Terror's Cradle

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Marasov bent close and low to make his voice audible above the engine's noise. 'Where is it, Sellers?' he yelled.

I shook my head. Already my teeth were chattering. The water moving by me as I was dragged along was sucking the warmth from my body.

`Where?' he repeated.

Ì don't know.' It was difficult even to speak as water from the boat's bow washed at me.

`Then where is Anderson?'

Ì don't kn — ' My mouth filled suddenly with water. I began to choke and was roughly hauled higher. 'I don't know,' I shouted.

Marasov stared at me. I was trembling now with the brutal cold. I managed to say, 'We'

re looking.'

He continued to stare at me for a long moment, while the water raced by. I gaped up at him helplessly. Then he bent closer. 'Find him, Sellers. Find him. Find the transparency. Nobody must see it, understand? Work alone! Stay away from those men. If you do not, the girl Hay will not be seen again.'

I gasped, 'Is she . . . is she . . okay?'

`So far,' he said. 'Remember what I say.'

The best I could manage was an awkward nod of my head. The engine noise diminished suddenly and I could feel that the way was coming off the boat. Marasov said, his voice louder now that it no longer competed with the revving engine, 'Stay away from the American, and the other, the man Willingham. I cannot save you again.'

While I was still gaping at him the grip on my arms was released. I sank suddenly, my mouth filled with water, and I choked again. When I surfaced, and after I'd finished coughing, I realized I was only a few feet from a stretch of rocky shore. I swam weakly towards it and hauled myself out of the water. I was desperately cold, teeth chattering so hard it hurt, body trembling violently. Looking around, I managed to make sense of my whereabouts. I was at the south end of the Lerwick harbour a good distance from the small boat harbour where we'd been knocked into the water. And I was in trouble. There had seemed to be no wind when I walked with Elliot and Willingham down the hill from the police station. But now I realized the air was anything but still. It flowed slowly around me, working with the water in my soaking clothes to chill me to the bone. And there was no prospect of dry ones. Also, the police were on the streets, Elliot and Willingham would already have swum ashore and put out an alert on me. Then there was Marasov. For a moment I began to think about Marasov, but there were priorities more urgent than that. Elliot's phrase came into my mind. My grade A class one problem was dry warm clothes! I made myself walk up towards the road. It was absolutely quiet now. Nothing moved. I looked furtively around me and began to move quietly back towards the town. Up a side street I saw suddenly the familiar end of a phone box, checked quickly that none of the local bobbies was visible, and hurried towards it.

Money or no money, Lincoln didn't like answering the , phone in the wee small hours. He sounded irritable even as he spoke his own name.

I said, 'It's John Sellers.'

Òh Christ. At this time?'

Ì need a boat. First thing in the morning. When can I get one?'

Ì have a boat. Where do you want to go?'

`Not sure yet. But early.'

`There's a hire charge, Sellers. Especially to you.' `Never mind that. What kind of boat is she?'

`Converted lifeboat. Cabin cruiser now. She's good. What time?'

Èight,' I said.

Bloody hell!' Then he sighed audibly. 'All right.' `Where is she?'

`Hays Dock. North end. See you there at eight.' What's her name? Just so I'll know.'

`Katrina.'

I said, 'Sorry to disturb.'

Ì'm used to it,' he said wearily. 'But what the hell happened to you earlier. I waited half an hour!'

`Sorry,' I said. 'I had to move. Buy you a large Scotch sometime.'

`You'll do more than that.' He hung up.

Hays Dock. North end of town. I was a long way from it, a good half mile, and my chances of walking there unobserved, in still dripping clothes, along the deserted quayside, were nil. I'd have to lengthen the journey, work my way round the back of the town. Oh, Christ!

I climbed a bit, sticking to shadows as much as possible, then slowly worked my way north like a hunted cat through a network of alleys, slithering from hiding place to hiding place. And about halfway, climbing a narrow passageway just below the police station, I suddenly found myself with a good view of the harbour. I didn't care about the harbour at that second. I didn't care about anything but getting out of the murderous cold. But something caught my eye. An

absence, not a presence. Something missing that ought to have been there: where was Anderson's boat? Not the one he owned now; she was still on her mooring. But the other one, the one he'd sold. That one had disappeared!

I got going again, and made suddenly incautious by the need to move fast, nearly ran into one of the coppers. Fortunately my senses were temporarily sharper than his and I managed to make myself part of the shadows until he'd gone by. Then I hurried on. When I finally reached Hays Dock, I groaned. The boat was there, sure enough, but she was moored twenty yards out and this time there was no convenient dinghy to hand. I forced myself to enter the water again and swam slowly out to her. My clothes weighed me down like lead ingots, the cold and my own weariness had drained the strength from my limbs; it was no more than swimming one length of a small pool, but it felt like swimming the Channel. As I came under the bow I saw her name was Catriona, but spellings didn't matter. This was the one. I scrambled up the three steps of the waist ladder into the stern well and found the cabin door locked. Too bad. Sorry, Lincoln. I kicked it in and scrambled inside.

There were curtains, but they were flimsy and I didn't dare use a light. I searched in the semi darkness until I found some sweaters, dampish but a great deal drier than my own clothes, in one of the lockers. There were also, thank God, spare trousers and sailing boots, plus oilskins, a duffel coat, and what have you. I stripped, towelled myself down with the duffel coat, then dressed quickly. I felt a bit better, now, but badly weakened. I rummaged round, then, trying to make out what made the thing go, and came to the conclusion Lincoln must do pretty well, because Catriona had been nicely converted. There was a push-pull fuel switch, self-starter, a simple throttle, forward-astern lever. It ought to be simple. The starter seemed to make a tremendous noise and didn't fire her first time. I stuck my head out and looked round apprehensively, but all remained quiet so I tried again. She caught this time and the engine chugged beneath my feet with quiet efficiency. I slid up on deck, slipped the mooring chain, wincing even at the sound of the little splash, then hurried below and set her moving slowly ahead. My instincts told me full steam ahead; logic said nice and slow. I stuck with logic and thought about whether anyone would notice, or even worse, might think the movement of the boat worth reporting. In seaports, they say, there are eyes everywhere. I came slowly out of the dock mouth.

Hell's delight, lights! An unlit boat was certainly suspicious. I hunted for, and found the switch, got the masthead lights on, and decided one light was as bad as another and put the cabin light on, too.

Still the harbour remained quiet. No other vessels were under way; there was no sign of movement, no running up and down the quayside, no pointing or shouting. I opened the throttle a bit and, looking round the cabin saw a sink, a stove, lockers. Food perhaps? A few tins. Bully beef and beans, soup, a couple of bars of chocolate, tea and coffee and a great treasure, a half-full bottle of The Grouse beautiful elderly Scotch Whisky. I had a mouthful of that, for starters, then crammed some chocolate into my mouth. It's scarcely a gourmet combination, but I felt the benefit as the whisky warmed my windpipe and the chocolate filled chilly little corners of my gut.

Nipping back and forth between the wheel and the stove, I put on a kettle of water and lit the Calor gas. I opened a can of beans and ate them hungrily, with a spoon. When the water boiled, I made tea, laced it thoroughly with The Grouse and began to feel like the man I remembered.

By this time, I'd also found the charts and was considering my route. Across the channel from Lerwick lay the island of Bressay. On the far side of Bressay lay Noss. On the far side of Noss lay the Holm of Noss. If Anderson had decided to get out of everybody's way, he could hide there as well as anywhere and the missing boat had half confirmed my guess.

But I was by no means sure of what I was doing. I'd told Elliot and Willingham that Anderson could be in any

one of a million places and that remained true. All the same, I had a kind of mental picture of the man now : he had an instinct for high and lonely places, plus strong independence of spirit. Anderson would choose his own way, and follow it. And the Holm of Noss was his by conquest if not by title. More than that: scarcely anyone knew he'd done it. He'd kept it quiet because of the snowy owls. There, he would not be found unless he chose to be.

I headed south down the channel between Mainland and Bressay, watching the dark Bressay cliffs climb high and black above and sticking as close to them as I dared. I realized suddenly that I'd no idea how much fuel was in the tank and there seemed to be no way of finding out. I prayed there would be sufficient. Certainly the engine mumbled steadily enough, but then it would, of course, until the last drops had burned. I shrugged to myself. There was nothing I could do about it now.

I used more of the hot water to make more tea, added a generous slug of whisky and thought about Marasov. He'd certainly got here fast from Gothenburg. How? Then I remembered my geography; The Shetlands lie closer to Scandinavia than to Aberdeen. That accounted for the strong Norse links; also accounted, of course, for Marasov's quick trip across. A big fishing boat going flat out wouldn't take very long to cross and Marasov probably had even faster transport at his disposal. But what he said was less easy to understand. He knew I was in the Shetlands: his men at Sandness had radioed the information. Okay. He'd kept watch for me, spotted me, grabbed me. But why, after that, had he let me go? The more I thought about it, the more I returned to one, simple conclusion : that Marasov must think I was his best chance. He must believe I was more concerned about Alsa than anything else. Well, he was certainly right about that! But there was an awful finality about his warning. The transparency must be returned without anybody else seeing it. Or else it was curtains for Alsa! I wondered what the transparency showed. Was it, like some nineteen-twenties melodrama with a touch of technology, a photograph of the plans? Or the ship itself? Would it be possible to tell, from a single photograph, what kind of ship she was? I thought of the characteristic flaring hull of an air, craft carrier and decided it would, if construction was far enough advanced. In which case, I realized grimly, a sight of that transparency would mean curtains for me, too. And not even a sight. To have touched it would be enough. Marasov wasn't going to say, if I did succeed in getting hold of it, `Thanks for your help and here's your girl friend.' He was going to say to himself that if I'd had a chance to see it, I must be put out of the way, permanently, before I had the chance to describe what I'd seen. So either way we were done for, both of us. And James Anderson too, if he so much as touched the lens case addressed to him!

Marasov had himself a work-horse and knew it. As long as I believed Alsa was alive, he knew I'd go on chasing. And I daren't not believe it.

Ahead of me a red light glowed a warning. I checked Lincoln's chart and found a red-ink cross marked and beside it, heavily underlined, the words oil rig wreck. Minutes later, I passed close to a tangle of steel girders sticking out of the water, with the waves washing at them. The waves were getting bigger now as Catriona came out of the shelter of Bressay Sound and became exposed to the wider sea. Beneath my feet she began to rise and fall disconcertingly and I held tight to the wheel as she rolled and pitched beneath the high cliffs. Had I bitten off more than I could chew, trying to make this trip? I remembered all the radio warnings I'd heard over the years, of all the gales in Orkney and Shetland, force this and that. Even the names on the chart now had a sinister flavour; something called Geo of the Veng lay just behind me, above towered Bard Head, beyond lay Hamar and Muckle Hell. I was warmer now, but I shuddered and forced myself to concentrate as I brought Catriona round the towering headland and turned her slowly through heavier seas to head north for Noss.

Clinging to the wheel one-handed, I held the chart with

the other and stood swaying as I tried to work out What I must do. The chart's legend showed Noss to be all cliffs apart from two tiny sandy beaches, one on each side of a narrow neck of land at the extreme west. The island itself stretched about a mile and a half, east to west, a mile north to south. At the western end, where the two beaches were marked, the land was low, as a fifty-foot contour line showed. Looking ahead, I found I could dimly see Noss now and its dark wedge-shape confirmed what the chart showed. The land rose steadily from that low western tip towards a towering cliff named The Noup, at the extreme east. The Holm of Noss lay a little less than half a mile south of the Noup. I thought about continuing in Catriona to the Holm, but reluctantly decided against it. Lincoln had said the sea stack was two hundred feet high..If I got there, what would I do? Shout? The sound of the sea alone would make me inaudible. I could hardly climb the bloody thing. So the only way was to go ashore, to cross the island. In spite of the hot drinks, the spirits, the food I'd consumed, I felt weak as a kitten. The long day had drained my physical and mental strength. I hadn't slept the night before. I ached to pull this pitching boat in somewhere, just to lie on one of the bunks and let the world drift away. But there wasn't a chance. For a start, there was nowhere for the boat to go except that little beach on Noss. And I must go on!

I needed energy above all things. Sugar gave quick energy, didn't it? And there was a container of sugar in the food locker. The remaining water in the kettle was still warm and I half filled my cup with sugar, managed to pour some of the water on to it, then half-drank, half-ate the sweet revolting result and came close to vomiting it straight back. But, rather precariously at first, then more easily, it stayed down. By the time I was bringing Catriona cautiously in towards the little dull stretch of moonlit sand the chart called Nesti Voe, I'd stopped thinking about my stomach and was trying to think how to get ashore dry-footed. There wasn't any way, as it turned out. I just had to run the boat up on to the sand and jump down into the shallows clutching

the anchor. I found an embedded rock and dug the anchor flukes hard in behind it, tugged the chain to persuade myself it would hold, then sat down and tipped the water out of Lincoln's rubber boots.

That done, I turned and began to walk up off the beach. There was a house on the eastern tip of the island, which the chart had described as a shepherd's house. It wasn't in fact, but it looked empty and slightly forlorn and I ignored it. Instead I set off on my steady eastward climb. The land rose a little, then fell away, then rose again, a straight and steep inclined plane towards the great cliff. I kept to the south, following a narrow track worn by generations of sheep. It stayed always a few yards away from the sharp drop to my right. Even so, it was unnerving. I was alone on the island, the cliffs were getting higher with every step I took, and I had the feeling that if I slipped or put my foot accident tally in one of the dozens of rabbit holes, I'd fall and roll inexorably over. It probably wasn't true. If I fell I'd be able to grab at something and hold myself; the slope to the cliff edge wasn't as steep as my mind made it, but that didn't stop the fear mushrooming inside my head, or stop my eyes straying endlessly towards the cliff edge when I should have been keeping them firmly on the little sheep track.

Whether it was adrenalin produced by fear, or whether the sugar and the food I'd eaten were doing what I'd hoped they'd do, it was impossible to tell. But I managed to keep climbing. I was still tired, my legs began to ache as my muscles faced the unaccustomed effort of a long, hard, uphill walk; but I was getting there. Stopping and turning, I looked down and across the long slope and saw that, even if I appeared to be making no headway, a third of the journey lay behind me. I turned and plodded on, hands on my knees now, pushing my legs downward with each step, bent low and leaning forward to minimize the effort. After a few more minutes, I stopped and gave myself another breather, and, looking back, guessed I'd come about a mile. Not far now, then. A few more minutes,.less than ten anyway, and the Holm should be visible. I was getting higher, and the air

grew colder. Had I not been working so hard, I would have been very chilled, and up here there was quite a strong wind.

I came quite suddenly on a sharp little down slope that ran direct to a low, ruined wall. To my left, the Noup itself reared still higher into the night sky; below and a couple of hundred yards to my right, a slash of darkness cut across the grassy slope. There was grass this side, grass the other. But that black tear into the earth must be the chasm between the island and the Holm.

I stopped for a moment, looking down at the acre top of the great stack, but could see nothing on it. The surface was not entirely flat; bumps and shadowed hollows told me that. I began carefully to pick my way down the slope, which was short and steep and far more genuinely dangerous than the sheep track I'd followed. If I fell here, I'd certainly roll; there were gaping holes in that low wall and on the other side of it, hundreds of feet of empty space.

Finally, with dreadful care, I came to the gap. Lincoln had told me Anderson had rigged up something called a Tyrolean traverse. I didn't know what that was and had imagined some kind of rope network stretched across the gap. If so, it wasn't there now. Instead, there was an apparatus like the earlier one Lincoln had described : a thick stake driven deep and held by pegged restraining wires. From the stake a heavy nylon rope stretched across to the Holm. I shouted Anderson's name, but the wind up here was in my face, carrying any sound I made back over Noss, not over to the Holm. I shouted and shouted, but drew no response. It was then I knew, sickeningly, that I should have to cross. I was beginning to believe Anderson wasn't there, but I couldn't be sure. And I had to be sure. If he was on the Holm he could be sleeping; after all, he'd built a hide there from which to watch his birds, and I hadn't been able to make enough noise to reach him, let alone to penetrate sleep.

But how to cross? There seemed to be no cradle; just the rope running down and across to the stack. As I came

carefully closer, I realized there was not one rope but two; the heavier was two-inch nylon, the lighter was of the same material, but only a slender line, running over a pulley on the stake and tied to a cleat below it. On the far side of the chasm, the heavy line ran into dark shadow and I could see nothing. But – and my heart thumped at the thought –if there was some kind of cradle, and it was on the other side, it could mean only one thing: Anderson had used the cradle to cross!

Quickly I untied the light line and pulled. A yard, and nothing had happened. Two yards. Hand over hand I pulled it in. There was a weight on the end and it was moving to wards me.

The cradle! As it came closer I could see that it was little more than a large, deep box. At front and rear, the wooden ends rose higher than the sides, and the rope ran through holes drilled into the wood. Simple. Efficient if the rope and timber held. Lethal if the rope failed, or the stakes were uprooted.

I looked at it with an apprehension approaching horror. In a moment or two I'd have to make myself get into the thing and move out over that black chasm. What was it Lincoln had called it?A hole into hell. He'd been exactly and precisely right; no exaggeration, no hyperbole. Except that the hell below was anything but fiery. I'd got the cradle over the cliff edge now and I hesitated a long minute before I could force myself to climb in. As I did, the rope sagged under my weight, the cradle rocked terrifyingly and I could hear my own uncontrolled grunt of panic. I squatted in the bottom of the cradle, keeping the centre of gravity as low as I could, and grasped the heavy nylon line securely. Then, drawing a deep, shuddering breath, I allowed the cradle to begin its slide down the rope.

I couldn't see what was beneath, and I was insanely glad I couldn't. There was only a vision of death down there and I was close enough, without actually seeing it. Slowly, passing the rope very carefully through my hands, I slid backward down the line, making sure every time I changed

hands, that my grip was hard and firm. If my hand slipped, the cradle would bucket away down the slope and while I'd no idea what was at the other end, it seemed frighteningly probable that I'd be thrown out and maybe flung into the depths below. The distance was only twenty yards or so, but it seemed endless; I moved only a foot with each fresh clutch at the rope and the sheer cliff of Noss was sliding into view above the end of the cradle, still very near.

Inch by inch, I made my way across, tense with fear, my mind empty of everything but that line and my own grip on it. Empty, that is, until a glance at the Noss cliff made me ask myself how I'd get back. I'd have to haul myself up the line, instead of merely stopping myself sliding down. It would take strength to do that, and to supply the leverage, I'd have to stand up in the swaying cradle. If only someone were standing on the Noss side, to pull on the lighter line!

That thought brought a new question stamping brutally into my mind. It was a question that made my skin crawl. The cradle had been on the Holm side. And the light line had been tied to the cleat. If Anderson had crossed to the Holm, then who had tied the line?