Terror's Cradle

by Duncan Kyle

  Pain woke me. Not great pain, just a multitude of tiny agonies in various parts of my body. I tried to ease my limbs to make the tiny agonies go away, but they didn't. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times, looking up directly into a bare light bulb on the ceiling. A white ceiling; white walls, too. I was in a bed. Whose bed, where? I saw the door. Steel, with boltheads, painted a heavy green, battered and scraped. And in the middle of the door a kind of inset cone. Realization came and I sat up suddenly and painfully, grunting at the protests of flaring muscle pains. This was a cell! A cell in a prison. I looked behind me at the window. Bars confirmed it. Memory flooded back. A helicopter. A

  voice. I knew now whose voice. Willingham's!

  I shouted and a moment later a copper came in. `Where is this?' I demanded. He said easily, 'You're in the cells.'

  Where?'

  `Lerwick police station.' He went out again and a moment later the terrible twins marched in: Elliot and Willingham.

  I remember asking inanely what time it was. Prod a reporter awake and the first thing he does, an instant conditioned reflex, is look for the clock. I knew it must be morning because there was daylight outside. Elliot didn't bother to answer. He said instead, '

  Explain.'

  `Let me waken up first,' I said. 'Give me a cup of tea, or something. I feel like death!'

  `You're lucky you feel anything. What happened? Why were you over there?'

  `Tea,' I said. 'Tea for the love of God!'

  I didn't want the tea so much as a few moments to get my thoughts together. Elliot compressed his lips, said disgustedly, 'Tea! Tea and Limeys!' He moved to the door.

  Willingham said, 'Let him — '

  Ìf tea encourages him,' Elliot said quietly. 'Tea there shall be.' He called the copper and passed on the message. I closed my eyes and thought furiously. My mind wasn't quite my own and effective lies were elusive. The tea came far too quickly, in a scalding white mug.

  Elliot let me take two sips. 'Okay, you got your tea. Start talking.'

  I said, 'Did you find Anderson?'

  `No.'

  I took another sip and felt better. Tad luck.' Willingham snorted angrily. A real snort, the kind pigs make.

  Elliot said, 'You got a lead.' Not a question, a statement.

  `Christ knows what happened,' I said. 'I got flung in the

  water, then dragged away by some bloody boat. Somebody

  was hanging on to me, but I managed to fight loose. When

  I got ashore, they were coming after me and' I ran. Pinched a boat. Sailed away. They came after me.'

  `There was a guy here this morning,' Elliot said. 'Name of Lincoln. He wasn't too happy. He was due to meet another guy, a guy called Sellers, at eight o'clock. At his boat. So eight o'clock he's there. No boat, no Sellers.'

  Ìt was his boat I pinched. I knew where it was, you see.'

  `Yeah. Yeah, I see.' Elliot's nostrils were pinched too, and he exhaled exasperatedly through them. 'He also mentioned several other things. About Anderson. About a lady called Petrie.'

  I wondered whether he'd also mentioned the Holm of Noss. His picture story. Worth money. Probably not, unless Elliot or Willingham had let him in on the reason for the whole thing.

  I said, 'Miss Petrie wasn't much help.'

  `She was no help to me either,' Elliot said ruefully. 'We threatened her with everything from obstruction to the 'Official Secrets Act. All she said was that she'd no idea where Anderson was.'

  The tea was a little cooler now. I could drink instead of sip. It's strange how effective hot tea is, even as balm for aching muscles. I said, 'I don't know where Anderson is.'

  Òr where to start looking?'

  `No.'

  Elliot looked hard at me. Ì'm starting to know when you're telling the truth,' he said. 'It doesn't happen often. When it does, your face changes and you look kinda shifty.'

  `There's only Miss Petrie,' I said. 'No other way to him that I can see.'

  Ì'll tell you something, Sellers. Early this morning we did what we should have done a long time ago. We talked to the postman who got held up. Know what happened yesterday?'

  `Go on,' I said soberly, half-knowing.

  `He met Anderson on the road, that's what. Anderson was coming into Lerwick; the postman was leaving. The postman stopped and gave Anderson his mail. Against regulations, of course, the bastard! They got him fifteen miles further on.'

  He stopped and looked at me, making me ask the question. Òkay,' I said. 'What kind of mail was it?'

  Elliot said, 'There was a little package. About three by one, as he recalls 'it. Kind of a cylinder. Redirected from Sandnes, Norway.'

  `Really?'

  `Really.' His tone was heavily sarcastic, his face threatening. 'You know about that package, Sellers. I want to know how. Because he's got it now and he's missing and he's got to be found.'

  I said, 'All right. I'll tell you. Do I look shifty enough to believe?'

  `Just talk.'

  So I told him about Alsa's contact lens case, about the optician's shop, about the. fact that Alsa and Anderson intended to get married. The information was no use to him now. When I'd finished he agreed I'd looked sufficiently shifty to be telling the truth, sat down on the bed and looked at me as though he could have garotted me. Ìf you'd said this in Gothenburg –'

  `To a National Geographic writer?'

  Èven later. When Schmid got you. It could still have been stopped. Only just, but it could.'

  Willingham entered the conversation again, in his characteristic way. He said, 'I give you a firm promise Sellers. Look round this cell. Get used to it. Because you're going to spend a hell of a lot of your life in one just like it. You have my word on it.'

  I swallowed, not doubting he meant it, or that it was true, or that he had the means to accomplish it. 'Can I have a bath?' I said. 'Prisoners are always given a bath.'

  Elliot groaned.

  I said, 'I just might have an idea. I need to think about it.'

  `Tell me.'

  Àfter the bath.'

  They didn't let me soak long, but bathtime lasted long enough and because there were bars on the bathroom window too, was private enough for me to think the thing through. But there was one little detail I couldn't remember, a detail that was absolutely vital. The hot water also eased my bodily aches and pains somewhat and a hard rub-down with a magnificently harsh white cop-shop towel helped even more. Back in the cell, I dressed in Lincoln's clothes and felt in the pockets of the trousers. They were empty. I said, 'Where are my things?'

  `They were removed,' Willingham told me with evident pleasure. 'Standard practice with prisoners. You will be given a receipt.'

  I turned to Elliot. 'In my wallet,' I said, 'probably very wet, is a photograph. It was taken at an office dinner. It shows Alsa Hay and me together.'

  He said, 'So?'

  `So to Anderson Miss Petrie's been almost a surrogate mother. They've known each other a long time. He stays at her cottage when he's in Lerwick. Do you suppose,' I said, `that he might have taken the girl he's going to marry to see Miss Petrie?'

  Ì still don't get it.'

  `Don't you? He's hiding, right? And she's protecting him. Possibly even in touch with him. He's got what somebody wants. His girl's sent him a picture and some kind of warning. There's a fire in his cottage and the postman who gave him the package is attacked. Anderson can't do much except wait and see what happens. Wait for some kind of approach. But the approach has to be from somebody he can trust. Right?'

  Willingham said, 'Fine. We'll take the photograph.'

  Ì don't look like you, Willingham, I'm very glad to say!

  Nor does Elliot. The only person here who looks like me is me. There's just a chance Miss Petrie might trust me. If she's met Alsa. But you can't do it. The photograph's no use to you unless I'm present, nice and clean and smiling earnestly.'

  Elliot looked at me doubtfully. Then he said, 'There's one more thing you don't know. Anderson has a
partner in his bird--watching. Guy called Newton. He seems to have vanished, too.'

  I thought I could guess how. This man Newton must have been on the Holm, doing his stint. Anderson was on the way to relieve him when the postman gave him the package. Anderson probably went to Noss, taking his mail with him. They changed places and Newton returned to Lerwick, where Marasov grabbed him in the mistaken belief he was Anderson. Bad luck on Newton, but it got us no further. I said, Ì can't see it changes anything. Now, do we show the photograph to Miss Petrie?'

  Elliot nodded slowly, then said, 'Yeah. We'll see her. I'll have your things brought in.'

  I had a bad moment of waiting. I wasn't absolutely certain, couldn't quite remember, whether I'd changed all my things from one set of clothes to the other aboard Catriona. I was relying on the fact I usually do, out of habit. Whenever I change my clothes, my wallet goes first.

  The copper brought in a miscellaneous collection of small change, keys, a soaked passport and a wetter handkerchief. And the wallet. I opened it and looked among the soggy money and indestructible credit cards for the picture. It was there. Water doesn't damage photographic prints unless they dry out and stick to something.

  `Got it?' Elliot asked.

  I nodded.

  Òkay. Let's go!'

  I slipped the wallet into my back trouser pocket and said, `There's one more thing.'

  `What's that?'

  `Nature calls.'

  `Jesus!'

  Àbsolutely imperative,' I said.

  So off I went to the lavatory. There's paper in lavatories, and for anyone who wonders, some British police stations haven't introduced the soft stuff yet. Not, at any rate, for prisoners. The stock in there was lethally harsh, but plenty strong enough for writing, and my wallet held, as always, a little ball-point pen of the kind they put in the spines of diaries. I carry it because my first boss said a reporter should never be without one in reserve and the habit stuck.

  I wrote my message quickly, put the pen away, folded the paper small and went out to join the other two. 'Shall we go?'

  When we got to the neat little cottage, Miss Petrie took one look at Elliot and said, 'I told you. I don't know where he is!' Having told him, she noticed me. 'I told you too.'

  I said, 'Miss Petrie, I'd like to show you something. May we come in?'

  Ì see no need —'

  Ìt's important. It really is important, Miss Petrie. Please! May we come in?' She didn't want us in. She hadn't lived a life of trickery and deception and clearly felt safer with the more obvious practitioners of the arts in the street. But her manners won. She stepped back reluctantly and allowed us into her spotless little sitting room.

  `Well, young man?'

  I pulled my wallet out, removed the photograph and handed it to her. Alsa and I had sat side by side at somebody's retirement dinner and I'd trimmed the rest of the print away to leave just the two of us. Romantic. A little pathetic. I handed the picture to her and said, '

  Alison Hay.'

  Miss Petrie looked at it closely, then at me, even more closely. I said, 'I've never met James Anderson. But Alsa is an old friend. So was her father.'

  She looked hesitant, unsure how to play it. I said, The picture was taken at a dinner. We work for the same newspaper. My name is John Sellers. I was hoping that at some time, Alsa might have mentioned my name.' But there was no reaction. Ì see. And these gentlemen? Are they her friends, too?' `No, Miss Petrie, they're not.'

  Elliot said quickly, 'Just a minute, Sellers!'

  Ìt's okay,' I said. 'They don't know her, but they are involved in this.'

  `Hmm.' The bright, alert eyes looked me over again. I was no beauty in those dried and creased clothes. I hadn't shaved. Miss Petrie wasn't convinced and I could do nothing more to convince her. Or could I? I said, 'She told me about Aggie-Waggie.' It was true in a way.

  Àggie-Waggie?'

  I smiled. 'Three jolly workmen.'

  She said, 'It's only called Aggie-Waggie in Shetland.' Ì know. Alsa told me.'

  Elliot said, 'What the . . . What's Aggie-Waggie?'

  À children's game,' .1 told him. 'They play it in the school yard, don't they, Miss Petrie?'

  Ìn the street too.'

  I said, 'Miss Petrie, I can't offer you more than that in the way of bona fides. I can only say I'm on Anderson's side.' Àre you? You've never met him. Why should you be?' `Because I'm on Alsa's.' Then I added quickly, and flatly so it wouldn't hurt so much: 'I wanted Alsa to marry me Miss Petrie.'

  She glanced from my face to the photograph and back again and for a moment it seemed to me that the frost in her eyes just might have held something else, perhaps sympathy. `

  You're generous, Mr — ?'

  `Sellers. Miss Petrie, I don't know whether you can get a message to Tames Anderson.'

  She opened her mouth to speak, but I ploughed on. 'I

  don't expect you to tell me whether you can or not. But

  I suspect you can. And if you can, I'd like you to do so.' She didn't answer, just stood waiting.

  Ìt would be better if we could actually meet him, but we must at least speak to him. He can name the time and place and the circumstances, but it should happen as soon as possible.'

  She thought about it for a moment, looking for the deceptions, finding none because there were none to find. Not yet. At length she said, 'I don't know if .. Ìf you can, Miss Petrie.'

  She glanced at me once more, then opened the door. I wanted Elliot and Willingham to precede me, but, naturally they didn't so I had to force it a bit. I had the little message held between my fingers and I offered my hand for her to shake. She took it immediately and palmed the little folded paper as though she'd been doing it all her life. I smiled, thinking she'd probably watched it all her life : classroom notes slipped from inky fingers to grubby paws. I said, 'We can be reached by telephone, at the police station.'

  She closed the door behind us and Elliot sighed. 'Will she do it?'

  I shrugged. I didn't know either. I thought I might have convinced her, but my note could just as easily undo it all again. The note was a real piece of duplicity.

  `We'll have to wait,' I said, 'And hope.'

  CHAPTER NINETEEN,

  We went back to the police station to do our waiting. There was nothing else to be done. The police were still continuing to search for Anderson, but Sergeant McAllister's occasional reports on lack of progress had a hopeless air. He knew as well as we did that if Anderson didn't want to be-found, there was no way on earth of finding him. We did a few desultory, time-passing things. I had some breakfast and later another and longer bath in the hope of easing away some of the embedded stiffness and soreness from my body. It helped a bit, but not much. Elliot went into purdah to telephone London and emerged looking as though parts of him had been gnawed. Willingham conceived the bright idea that all Russian vessels should be ordered from Shetland waters forthwith and tried to convince Wemyss in London that it was a wise and far-seeing strategy. After listening to Wemyss for a moment, he asked McAllister whether Polish and East German boats came into Lerwick too, reluctantly agreed with Wemyss that it was the same difference, and abandoned the idea. McAllister added his jot to the general uncertainty by telling us that a squad of Russians was actually marching in the Up-Helly-Aa procession that evening. A few weeks earlier, some Russian fishermen had proved that professional comradeship overrides the ideological variety by performing a particularly heroic rescue of a dozen fishermen from a local boat wrecked off the Shetlands, and the invitation was the island's way of saying thanks. In Lerwick, at this moment, the Russians were clearly fireproof. Noon came and went. Time drifted by. Not much talking was done. Willingham unearthed another bright idea. Now he wanted to pressure Miss Petrie really hard. 'In circum-' stances like these, any means are justified,' he urged Elliot doggedly. I wondered for the hundredth time what this psychopathic idiot was doing in intelligence at all. Elliot simply said she didn't look the kind who bullied easy and fo
rget it. We stared at the phones and waited for them to ring.

  It was a long wait, and its end merely signalled the start of another. The phone rang at three-thirty. Elliot answered it, handed it to me, and picked up another linked phone so he could listen, too.

  `Mr Sellers? Catherine Petrie here. I'm given to understand that you should wait at the entrance to the Town Hall at six o'clock.'

  I said, 'Thank you.' And asked carefully, 'He's accepted what I said?'

  Ì believe Miss Hay has spoken of you, Mr Sellers.'

  , With Elliot on the line, I couldn't take it further. I just had to hope. Miss Petrie rang off and the second long wait began.

  We went to the window and looked across the street. The Town Hall entrance was a mere thirty yards or so away, and

  could easily be watched from where we stood. Willingham started watching at three thirty-five and kept up a shuffle of irritation as daylight died and the lights came on, inside and out. Elliot telephoned London again to say that things might be looking up now. I kept my fingers crossed and stared at my shoes, and wondered exactly where Alsa was. I no longer even considered the possibility that she might be dead. The phony Schmid had put an equation to me : that whether she was dead or not didn't matter, so long as we could hope she was still alive. The equation didn't hold any more. Anderson now had the transparency, and when he knew the rest of the story, he'd want to see Alsa alive and kicking before he even considered anything else. And the Russians would be well aware of that. They'd be here now, in the darkening streets, waiting for us to move, ready to make their play. So they had to keep Alsa somewhere near. On a fishing boat perhaps. Even one of those in the harbour. Several times I looked down the hill at the tied-up boats, and had to restrain myself from rushing out of the police station, down to the quay and on to the nearest vessel that was flying a hammer and sickle. Towards six o'clock, the streets were filling up. The UpHelly-Aa procession was scheduled to begin at seven and all Lerwick, plus half the rest of the population of the Shetlands and a hell of a lot of tourists, would be standing watching. People were coming from all directions, the pavements were already becoming crowded and the police had given up their forlorn search for Anderson after Miss Petrie's phone call. Tonight was whisky night, festivity night, and there were other matters demanding Lerwick's small force's attention.