Devices and Desires (50 page)

Looking back, she could see that the lights in the harbour were growing fainter, the windows becoming little squares of light and then pinpricks. The engine stuttered into greater life and, standing on the prow, she could feel the great power of the North Sea beneath her, the hiss of the parting water, see the unbroken waves smooth and black as oil emerging out of the mist, could feel the boat lifting, shuddering and then settling. After ten minutes of watching, she left her post and made her way back to the cockpit. She said: “Look, we’re well away from land now. What’s going on? Did you have to tell him that? I know I’m supposed to keep away from people at Larksoken, but I’ll find him, and I’ll tell him the truth.”

Caroline was still standing motionless at the tiller, looking straight ahead. In her left hand she held a compass. She said: “We won’t be going back. That’s what I have to tell you.”

Before Amy could even open her mouth she said: “Look, don’t start getting hysterical and don’t argue. You’re entitled to an explanation, and if you keep quiet you’ll get it. I’ve no option now; you have to know the truth, or some of the truth.”

“What truth? What are you talking about? And why aren’t we going back? You said we’d only be gone about an hour. You said we were going out to meet some comrades offshore and get some new instructions. I left a note for Neil saying I wouldn’t be long. I’ve got to get back to Timmy.”

But still Caroline didn’t look at her. She said: “We’re not going back because we can’t. When I recruited you from that London squat I didn’t tell you the truth. It wasn’t in your interest and I didn’t know how far I could trust you. And I didn’t know the whole truth myself, only as much as I needed to know. That’s the way the operation works. Operation Birdcall is nothing to do with taking over Larksoken in the cause of animal rights. It’s nothing to do with animals. It’s nothing to do with threatened whales and sick seals and tormented laboratory animals and abandoned dogs and all the other spurious miseries you agonize about. It’s to do with something far more important. It’s to do with human beings and their future. It’s to do with the way we organize our world.”

She was speaking very low and with an extraordinary intensity. Amy said above the noise of the engine: “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you properly. Turn off that engine!”

“Not yet. We’ve still a long way to go. We’re meeting them at a precise spot. We have to sail straight southeast, then take a bearing on the power-station offshore structures and the Happisburgh Light. I hope this mist doesn’t thicken.”

“Who? Who are we meeting?”

“I don’t know their names and I don’t know their place in the organization. As I said, we are all of us told only as much as we actually need to know. My instructions were that if Operation Birdcall was blown I was to ring a number and activate the emergency procedure for getting me out. That’s why I bought this boat and made sure it was always ready. I was
told precisely where they’ll pick us up. Then they’ll get us into Germany, provide false papers, a new identity, incorporate us into the organization, find us a job.”

“Not for me they bloody well won’t!” Amy looked at Caroline with horror. “They’re terrorists, aren’t they? And you’re one too. You’re a bloody terrorist!”

Caroline said calmly: “And what else are the agents of capitalism? What are the armies, the police, the courts? What are the industrialists, the multinational corporations who hold down three-quarters of the world’s population and keep them poor and hungry? Don’t use words you don’t understand.”

“I understand that word. And don’t you patronize me. You crazy or something? What were you planning, for Christ’s sakes, to sabotage the reactor, release all that radioactivity, worse than Chernobyl, kill everyone on the headland, Timmy and Neil, Smudge and Whisky?”

“We wouldn’t need to sabotage the reactors or release any radioactivity. The threat would be sufficient once we’d taken over the power stations.”

“The stations? How many? Where?”

“One here, one in France, one in Germany. The action would be coordinated and it would be sufficient. It’s not what we could do when we had taken them over, it’s what people would think we could do. War is out of date and unnecessary. We don’t need armies. All we need are a few trained, intelligent and dedicated comrades with the necessary skills. What you call terrorism can change the world, and it’s more cost-effective in human life than the militaristic industry of death which my father made his career. They’ve only one thing in common. A soldier, in the end, has to be prepared to die for his cause. Well, so are we.”

Amy cried: “It can’t happen! Governments won’t let it happen!”

“It is happening and they can’t stop it. They aren’t united enough and they haven’t the will. This is just the beginning.”

Amy looked at her. She said: “Stop this boat. I’m getting off.”

“And swim ashore? You’d either drown or freeze to death. And in this mist.”

Amy hadn’t noticed the thickening mist. One moment it seemed to her that she could see the distant lights of the shore, like stars, almost she could see the blackness of the slopping waves, could peer ahead. But now, slowly and inexorably, there was a clammy wetness. She cried: “Oh God, take me back. You’ve got to get me off. Get me off. I want Timmy. I want Neil.”

“I can’t do that, Amy. Look, if you don’t want to be part of all this, just say so when the boat arrives. They’ll put you ashore somewhere. It won’t be on this coast necessarily, but somewhere. We don’t want reluctant recruits. There would be enough trouble as it is, fitting you up with a new identity. But if you didn’t want to be part of it, didn’t want to be committed, why did you kill Hilary Robarts? D’you think we wanted a murder investigation centred on Larksoken, police attention, Rickards actually on the site, every suspect’s past scrutinized, nothing left private? And if Rickards had arrested you, how sure could I be that you wouldn’t crack, tell him about Operation Birdcall, turn Queen’s evidence?”

Amy cried: “Are you crazy? I’m on this boat with a bloody crazy woman. I didn’t kill her.”

“Then who did? Pascoe? That’s almost as dangerous.”

“How could he? He was on his way back from Norwich. We lied to Rickards about the time but he was back at the caravan by nine-fifteen, and we were there together all the evening with Timmy. And all that business about the Whistler cutting her forehead, the hair, we never knew any of that. I thought you killed her.”

“Why should I?”

“Because she discovered Operation Birdcall. Isn’t that why you’re running, because you’ve got no option?”

“You’re right that I’ve got no option. But it’s not because of Robarts. She didn’t find out. How could she? But someone did. It isn’t only the Hilary Robarts murder. They’ve started checking up on me, the security services. Somehow they’ve got a lead, probably from one of the German cells or from a mole in the IRA.”

“How do you know? You could be running away for nothing.”

“There are too many coincidences. That last postcard you hid in the abbey ruins. I told you it was put back the wrong way. Someone had read it.”

“Anyone could have found it. And the message wouldn’t have meant anything. It never meant anything to me.”

“Found it in late September, when the picnic season’s well over? Found it and carefully put it back? And that wasn’t all. They’ve checked on my mother’s flat. She has a housekeeper who used to be my nanny. She rang to let me know earlier today. I didn’t wait after that. I sent the signal to say I was getting out.”

On their starboard side the occasional lights of the shore were blurred by the mist but still visible. And the throb of the engine sounded less intrusive now, almost a gentle, companionable hum. Or perhaps, thought Amy, she had got used to it. But it seemed extraordinary to be moving so quietly and steadily through the darkness, hearing Caroline’s voice saying unbelievable things, talking about terrorism and flight and betrayal as calmly as if she were discussing the details of a picnic. And Amy needed to hear, needed to know. She found herself saying: “Where did you meet them, these people you’re working for?”

“In Germany when I was seventeen. My nanny was ill and I had to spend the summer holiday with my parents. My father was stationed there. He didn’t take much notice of me, but someone else did.”

“But that was years ago.”

“They know how to wait, and so do I.”

“And this nanny housekeeper, is she a member of Birdcall too?”

“She knows nothing, absolutely nothing. She’s the last person I’d choose. She’s a silly old fool who’s hardly worth her bed and board, but my mother finds a use for her, and so do I. She hates my mother, and I’ve told her that Mummy is checking on my life and to let me know at once if there are any telephone calls for me or any visitors. It helps make her life with Mummy tolerable. It makes her feel important, helps her to believe that I care about her, that I love her.”

“Do you? Do you love her?”

“I did once. A child has to love someone. I grew out of it and I grew out of her. Well, there was a call and there was a visitor. On Tuesday a Scot, or someone pretending to be a Scot, rang. And today a visitor came.”

“What sort of visitor?”

“A young man who said he’d met me in France. It was a lie. He was an imposter. He was from MI5. Who else could have sent him?”

“But you can’t be sure. Not sure enough to send that signal, leave everything, put yourself at their mercy.”

“I can. Look, who else could it have been? There were three separate incidents, the postcard, the telephone call, the visitor. What else should I wait for? The security services kicking down my door?”

“What was he like, this man?”

“Young. Nervous. Not very attractive. Not particularly convincing either. Even Nanny didn’t believe him.”

“Funny kind of MI5 officer. Couldn’t they do better than that?”

“He was supposed to be someone I’d met in France who fancied me and wanted to see me again and had steeled himself actually to call at the flat. Of course he appeared young and nervous. That’s the kind of man they’d send. They’d hardly choose a seasoned forty-year-old veteran from Curzon Street. They know how to select the right man for the job. That’s their business. He was the right man, all right. Perhaps he wasn’t even meant to be convincing. Perhaps they were trying to scare me, get me to react, flush me out.”

“Well, you have reacted, haven’t you? But if you’re wrong, wrong about it all, what will they do, the people you work for? You’ve blown Operation Birdcall by running away.”

“This operation has been aborted, but the future won’t be jeopardized. My instructions were to telephone if there was firm evidence that we’d been discovered. And there was. And that’s not all. My telephone is being bugged.”

“You can’t possibly tell that.”

“I can’t tell it for certain, but I know.”

Suddenly Amy cried: “What did you do about Remus? Did you feed him, leave him water?”

“Of course not. This has to look like an accident. They’ve got to believe that we’re lesbian lovers who went for an evening boat trip and were drowned. They’ve got to believe that we only intended to be away for a couple of hours. He gets fed at seven. They’ve got to find him hungry and thirsty.”

“But they might not start looking for you until Monday! He’ll be frantic, barking and whining. There’s no one close to hear. You bloody bitch!”

Suddenly she flew at Caroline, screaming obscenities, clawing at her face. But the girl was too strong for her. Hands gripped her wrists like steel bands, and she found herself hurled back against the boards. Through the tears of rage and self-pity she whispered: “But why? Why?”

“For a cause worth dying for. There aren’t many of those.”

“Nothing’s worth dying for, except maybe another person, someone you love. I’d die for Timmy.”

“That’s not a cause, that’s sentimentality.”

“And if I want to die for a cause I’ll bloody well choose it myself. And it won’t be for terrorism. It won’t be for bastards who put bombs in pubs and blow up my friends and don’t give a damn about ordinary people because we’re not important, are we?”

Caroline said: “You must have suspected something. You’re not educated but you’re not stupid either. I wouldn’t have chosen you if I couldn’t be sure of that. You never questioned me and you wouldn’t have got an answer if you had, but you couldn’t have thought that we were going to all that trouble for frightened kittens or butchered seal pups.”

Had she thought that? Amy wondered. Perhaps the truth was that she had believed in the intention but never that it would actually be carried out. She hadn’t doubted their will, only their ability. And in the meantime it had been fun to be part of the conspiracy. She had enjoyed the excitement, the knowledge that she had a secret from Neil, the half-simulated frisson of fear as she left the caravan after dark to plant the postcards in the ruins of the abbey. She had hidden behind a broken breakwater almost laughing aloud that night when she had nearly been caught by Mrs. Dennison and Mr. Dalgliesh. And the money had been useful, too—generous payment for so small a task. And there had been the dream, the picture of a
flag whose design was as yet unknown, but which they would raise over the power station and which would command respect, obedience, instant response. They would be saying to the whole world, “Stop it. Stop it now.” They would be speaking for the captive zoo animals, the threatened whales, the polluted, sick seals, the tormented laboratory animals, the terrified beasts driven into the abattoirs to the smell of blood and their own death, the hens crowded together, unable even to peck, for the whole of the abused and exploited animal world. But it had been only a dream. This was reality: the unsubstantial boards under her feet, the dark, suffocating mist, the oily waves slapping against their frail craft. The reality was death; there was no other. Everything in her life, from the moment she had met Caroline in that Islington pub and they had walked back to the squat together, had led to this moment of truth, this terror.

She moaned: “I want Timmy. What about my baby? I want my baby.”

“You won’t have to leave him, not permanently. They’ll find a way of reuniting you.”