Orkney Twilight (16 page)

She squinted up as the bird gained height, noted the wedge shape of its tail.

‘No. It’s not a crow. It’s a raven.’

‘I can’t spot the difference. I wouldn’t be able to identify a raven in a murder. Or a storytelling come to that. What’s the collective—’

‘Unkindness,’ she said.

She spotted a feather the bird must have dropped on the path, bent down to pick it up: lustrous, shimmering blue-black barbs.

‘It’s a sign,’ she said.

‘It’s a feather,’ said Tom.

She held it aloft, twiddled the dark quill between her fingers. She stared at her treasure for a second and then slipped it into her coat pocket.

The wood was small but dense; twisted branches of hazel, oak and birch pleading to the light, the earthy scent of damp moss and rotting wood trapped in the stagnant air below. She listened for the snap of twigs, the swishing of bracken, soft footsteps on dropped leaves. Nothing. They followed a stony path wending through the brambles, across a shallow ditch and out on the far side of the wood by a field that swept the hillside. There, beyond a long barrow and along the contours of the fields to the right stood Nethergate. Distant but distinct. Grey against green. Jim was standing like a megalith in the elevated garden. Scanning the horizon. Just as she had done the evening of their arrival when she was the High Priestess, carefully constructing her stone temple. She tried to visualize the spot where they were standing now from the vantage point of the croft’s front garden. Was it possible for Jim to see them, standing there watching him? She stared, but he did not turn to look their way and she concluded the tangled branches and a wrinkle in the landscape must obscure their hiding place. She felt a prickling sensation in the back of her neck.

‘God, this place gives me the creeps.’ She looked down and saw a flattened patch of undergrowth by her feet, straddling the border between the wood and the field. ‘Someone’s been lying on the ground just there.’

She knelt and examined the compressed foliage. It revealed the imprint of a body: quite long, quite broad. Male, she guessed. A shrine of fag butts lay half-concealed among the bent stems. A smoker. He had been lying among the brambles and bracken, she surmised, waiting, watching. Hunting. She thought of the Ministry of Defence police. The shadowy Rover. Was somebody after her? Had she been trailed here, to Orkney? Or maybe they were chasing Jim. She shuddered. Tom squatted down beside her. Close enough for her to feel the heat of his body.

‘We are being watched,’ she whispered.

He inspected the patch of flattened grass, glanced at her. ‘Could be any number of reasons why someone might want to lie down out of sight on the edge of a wood. Probably just a couple out for a quick shag.’

‘Is that your explanation for everything? Is that always your angle? Sex?’

The words came out more prudishly than she had intended. He shrugged. She turned away, knew he was smiling, bemused behind her back. She half smiled as well before turning back with her puritanical face in place. He stared at her, unblinking. A susurrus in the bushes behind cut short their silent battle.

‘Fox,’ he said. ‘Must be a fox.’

‘There aren’t any in Orkney.’

‘A rabbit then. Or the wind.’

‘It’s a watcher.’

She peered between the tree trunks: no movement, no sign of life.

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘You are spooking yourself out. Let’s see if we can find this pub.’

The pub turned out to be at the far end of the village. Whitewashed walls and slate roof outside; inside, old men huddled around the bar, curved backs interspersed with the upright handles of the beer pumps. The locals broke their conversations as they entered, assessed the foreigners in their midst before returning to their own business. She sat at a small table in a secluded corner, played nervously with the raven’s feather, twiddling the quill again between finger and thumb. He placed the frothing pints between them, sat down opposite her, pushed himself back in his chair as if to get a better view, said nothing. She let the silence run, waiting to see how long it would last before he cracked.

‘It’s that slight twilight zone thing that I just don’t quite get about you,’ Tom said eventually. ‘All the signs and ancient mysteries and dope smoking.’

‘And the thing I don’t quite get about you,’ she snapped, ‘is all this flirting with capitalism.’

‘Flirting with capitalism? What, because I want to have a career? Because I bother to think about how I’m going to earn a living?’

‘It’s not that. It’s this interest in making money, the awe you have when you talk about the City.’

She picked up a pile of beer mats, tried to balance one across two uprights in an attempt to construct a miniature Stonehenge.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘I am getting a bit fed up with the lefty knee-jerk rejection of anything to do with making money. And I do find it a relief talking to people who run a business, because at least you can have a conversation about something practical, tangible. Prices, supply and demand. Straightforward rational stuff.’

She winced – an inexplicable twinge of rejection – and focused on her beer mat monument, searching for a suitable riposte. She retrieved her conversation with Nils, recalled him saying he had to use magic to turn fish into money.

‘I’m not sure business is that rational and straightforward. Markets. Trade. It’s not all practical and tangible. A lot of it is hocus-pocus.’

He pulled his sceptical face, his cynical journalist look. It egged her on.

‘I mean, what about economics, what about the invisible hand.’ She waved her arm dramatically, sent her beer mats scudding across the table. ‘It’s straight out of the twilight zone. It’s a myth, it’s a fairy tale.’

‘The invisible hand isn’t a myth.’

‘What is it then?’

‘The invisible hand is a…’ he paused. ‘It’s a model, a metaphor, used to explain how markets work. You could say it’s an ideological device, but I don’t think you could call it a myth.’

‘What’s the difference between a myth and an ideology?’

‘Well, I think a myth…’ He stalled.

She looked through the pub window, spotted the Dog Star shining in the crepuscular sky. ‘Myths are just ideologies from other times and places that we no longer believe,’ she said.

‘I don’t think it’s as—’ The clang of the barman’s bell cut him short. There was a flurry of activity around the bar as last orders were shouted.

‘Shall we go,’ she said.

She pushed her chair back and as she did so a twinge – hairs rising on her neck – made her turn. A stranger was standing by the bar, slightly apart from the old men, cigarette smoke writhing around his arm, coiling upwards, gathering in a particle cloud above his head. Her stomach knotted. Gut feeling. He must have trailed them to the bar. She assessed his appearance: mid-forties, mid-height, square shoulders, once black now salt-and-pepper hair brushed back revealing a widow’s peak, blunt moustache, royal blue fine-knit Pringle jumper – a thin veneer of respectability pulled down over his shirt. He would have blended in at the Coney’s Tavern. Almost. Something about his outfit jarred, wasn’t quite in character. She glanced down at his shoes: burgundy mock croc slip-ons. No self-respecting suburban golfer would be seen dead in a pair of mock croc slip-ons; they were more seedy Soho than self-satisfied Surrey. Maybe he wasn’t trying too hard. Maybe he wanted her to know he was shadowing her. Maybe he wanted to unnerve her. She looked up from his shoes and he caught her in his glare. He passed his hand in front of his face in a slow motion movement of cigarette from mouth to ashtray and his unblinking black eyes momentarily mesmerized her. What was he after?

‘Come on,’ said Tom. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Tom pulled her to the door, breaking her free from his hypnotic stare. She felt his eyes following her back as they left.

They walked the road in silence, past the shut-up post office, the solitary telephone box, beyond the straggle of village houses, the burial mound, up the dimming hillside.

‘That was him,’ she said, his gaze playing on her mind.

‘Who?’

‘The man standing at the bar, the one who was dressed like a golfer from Surbiton.’

‘What about him?’

‘He is the spy in the woods.’

‘How do you work that one out? If he was dressed like a golfer, maybe he is a golfer. You said people come to Orkney to play golf in the midnight sun.’

‘He’s the Watcher. I know he is. I can sense it.’

‘Twilight zone,’ he said dismissively.

‘Maybe he’s after me.’

‘Why would he be after you?’

‘Because I broke into the base at Greenham with Becky.’

‘Did you? But so what? Loads of people have done that. Nobody’s going to follow you to Orkney because you trespassed on an RAF base. That’s a ridiculous idea.’

‘I know. But…’ She fell back into herself. Tried to unpick the knot in her stomach. He was right, she thought. The Watcher in the woods wasn’t after her. He was after Jim. This wasn’t anything to do with Greenham. This was something more serious. Darker. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted.

‘Short-eared,’ she said.

‘I reckon you make it up as you go along.’

The owl hooted again, closer this time. Behind them.

‘It’s hunting. Come on. Let’s get home.’

Jim had the Ordnance Survey map spread out on the living-room table. He narrowed his eyes as they entered, registered her nervousness. She wondered whether she should mention the Watcher. Warn him that somebody was on his trail. But she couldn’t speak then anyway, not with Tom listening.

‘Okay was she?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

He leaned over the chart again.

‘What are you looking for?’ she asked

‘Somewhere we can visit tomorrow. How about Marwick Head?’ He pointed to the northwestern edge of the island, a ruffle of cliffs marking the border between land and sea. She felt the memories stirring, heard Liz’s warning in her head. Ignored it. No point in trying to avoid the ghosts. They were everywhere.

‘Great. Kitchener’s Memorial. That’s near to the place where you used to pick mushrooms.’

‘Yes. That’s right. Funny, the tastiest mushrooms always grow near cliffs. Must be something to do with the salt in the air. I’ll drive the Renault and you two can take the Cortina. That way, I can leave when I get pissed off.’

He picked up the map, folded it carefully along its concertina creases. Maps, he was fond of his maps she noted. Outside an owl hooted again. It was in the field behind the house; it must have followed them up the hill.

She was drifting, deep sleep eluding her in the gloaming. She heard a voice calling her name. She sat up. Listened. No sound. She must have imagined it. Ghosts plaguing her. Or else it was the owl calling. She glanced at her watch. Just past midnight. She turned to face the wall, trying to block out the revenants of the night. And then she heard the voice again. Clearer this time. Soft and sad. A man’s voice.

‘Sam. Sam. Are you there?’

Somebody was calling to her from the front garden. She walked over to the window, tweaked the curtain and saw the silhouette of a tall man standing by the rose bushes. He was swaying slightly, as if he were at sea. She peered into the gloom, saw the blue of his eyes turning violet in the lingering rays of the summer sun. It was Nils. It was a relief more than a surprise to see him there; an unexpected midnight visit from a melancholic Norwegian skipper was hardly the worst event she could have imagined. She pulled the curtain further back, waved. He smiled and beckoned her outside.

She grabbed her overcoat, slipped quietly out of her room and through the front door in the hallway into the garden, the grass damp beneath her bare feet, the air perfumed with the sweet scent of dusky roses and the sour trace of beer. Not that it bothered her. The alcohol.

He opened his mouth, but said nothing, his eyes flitting past her.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘Are you okay?’

He nodded, his sight finally settling on her face.

She couldn’t quite tell whether his hesitation was caused by embarrassment or alcohol.

‘Do you want to come in? I could make you a cup of coffee.’

‘No. No. I have to tell you something,’ he managed to say.

She shrugged, bemused. ‘What?’

‘The boat.
The
Inquisitor
.’

The name caught her unawares. She was half hoping for a drunken declaration of attraction. ‘What about it?’ she asked, almost curtly.

He stalled again. ‘I was worried about it. It wasn’t right. I asked the harbour master. He’s a friend of mine. He said it hadn’t been here before. He checked it out. Made some enquiries. It sailed from Scrabster a couple of days ago. Changed hands in Scrabster, different man sailed it out from the one who brought it in. Harbour master said he didn’t like the look of the skipper. He thought there was something not pleasant about him. Shifty.’

Her mouth drooped, downhearted as much as concerned.

‘Did he say what he looked like?’

She didn’t really have to ask. She could guess what was coming.

‘Dark. Said he was dark. Black holes for eyes.’

The Watcher.

‘I wanted to tell you,’ Nils said. ‘Thought he might be after you for some reason. Thought you might be in some kind of trouble. Because you… because you seemed sad. Anxious. As if you were carrying some secret burden perhaps. I’m sorry. This is stupid of me. Shouldn’t have come here at this time. I stopped for a drink in Tirlsay. I’m sorry.’

He lurched towards her. She reached out to steady him.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Thank you for telling me about the boat.’

‘No. I’m sorry about the drinking.’

‘Oh, that’s okay.’

He slumped down heavily on the grass, stared over at the bay.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee?’

He shook his head morosely. ‘All fishermen drink, yes?’

She wasn’t sure whether he was asking her a question or stating a fact.

‘It goes with the life,’ he continued. ‘It is part of the rhythm of fishing. The sea and the land. The peaks and the troughs. I promised her I would control it. But it didn’t make any difference. She still left me.’