Terror's Cradle

CHAPTER TWELVE

I stared grimly at that formal little entry in the Gazetteer. It was true that at last things were coming together, but it was happening in a faulty kind of way. For a start, Sandness in the Shetlands wasn't spelled the same way as Sandnes, Norway. Anderson, oddly enough, was a name common to both countries. I got out an atlas and found that Jarlshof and Sandness were a long way apart. I tested the breadth of the library's available material and found a Norwegian

Trade Directory to see what the letters G.B. meant. They meant nothing at all. G.B. was not, as I had supposed, an indication of a company's legal set-up. I was standing by the window, which overlooked Theobald's Road, with the book in my hand, when a pair of white police cars appeared outside. Shutting the directory with a snap, I headed quickly for the door and stairs and went down to the street, startled that the Metropolitan police had been called in so quickly. I emerged from the library. cautiously, only to realize I needn't have bothered. If I'd thought before moving, I'd perhaps have remembered there was a divisional police HQ almost next door, but by now I was decidedly jumpy and simply hadn't thought. I decided not to go back inside. The police would certainly be asked to look for me. Wemyss already suspected I had facts I hadn't told him about, and it was clear enough from what I'd done with Willingham that I'

d picked up more in the Daily News office. If this was as big as he and Elliot believed, they'd now want me very badly indeed.

So what next? Christ, there were three places I ought to be : Gothenburg; Sandnes, Norway; and Sandness, Shetland! Of the three Gothenburg was the one that called most strongly, simply because that was where Alsa was. But she'd fixed things so the lens case would be sent to Sandnes, Norway, then deliberately pointed me in the direction of the Shetlands. Why? The only answer I could see was that she wanted me to go and see this man Anderson. I wondered where he came into it : an ornithologist working in wild and remote islands; one of 'those dedicated, away-from-it-all people who find satisfaction in the simple life. That, at any rate, was the picture Alsa had painted in her piece about him. I soon realized it was all very well thinking blithely about heading for the Shetland Isles, and a lot less easy to do it,. They were nearly a thousand miles away and accessible quickly only by air. I had no doubt, either, that there would be people watching for me at Heathrow.

I kept walking, trying to think what other arrangements

Wemyss and Co. might be making to get their hands on me. Tapping the wires into the Daily News for a start, though that alone would keep them busy : there were sixty general lines into the switchboard and private phone lines all over the building. The first one they'd tap would be Scown's. I wondered how long it took to tap a telephone. Probably not long if the job were being done officially, so it might be dangerous, now, even to try to speak to Scown. The realization that I was completely alone hit me then and I felt momentarily slightly sick. On one side there was Wemyss, with the resources of his immensely powerful department ranged against me. Plus Elliot, and his agency. On the other side were the Russians, determined to recover the thing that had been smuggled out. In the middle, two tiny, insignificant figures in the giant pincers, were Alsa, and me. Of the two of us, only I had liberty of action and even that liberty was rapidly being curtailed. ,

I came to the corner and glanced along Gray's Inn Road at the Sunday Times building, its metal cladding gleaming dully in the cloudy sunlight. I thought about it, and dismissed it. I had one or two friends on the Sunday Times, but none was close enough for me to seek help there.

But what about the other papers? I knew plenty of people in Fleet Street, for Heaven's sake, and there'd be somebody among them, surely .. . Walking up Gray's Inn Road, I thought of names, some of them powerful names in the business, and dismissed them one by one. What I needed was a plane, and there were plenty of people I knew who could charter one with a phone call. I could myself, normally, but this time I daren't risk using my own name. The trouble was that all the people I knew would want to know why. They'd be after the story. And the story couldn't be told. All right, then. Did I know anyone who could fly? Plenty, of course, who'd flown years ago, but I needed someone with a valid, current licence. Then I remembered a little Australian on the Daily Mirror. What was his name? Hinton, that was it. Bruce Hinton. It had to be Bruce, all Australians of his generation seemed to be called Bruce.

, I found a phone-booth near the top end of Gray's Inn Road, close to King's Cross, and rang the Mirror. When the switchboard put me through to features I put on a fake Australian accent and asked for him.

`Just a sec,' said a busy voice. I swore softly to myself. Hinton was actually on duty, damn it, I'd hoped it might be his day off and that I could persuade somebody on the Mirror to give me the home number.

`Bruce Hinton.'

I said carefully, 'I think we may have got something that might interest you. Can you meet me?'

`Who is it?'

`John Sellers.' I hoped he'd think it was the offer of a job coming up.

`S'pose so. Where?'

Ì'm up near King's Cross.'

`Bloody hell, mate!'

Àll right,' I said. Ìf you feel like that.'

`No, no ! I'll come. 'Bout twenty minutes, okay?'

`Right.' I told him where to meet me and filled in the waiting time buying myself a blue donkey jacket, a cap and a pair of sunglasses at an army surplus shop nearby. I had talked to Hinton, or more accurately been one of a drinking group that included him, a few times. I didn't know him well, just well enough to be aware that flying was his private obsession. He had a one-third share in a small Cessna. He'd have a fair salary, but nothing like enough cash to indulge a hobby like flying as much as he'd like. I was banking on that.

A few minutes before he was due to arrive I went looking for a taxi, cruised round in it for a couple of minutes, then went to the rendezvous. He was there, waiting. I shouted his name and he came across and got in. As he closed the door, he said, 'This is bloody mysterious!' Ìt gets worse. Is your plane flying today?'

He blinked at me. 'It was this morning. Not sure now. I think it will be free. Why?'

`Because I want you to fly me somewhere.'

`Jesus, John. I'm not licensed for bloody charter! They'll have my licence so fast it –

Anyway, I'm on the desk today.'

`Pity. I thought a couple of hundred quid might tempt you to give an old friend a demonstration.'

He looked at me quickly. 'It bloody well does, too. Where d'you want to go?'

`Lerwick.'

His eyes widened. 'You joking?'

`Sure? You're not pulling the old Pommie – '

Ì'm sure,' I said. 'Two hundred in cash. Plus fuel and maintenance charges.'

He grinned suddenly. 'What the hell you up to?' `My business.'

`Yeah. Jesus, if they heard at the Mirror!'

Why should they?' I said persuasively. 'Your old Auntie Rainbow just blew in from Woolloongabba. Wants you to show her round London.'

`So she did. Good old Auntie Rainbow.' He thought for a moment. 'Listen, it's not Lerwick, you know. The airport's • at Sumburgh. Christ, it's five, maybe six hours!'

Àre you on?'

`Have you two pence for the phone?'

I gave him some coins. 'Better check the plane's there, too.'

I waited in the cab while he phoned his office and the airfield from a pub. When he came out his walk was spring-heeled.

Àll right?' I asked.

`They don't think it's funny, but I've still got my job, I think.'

Ànd the plane?'

Òkay.' He settled back in his seat. 'Better than work, sport. Tell him Elstree. I'll direct him when we get there.'

I made one phone call from Elstree: to Scown on his private line. I didn't care now who overheard. I said, 'Tell the official circles to look for Anderson, Jarlshof, Sandnes, Norway,' and hung up.

We were off the ground within an hour. His flight plan was accepted straight away, which was a bit of luck, and I watched the metamorphosis of a slightly boishie Australian journalist into a hard-nosed precise pilot. He seemed to my untutored eye to have a lot of experience. I said, 'How many hours?'

`Five-fifty. Five fifty-six to be accurate. Average cost about fifteen quid an hour, I reckon, by the time it's all in. Comes expensive. That's why this trip's tempting. What in hell did you say you're doing it for?'

Ì didn't say. But not for fun.'

`Not at that price, sport. Must be a good story. Maybe I'll hang on. Work myself back into favour at the Mirror.'

I said, 'When we land, you get a cup of tea and turn round. If you have to stop over, do it in Scotland somewhere. You're not staying on Shetland.'

He laughed, 'Okay, blue. Now do me a favour. Shut up and let me fly.'

Obediently, I shut up and watched the cloud patterns beneath us. I also thought a good deal, to no great purpose. After a while I took out the layout photostats I'd made at Strom Brothers and stared at them hopefully for a bit. Nothing emerged, though, and I put them back in my pocket again; but the feeling persisted that there was something there, if only my purblind eyes could see it. We came down to refuel at Dyce, Aberdeen, then flew on. The clouds had disappeared as we crossed the Pentland Firth. Once we'd passed the Orkney beacon, Brucie Hinton talked to Sum-burgh control then turned to me looking pleased. 'There's a twenty-knot bloody crosswind. Have to be bloody careful, sport. Glad I came!'

It must be nice, I thought sourly, to have nothing on your mind but the challenge of landing in a dangerous crosswind. `Well be careful.'

'I've got a one-third share of this bastard. You watch how soft I put her down.'

But he didn't. He came in one-wing low and didn't ease her across properly and we bounced sickeningly four times.

But he was happy.

`Well, I tried, sport. I'll do better next time.'

Ì hope there won't be a next time.'

`Pity.' He pocketed the two hundred and I told him to send the hangarage and maintenance bills to Scown. He said, 'Now there's a useful guy to know.'

Ì'll introduce you, one day,' I said. I hoped I'd have the chance.

`Do that!' He climbed back into the Cessna, yelled, `Thanks, sport,' and started the motor. While I walked across to the airport building, he roared off south. There was a four-sheet Ordnance Survey map of the Shetland Islands pinned up in the terminal building and I stopped for a minute to get some idea of what the place was like. I'd intended to take the first available transport to Lerwick, the island's capital, but something I saw on the map stopped me. There was the single word Jarlshof, in the Old English typeface used on Ordnance Survey maps to indicate antiquities. Furthermore, Jarlshof was no more than a mile from where I stood.

I' left the terminal buildings, looked around me and set off walking down the road. After a while it forked. The main road led away to the east, but a smaller road signposted Jarlshof. I followed it and quite soon the archaeological site came clearly in view. It looked deserted. The day was dying and the tourist season probably over. Overhead a small twin jet screamed down towards a landing at Sumburgh, incongruous in the stillness. I swore to myself, turned to walk back and in doing so noticed a car. Well, 'at least somebody was here. I began to walk round. Notices set out the history of the place, and I read one cursorily. Excavations had revealed habitation there from mediaeval times right back through the Viking Age and the Iron Age to the Bronze Age. But I was wondering where this collection of ancient stones came into my own problem. The place was well cared-for, grass neatly trimmed to the bases of the walls, paths carefully marked and I walked

round aimlessly, thinking, until a voice said, 'Can I help you?'

The man who'd spoken was sixty-ish, tall and slightly stooped and with a scholarly air. A grey-haired woman stood beside him.

`So this is Jarlshof,' I-said, meaninglessly.

They smiled at one another, and the woman said, 'It's lovely, isn't it.'

'Lovely,' I agreed.

The man must have sensed my puzzlement. `Not what you expected?'

Ì'm not sure what I did expect. I'm looking for somebody.'

Àt Jarlshof?' He was a little puzzled.

I said, 'It's part of the address I have. I saw the sign at the airport, and walked over here.'

Ìf I can help?'

Ìt's a Mr Anderson,' I said, larlshof, Sandness, Shetland.'

`Sandness? Dear me, that's a long way from here. It must be forty or fifty miles. Are you on holiday?'

`Visiting, anyway.'

The woman said, 'Everybody thinks the Shetlands are tiny. I think it's because maps always show them in a separate little box, quite out of position. But they're very big really.' She turned to her husband. `How will he get to Sandness, dear ?'

`He'll have to go to Lerwick first.'

Ì'll hire a car.'

'Lerwick's the place for that. We'll take you, if you like. We're going anyway.'

`That's kind

Not at all. It's a pleasure, isn't it, dear?'

She smiled at me. 'Anderson. I seem to have heard .. . oh, isn't that the bird man?'

`He is an ornithologist.'

`Yes, that's right. We met him once, dear. You remember?' Ì do now,' the man said. '

One meets so many new

people. We retired here, you see, a year or two ago, and .. . our name's Dennett, by the way.'

I said, 'John Sellers. How d'you do'

We got into their little car and drove away from jarlshof. I wasn't sure I wanted to leave the place without reconnoitring it more thoroughly, but the Dennets had met Anderson and that decided me.

`There's a rumour, you know, Mr Sellers,' Mrs Dennett said as we headed towards the road junction, 'that your Mr Anderson has found another pair of snowy owls. Of course, that was in the spring . .

`Really?' I said. 'Snowy owls!'

`Well, we have some already, of course. Two pairs, I think it is, on Unst, or is it Fetlar?

One of the other islands, anyway. But it's only' rumour, d'you see, and I expect he's very excited about it and trying to keep it very quiet.'

`Bound to be.' I thought grimly that Anderson had bigger problems now than keeping a pair of snowy owls secret.

As we drove alongside the lit-up Sumburgh runway, half a dozen black and white birds marched steadily in line ahead across the tarmac and declined even to look up as a huge helicopter roared low through the night sky over their heads. Beside me Mrs Dennett sighed 'Oh dear, all this oil. It will ruin the islands, you know. You do know?'

I said I'd heard a little, and she spent the next forty minutes giving me an expert rundown on the local dissension about land options bought by oil companies, the statistical certainty that sooner or later an accidental spill at sea would annihilate the local seabirds, the inevitability of all the profit going elsewhere, and so on. She knew her subject, was good and articulate about it, and determined I should be instructed. She still hadn't finished when the headlights picked out the word Lerwick on a sign and we began to drop down the hill into the little granite town.

Interrupting her wasn't easy, but I managed it in the end. I was worried about the time. '

Will I be able to hire a car

at this hour of night?'

Òh yes. You see the Shetlands aren't like other places. Not so rigid, d'you see. And much more friendly. People help, d'you see. That's why we're all so worried . . .' We were back to the oil again, but I'd got my answer.

She was right. About the car, certainly and probably about the oil, for that matter. The Dennetts dropped me outside a garage just beyond the harbour, and drove off, waving. Ten minutes later I was also driving away, in a nearly new purple Mini as stiff as six planks and with brakes that might have been adjusted in a try-your-strength competition between malicious mechanics. The man who rented me the car also told me how to find the Sandness road, and provided me with a map and the advice that I should keep an eye on it, since visitors seemed to find the road signs difficult, though he himself couldn't see why.

I blinded away with my nasty Metropolitan driving habits and discovered rapidly that the Shetlanders have a few of their own. Twice in as many miles I met them on hairpins, headlights blasting and using all the road and I calmed down a bit, especially as it was borne in on me that these roads hadn't been designed in highway engineering establishments; they'd been scraped into hillsides and round sudden contours and half the bends were on the edges of sharp drops with long, moonlit, gunmetal stretches of water far below. Every so often I'd find a sheep standing transfixed in my lights, brace myself, and touch that fiendish brake pedal and slide towards the beast on locked wheels, thanking my lucky stars I was driving something as sure-footed as a Mini. The Shetland population is thin on the ground, and by the time I was half a dozen miles out of Lerwick, there was only the occasional light from a hillside croft house to interrupt the endless dark landscape. Even these sparse friendly gleams became fewer as I worked my way steadily westward, concentrating ferociously as the road narrowed and wound, stopping occasionally to consult the map when

a sign arrowed the way to a place that might or might not be on the way to Sandness. I'd made a mental note of the mileage before leaving Lerwick, and driving as fast as I dared on that tricky road, it took me an hour and twenty minutes to cover thirty-two miles to the tiny cluster of houses that was Sandness. I opened the car door and stepped out into half a cold gale sweeping powerfully off the Atlantic Ocean less than a mile away and bringing with it a deep, damp chill.

Picking a cottage at random, I knocked on the door and asked the old woman who answered about Anderson's house. She told me, in the heavy, Norse-laden accents of the islands, that there were two Andersons nearby. Would I be wanting old Mr Anderson because he was away in Lerwick? No, I said. Mr Anderson the bird watcher.

`That would be young Mr Anderson, away up the hill.' She was old and bent, but spry and alert, and she slung a dark shawl over her shoulders and stepped out into the wind to point the way. I thanked her, began to return to the Mini, then went back to find out whether anybody else had been asking for young Mr Anderson. Ì didn't hear,' she said firmly, and there was something in her emphasis that said she'd certainly have heard. I thanked her and drove off, backtracking a little way, then turning, up a rough track towards the rearing moonlit bulk of Sandness Hill with the cloud shadows flying across it. The distance from the road was perhaps five hundred yards, a very gentle rise that became steeper near the house. I turned the car round, switched off the engine, and went up the slope on foot.

No light came from the house. Blind glass shone the moonlight at me as I climbed. The house was of grey stone, small, with a couple of gabled windows to the upper floor and as I moved towards it I looked carefully at the barren, empty landscape around me, feeling a real sense of isolation. Nothing moved except the air; there was nothing to hear except the sound of my own footfalls and the buffeting

of the wind in my ears. I had hoped to find Anderson there, but the lack of lights made it seem unlikely now.

The door was white-painted, so the small black lettering was easy to read. One word; the name of the house, Jarlshof. I nodded to myself, then knocked and heard the sound echo emptily. There was no response. I tried again, several times, sadly certain now that the house was empty, then moved away from-the door to look in through the windows. What I could see, lit palely by the intermittent moonlight, was a shadowed and fairly spartan room : a wall full of bookshelves, a bare table with two or three plain wooden seats, a couple of old armchairs. It fitted with what little I knew (which was what Alsa had written) about Anderson. This was a place where one man lived and worked, a man not much interested in comfort, a man who chose remoteness and absorption and didn't care to chase the phantom satisfactions of goods and chattels. You meet people like that occasionally and usually find yourself envying them, grossly tempted to follow their example until the realization of your own dependence on creature comforts enables you to thrust the idea away. But guiltily, always guiltily.

I worked my way round the house, looking through windows. A couple were curtained, but I peered in through all the others and finally found myself standing before that white front door again, feeling helpless. There were two possibilities now. I liked neither. I could wait here for Anderson, not knowing how long the wait would be; it could presumably be days if he was off on some prolonged observation, and I didn't have days, or even hours, to spare. The alternative was to go looking for him, and that prospect didn'

t thrill me. He could be anywhere in this mass of islands, pursuing his solitary studies, and unless he made a practice of telling somebody where he was, there'd be no chance of finding him. I remembered what Mr Dennett said, the rumour that he'd discovered some rare birds, and scowled to myself. If he had, he'd be keeping very quiet indeed. The hell with it then. The need to find the man was too

great for me to be scrupulous. Somewhere in the house there might be an indication of his whereabouts. I'd have to break in.

But as it happened there was no need. Trying the door without hope, I found that it was unlocked and simply stepped inside, then used my lighter to try to find the switch. No switch. There was a Tilley lamp on the table and I searched back through my memory and fumbled with it until I recalled that it was necessary to get the pressure up before the vapour mantle caught and glowed. Now, at least, I had light. I looked first at the floor behind the door to see if mail was still lying there. There wasn't any, but a couple of opened envelopes lay on a sideboard, window-fronted envelopes, one from the Inland Revenue, the other from a garage. Each bore the Lerwick postmark for three days earlier. I swore, looking at them. Were they the last mail to come to the house? What the hell would have happened to a packet posted to Sandnes, Norway? Would the post office in Sandnes, realizing there'd been some kind of mistake, forward the packet to Sandness, Shetland? Would they even know there was a Sandness, Shetland? And if they did, if they had redirected the packet, how long to reach this lonely spot? Was it conceivable that there was a Jarlshof at Sandnes in Norway? Even the bloody word was straight Norwegian, held here unchanged through long centuries of the powerful Norse link with these islands. I had uncomfortable visions of the blasted packet being shoved through the door of some uncomprehending Norwegian in the other Sandnes, whose house happened to bear the same name.

I began to ferret round the room, opening drawers and cupboards, then moving to Anderson's old steel desk and rifling through the papers, hoping to find a diary or a log; something here had to give a clue to Anderson's activities. There was nothing. Circulars from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, letters from other ornithologists, a few still photographs, some notes. There were even a few transparencies and my heart thumped as I picked them up and held them to the light. No luck; they were just birds.

But no! By God, they weren't just birds! I realized suddenly that there was something wrong with these transparencies. I was handling them carefully, by corners and edges, out of long habit. But somebody hadn't been so careful. There were one or two fingermarks on them, sweat leaving whorl patterns on the delicate emulsion. Anderson wouldn't do that; Anderson was a pro, he'd be as careful handling them as I was. No man shins down cliff faces to photograph seabirds, then wrecks his work with careless fingering of the result.

It was tenuous enough, as evidence, but all the same my scalp prickled. I was almost sure now that somebody else had been here before me, also examining the place. Maybe the same rough fingers whose prints were on the transparencies had opened the envelopes. Maybe Anderson hadn't been here for days.

There was nothing more on the desk, nor, now, was there anywhere left in that room for me to look. I picked up the lamp and carried it over to the rough little kitchen. A few minutes' search turned up nothing there, either. There was only one other room on the ground floor and I crossed towards the door and went in. A workshop. Two benches; one with an angled drawing board and artist's materials, another for woodworking, with carpenters' tools neatly in racks above it. I looked round the room desultorily, almost certain now that Jarlshof could tell me nothing. I'd go up the stairs and see what was there, but I knew already that it was hopeless.

I turned to go back into the living room and what I saw stopped me dead in the doorway. A man sat in one of Anderson's threadbare armchairs. He was quite still, quite calm. He held a big, battery lamp in his left hand and at the moment I saw him, he moved the switch and the light came on. His right hand held a pistol.