopter deck was clear and I went and stood near the edge, looking down at the whitecaps breaking and the Duchess small in the distance, rolling sluggishly in the swell.

'What d'ya think you're doing?'

I turned, knowing who it was by the grating voice. 'Enjoying a bit of quiet,' I said, 'before going back to my ship.'

He nodded, the hard face breaking into a smile. 'I know who you are then.' His voice was softer, a Southern drawl, as he held out his hand. 'Ed Wiseberg.'

'Mike Randall,' I said.

'Okay, Mike. You go back to your ship now, you'll get no quiet here. I got another whirly-bird due in shortly.'

'I'll need the divers' boat.'

He shook his head. 'Call up your own guys and have 'em come over for you. Nobody here I can spare. And one other thing.' The mouth had hardened, the tired grey eyes watching me. 'Vic told me something about you. I want you off this barge, and fast. There's been a strike on one of the North Sea rigs. I won't have any trouble like that here. Understand? You stay off this rig. An' if you've got anything to talk about, you talk to me. Nobody else, see. I'll tell the radio op. And I'll have him call your boat for you.' His tone, though firm, was quite amiable and he smiled as he patted my shoulder. 'Good luck then. Glad I don't have to pitch around out there with you.'

I went slowly across to the massive drum of No. 4 winch and started down the long staircase that led into the chill, shadowed world below the platform. As I descended the sound of the sea slopping against the columns became magnified, a hollow, eerie sound, the cross-bracing of tubular girders a visible reminder of Villiers's words as we had examined the design drawing. I reached the bottom and stood waiting just clear of the waves rolling under my feet, the colossal deadweight structure reared above me, water jetting from cooling and sewer vents, the hum of the rig's machinery muffled now.

It was calm, calm for these waters, the wind westerly about Force 3. I tried to picture it in storm force winds with sixty- to seventy-foot waves piling in and breaking. I could just see No. 4 anchor cable running down the side of the corner column leg and stretched taut as an iron bar. What would the tension be with a gale blowing? And the anchor over 500 feet down and more than 1,000 yards from the rig.

The boat came, Henrik nosing it into the stairway. I stepped down into the centre of it, and as we came out from under the platform's shadow I was thinking that perhaps I would rather be on the Duchess; it might be uncomfortable, but in a trawler there was at least freedom of manoeuvre.

CHAPTER TWO

What exactly the divers found on the seabed was not reported on the air, but something caused Ed Wiseberg to have the rig shifted ten metres to the north-west. They did it on the winch cables, which meant, of course, some thirty feet less cable holding the rig on the side from which winds blow hard at the tail end of a depression. Ken Stewart wanted anchors 1 and 2 re-laid, but with only a single supply ship servicing North Star, Ed Wiseberg overruled him. He was spudded in by then and finding the going better than expected. He needed mud and drill casing, and he wasn't going to have Rattler wasting time 'frigging around with the bloody anchors'.

We listened in to it all as Ken discussed it with the Rattler's skipper, sometimes by walkie-talkie, sometimes on the R/T, bemoaning the fact that Yankee toolpushers didn't know the difference between a semi-submersible off Shetland and a drilling barge moored in the shallows of the Gulf of Mexico. 'It's not right, Jock. It's my responsibility if we drag. But because we're drilling he makes the decisions.' And the other laughing and saying, 'Every barge engineer says the same. Ye canna win, can ye.'

They had started drilling on the 23rd, and as April ran into May, and the sea stayed calm, the danger of the rig dragging receded from my mind. It was a glorious spell of weather, the wind light and the sun shining day after day, except when there was a sea mist. Often by noon we were stripped to the waist, the ship just lying-to or drifting close along the rig with both engines shut down. We were saving fuel and a lot of wear and tear during those first ten days.

In that time we saw only two other ships, both small drifters out of Lerwick. And with the sun moving steadily north, the nights were shortening, the period of maximum alertness a little less each day. It was a pleasant interlude after all the hard work we had put into the ship, except for the monotony of it and the continuous racket of the rig. The draw-works, the big diesel up on the derrick floor, never stopped, an endless roar that only changed its note when they were using the winches to disconnect and screw on another ninety-foot length of pipe to the drilling string that was steadily moving down its casing as the bit thrust deeper and deeper into the seabed sediments. And added to the racket of the draw-works was the steady, continuous hum of the power plant. Even when we had drifted beyond the circle of the anchor buoys, the sound of the rig was almost as loud, the noise of it bouncing off the surface of the sea. And for me there was the sense of waiting, the certainty that this was no more than an interlude. Pacing the bridge in the dark hours, or in my bunk turning restlessly and trying to sleep, there was always at the back of my mind the fear that the work permits would be refused or something else would happen to disturb the new life I was trying to build for myself.

It was the loneliness more than anything else. It preyed on my nerves. I was so goddam lonely stuck out there beside that steel monster, drifting back and forth over the same patch of sea, with nobody to turn to, no living soul I could discuss it with. Once I started writing to Gertrude, but I soon gave it up. The things I wanted to say were not the things I could put in a letter. And she was so businesslike, always concerned about our supply of fresh meat, vegetables and fruit. Rattler was based on Aberdeen, but periodically the supply ship put into Scalloway, and then, as well as stores, there was always a note for me. Because Gertrude had sailed so often in the Duchess, she understood very well that our chief enemy would be the monotony and emptiness of life out here. She sent us ground tackle so that we could amuse ourselves fishing, and incidentally augment our food supplies for free. She sent out records and the new cribbage board I asked for after Henrik, in a fit of temper, had thrown the old one overboard, intending it for Flett's head. Little things were already beginning to assume larger-than-life proportions, the atmosphere among some members of the crew moving towards flashpoint.

Then the weather broke and we had other things to keep us busy. The wind, which had been mainly north-easterly, backed into the south-west — Force 7, gusting 8, low cloud and rain. A series of deep lows swept up between us and Iceland and we had three fronts pass over us in quick succession. After that it was unsettled and, with a big sea still running, we had difficulty going alongside Rattler when she finally came out to us. With the stores was the usual note from Gertrude. I didn't read it until we had finished standing by the supply ship while she hitched herself stern-on to the rig below the crane, with both spring-loaded mooring hawsers made fast.

A woman came to see me today. She says she is your wife.

I was in my cabin then and I stood with the note in my hand staring out of the window. The wind had veered a little and increased in strength, but I barely noticed it, balancing automatically to the swoop and twist of the ship. It was hard to imagine Fiona in that house by The Taing — Fiona with her pale pointed face, the small determined chin, the high white forehead surmounted by the black fringe of her pageboy cut, and deep-socketed eyes, the small mouth, that bitter tongue. And Gertrude, big and fair and solid as a rock, utterly reliable. Pity I could not fuse the two of them. I laughed at the thought, thinking of the result and wondering, if it was true that the attraction is towards opposites, what these two had got that I hadn't, other than a bosom and the means of satisfying me?

But Fiona had meant more to me than that, much more. She had been a force in my life — for a time at I6S any rate. We had met in Glasgow, at a teach-in on Che and his place in the self-awareness of emergent peoples. I was remembering how she had looked… She is nice I think, but very nervy. She stayed for tea and we talked, mostly about you, or I think perhaps it is more accurate to say that she do the talking while I listen. Some of it I do not understand. She is I think a most political woman. She talk and talk, that is the nerves I would suppose. Is that why you are separated? She told me. She also told me you are wasting your life in trawlers, that you could be a very important man. She is a Progressive, she tells me- I could not help smiling at that. Fiona had been so many things, at various times, a Trotskyist, a Maoist. She had been a member of the WRP, the PD; now apparently she was a good old-fashioned Progressive. She want to know how she can get in touch with you. I tell her if she wish to write she must send it to Aberdeen to go out by the supply ship. But she don't agree to that. She want to meet you. It is not easy to convince her that you are out there for a long time and not coming ashore. I think maybe you get a letter from her by the boat after this one. What do you want? She seems very worried about you, for what reason she do not say.

The last I had heard of Fiona she was in Dublin. But that was more than a year ago, and even if she had been working for the IRA, I doubted whether she would still be with them. Her allegiances never lasted long. There had to be a Cause, but always something different. She had never been consistent, except that she was anti- the present social order. And for her that had always meant the British social order, presumably because it was the one she had grown up with and was thus able to identify as the root of all that was wrong in society. To claim she was a Progressive could mean almost anything. But whatever her current Cause, it didn't explain what she was doing in Shetland visiting Gertrude Petersen and trying to contact me.

I called up Rattler on the R/T and asked them to come alongside again before they cleared for Aberdeen. Then I handed over to Johan and shut myself in my cabin to compose a letter. But to explain Fiona to somebody like Gertrude was impossible. If I could have talked to her… But even then it would have been difficult. I didn't understand Fiona myself. We had lived together almost four years, in a miserable little tenement house looking up the Clyde to the old John Brown shipyard. There had been times when we were happy together, fleeting moments in each other's arms, or when she was high. But mostly I remembered the arguments, the over-intense voice, the relentless pressure of her restless mind.

I never knew what she took, only that it had the effect of soothing her nerves. She was very emotional then, often lovable, with something of the kitten about her. Even now the ache was still there. But none of this could I explain to Gertrude. Twice I started that letter and tore it up. Then, as I tried again, Lars called to me that I was wanted on the R/T. It was the rig's radio operator with orders for me to report to the barge engineer on board.

'He can talk to me on the radio.'

'He wants to see you personally.'

'Why?'

'He didn't tell me why.' The metallic voice sounded remote and uninterested. 'If you can get yourself on to the supply ship he says they'll lift you on board by crane. Okay?'

'Roger,' I said.

Johan took the ship in for me and I made the leap from the high point of our bows, Rattler's crew watching with their fenders out. They put me in the net, clipped it to the big hook on the end of the crane hoist and I was whisked up to be dumped like a sack on the oil-slimed pipe deck beside a pile of stores and new drill bits. It was van Dam's week on duty and I found him waiting for me in the same little office where I had talked to Villiers. 'Ah zo, they get you up all right an' no bones broken, eh?' He had a telex in his hand. 'Virst you read this,' he said and held it out to me. 'Then you tell me vat it eez all about.'

It was from the Star-Trion office in Aberdeen and read: inform captain randall, standby boat duchess OF NORFOLK, WE HAVE RECEIVED NOTIFICATION FROM THE CLERK OF THE CROWN COURT IN HULL THAT HE HAS BEEN CALLED AS WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION IN A CASE OF ARSON DUE TO BE HEARD ON JUNE 5. SOLICITORS FOR THE CROWN INSIST THAT THE WITNESS BE IN HULL AT LEAST 24 HOURS BEFORE THE CASE OPENS AND HOLDS HIMSELF AT THE DISPOSAL OF THE PROSECUTION. YOU ARE TO NOTIFY ETA SUMBURGH AND WE WILL BOOK ONWARD FLIGHT. CONFIRM PLEASE.

'Veil?' the barge engineer enquired as I stood gazing down at the flimsy, my mind leaping to the courtroom and the Crown's QC questioning me. Cross-examination would follow. And the court listening, faces in the public seats. You'll never know a moment's peace… 'It eez an order of the court. I do not know the law in your country, but I think you 'ave to go, eh?'

I nodded. Two weeks. In just over two weeks I would be in that court, a witness, and the shadowy figures I had seen running would be standing in the dock facing me. Scunton would be there, others too, watching me, waiting to hear what I said.

'Vat I tell them?'

And I would be under oath. How Fiona would laugh! She had never believed in God. She was an atheist, and the oath an Establishment trick, an anachronism harking back to an age of superstition when there was a Heaven and a Hell and fire and brimstone.

'I think you 'ave to go, is it?'

I nodded. 'Yes, I'll have to go.' For all the marching and the talk, the strikes and demos, the System was still the same. 'Tell your office to book the onward flight so that I get to Hull on 3rd June. Accommodation, too.'

'Okay. I tell them. Iz not very nice I think appearing for a prosecution.' He was smiling sympathetically.

'That is vy I do not tell you over the radio. Then everybody know.'

'Kind of you,' I murmured. And conscious of the need to say something that would satisfy his curiosity, I added, 'Two youths set fire to a house and I am supposed to identify them.'

'Vandals, ja. Ve haf that in Holland alzo. Too much.'

I went back to my ship, morose and silent, cursing myself for not having gone to Hull directly the Fisher Maid docked in Aberdeen. It would have been over and done with then, my statement given to the police instead of in open court, and no threats, nothing they could have done about it. Now, whatever I said, one side or the other would hold it against me.

May ended as it had begun in a blaze of fine weather, the days passing in the slow monotony of patrolling back and forth. The crew were relieved one at a time and the Norwegians stayed. Fuller had succeeded in fixing their work permits. There had been an outcry about it and there was a picture in the local paper of some fishermen demonstrating in front of the Star-Trion office in Scalloway. Gertrude did not bother to send us the national papers, knowing the rig was supplied by helicopter — anyway we got the world news over the radio. But she did send us the Shetland Times and in the issue of 16th May there had been a short paragraph stating that Mr Ian Sandford of the Root Stacks Hotel, Burra Firth, had acquired the Hamnavoe fishing vessel, Island Girl, built in 1947. He now intended to use her for supplying oil rigs operating off Shetland. Gertrude had marked the news item and in a note to me she said, / think this is possibly why we have had no more trouble from him.

On the evening of 2nd June, the day before I was due to leave for Hull, the draw-works suddenly went silent. They had started pulling pipe shortly after noon, and Rattler's skipper, Jock Eraser, told me over the radio the rumour was it was a dry well. This was confirmed when Bowstring came on the air to say she had cleared Aberdeen and her ETA would be around 15.00 hours next day.

I went on board the rig shortly after 07.00. The draw-works were running again and Sparks told me they would be lifting anchors and moving to a new location just as soon as they had cleared the seabed. The helicopter that would take me to Sumburgh was not due until 08.30. I left my case under the sick-bay attendant's desk and went in search of Ed Wiseberg.

I found him down on the spider deck with Ken Stewart and several others. They were standing just inside the pump room in front of a big steel cabinet equipped with a TV screen. The picture was vague, a flickering image of some white object that wavered uncertainly. 'Guess we'll have to trim again, Ken. The angle's still wrong." The barge engineer went over to the pumps and stood considering, the mud tanks rising in bulky curves behind him. He stepped forward, pressing levers, holding them as the pumps hissed. Ed Wiseberg was at the console of the TV cabinet, the picture shifting, the object becoming clearer as he adjusted the position and focus of the camera on the seabed. The atmosphere was tense, electric with frustration and concentration. Through the open door I could see the spider with its girders slotted in to the deck structure and the guidewires leading down into the depths.

It was the retrieving tool that showed up white on the TV screen and they were trying to stab it over the top of the casing which protruded through the main guide base. This was on the seabed and the casing had already been cut about twelve feet below the MGB.

I chose what I thought was a suitable moment to tell Ed Wiseberg I would be gone for a few days, but he ignored me, his face like granite, his eyes on the screen. 'Jeez, we nearly got the bugger then. A little more, Ken.'

'For'ard again?'

'Yeah, for'ard. A little starboard, too.'

I watched as they juggled with the positioning of the rig, the casing suddenly quite clear on the screen, the retrieving tool seeming to float above it. Occasionally a fish swam in front of the camera. It was just after 08.00 that tool and casing merged, the white engulfing the black. The toolpusher was on the phone, ordering the hydraulic rams to be closed, and in a moment the whole rig was shaking as the draw-works laboured to break the casing out. A sudden jolt, the big diesel up on the derrick floor changing into high gear, running fast now and everybody smiling. Ed Wiseberg put the phone down with obvious relief. 'Looks like we'll make the first flight after all.' He was smiling, looking pleased. 'Goddam your bloody regulations,' he said to me. 'At that depth, what in hell's it matter if we leave a bit of pipe?' He put his hand on my shoulder. 'Where you making for when we get ashore?'

'Hull,' I said.

'Oh, yeah. I remember. You're a witness, eh? Well, mebbe we can have a drink together in Aberdeen. Christ! I could sure do with one right now.' He turned in to the workshop, a tired man, moving slowly. 'We bin juggling with that damned retrieving tool since four this morning. It'll be good to get home.'

'You're married then?'

He nodded. 'Twenty-two years. And you?'

I told him and he said, 'Yeah — well, I guess there's not much difference between trawling and drilling. Some women can take it, some can't. Enid and I, we've lived so many goddam places. We got married in Tampico. She had one boy in Curacao, the other in Edmonton. The two of them are just about grown up now so she gets lonesome at times.'

'Why don't you retire then?' I asked him.

'Retire?' He pushed his hands up over his eyes, pausing and staring round him as we reached the changing room full of oil-stiff overalls and safety helmets, a litter of discarded clothing. 'Yeah. Mebbe I will one of these days. But I bin drilling all my life. I don't know.' He shook his head, smiling quietly to himself. 'There's always the next hole, you see. Right now we drilled a dry one. Next time — next time we strike it, eh?' He grinned and pushed open the door to the quarters. 'I gotta change now. See you on the chopper.'

But I didn't get a chance to talk to him on the helicopter. He slept all the way to Sumburgh, and on the Air Anglia flight to Aberdeen he sat with Ken Stewart. He was two seats ahead and I could hear his harsh, grating voice. They were discussing the new breed of anchorless drill ships that maintain station by computerized control of a dozen engines. Ken Stewart was a much younger man. He had only come into the oil business when the North Sea started up. But Ed Wiseberg, with his experience — it seemed strange that he was content to operate on an old rig like North Star.

His wife was waiting for him at Dyce Airport, a thin fair woman in a BMW. I watched them greet each other perfunctorily and drive off. I was the only one booked to Newcastle and from there I caught a train, arriving at Hull in time for a late meal at my hotel. The strike was over. It had been settled almost a month ago, but the shipyards were still working overtime to catch up. Before turning in I went for a walk. There was not much traffic about, the streets almost deserted. It had always been a quiet place after about ten o'clock. I thought a walk would help me work things out, but my mind seemed disorientated by the sudden switch from the endless empty sea to the atmosphere of a big town.

I must have been tired, for I slept heavily that night and I had barely finished breakfasting in my room when the phone rang. It was Edward Hall of Morley & Hall, the solicitors. He wanted me to make a statement to the police. 'As you were not called at the committal proceedings before the magistrates, a copy of your statement as additional evidence will have to be served on the defence before the trial.'

'And if I don't make a statement?' I asked.

'Then you will have to be subpoenaed.'

'I see.'

'On the presumption that you are a willing witness I have arranged with the police-'

'I'd rather see you first,' I said.

He tried to press me, but in the end he arranged to see me in his office at two o'clock. I had only just put the phone down when the desk rang to say a Detective-Sergeant Gorse was asking for me.

I saw him in the lounge, a big man with a slow, not unfriendly manner. 'Now, Mr Randall, you recall the night of 28th February. We wanted to interview you then. But you know that.' There was a mild note of censure in his voice. 'You've had a somewhat isolated job recently, but I presume you know we're holding Bucknall and Claxby on remand. That was the decision of the magistrate's court and the case is being heard in the crown court tomorrow. They are charged with arson.'

I nodded.

'You were there and you saw what happened.'

'I was there,' I said.

'You broke into the house, got the Entwisles' little girl out and handed her over to one of the neighbours, a Mrs Fenton. Then you vanished from the scene.'

'I was a mate of a trawler sailing at dawn.'

'We know that. And we radioed the Fisher Maid to say we wanted to interview you. But, when you landed at Aberdeen, you booked out on an Air Anglia flight to Shetland under an assumed name. Why?'

'I don't have to answer that.'

'No. But it's something you'll certainly be asked in court. If we had known where you were-' He pulled out a notebook, settling himself in his chair. 'No matter. We got a committal and now if I could have your statement.'

'I'm seeing Mr Hall this afternoon.'

He frowned, but his manner was still mild as he said, 'Don't you think you've delayed long enough?' And when I didn't say anything, he added, 'Now, let's start at the moment you arrived in Washbrook Road. What time was that?'

I shook my head. A statement to the police was official and irrevocable. I didn't want that. Not yet. 'If you don't mind, Sergeant, I'll leave any statement I'm going to make until I've seen Mr Hall.'

He hesitated, reluctant to leave it at that. 'It would save a lot of time.'

'I've already spoken to him and explained that I prefer to see him first.'

He sighed and put his notebook away, getting heavily to his feet. 'As you wish.' His tone was distant and there was a hardness in his eyes as he stood looking down at me. 'I think I should tell you we know about you hotheads meeting in the Congregational Hall. You'd be wiser to make a statement now.' He hesitated, and then with a sudden burst of feeling, he said, 'Don't be a fool, Randall; don't try and shield those bastards. Little Amelia could have been anybody's child — yours, mine, anybody's.' He turned abruptly, as though regretting his outburst, and went out through the swing doors walking quickly.

Time passed slowly for me that day. I had nobody to talk to, nobody to turn to, and like a fool I put off going to the trawler owner's office to collect the pay and bonus due to me. I couldn't face it. I didn't want to have to talk to people I knew, and with only myself for company my nerves were on edge when I finally had my interview with Hall. He was a small, deceptively quiet man in a grey check suit, and at first I thought him rather lightweight. He went through the police report of what had happened that night, his voice quick and very quiet, almost a mumble. He had been in court all morning and I got the impression he was reading it as much for his own benefit as mine.

They had all the details, even the time I had arrived in Washbrook Road, where I had stood. And I sat there, feeling dazed, conscious that I was being involved in legal procedures and still uncertain what I was going to do. It was an untidy, musty-smelling office, most of the space taken up by the oversize mahogany desk at which Hall was sitting. Behind him were dusty-looking shelves stacked with books, ledgers and files. I think it was the books and papers that gave the place its musty smell. The windows were shut against the noise of the traffic. Deed boxes, some of them open, lay strewn around on the floor. But though the office was untidy and archaic, the desk in front of me was equipped with the latest tape recorder, phone and intercom.

Hall came to the end of his reading and looked across the desk at me. He had taken off his glasses and was polishing them gently with a very white handkerchief. There was a lull in the traffic, the room suddenly very quiet, his eyes fixed on me, and I found myself swallowing, knowing this was the moment of decision.

I had had all the time between Corse's visit and this meeting in which to think about it. For much of that time I had remained in the hotel. I had been expecting Scunton, or one of the others, certain they would fry and pressure me, or at least appeal to my brotherly feelings. But nobody had come. They had left me strictly alone.

Hall leaned forward. 'Were you listening while I was reading that?'

'Yes, of course.'

'You didn't comment.' His voice was crisper now. 'Then I take it you accept the report as being correct?'

'More or less.'

'What does that mean? That you have reservations?' He didn't wait for me to answer and his words had a bite to them as he went on, 'You realize your absence hasn't made it very easy for the police. In the magistrate's court they had to rely on the depositions of other witnesses. In your absence these could hardly be conclusive, but the magistrates were satisfied that there was a prima facie case, and because a child's life had been endangered, they committed the accused for trial at the crown court.' He paused, looking at me over his glasses. 'Well, now you are here, let's try again. Is that account correct?'

I hesitated. In the main it was, so what else could I say but Yes?

He nodded. That's better.' He looked at the report again. 'You notice there is no reference to the reason you were standing there in the dark watching the foreman's house. Also, of course, nobody knows what you may or may not have seen prior to the moment you broke down the door and got the little girl out.' He stared at me, the silence dragging and his long hands stretched out on the desk in front of him. 'Now, I am going to ask you three very simple questions.' His voice was quiet, but very determined, his eyes fixed on mine. 'I want answers to those three questions, and I want the truth.'

I suppose it was the reference to getting the little girl out, but all I could remember as I faced the hard stare behind those glasses was the sergeant's voice that morning, shaken by the violence of his feelings as he said — She could have been anybody's child — yours, mine, anybody's… 'I'll tell you the truth,' I heard myself murmur.

He nodded briefly. 'Just answer Yes or No please. First question: Were you waiting in the dark because you suspected an attack would be made on Entwisle, or his family, or his property?'

'Yes.'

'You saw the petrol bomb thrown. Can you identify the persons who threw it through the window?'

My voice sounded thin and remote as I answered, 'Yes.'

'And they are the accused you will see in the dock tomorrow — Harry Bucknall and John Leonard Claxby?'

'Yes.'

'Good. And now one final question: You realize, of course, that you will now be the chief witness for the prosecution, that if we succeed we will be putting two dangerous young men behind bars, I hope for a long time. I know something of your background and it could be that you will be under considerable pressure — not only from some of the men you know in this port, but also from within yourself. When you are in the witness box, will you give the same answers to those questions that you have given me here?'

I hesitated. But there was no turning back now. 'Yes,' I said.

'Good. George Sayre will be acting for the crown and he'll be glad to know we've got a statement out of you at last. Particularly as Lawrence Mendip is defending. A willing witness is always better from counsel's point of view.' And after that he took me through the events of that night, writing the statement out in longhand. When he had finished, he read it through to me, made a few alterations, and then called his clerk and arranged for it to be typed. While this was done I waited in the outer office. It took about half an hour, and then I was in his office again, reading it through. Finally I signed it.

He rose then, holding out his hand to me, a flicker of warmth in his eyes. 'I realize this has been very difficult for you, but truth is something absolute, a rock on which the conscience of man can rest secure.' His words, as I set them down, sound pompous, but they did not seem so at the time. And then he went on, 'A copy of your statement will have to be served on the defence as additional evidence and I should perhaps warn you that Lawrence Mendip has something of a reputation.' But then he added quickly, 'Of course, Sayre will have established everything by then and cross-examination can never shake a witness who is telling the truth.' He smiled encouragingly as he showed me to the door. 'I think you will find it all very simple and straightforward. I'll expect you at the Guildhall at ten tomorrow morning.' A brief nod and I was in the outer office, going past the counter, down the stairs into the crowded street.

Walking back to my hotel, my mind was on tomorrow and the court, wanting to get it over now. Tomorrow — one day in my life. And, once that was behind me, it would be finished. The past, everything… I could forget about politics, the tortuous, twisted minds that had shattered so many of my ideals. I could concentrate then on simple material things. I was thinking of the Duchess, still riding out there beside the rig, and Gertrude, down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, with not a political thought in her head. How much simpler life would be if one were not involved.

That evening I had an early meal and went out to the cinema. A man followed me, but not anyone I had ever seen before. And when he sat a few seats away I knew I hadn't imagined it and that it must be the police keeping an eye on me. The film was an old Charlie Chaplin and to laugh at the eccentricities of human behaviour did me a lot of good.

Back at my hotel, I had a quick drink at the bar, then got my key and went up to my room. I hadn't been there more than a few minutes when the phone rang and a man's voice said there was a woman in the lobby asking for me. I thought for a moment it must be a reporter, but he said, no, she wasn't anyone from the local press and she wouldn't give her name.

I think I had a premonition then, tension gripping me as I asked him to describe her. i knew who it was before he had even finished. 'All right,' I said, 'tell her to come up.'

'I'm not sure that would be wise, sir. She seems a bit disturbed. Better if you see her down here.'

'It's my wife,' I said.

There was a pause, and then he said, 'Very well, I'll send her up.' There was a click and the phone went dead, leaving me standing there, my nerves taut. So this was why they had laid off me. They were relying on Fiona. It was so typical, getting at me through her. Why didn't they come themselves? Did they think, after all these years, she still meant something to me?' There was a knock on the door, a light, almost hesitant tap. I opened it and she was there in the passage, facing me, her eyes enormous. She smiled. It was a tentative flicker of a smile that betrayed her nervousness. 'Come in,' I said and the tone of my voice was not exactly welcoming.

She came in, moving slowly as though uncertain of her reception. Her face looked very white. The pageboy cut was gone, her jet-black hair swept back from her forehead and falling to her shoulders. It made her look more feminine. It also accentuated the pallor of her skin — that and the little black coat she was wearing, the long sensitive fingers poking out of the sleeves, white with blue veins showing.

I closed the door and for a moment we stood looking at each other in silence. Finally I said, 'What do you want?'

She tossed back her hair, a new gesture to go with the new cut. 'That's a fine way to greet me.' The smile was suddenly easier, her nervousness receding. 'Aren't you going to kiss me?' And when I didn't move she laughed. It was a brazen, excited sound. She was enjoying the drama of the moment and I knew she had taken whatever it was she took. I could see it in her eyes, in the sudden changes of mood, the loss of control. 'I used to be able to turn you on, just like that.' She clicked her fingers, her mouth wide open, laughing at me.

'We're both older,' I said.

'You may be,' she said tartly. 'I'm just the same.' She slipped the coat off and threw it carelessly on the bed, her movements as sensual as they had always been, and the little pale blue dress very effective in revealing the slim boyish shape of her body, the small firm breasts.

'What do you want, Fiona?'

She turned, her voice low as she said, 'What do you think?' And she came slowly towards me, her lips parted, the white teeth showing and her hands held out to me. 'We can talk later.' I saw it in her face then. She really did want me and I was shocked. After almost six years. She came close, her body touching mine, her hands moving.

'Stop it,' I said.

'Why should I?' Her face was lifted to mine, her eyes staring up at me, irises and pupils merged to form dark pools, and she whispered, 'My poor Mike. You're starved.'

I took hold of her arms, pulling them away, and pushed her down on to the only chair. 'Now stop it,' I said. 'Just sit there and control yourself and tell me why you're here.'

'You fool!' she said softly. 'You stupid fool!' And suddenly she burst into tears. 'They'll get you. You know they'll get you.'

'Who will?'

'They — they. You don't expect names, do you?'

'How long since you were in Ireland?'

'I've never been involved with the IRA.'

'Who then?'

'CFJ.' And she spelt it out for me — Community for Freedom and Justice.

'What is it — Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist? Another of those splinter groups operating under the IS umbrella?'

She shook her head, tears in her eyes as she stared up at me. 'I came to warn you.'

'About what? Who sent you?'

'Nobody. You know I went all the way up to those islands, the Shetlands, looking for you.'

'So I gathered.'

'She wrote to you, did she? She said she would.' The tears were drying on her cheeks and I sensed another change of mood coming. She smiled. 'What's she like, that woman?' She stared at me, then burst out laughing. 'Don't tell me you're running her trawler on the basis of pure altruism.'

'It's a business arrangement,' I said. 'Now please explain-'

'A business arrangement!' She giggled. 'And me thinking it's in love with her you are because why else should a man spend weeks at sea if not to build up enough steam to close his eyes and make an image of beauty out of a big, blonde, blowsy lump of a girl, her fat buttocks strapped into patched denims, her big bosom encased in Shetland wool-'

I slapped her then, not hard, but enough to stop the spate of words. She gazed at me, wide-eyed. 'You are in love with her.'

'Would it matter to you, after all this time?'

'It might.'

I shook my head. 'We're finished. You knew that, so why did you go to Shetland? Who sent you?' She didn't answer and I reached down to her bag, which was lying on the bed beside her coat. She tried to take it from me, but I pushed her away, shaking the contents out on to the coverlet.

'What are you doing?' Her voice was high, a little wild.

There were no instructions, nothing in writing. But she had money. Five ten pound notes and some ones. 'Where did you get these?'

'My job.'

'What is your job?'

She turned away. 'None of your business.'

I caught her by the shoulders and swung her round so that we were face to face. 'Somebody paid your fare to Shetland. Paid you to come down here. Who?' She stared at me, wooden-faced. 'Was it a man called Stevens?'

'I don't know any Stevens.'

I described him to her and I saw the flicker of recognition in her eyes. But she wouldn't admit it. 'Let me go. You're hurting.'

'How long were you in Ireland?'

'It's my own country.'

'Were you in Ulster?' I caught hold of both her shoulders, shaking her. 'Is that where you met him?'

But she only shook her head.

'What's his real name?'

'I don't know. I don't know who you mean. I came because you were in trouble and behaving stupidly. What's it matter that a man's house was burned down. The insurance company pays. It had to be burned. A warning. Men like that, men who stand in the way of progress — you can't reason with them. You have to force them to see sense.' She pulled my hands from her shoulders, holding them tightly. 'You must understand, Mike. It's like Ireland. Nobody listens to reason until you make them. Stormont, the "B" Specials, all the everlasting persecution of Catholics… Nobody likes bombs, but without bombs nothing would have changed.'

'And a lot of innocent people would still be alive.' All the old arguments that had bust up our marriage. Then it had been wildcat strikes and pickets using force; now it was bombs.

'If the Cause is right-'

'Oh yes, I know — the end justifies the means. Even if the whole fabric of society is destroyed, and the people with it.'

She began to cry again. 'Can't I make you understand? Don't I mean anything to you any more?' Her grip on my hands tightened, her fingers interlaced with mine. 'Please, Mike — don't do it. For your sake. For mine.'

'Do what?'

'Don't shop those boys. They did their duty. That's all. You're a witness for the prosecution tomorrow. All you have to say is that it was too dark to be certain who did it. It doesn't matter what you told that lawyer man this afternoon. Tomorrow, when you're in the witness box-'

'How do you know I saw Hall?'

'They had the offices watched. Hall came back from lunch sharp at two. You were there a little before. You left about three-thirty. They're convinced-'

'Who's they?'

She stared at me. 'The Community, the organization, the militants if you like. What's it matter who they are? They're organized. They know what they want and how to get it. I don't have to tell you that, surely. And they stick by their own people. You shop those boys tomorrow and they'll nail you.'

'Scunton and his crowd?'

She shrugged. 'I'm just warning you, that's all. They thought it was your doing when those boys were arrested, that you'd shopped them. That's why I went to the Shetlands. Oh yes, you're right — my fare was paid, all expenses. I was to talk you into a more sensible view of things. It never occurred to me you wouldn't be coming ashore, that the Petersen girl…' She let go my hands, turning quickly away and starting to gather up the contents of her bag. When she had put them all back, she got into her coat. 'Well, that's it, Mike. I've done what I promised. I've warned you.'

'Who did you promise?'

'Myself.' She smiled a little sadly. 'Chiefly myself… I know we argued a lot, and fought. But it was good while it lasted. At least it was for me. Wasn't it for you? She stared up at me, a wistful look. 'Wasn't it, Mike?' And when I didn't say anything, she gave a snort. 'You've changed. A sea change, my God! And I loved you. I loved you, you fool.' And with sudden violence she shouted at me, 'Go on. Shop them. I'll be there in court to see you do it. So will others. Shop them, you bastard, and see what happens.' She turned so abruptly that the skirt of her coat swirled and I watched her storm out. The door banged behind her.

I sat down on the bed, the room suddenly empty and nothing to do but think about tomorrow with the smell of her scent lingering and her words of warning still in my ears.

CHAPTER THREE

The Guildhall was in Alfred Gelder Street and when I arrived there a crowd of about a dozen had gathered around the entrance, mostly students by the look of them. Somebody called out 'That's him' and they surged round me. I don't recall what they said, only their hostility. It was an unpleasant experience and the uniformed constable on duty had to clear a way for me.

The courts were on the ground floor and the witnesses in all the day's cases waited in the corridor. Time passed slowly. Occasionally, as police went in and witnesses were called, the door to the crown court momentarily opened and we caught a fleeting glimpse of the dark-panelled interior.

It was just short of eleven when the usher came out and called 'Michael Randall'. I got up and followed him into the courtroom to take my place in the witness box. Standing there, the testament in my hand and repeating the oath, I had a clear view of everybody — the judge, Sayre, a tall, thin man looking dignified in black gown and wig, the massive bulk of counsel for the defence, the two men in the dock. Bucknall, his pallid, freckled face framed by long hair and wearing a suede jacket over a gaily-coloured shirt, constantly shifted his feet, his eyes downcast; Claxby, much tougher, an older, heavier face with a drooped moustache and long sideburns, stared back at me, sullen and watchful.

The clerk finished administering the oath and there was a general stir as people settled themselves. I glanced up at the public gallery. Most of the seats were filled, the back of the court, too. I saw Scunton there, several others I recognized — and Fiona. I think she smiled at me, but I couldn't be sure. It might have been a nervous fluttering of the mouth.

'You are Michael Mouat Randall?' Sayre was on his feet facing me across the court, his brief, all his papers, on the desk in front of him. Quietly, crisply, he took me through the events leading up to the moment when I had stood waiting outside No. 5 Washbrook Road. 'And you walked from the Congregational Hall to Washbrook Road?'

'Yes.'

'Was it a dark night?'

'Yes, pretty dark. Raining, in fact — a light drizzle.'

'When you left the hall the meeting was still in progress.'

I nodded.

'How long did you have to wait before the bomb attack took place?'

'Less than half an hour.'

'You were standing in the shadow of some bushes at the entrance to an area of waste ground known as the Stonepit. You remained in that position all the time without moving?'

'Until the light in the porch was broken, yes.'

He reached down for a sheet, holding it and looking at the judge. 'Milord. I have here a plan of this section of Washbrook Road, also copies for the jury. It shows the distance from the gate of No. 5 to the bushes where the witness was standing as forty-seven feet. It also shows the distance to the nearest street lamp. This is on the opposite side of the road twenty-two yards from No. 5 and thirty-five yards from the witness. All measurements taken by a member of the Surveyor's Office, who also prepared the plan.' He handed the sheet to the clerk, who passed it to the judge, and copies were distributed to the jury. Sayre turned back to me. 'Was there any light on in the house?'

'Not in the house. There was a light on in the porch. It was the first thing they broke.'

'But you were able to see who they were. You recognized them?'

'Yes.'

'Are they here in court?'

I nodded.

'The witness must answer so that we can all hear,' the judge interposed.

Sayre looked at me and I said, 'Yes.'

'Would you point them out to us please.'

I indicated the prisoners in the dock and he nodded. 'We have already heard from another witness that they parked their car in neighbouring Ellsworth Terrace. Presumably they were on foot as they approached No. 5.'

'Yes.'

'Was it the street light that enabled you to identify them?'

'No. They were on the opposite side of the road to the light, the same side as No. 5. They had their heads turned towards the houses. I think they were probably checking the numbers.'

'So at that point their faces were in shadow. When did you positively identify them?'

'When they opened the gate to No. 5.'

'An earlier witness, who had picked them out at an identity parade, has admitted under cross-examination that she could have been mistaken. If she could be mistaken, how is it you are so positive?'

'Because the light from the porch was full on them. They had their collars turned up, but from where I was standing-'

'It's a lie.' Claxby was thumping the edge of the dock. 'He's lying. I was never there.'

'Go on, please,' Sayre said, ignoring the outburst. 'From where you were standing…?'

'From there I had a clear view of both their faces as they turned in at the gate.'

'What were they wearing?'

'Cloth caps and raincoats.'

'Both of them?'

'Yes.'

'Can you describe their clothes in greater detail?'

'The raincoats were rather shapeless, and one of them had a muffler. No particular colour. I think it was Bucknall and his cap was in some dull check.'

'Anything else?'

'Not that I recall.'

'Who broke the light in the porch?'

'Claxby.'

'And who threw the petrol bomb?'

'Claxby,' I said again. And he yelled at me from the dock, 'You bloody liar. I was never there, an' you know it. You threw that bomb. You're just trying to cover…" A policeman grabbed him from behind. There was a scuffle and then quiet as Lawrence Mendip, moving with remarkable speed for such a heavy man, began whispering to him urgently.

In an icy voice the judge said, 'I must warn the prisoner that if he interrupts again I shall have him taken down to the cells.' He leaned a little forward over the high desk, addressing himself directly to Claxby. 'Outbursts such as you have just made tend to leave a bad impression on the jury. Proceed, Mr Sayre.'

And so it went on, Sayre taking me step by step, and in great detail, through those few vivid, crowded minutes. And all the time, at the back of my mind, was the thought of Claxby's outburst…

'And by the time you got the child out the neighbours had already gathered.'

'Yes — three of them, I think. Two women and a man.'

'And you handed the child to Mrs Fenton?'

'I didn't know her name. But one of the women, yes.'

'Did she say you must wait for the police?'

'No, I think the man said that.'

'Why didn't you?'

'I was mate on a trawler. We were due to sail at first light, and my hand was cut by the broken glass. I wanted to get a dressing on it.'

'Thank you. That's all.' And he sat down.

There was a rustle of movement in the courtroom, the sound of feet shifting and people coughing. Lawrence Mendip was on his feet, standing with his head bent, staring down at his papers. His head came up and he was looking at me, his eyes small and very sharp. 'You say it was a dark night. A light drizzle I think you said, yet you saw the faces of these two young men very clearly.'

'In the light from the porch. It was only a few yards from the gate to the porch.'

'And as they went in through the gate, did you move to get a better view of what was happening?'

'Not immediately. Not until I heard the bulb break.'

'But you didn't show yourself?'

'No, not then.'

'And you didn't call out. You didn't try to stop them?'

'I wanted to see what they were going to do. If I had known-'

'And when the bulb was broken, it was suddenly quite dark. Then how did you know it was Claxby who broke the bulb?'

'There was still the light of the street lamp across the road.'

'Oh yes, the street lamp. A single bulb lamp, not a fluorescent standard. And his back towards you. Are you sure it was Claxby?'

'Quite sure.' I felt easier now. It was like all the courts I had been in before, the defence trying to shake the witness on matters of detail. 'I had reached a point where I could look over the hedge as Claxby came out of the porch.'

'Did he try the door?'

'I don't know. All I saw was him coming out of the porch.'

'And going round to the window.'

'Yes.'

'Where was Bucknall?'

'He was already facing the window.'

'His back towards you?'

'Yes.'

'There is virtually no difference in their height. Bucknall is five foot ten and Claxby five foot ten and a half. How tall are you?'

'Five foot eleven.'

'And what were you wearing?'

'A blue raincoat.'

'And a cap?'

'A seaman's cap.'

'So, according to your evidence, there were three of you there, all about the same height, all dressed roughly alike. You say you were in the road peering over the hedge and there were these two figures standing in the little garden facing the window. And you say Claxby threw the petrol bomb. How do you know it was Claxby?'

'I saw him come from the porch. The two of them were standing together for a moment. They seemed to be arguing. Then Bucknall took something from the pocket of his raincoat and handed it to Claxby.'

'Could you see what it was?'

'It looked like a bottle.'

'You've heard the phrase — a Molotov cocktail. Would you say it was that type of a bomb?'

'I imagine it was something like that.'

'A Molotov cocktail is a very simple form of petrol bomb. It has a wick in the top of the bottle. This has to be ignited. Who struck the match?'

'I'm not certain. I think it was probably Bucknall since Claxby was holding it.'

'But you can't be sure?'

'No. At that point they were crouched down.'

'So Claxby might have set the bottle on the ground and lit the wick himself?'

'Yes.'

'In fact, it only needs one man to ignite and throw the thing. Is that right?'

I thought he was trying to establish Bucknall's partial innocence and I said, 'Yes,' not seeing it as a trap.

'You have identified the accused as the two figures crouched in the front garden of No. 5. Did you know their names at that point — or have you only realized who they are since you decided to give evidence?'

'No, I knew who they were.'

'You had seen them before, in fact.'

'Yes.'

'Could you tell us when you had seen them before?'

I explained that I knew Bucknall's father and had seen them together several times, that I didn't know Claxby, but had seen him at the meeting.

'Was Bucknall at the meeting?'

'Yes.'

'What was he wearing?"

'I didn't notice.'

'But he was there?'

'Yes.'

'And Claxby. He was there, too?'

'Yes.'

'What was he wearing?'

'A leather jacket.'

'You particularly noticed that?'

'I saw what he was wearing.'

He began asking me about the meeting then, about the atmosphere of it and why I was there. 'And you had a hostile reception?'

'I was shouted down. Anybody speaking moderately-'

'In fact, you left the meeting, and went straight to Washbrook Road, thinking somebody was going to attack the Entwisles or their house. Wasn't that a somewhat extraordinary supposition to arrive at?'

'You weren't at the meeting,' I said.

'You mean, if I had been I would have done the same?' He didn't expect an answer, for he went straight on, There is, of course, another interpretation that could be put on your behaviour — that you went to Washbrook Road for the precise purpose you impute to the accused. That you went there with the purpose of proving you were as militant as the others at that meeting.'

I saw what he was driving at then and I said sharply, 'Are you suggesting I had something to do with the attack?'

'I am.' His massive jaw thrust suddenly forward. 'I am suggesting that you are lying, that all your life you have been trying to prove your militancy. That's what your record suggests. Well, doesn't it?' And before I could think of an answer he had picked up a sheet from the desk in front of him and was reading it out. He had been very thoroughly briefed, for he had it all there, all the convictions, everything, and when he had finished, he turned to the judge. 'Milord, I think you must accept that this is not exactly a normal witness. If he were, he would have waited for the police, or at least come forward when he knew they wanted to question him.'

The judge nodded. 'You are, I think, suggesting that the witness had a motive in not coming forward. Is that it?'

'That is exactly it, Milord. I am not only suggesting he had a motive. I'm suggesting his whole testimony is a tissue of lies.' He swung round on me, his heavy jowls quivering and his finger pointing: 'I'm suggesting that you threw the bomb, that you went to Washbrook Road with that intention, with a bottle of petrol in your pocket, that you broke the porch bulb, that you lit the wick and threw the bomb through the downstair window.'

I stood there, gripping the brass rail, shocked into numbness and remembering Fiona's words, remembering, too, the words flung at me on the Fisher Maid in Aberdeen. I had been warned, but I still couldn't believe it. Nor could the judge. He leaned quickly forward, his voice quite sharp as he said, 'Am I to understand that you are accusing the witness?'

'Yes, Milord. I'm saying the police made an error when they arrested the prisoners. They should have arrested Randall. Furthermore, I intend to prove it.'

'Are you also saying he did not save the little girl's life?'

'No, Milord. I'm saying that he thought the house was empty when he threw the bomb, but the little girl heard the crash of broken glass, and when he saw her face at the upstairs window he panicked. There is no other explanation of his subsequent behaviour — avoiding being questioned by the police, abandoning his job with the trawler Fisher Maid and vanishing, under an assumed name, mark you, to the remotest part of the British Isles, to Shetland.' Most of this had been addressed to the jury, not to the judge. Now he swung round on me again. 'Isn't that the truth? I put it to you that you threw the bomb, saw the child, got her out and then fled.'

'You don't believe that,' I said. It was such an incredible reversal of the truth. 'You can't believe it.' But I knew my voice had failed to carry conviction. I was too appalled by the deadly reasonableness of it, the certainty that the net was closing. Sayre was on his feet. 'You're just trying to confuse the jury. You can't prove that. You've absolutely no-'

'Oh, but I can prove it.' Mendip turned to the judge again. 'Milord, since the accused were before the magistrate's court very vital additional evidence has come to light.'

'A new witness?' the judge asked.

'Yes, Milord. A man who has only recently come forward, rather like the witness here.'

The judge nodded, making a note, and counsel for the defence sat down. The courtroom stirred, and I stood there, remembering Hall's warning about Mendip's reputation. His cross-examination could not have ended more dramatically, and though Sayre re-examined me, trying to nullify its effect by drumming home the identity of the accused, it was obvious that the jury, everyone, were now waiting upon the defence.

My evidence closed the case for the prosecution. By then it was lunchtime, the court adjourned, and as I stepped slowly down from the witness box, I heard Sayre saying to Mendip: 'That's an old trick, and a very dirty one, if I may say so.' And the other laughing and patting his shoulder as they went out together. Hall came across to me.

I was feeling slightly sick by then, the stuffiness of the place and my stomach knotted. 'He can't prove something that isn't true. Last minute evidence like that…'

'You did much the same, and the defence not sure how damaging your evidence would be.'

'Not damaging enough apparently.' Anger was taking hold, overlaying the nervous tension. To them it was just a game, these lawyers bustling past with their wigs and their briefcases, full of their own damned importance.

'Wait here, will you. I'll just have a word with counsel in the robing room.' Hall left me and I stood there, feeling suddenly conspicuous as several members of the public came out of the courtroom. And then Fiona's voice at my elbow. 'I warned you, Mike. I told you they'd nail you.'

I looked at her, the high forehead, the thin crimson mouth in the pallid face.

'I tried to warn you,' she said again.

'Yes, you did, didn't you.' My hands were clenched tight. 'If they think they're going to get me shut away in a bloody prison for something I didn't do…" And Fiona clinging to my arm and saying, 'Mike, for God's sake listen. Get away, now, while you can — while you're still free.'

'Run for it?'

'What else? You wouldn't listen and now they've got you.' Her fingers tightened on my arm. 'Get out now.' Her voice was urgent. 'Nobody is watching you.

There's nobody to stop you. But after this afternoon…'

'Is that what you've been told to do — scare me, get me on the run, so that truth becomes a lie?'

'No — no, Mike, you're wrong. That's not the reason. I just don't want to see you in prison. I don't want you convicted for something you didn't do.'

'If you know it, then the court will know it.' I had to believe that.

'Oh, my God!' she cried. 'You bloody intellectuals, you never understand until it's too late, do you? Truth isn't some sort of knightly armour. Truth is what determined people persuade others to believe.' She looked at me a moment and I thought how that had been at the bottom of so many of our arguments. But to believe that was to believe that man was a soulless, servile creature without dignity.

I think she misread my silence, for she said, 'How can I make you understand?' Her hand was on my arm, the nails digging into me. 'They don't care about those two boys, they're expendable. It's you they're after.'

But I didn't believe her. 'I'm not that important,' I said. 'I never was. You know that. But if those two are convicted, it's intimidation. That's what-'

'You idiot!' Her grip on my arm tightened. 'Intimidation! Who cares whether it was intimidation. It's that trawler they want. The target is North Sea oil now. We're hitting at the oil companies, hitting at capitalism where it hurts, where it's most vulnerable, and with the sort of headlines-'

She stopped there and I said, 'Villiers?' But her mouth was a tight-shut line. 'Get out now,' she breathed urgently. 'Go while you can. You'll be safe then.'

I laughed. 'With the police after me?'

'Better the police than a bomb — or a shot in the back.'

I stared at her, shocked by her words. 'So you were in Northern Ireland.' Why else would her mind run on bombs and murder? 'You're crazy,' I said, seeing the wildness of her eyes, and the distortion of the pupils. 'Your imagination always did run away with you when you got yourself-'

'Oh, my imagination, is it?' Her voice was high and strident. 'And you accusing me of being drugged. That's what you're saying, isn't it? You always accused me of that when you couldn't think of anything else to say, when you'd lost your temper as well as the argument.' Her tone had become venomous. God! It took me back. 'One day,' she breathed darkly, 'I'll tell you why I do it. Then, Mother of God, maybe you'll understand.' She was staring up at me, breathing heavily. 'But why should I bother? Why the hell..' And then in a quieter voice: 'Just so long as you're out of the way. That's all that matters.' She said it like somebody in a dream, but when I asked her what she meant, she shrugged and turned away. 'Go to hell!' she said in a choking voice. 'And don't say I didn't warn you.' And she left me then, walking listlessly down the corridor. It was almost empty now. I watched her go, thinking about what she had said. There's nobody to stop you. But after this afternoon… I was still thinking about that, wondering how she knew and who had sent her, when Hall returned. 'He says we'll just have to see what the defence has turned up.'

'But what about the other witnesses?' I demanded.

'I'm afraid they didn't stand up too well under cross-examination. I told you Mendip had something of a reputation. Old Mrs Rogers from No. 7 became a little flustered and confused. She was wearing glasses and Mendip concentrated on that, finally getting her to admit her sight wasn't all that good, especially at night. Sayre didn't press her very hard on re-examination. He was relying on you.'

'And what about the witness who saw them park their car?'

'A young man standing against some railings with his girl friend. It's not conclusive, and Mendip leaned on him heavily, getting him to admit that he was otherwise occupied. He thought they went into Washbrook Road, that was all, and he was vague about the time.'

So it was as Stevens had said — my word against that of his new witness. I asked Hall who he was, but he didn't know. 'Better get yourself some lunch. The court resumes at two.'

I think at that stage I still believed Sayre could dispose of a witness I knew to be lying. But when the court resumed and I saw the man in the dock I wasn't so sure. His name was Edward Bradshaw, a pale, rather gaunt man with thinning hair and a hesitant, slightly earnest manner. He claimed he had watched it all from the front room of No. 8. Prompted by counsel, he gave his evidence in a quiet voice that had hardly any trace of a local accent, and his evidence was totally different from mine. No, he had not seen either of the accused that night. 'There was only one man in the garden across the road.' And he added, 'I remember quite clearly. He stood up suddenly from a crouched position, and I saw his arm swing back, then he threw something and the window shattered. I thought it was some hooligan heaving a brick — then the flames started leaping and spreading. The curtains caught fire and I saw the little girl's face at the upstairs window.'

Counsel stopped him there. 'You're certain only one man was involved?'

'Definitely.'

'And you saw his face?'

'Not in the garden, but when he came up the street.'

'You saw him in the street light?'

'That's right. He was the same side of the road as me then and I saw him plain as — well, very clear. I was a bit nervous laike, so I was watching him and thinking he might-'

'Never mind what you were thinking,' counsel's voice cut in quickly. 'Do you see him in this courtroom?'

·'He's raight there, behind you.' He lifted his arm, his finger pointing at me.

'Thank you. That's all.' Lawrence Mendip sat down.

Sayre did his best to discredit the man. Under crossexamination Bradshaw admitted he was not the owner of No. 8, or even a visitor. He had happened to be passing, had seen the gate open and had gone in out of curiosity.

'I think you said you were actually in the house when observing what happened at No. 5 opposite. How did you get into the house?'

'Well, the back door was open, you see.'

'So you entered the house — out of curiosity.'

'That's raight.'

'Where were you when you saw Mr Randall pass under the street light?'

'In the front room.'

'Doing what?'

'Just looking round.'

'Casing the joint would be a more accurate term, wouldn't it?' There was a moment's silence, and then Sayre said, 'This is not the first time, is it? You've been caught breaking and entering before.'

'I didn't steal anything, not a thing. You can't pin that on me. An' I wouldn't be here but for a sense of pooblic duty. When I read that these two young men had been accused for something they never did-'

'You admit you went into that house with the intention of thieving.'

'Just looking for some spare cash, that's all. You'd do the same, I wouldn't wonder, with five kids and no work because of the strike.' He was facing towards the jury then, not Sayre. 'All raight. I would have taken any cash left lying about. I admit that. But if some fool leaves his door open..' He turned back to Sayre in answer to a question. 'No, I never used force on it. The door was open, I tell you, and then I was in that room, in the dark, when I heard his footsteps. That man-' He nodded towards me. 'I didn't know what he was. And then standing in the shadows opposite, naturally I watched to see what he was up to. That's how I saw what happened, an' that's the man sitting there.'

Sayre was able to show that in one particular BRAD-SHAW'S evidence was inaccurate — the curtains could not have caught fire because Mrs Entwisle had taken them down for cleaning two days before. He also got an admission out of him that he had served a sentence for theft. But he could not shake him. The man stuck to his story, and the fact that the occupants of the house were away and that he had entered with intent to commit a felony seemed somehow to make it all the more convincing. It explained his reluctance to come forward. It made his presence in the witness stand, at the risk of prosecution, an unselfish act that called for some sympathy, not disbelief.

Re-examining, counsel for the defence was able to drum these points home. No other witness was called. Neither of the accused gave evidence. And in his first words to the jury, Mendip emphasized that, though they might have reservations about accepting the evidence of a man who admitted he had once been convicted for theft, they had to bear in mind that the main witness for the prosecution had also been in prison, though for different reasons. 'So you have two witnesses, two entirely different statements, both given under oath. They are absolutely contradictory. You are not required to decide which is the truth. All that is required of you is that you determine whether, in view of the fact that there is no satisfactory evidence to support either testimony, you can possibly convict these two young men, both protesting their innocence. I say you cannot. You cannot convict when doubt — extreme doubt, you may feel — has been cast on the case for the prosecution.'

The judge in his summing up took a similar line, but less firmly and with some reluctance. 'Of one thing there is no doubt. The witness, Michael Randall, entered the burning house and rescued Amelia Entwisle at some risk to himself. If the other witness is telling the truth, then you may reasonably ask yourselves why he did not attempt to rescue the child himself, or at least to offer assistance to the man who did. After all, once he was out of No. 8 he ceased to be a trespasser and became just a passer-by. There is, therefore, no reason at all why he should not have gone to Randall's assistance. Instead, according to his evidence, he remained concealed, a watcher, taking no part, offering no help. You may feel that only proves him to be a nervous, perhaps frightened man at the time. Or you may feel it indicates that his testimony is false. Are you to believe him, or are you to believe Randall? It is not easy for the jury when the two main witnesses are suspect. One of these men is a liar and it is for you to decide which.'

But then he added, 'However, this is not your prime responsibility. Your prime responsibility is to the prisoners — are they guilty or not guilty? Here doubt alone is sufficient. If such conflicting testimony raises a doubt in your mind — a reasonable doubt — then you must give the prisoners the benefit of that doubt. But if you accept Randall's testimony, then there is no doubt, just as there is no doubt about his rescuing the child. You will now retire and consider your verdict.'

The jury were out barely ten minutes. They found both the prisoners Not Guilty and there was a murmur of approval from some of the public. And as the judge dismissed the case and ordered the prisoners to be released a constable appeared at my side. I was hurried out of the building by a back entrance and into a police car.

I wasn't taken back to my hotel. I was driven instead to Hull Central Police Station and put in a room with a uniformed constable. I didn't argue. I think I was too shocked by what had happened. I have always differentiated in my mind between law and justice. The law is part of the Establishment, the rules by which the System perpetuates itself — but, strangely, I had always respected British justice. The laws might be wrong, but within the limits set by those laws, I believed British men and women did dispense justice. Now a lying witness, suborned to pervert the course of justice, had led judge, jury and lawyers by the nose, convicting me there in that court, though I was not on trial.

And Fiona had known. She had warned me. You shop those boys and they'll nail you. She had known that justice, like truth, could be turned upside down, an image in a distorting mirror. And I hadn't believed her. I had let slip the opportunity to escape, convinced that justice could recognize truth, and Sayre hadn't even recalled me to the witness stand. The rules of the game did not allow it. Instead, he had thrown in his hand, and in doing so had branded me a liar.

The door opened and an officer in plain clothes came in and sat down at the table opposite me. He had the usual form. 'Name please..' and he began filling it in as I answered his questions. And when that was done, he said, 'Are you prepared to make a statement?'

'My statement is in the court records.'

But that wasn't good enough for him. He wanted a completely new statement, and he cautioned me.

'Are you going to charge me?'

He shrugged. 'That will depend on your statement. In any case, it's not for me to decide.'

And so I went over it all again and he wrote it down laboriously in longhand, then took it away to be typed. When he returned and I had signed it, I said, 'I want to speak to Inspector Garrard.' And I gave him the slip of paper with the number on it. 'I think he's a Special Branch officer.'

He looked at it and then at me. 'It's unusual…'

'So is what happened in court today,' I told him angrily.

'I'll see what I can do.' He nodded to the phone on the table. 'We'll put it through here if we get him.' He left me then and I was alone in the room. Maybe I could have walked out, but it never occurred to me. I was too busy thinking what I would say to Garrard if they managed to get through to him.

It was a long wait, and then suddenly the phone rang and I picked it up. 'Inspector Garrard?'

'Yes.'

'Randall,' I said. 'You told me to ring you-'

'Go ahead.'

I began to explain what had happened in court, but he said, 'I know all about that. What is it you want to tell me?'

I told him then about the man calling himself Stevens, how he had come on board the Fisher Maid in Aberdeen. And then about the second meeting when we were anchored off Ham in Foula. The name meant nothing to him, but when I had given him a description I thought I detected a sudden interest. 'You say it's Villiers he's after?'

'Not Villiers personally, but his reputation. It's the rig chiefly.'

'What can he do to the rig?'

I tried to explain, but sitting there in an office in a police station, the rig sounded very remote, the loneliness of the sea area west of Shetland impossible to convey. And then I asked him about my father. 'Is he still alive, do you know?'

'Have you any reason to believe he is?'

'Only that you were right when you said he was brought out of Norway in 1942. The Duchess picked him up and Stevens implied that you would know.'

There was a moment's silence. 'What exactly did he say?'

Ill x 'That rehabilitation is a long process and not many survived. I think he was referring to men returned to Russia after the war.'

'What else?'

'Nothing, except he suggested it might make a difference if I were able to talk to him.'

'But you haven't?'

'No, of course not. Otherwise I wouldn't be asking you for confirmation that he's still alive.'

There was a pause. Then he said, 'I can't answer that. I'm not sure.' And then I heard him murmur reflectively. 'He couldn't possibly — he'd be too old.'

Too old? For what?' I asked him.

But all he said was, 'No, it's out of the question. And this man Stevens — where's he operating from?'

'I don't know.'

'And you don't know his real name.' A faint sound like a sigh came over the line. 'Well, I'll have the local police check on Sandford. At least we know where to find him. But-' Another long pause, and then he said, 'Look, I'll be honest with you. I talked with Detective-Sergeant Gorse. You're suspected of committing perjury. When was your meeting with this man Stevens — weeks ago, wasn't it? Well, wasn't it?' And when I admitted that it was over six weeks ago, he said, 'Then why the devil didn't you contact me before?'

'I tried to,' I said. 'I rang the number you gave me from the rig, but you weren't there.'

'You could have left a message.' His voice had sharpened. 'You're in trouble and you can't blame me if I'm left with the feeling that you're trying to use me to get yourself off the hook. I gave you my number on the chance you might find yourself involved in subversive activities and be prepared to give evidence. What you've been telling me isn't evidence. It's supposition based on two conversations — conversations that may be no more accurate than the evidence you gave in court.'

I started to tell him that my version of what had happened that night was the truth, but he cut me short. 'Then why didn't you make a statement to the police? You knew they wanted to interview you. I reminded you of that when we met.' And he added, 'I also said you were vulnerable. But that hardly applies now.' He rang off then and I was left with the certainty that he hadn't believed a word I had said.

It was some time before anyone came. Once I opened the door and looked out into the corridor, but the desk was at the end of it and no hope of slipping away unobserved. At last the plain-clothes man came back. 'You can go back to your hotel now.'

I got up, wondering what that meant. 'You accept my statement then?'

'It's being considered.'

'But you're not detaining me.'

'You're requested to notify the duty officer here of your destination on leaving your hotel. That's all for the moment.' He opened the door for me and I walked down the corridor and out past the desk into the street. I was free — for the moment, while they made up their minds. Garrard hadn't believed me. Nor had Sayre. So why should they? At the railway station I bought a copy of the Hull evening paper. It was there on the front page — crown witness accused, and inset a picture of myself being mobbed as I entered the Guildhall that morning.

They were waiting for me when I reached the hotel, a reporter and a photographer, the flashlight snapping and questions being fired at me. I started to brush past them, but then I stopped. It was a moment to fight back, a chance I might not have again. I took them up to my room and made a statement, accusing Bradshaw of lying, of perverting the course of justice, accusing Scunton, and others I didn't name, but militants who had no connection with Hull or the shipyard strike, of intimidation. 'And the object of it all is the offshore rigs. You find a man calling himself Stevens, a man who has probably had a hand in the Irish troubles — he's the man behind it all.' And I described him to them.

But I could see they didn't believe me. The vulnerability of offshore rigs was too remote, the whole thing too fantastic. And the bitterness I felt, it was in my voice, and that was against me, too. The reporter didn't even bother to write it all down. I couldn't blame him. He was a local reporter, interested only in local news, and what I was telling him must have sounded wild and unconvincing in the mundane setting of that hotel bedroom. In the end they left and I flopped on to the bed feeling utterly drained.

I must have fallen asleep, for I woke suddenly with the light from the street lamp shining on my face. A door banged, the sound of voices loud from the bar. I looked at my watch. It was past ten. I got up, stripped and had a bath. Then I packed my case, wrote a note to the hotel manager, instructing him to send the account to the Star-Trion office in Aberdeen, and went out leaving the key in the door. I had less than £20 in my pocket.

The lobby was empty now except for the night porter behind the desk and a man sitting by the entrance with a paper on his knee. I watched him for a while. He wasn't reading the paper, and I didn't think he was a guest. He could have been waiting for somebody, but he looked more like a man on duty. There was a garage at the back of the hotel and after a little searching I found the door leading out to it. It was not far to the Central Station and a couple just leaving the forecourt of the Royal Station Hotel gave me a lift as far as Melton. It took me a further two hours and three separate lifts to reach the Al near Pontefract, but a little after two in the morning I was in the cab of a long-distance container truck bound for Musselburgh.

CHAPTER FOUR

I think it was the trawler I worried about more than myself as I sat slumped in the heat of the driver's cab, thundering north up the Al. Perhaps I clung to her as the only reality left to me, so that my mood of depression was overlaid by a sense of urgency. What had happened to me in Hull had made me realize I was dealing with people who did not make idle threats. It was dawn when we arrived in Musselburgh. I got a bus into Edinburgh, had breakfast in the station buffet and caught the first train to Aberdeen. The Star-Trion offices were in one of the solid residences near Mansfield Road, not far from the River Dee Dock. Some attempt had been made to modernize the place, but the effect was makeshift, as though the company were on a temporary lease and might move out at any moment. There was a telex machine in the outer office and a big fair girl at a typewriter. I told her who I was and asked her to book me a cabin on the night boat to Lerwick.

'Don't you have a return ticket by air?' she asked.

'You can't just walk on to a flight,' I said. But it was the closer check at Dyce that worried me, the isolation of the Sumburgh terminal. Nobody stopped me boarding the boat, and in the morning, when I disembarked at Lerwick, I didn't see a single policeman. It was as though, with the release of those two men, they had lost interest in me. I was so anxious to see Gertrude, and get back to the trawler, that I didn't stop to consider there might be another reason. I grabbed a taxi and drove straight to Taing.

The air was luminous with a light drizzle, the hills all green and the lochs limpid, not a breath of wind. The sun broke through as we came down to the voe, no trawler now and the house solitary and alone, the stonework glistening with moisture. I think I knew she wasn't there before we had even reached the house. It had an empty, deserted look. No answer to my knock, and when I tried the door it was locked. Nobody locks their door in Shetland unless they are away. I tried the back, but that, too, was locked. And then I drove to Scalloway.

I hadn't seen Fuller since that night I had taken him down to view the Duchess. He was wearing the same dark business suit and looked like a fish out of water in that little port. He had taken over two rooms in the local hotel, his only equipment a telex, a telephone and a filing cabinet. Lying on the desk in front of him was a copy of the Hull Daily Mail, my picture staring up at me and the headline — crown witness accused. 'So you know what happened.'

'I've read the report.'

'You had the local paper sent up specially…'

'No. It came in the post yesterday. Since then I've been trying to get a skipper-'

'You mean you didn't order that paper. It came unsolicited?'

He nodded. 'Sit down,' he said. 'I've also been trying to contact Mr Villiers.'

'It doesn't concern Villiers.'

But he didn't agree. 'He'll have to be told. And now that you're here, perhaps you'd like to give me your version. Then I'll know what to advise him when I get through.'

'Advise him! What do you mean? We have a contract-' But I saw by the look on his face he had made up his mind. 'Where's Gertrude Petersen? I want to see her, and I want to get back on board. Where is she?'

'She left on a trawler yesterday evening. After she had read the report she insisted she must get out to-'

'You showed it to her?'

'I didn't have to. She'd seen it already.'

'Do you mean somebody had sent her a copy, too?'

But all he could tell me was that she had had the paper with her when she came into his office after lunch. 'Now, if you'll fill in on the details for me.' He sat there waiting, his hands folded across his stomach, his stolid, heavy face impassive. I gave him my version of what had happened and some indication of what was behind it. Finally, I said, 'Somebody wants me out of the way. And they want that contract scrapped so that you're in the market for another stand-by boat.' He didn't say anything, his face blank. 'Have you been offered a replacement?'

He leaned forward, staring down at the paper as though weighing the headlines against what I had told him. 'You think the rig is in some sort of danger, is that it?'

'Yes,' I said. But I could see he didn't believe me, any more than that reporter, or Garrard. He leaned back, his eyes staring beyond me. 'It could be said you're the real risk. And reading this report…' His thick fingers dabbed at the headlines. 'Is it true your father was a Russian agent?' He was suddenly looking straight at me.

'Who told you that?'

'An Inspector from Special Branch.' The softness of his voice had gone as he added, 'Well, is it true?'

'I wouldn't know,' I said. 'I never knew him.'

'But you,' he murmured. 'Your record…" He was frowning, shaking his head. 'I don't know what to say. If I believe you..' He paused, still frowning. 'But it doesn't make sense. It would be very difficult to tamper with a huge structure like North Star. Certainly not if the guard ship is doing its job.' And he added, 'That's my difficulty, you see. And yours isn't the only trawler available, not now.'

'You have been offered a replacement then.'

He smiled. 'Oil companies are always being offered things — at a price.' The smile vanished, his lips pursed. 'But if there is the remotest possibility of danger to the rig, then the price becomes irrelevant. And another thing I have to bear in mind is that your view of what happened in court — or rather, what was behind it — is not likely to be the police view. They could arrest you at any moment. In fact, I'm surprised they haven't done so already.'

'They can't arrest me out there,' I said. 'They can't board my ship in international waters-'

'You're employed by us,' he said sharply. 'And we would facilitate any action the police might decide to take.' He got abruptly to his feet. 'Leave it with me now, Randall. I'll have a talk with Mr Villiers and we'll see where we go from there. All right?'

I didn't argue. There was no point.

'Come back after lunch,' he said, opening the door for me. 'I'll let you have our decision then.' The door closed and I went down the bare wooden stairs. The drizzle had lifted, the sun glimmering through. I crossed the road and walked to the pier where a couple of purse-seine fishing boats were unloading their catch. Gulls wheeled screaming and the water calm. I lit my pipe, leaning against the rail and letting the peace of it soak into me, that deep instinctive feeling that this was where I belonged. All that had happened was of no importance then, obliterated by the sense of familiarity, the feeling of contentment.

And then I heard the fishermen talking and reality broke in again. They were talking about their rights in the fishing grounds. 'Chased off like that… What right have they got, any more than us? Just because they're a bluidy oil company… Aye, we should have told the bastards to go to hell.' And the skipper; leaning on the bulwarks and saying, 'What d'you expect me to do — risk a collision?' He was a broad, big-bellied man in a Shetland jersey with a brown beret on his head. 'She's bigger than us. I'll report it, but I doubt if the Council can do much. It's the Government in London. They want oil.'

'They don't depend on fish for their living.'

A bitter laugh, the slam of a box and a voice saying, 'Aye, that they don't. And now they're drilling off this side of Shetland. Soon we'll be ringed by oil rigs, fenced in like a lot of puir peerie sheep. Time the Council took note of us.'

The skipper nodded. 'There's a meeting tomorrow and I'll be there. So will a lot of others. We're not the only boat…'

I turned away, my peace of mind shattered. Politics! Couldn't I ever get away from politics? I went in search of some food, knowing that it could only have been my own trawler they had been cursing.

Shortly after two I was back in Fuller's office. He had spoken to Villiers and had orders to get me back on board the Duchess. 'Don't ask me why.' He sounded annoyed. 'I tell you frankly, it was against my advice. But he's got troubles of his own, so maybe he doesn't want to be bothered by a little matter like you and your trawler.' The London papers had arrived and he had the Daily Telegraph in front of him, open at the City page. 'All right then.' He was looking down at the paper, not at me, and I had the impression that his mind was on other things. 'The taxi will be here shortly to take you to Sumburgh. There's a helicopter flight leaving about four o'clock.'

'You passed on what I told you?'

'For what it's worth, yes.'

'What did he say?'

He looked at me then. 'What did you expect him to say — with this hanging over him?' And he slapped the paper. 'Shetland is a long way away and what seems important to you will be looking a lot less important viewed from an office in the City with the pack in full cry. But just remember this, any trouble on the location and you're out. I'll get replacement guard boats on my own responsibility. And if the police decide to arrest you, don't try and rely on the fact that you're in international waters. I won't stand for that. I've enough trouble dealing with fishermen's complaints without getting involved with the police. We come under the law. Is that understood?'

'You may accept that you come under the law,' I said. 'But others don't. I'll wait for the taxi downstairs.' And I turned and walked out of his office, the anger and bitterness back. Why the hell couldn't somebody, just for once, let me get on with the job of running a trawler and making her pay? I was seething all the way to Sumburgh, my mind turned inwards so that I no longer saw the peace of the hills, no longer felt I had come home again. And then, in the little airport building at Sumburgh, I bought a copy of the Daily Telegraph and saw the mess Villiers was in.

The details are not important, though I had plenty of time to study them as the helicopter rattled noisily north-westward out to the rig. Tailor-made to our purpose, Stevens had said, and now I could see it for myself. The man was being accused of asset-stripping for his own personal gain and the full glare of publicity was being focused upon him, all of it adverse. He had acquired Star-Trion through an investment company managed by VFI. Star-Trion had then been broken up and the assets sold off. These sales, with one exception, had been to companies unconnected with himself. The exception was the oil assets, consisting chiefly of the North Star rig and the licences to drill in Blocks 206/ 17 and 18. These had been acquired by a nominee company controlled by VFI and the price had been fixed by Villiers himself. 'Rigged' was the word used by a solicitor acting for one of the investment company's major shareholders.

Villiers had issued a statement to the effect that the price had been based on an independent assessment of the break-up value of North Star, that his decision to operate the rig on the Star-Trion licences had been taken 'in the country's best interests', and that it was being financed by his own company and was a total gamble. He was quoted as saying, 'To commit the funds of an investment company managed by VFI to such a gamble would have been most improper. In the circumstances, no value can attach to the licences west of Shetland and I consider the break-up value of such an old rig the only real basis for disposal.'

It was a specious argument, or seemed so to me as the helicopter slanted down to land on the rig, for there it was, not in the breaker's yard, but out in the Atlantic, a hive of activity with the draw-works roaring and the drill biting steadily into the sedimentary rock deep under the sea.

As I ducked under the turning blades, I caught a glimpse of the Duchess out to the north-east, standing guard like a sheep-dog between the anchor buoys and three Shetland boats. She was rolling gently in the swell, the bridge windows intermittently reflecting the late afternoon sun. Then I was in the shelter of the toolpusher's office and a thick Dutch voice was saying, 'Ach zo, you 'ave com back, eh?' Van Dam's hand gripped my elbow. 'I am glad.' He told me Alfredo was waiting for me with the divers' inflatable and he added, 'That young woman, she is not tough enough. It needs a man like you out there. Those Shetland boats are a dam' nuisance. They 'ave no business fishing zo close.'

'The Shetlanders don't see it that way,' I said. 'They claim they've a right to fish where they like.'

'Not inside the buoys. Too dangerous. You get them out of 'ere. Okay?'

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that there would be trouble if we got too tough, but his relief had arrived and he was being called to board the helicopter. I waited until it had taken off and then went down the iron stairway to the waiting boat. With the sea calm, it didn't take long to reach the Duchess. Nobody greeted me as I climbed on board. No sign of Gertrude, and Johan staring at me from the bridge windows like a bear in his den. I yelled for the cook, tossed him my bag and told him to get me a mug of tea. I was in a filthy mood as I went through the gangway and pushed open the door to the bridge. 'Where's Gertrude?'

Johan stared at me as though I were a stranger. He didn't reply, and Lars at the helm looked straight ahead, both of them wooden-faced. 'Can't you answer when you're spoken to?'

'She is in there.' He jerked his head towards the rear of the bridge.

'Then fetch her out.' I saw him hesitate, but the habit of shipboard obedience was strong and he turned towards the companionway. 'Don't bother. I'll go myself.' I had control of myself then and, conscious of the mood on board and who must have caused it, I didn't want to face Gertrude there in the bridge in front of the crew.

She had taken over my cabin, her things strewn about, and she herself lying stretched out on my bunk, her eyes closed. But she wasn't asleep. I was sure of that. There was a tenseness about her, a feeling of hostility in the air. I stood there, looking at her, not saying anything and the anger building.

'Who's there?' she said at last.

'You know damn well.'

She opened her eyes then, but she didn't look at me. She lay there, staring up at the steel plating over the bunk, and I knew she was holding herself in.

'I've seen Fuller,' I said.

'Then why are you here?' She sat up, swinging her long legs off the bunk. She was dressed in sweater and slacks, her hair a mess and her eyes red-rimmed. 'I was expecting somebody else.'

'Who?'

'I don't know. He said he'd find somebody for me."

'A replacement skipper?'

'Ja. It was either that or scrap the contract.' She stared at me. 'Why did you do it? Risking lives, burning a man's house — why? I thought at one time all you wanted was a trawler, something to work for. But it isn't that, is it? It's politics, disruption, anarchy, nothing else… It's all you care about — destroying things.' The words poured out of her in a sobbing breath.

'Who sent you that newspaper?' My voice sounded cold, and I felt cold, cold with anger that she should believe it of me. 'Somebody sent it to you. Who?'

'Does it matter?'

I started to tell her what had happened in court. I wanted her to understand. But she brushed my explanation aside. 'What do I care — about what happen in that court? It's all there in the newspaper report. And that girl, Fiona — I don't believe what she tell me. I don't want to believe. But now… Now I know what sort of a man you are.' She gave an angry shrug. 'And she is your wife. You don't tell me you have a wife.'

So that was it. 'My God!' I said. 'Do I have to share my private life with you?'

'She is your wife. You live together for four years. Now, when you want to be rid of her…'

I was across the cabin then, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. 'You stupid little fool!' I was beside myself with anger. She'd infected the whole ship, the crew, everybody against me. 'Get your things packed,' I told her. 'I want you off this ship — now, this evening.'

She stared up at me, her body rigid, her eyes wide with disbelief. 'Is my ship.'

'And mine,' I reminded her. I was bending down, staring her in the face, my hands gripped on her shoulders. 'I can't run this ship with you on board. Not unless I have your confidence. Understand?'

Slowly her gaze dropped. 'Well…' She hesitated. I don't think she wanted a row. She wasn't an aggressive person. Emotional, yes — but she was also very practical and this had the effect of concealing her emotions. 'If Mr Fuller has confidence in you still…'

'It was Villiers, not Fuller. Fuller is like you. He believes what they want him to believe. Now, get packed and I'll have the boat lowered.' I let her go then, taking my hands from her shoulders and turning abruptly for the door.

'Just a minute, please.' Her voice sounded troubled. 'You asked me who sent that newspaper. Mr Fuller also received a copy.'

'The rig probably has one, too.'

'I don't know who sent it. Your wife perhaps?'

'Perhaps.'

She got up slowly and came towards me. She wasn't crying, but there were tears in her eyes. 'You are in trouble.'

I stared at her, not answering, not willing to admit it even to myself now that I was back in command.

'Your evidence in court…' She was standing quite close to me, the lips of that too-big mouth of hers parted, her eyes enormous. 'Will you swear to me that it was the truth. If you swear-'

'Oh, go to hell!' I said and slammed out of the cabin. I heard her call after me, but what did she take me for? What difference would it make, swearing that I had told her the truth? If I were the sort of man she believed.. The engine-room telegraph interrupted my thoughts. I was in the bridge then, Johan's voice calling for port wheel and the deck trembling to the increased revs. A fishing boat's mast, framed in the starboard window, slid astern and Johan rang for slow again, pushing his cap back on his head and turning to me with a grim smile. 'They play silly buggers like that too many times and somebody get hurt.'

I leaned my head out of the window, watching the little black-painted vessel swinging in our wake. It was a Hamnavoe fishing boat, the white lettering clear on its bows. 'Been having trouble, I hear.'

Johan nodded. 'Ja. Last night is very bad. More than a dozen I think, and some shooting inside the buoys, their seine nets close in to the rig.'

The bloody fools, I thought, risking their nets inside the circle of the anchor buoys. 'Did you threaten to use the hose on them?'

He shook his head.

'Why not? I told you…'

'If we use the hose there will be trouble.' He reached for the mug standing on the chart table and passed it to me. 'Your tea.'

'There'll be trouble anyway,' I told him. 'So use it.' The tea was half cold. It seemed to typify the general state of the ship. 'Any boats shooting nets inside the anchor buoys get the hose turned on them after a warning through the loudhailer. Is that understood?' He stared dumbly straight ahead. 'I said, is that understood?'

'Ja.'

'How many — were seine-net fishing inside the buoys?'

He shrugged. 'I don't know. Ask Gertrude.'

I turned then. He must have seen her reflection in the glass of the window, for she was standing at the head of the companionway right behind me.

'It was very thick last night. Fog.'

'How long before you chased them off?'

She shrugged. 'What does it matter? There is no law against purse-seine fishing, and it is their nets they risk.'

'And suppose one of them had had divers on board?'

'With bombs?' She laughed. 'Does your mind run on nothing else? I tell you they were just fishermen earning their living, the way we once try to earn ours.'

'How long?' I repeated.

It was Johan who answered. 'The fog came down shortly after midnight. It was about two hours after dawn before the last of the fishing boats made off.'

'Five or six hours then.' I was thinking what a well-trained frogman could achieve in five or six hours. But it was no good telling Gertrude what was in my mind. She wouldn't believe it. She wouldn't believe that there were forces at work planning the destruction of that monster lying motionless off our starboard quarter. I found it difficult to believe myself. 'Were you both on watch?' I asked. 'You and Johan, both or you?'

'Yes.'

'All through the night?'

'Yes, of course. They are shooting their purse nets inside the circle of the buoys, drifting them close by the rig, and in that fog it is very risky. I do not want to steam across the nets. I do not want any trouble with these Shetland fishermen.'

It explained the tiredness, the edginess, the general air of a ship that was without proper order and authority. 'Tell Flett to get me some food right away. Hot food, not lukewarm leftovers like this tea.' I handed her the mug. 'And call me at dusk. I'll stay on watch through the night. After that it will be normal routine.

I left them and went below to find a vacant bunk, hoping Johan would have the sense to make the most of the night's rest I was offering him. Flett came in with a tray just as I was getting into the bunk. There was coffee as well as a shepherd's pie, and both were scalding hot.

The twilight was darkening in the west when I was called, clouds building up like a ragged mountain range, peaks of cu-nim black against the last dying glow of sunset.

'They have all run for home,' Gertrude said. 'I think you have a quiet night.'

'Has Johan turned in?' Apart from Lars at the helm she was alone on the bridge.

'I think so.'

'Well, check that he has. I don't want a tired mate, or a tired crew. Those purse-seiners will be back, and unless we're tough with them, it's going to be hard to keep the area clear.'

She went through into the chart recess, entered up the log and then turned and went to the cabin behind the bridge without another word, her silence lingering as the last flicker of the day's warmth was snuffed out by the growing cloud cover. Soon it had spread right across the sky, the light fading and the movement of the ship increasing as wind and sea rose. I circled the rig just inside the buoys, the three-ton cans difficult to see and not a ship's light anywhere, only the rig blazing like a factory, the derrick jewelled with rubies. All the long night stretched ahead of me and nothing to do but think about my situation and what it was I had to guard against. For a time I tucked the Duchess close in under the rig, seeing myself as a marauding fishing boat bent on sabotage and trying to work out how they would do it, what method they would employ. But the sheer size of the rig made a nonsense of the exercise. No bomb carried by a diver could possibly do more than superficial damage, and to get at the weakest section of the cross-bracing a frogman would have to climb well above the level of the sea.

At 23.00 hours I got the financial news. The reference to Villiers came near the end. He had held a press conference and had attacked the directors and shareholders of the old Star-Trion company for letting their assets go to waste. As for the North Star rig and the Shetland licences, what had the Company ever done to establish whether there was oil there or not? They hadn't dared risk their money, so why attack him for risking his? Perhaps I was biased by the fact that he had ignored Fuller's advice and supported me, but I couldn't help a sneaking admiration for a man who fought back so strongly when forced into a corner. Somehow it gave me strength.

The forecast for inshore areas followed fifteen minutes later; the depression deepening with wind westerly Force 6 rising to Gale Force 7. We were already hove-to, our bows pointing just south of west. I switched off, and after that I had nothing but my thoughts for company. At midnight Henrik relieved Lars. For a moment the two of them were there by the wheel whispering and glancing at me. Then Lars went below. He returned a moment later with a steaming mug of cocoa and handed it to me without a word.

It was shortly after that, when we were nosing westward into a rainstorm to check for fishing vessels, that something hammered at the soles of my feet. I thought for a moment the old girl had fallen off the top of a rogue wave. But it wasn't that. We were in a trough with the sea gone dead in one of those lulls that happen sometimes. The empty mug was on the floor, clattering towards the side of the bridge, and the glass of the rev counter had a crack running across it.

I don't know why I went for the buoys. It was purely instinctive. My hand seemed to leap out for the telegraph and without any thought on my part I had rung for full speed and had ordered Henrik to steer nor'nor'west. I had the spotlight on, but with the rain driving across it, we had hell's own difficulty locating No. 4 buoy. I got it in the beam and then couldn't hold it, but it was there all right, and so was No. 3. Henrik, his mind Concentrated on the wheel, hadn't felt a thing. If it hadn't been for the mug and that crack in the rev counter glass I might have thought I had imagined it.

We steamed south and checked Nos. 1 and 2 buoys. Nothing wrong with them and I turned for the rig, calling the operator on duty to ask whether they had felt anything. But of course they hadn't. They were too high above sea level and the draw-works and the power plant were going all the time. I steamed close alongside the five south-facing column legs, then back up the north side. Everything was normal, the big tubular cross-bracings solid and undamaged. By then Gertrude was on the bridge, her fair hair tousled and a duffle coat over her pyjamas. She had been roused by the changes of engine note and the wildness of the movement, and she wanted to know what the hell was going on.

'Nothing,' I said. 'Just been checking the western anchor buoys, that's all.' I didn't tell her I thought I had felt some sort of explosion. It seemed too ridiculous with the rig towering over us and blazing with light, everything so obviously normal. 'Ever seen that crack in the glass there?' I asked her, pointing to the rev counter.

She looked puzzled, staring at it and then at me. 'Yes,' she said. 'It's been there ever since I can remember. Now it is a little more noticeable. Why?'

I shrugged. 'I hadn't noticed it before.' And I walked over to the mug and picked it up. All imagination, and Gertrude standing there looking at me very oddly. Was I beginning to suffer from some sort of persecution mania? I could have convinced myself of that, too, I think, but just as I had told her irritably to go back to bed and get some sleep, Henrik drew my attention to two men high up on the helicopter deck. They were peering down over the edge of it and one of them was pointing to the column leg below winches 1 and 2. A wave reared up and I was flung against the side of the bridge. Gertrude was close beside me. 'What is it?' she asked.

We were coming back on the other roll, the ship broadside to the seas as Henrik took her down the west-facing side of the rig towards the corner where the men standing high above us had been joined by several more, all of them leaning over the edge gazing down at the cable stretched from the winch to the underwater block. I rang for slow and turned the boat head-to-wind, watching from the gangway as men began running to the far side of the rig. 'What is it?' Gertrude called out again, and this time there was a note of urgency in her voice.

I didn't say anything. I didn't know. Ed Wiseberg's burly figure appeared and stood there for a moment.

Then he, too, was galvanized into action. The rain slammed down, a sudden squall that blurred the scene. When it had passed I saw Ken Stewart there with a walkie-talkie to his mouth, while he struggled to get an oilskin on over his short-sleeved khaki shirt. I ducked inside the bridge, pushing Gertrude out of my way, and switched on the VHP. 'Barge to Duchess. Calling Duchess.' His voice was loud and clear above the noise of the wind. 'Do you read me?' And when I had switched to Receive and acknowledged, he said, 'Check No. 2 buoy. The cable's slack and we could be dragging. I repeat, check No. 2 buoy.'

'I already have,' I told him, bracing myself against the radar as a wave rolled under us.

'Well, check again. The tension gauge is right down and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference winding in on the winch.'

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I suspected an explosion, but I checked myself in time. This was not the moment. 'What about No. 1 cable?' I asked him.

'We're watching it. Stay out by those buoys and keep your radio on.'

'Roger.' I switched to loudspeaker and rang down for half ahead. We were bucking in to it then, the waves breaking against our bows and seething along the deck. It was almost dark, no twilight now, only the beam of the spotlight sweeping back and forth and showing the break of the waves as they swept down at us out of the night. And all the time my mind trying to sort out what had happened — the cable slack, but the buoy still in position. If No. 2 buoy was still on a line with No. 1, then the anchor couldn't have moved. That could only mean one thing — the cable itself had parted. I was thinking of the colossal strain it was under, a slender line of twisted steel, like an umbilical cord, snaking down in a long half-mile curve to act as a leash between the anchor a hundred fathoms deep on the seabed and that huge monster of a rig, and the gusts up to forty-five knots now, slamming against its superstructure.

I glanced at the bridge clock, which was on Greenwich Mean Time, the hands at 01.04. It must have happened about ten minutes ago and that slam against the hull, it could have been the tensioned cable parting and curling up to crack like a whip against our underwater plating. Convinced of my reasoning, I made the following entry in the log: 00.50–54 Tension on No. 2 winch cable gone — suspect cable parted deep underwater.

It took us longer this time to locate the buoy, and then it was more by luck than judgement, for the radar was virtually useless, the object so small and the seas breaking. We fell off the top of a wave and there was one of the buoys right alongside. We wriggled clear and held it in the spotlight till we could identify it as No. 1. Having found that one, it was much easier to locate No. 2, for both buoys were correctly positioned in relation to each other. I reported to the barge engineer, 'Both buoys in position and no indication that either of the anchors have dragged.'

But by then they knew what the trouble was. While we had been searching for the buoys, they had been winding in on No. 2 winch. 'We got most of the cable up now, but the end of it is in a hell of a mess and jammed in the tower block. Looks like it parted close by the anchor.'

'Wind's south-west,' I said, 'and gusting up to 8.'

But he knew that, knew the whole weight of the rig was now on a single windward anchor. His voice was high and anxious as he called to me, 'Stay out there by No. 1 buoy. No, patrol between 1 and 2. I must know any change of position. Ed's hauling up on the drilling string now, but if No. 1 parts, then he'll have to operate the pipe rams, hang off the drilling string at the BOP. So watch those buoys and warn me the instant No. 1 starts dragging. Got it?'

'Roger.'

The door to the gangway slammed and Johan was there, his yellow oilskins streaming water. 'There is a ship out there.' He rubbed a big paw over his wet face, peered at the compass and added, 'About west-northwest of us.'

I switched off the spotlight and peered through the clearview circle of revolving glass. 'I don't see any lights. Are you sure it was a ship?'

'Ja. She is without lights, but I see the break of a wave against her bows.' He lumbered across to the radar, switching to short range, his big frame very still now in concentration as he watched the sweep. 'There! To starboard.' He shifted to give me a clear view. The screen was flecked with breaking waves, blurred with the rain now sweeping across us again. But there, on our starboard beam, a brighter blip appeared below the sweep, gradually fading to brighten again as the sweep completed its circle. It was just over half a mile away and moving slowly in towards the rig.

I ordered starboard wheel and called down to Per to increase the revs. I had the blip right over the bows then and we were running downwind, the Duchess twisting and rolling in the quartering sea, closing the gap fast. But either she had picked us up on her own radar or she could see our steaming lights, for halfway in to the rig she suddenly turned north, and at the same moment Ken Stewart's voice came over the loudspeaker: 'Barge to Duchess. Tension gone on No. 1 cable. Report position of buoy. Over.'

The time was 01.27.1 picked up the phone. 'Duchess to barge. Have unknown vessel on my radar screen steaming without lights inside the line of buoys. Am closing to identify. Over.'

But when I switched to Receive it was to hear his voice on a note of panic shouting, 'I told you to stay on station by the buoys. Get back at once and report on No. 1. If it's dragging we may have to go to emergency disconnect. I must know — now.'

I started to argue with him, but I might just as well have been talking to myself, for I got no reply. Hardly surprising if the rig had started to drag. The anchors were his responsibility and I could imagine what Ed Wiseberg would be calling him if the rig was being driven out of position with the line of drilling string still in the hole.

I stood there with the phone in my hand and Johan staring at me, waiting for my order to head back to the buoys. Gertrude, too. They were all staring at me, waiting. But instead of giving the order to turn, I switched off the navigation and steaming lights, picked up the engine-room voice pipe and called for maximum revs. Gertrude was instantly beside me, her hand on my arm. 'What are you doing?'

'Going after her, of course.'

'But why?' And Johan's voice, as he stood over the radar, 'There is no need. She has seen us and is heading away from the rig.'

Henrik, too, was waiting for the order to turn, and I knew so little about drilling that I was blind to the problems of a man with 600 feet of twenty-inch casing stretching down to the seabed. I moved to the radar screen, estimated the intercept course and ordered him to steer it. I saw him hesitate, his eyes flickering from Gertrude to me and back again. 'Steer 40°,' I repeated.

'No.' Gertrude was beside me again, two angry spots of colour flaring in the pallor of her face. 'We must turn back to the buoys.'

'When we've got the number of that fishing boat.'

'No, now. You heard what the barge engineer said.'

A wave slammed against the port side. She clutched at me and I held her as the ship plunged. 'Watch your helm,' I told Henrik, letting go of her and moving to the wheel to check the compass as he slowly brought her on to course. 'Hold it at that.' The atmosphere in the bridge was tense. I had a feeling that if Gertrude had ordered him to steer back to the buoys, he would have obeyed her, and with Johan there, I would have been quite impotent, unable to enforce my orders against his massive bulk. But she just stood there, pale-faced and tense, her eyes staring at me with a sort of fascination.

It took us just over ten minutes to close the gap. Then suddenly we were right on top of her, the spotlight pinpointing her black hull rolling on the crest of a wave. She was a fishing boat all right, and I closed right in until I could read her number. I veered away then, steering past her stern, and as it lifted to the seas the spotlight picked out her name — island girl, and underneath the one word burra.

Island Girl! The boat that had followed us to Foula with Stevens on board. I turned to Gertrude. 'Sand-ford's boat,' I said. 'Remember? You sent me a cutting. A West Burra boat from Hamnavoe.' She was staring out at the blunt stern now falling away in a trough, her mouth half open. 'What's she doing out here?' I demanded. 'The paper said he'd bought her as a rig supply boat.'

She shook her head, a surprised, incredulous look on her face, and the bridge silent, only the sound of the engines, the noise of the sea. Perhaps she would believe me now. The boat was gone, the night swallowing it as we swung away in a wide turn and headed back, the rig barely visible, a blurred glow through the rain. 'She certainly wasn't fishing.'

'No.'

'Then what was she up to? What was she doing out here when every other fishing vessel has headed in for shelter?' A breaking wave cascaded over our bows, solid water slamming against the windows. I cut the revs, straddling my feet, bracing myself against the forward pitch as we slammed into the trough. 'You think I'm crazy talking about bombs and sabotage, but-'

'Please.' Her voice was wild, her eyes suddenly bright with tears. 'I don't want to think about it.' And she turned abruptly and went blindly back to the cabin. Christ! I thought. Women! Why couldn't she be logical, face up to the facts? The rig was coming closer, the lit bulk of it rising solid, the red warning lights on the drill tower giving a warm glow to the low-scudding clouds.

I switched my mind back to the fishing boat, trying to understand the reason for its presence. It couldn't possibly have been responsible for the cables breaking. We had been between the rig and the buoy when No. 2 cable had parted. No sign of it then. And it had been well clear of No. 1 cable when that had gone, so a mine, or some sort of a depth charge, was out of the question. Anyway, in this weather there was no way of dropping an explosive device directly on to the slender line of a cable under water. So what was it doing?

And then Ken Stewart's voice crackling out of the speaker: 'Barge to Duchess. Cancel previous order. Proceed to No. 3 and No. 4 buoys and stay with them. We've got a shift of wind, north-west in the gusts now and we're holding. But there's a lot of strain on the marine riser. If either of those buoys move, call me. Over.'

I ordered a small change of course and reached for the phone. 'Duchess to barge. I'm heading for them now.' And Stewart's voice again, 'I can't see your lights. Where are you?' He didn't wait for an answer, but added, 'Stay on top of those buoys and if you think they're dragging…' His words were cut off, but he still had his hand on the transmitting button and faintly I heard him say, 'What's that — No. 3? Christ! Wind in on that bloody winch. Wind in!' We were so close to the rig by then that I could see him running along the edge of the helicopter deck.

'I think they are in trouble,' Johan said. I nodded. It wasn't easy to visualize the turmoil up there on the high platform of the rig, but in my mind's eye I saw the headlines — An obsolete rig moored in waters too deep and too dangerous, and Villiers trying for a fortune by risking men's lives… They'd roast him if it ever leaked out that North Star had cut adrift in a gale. Was that what Sandford's boat was doing, watching for trouble? I was back with politics again, and I cursed under my breath, visualizing another headline with my own name in black type. 'A blip,' Johan called out, and he made way for me so that I could see for myself. There was the rig showing on the screen like a great moon in the Milky Way of breaking waves. I was remembering Gertrude's words as she had fled from the bridge. I didn't want to think about it either. 'There.' Johan pointed a thick finger. 'Two of them now.' The rain had stopped and we were closing the area north-west of the rig, the two little blips becoming clearer. A few minutes later we picked up No. 4 can in the spotlight. At slow ahead we moved on to No. 3. It was out of position. I tried to report it, but no answer.

Through the glasses I could see men standing around the winches on the corner of the platform nearest to us. I kept on sending as we lay hove-to, keeping station on the buoy and watching for any further movement. But it seemed to be holding, and finally Stewart came through, his voice quieter now, a note of relief. 'We've full tension again. How's it looking out there?'

'Okay, I think. Out of position, but not by much. I've been trying to call you. No. 3 can doesn't seem to have moved much since the rain stopped and we got sight of the two of them.'

'Thank Christ!' he murmured. 'We've definitely got a shift of wind. If we hadn't got that, the riser casing would have snapped under the strain. A hell of a mess. But we're holding on 3 and 4 now, tension constant. Stay on top of those two buoys. Beam your spotlight on us if you think either of them is shifting position. I'll have somebody keep watch on you from up here. I daren't rely on the tension dials only. So watch it.'

We stayed patrolling between those two buoys the rest of the night, the wind gradually steadying in the north-west. Around 04.00 it blew very strong from that quarter, but the two anchors held and by dawn the wind was dropping and the sea with it. The night of panic was over, and North Star almost back in position above the drill hole.

Now the hustle was on to clear up the mess and get the rig operational again. Divers were down at first light and the radio traffic was incessant as scrambled fax reports were transmitted and Ken Stewart called for Rattler to bring out new cable and re-lay anchors 1 and 2. And then, just after 09.00, he called the Duchess and ordered me to report on board at 10.30. "Ed's holding a meeting to establish just what happened, and what needs to be done, so bring the ship's log with you.'