Orkney Twilight (9 page)

‘Good plan.’ She hoped it wasn’t obvious that she didn’t have the faintest idea whether it was a good plan or not.

‘What do you write in the notebook then?’ She nodded at his top-pocket.

‘Oh, just bits and pieces. Things people say that interest me or conversations I overhear. Details. It’s what writers do. Writers and journalists.’

She was pointedly silent. He didn’t seem to notice.

‘You know…’ His words were running into one another now, the miniature bottles adding up, taking their toll. He stalled. He started again. ‘You know, I’ve often thought that there are a lot of similarities between journalists and cops.’

‘Why is that then?’

‘Because they’re all outsiders. They sit on the sidelines, and watch what other people are doing rather than taking part in the action. Journalists and policemen are observers, note-takers, reporters.’

‘So you have to be careful in the presence of either,’ she said. ‘Because anything you say might be taken down and used in evidence against you later.’

He mumbled something incomprehensible.

Journalists and cops, cops and journalists. She tried to recall who else had made that comparison. Perhaps it was spies and journalists.

‘Philby said something like that as well.’

‘Kim Philby? Cambridge Five?’

‘Yes. In his memoir.’

She had found it among Jim’s collection. Essential reading for every spy, lessons in tradecraft from the master double-agent; drop-boxes, coded messages, secret signals. She had noted them in Philby, and ticked them off against the strange scenes and actions she had occasionally witnessed when she was out and about with Jim.

‘I should read Philby,’ said Tom. ‘He was a journalist, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes. Foreign correspondent. He said something about journalists and spies being separated by a fine and not always visible line when it comes to their methods for obtaining information. Journalists are supposed to use legal methods. Spies, well, they don’t bother.’

‘Do you read a lot of books about spies?’

‘No.’ And detectives. Crime fiction. Had a graph in her head: x axis – outward appearance, tics, tradecraft; y axis – inner motivation, beliefs, dysfunctions. She plotted all the fictional coppers and spooks on the graph, mapping them against Jim.

The clunk of the wheels on the tracks rolled through her mind.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked. Again.

‘Nothing.’

‘You must be thinking something.’

She turned to the window and spotted the diamond light of the Dog Star, trailing them across the storm-cleared sky.

‘I’m thinking I hope you’re not going to write anything about Jim’s work in that notebook of yours.’

‘Of course I’m not going to write anything about Jim’s work. Anyway, I can’t see there is much to write about. Where’s the story? Undercover cop possibly involved in covert surveillance of unions and left-wing groups. Not exactly a gripping headline. Everybody knows about it anyway.’ He pushed his feet under the tightly tucked sheets.

He was right, she thought. No story there, everyone knew about that anyway.

‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘he might be having an affair with one of his contacts?’

She hesitated, something about the tone of his voice set an alarm bell ringing. ‘Dunno. Not something I’ve ever really thought about.’

‘I bet he tries it on with some of his contacts.’

‘I suppose any cop who was watching a left-wing group would have to try it on with some of his contacts. I mean if he didn’t he’d soon be found out, wouldn’t he, because he would be the odd-man out. Oh look, there’s a bloke not trying to have it off with anything that moves; he must be an undercover cop.’

She was finding it hard to sound jokey. Jesus, she really would have to be more guarded about what she said to Tom.

‘That’s probably why he’s thinking about leaving the Force,’ he said. ‘He was caught with his trousers down.’

‘Don’t you ever let up?’

He didn’t respond.

‘Why did you ask me to come with you anyway?’ he asked eventually, a note of sulkiness in his voice. ‘Why didn’t you ask Becky?’

‘I did ask Becky but she couldn’t make it. And I couldn’t think of anyone else who I could persuade to spend a week with Jim and then you phoned. So I asked you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Pleasure.’

‘Anyway, I’m going to try and get some sleep now. I need my eight hours.’

He turned his back on her.

The compartment lit up and darkened again as they passed empty stations and plough scarred fields, leaving the south behind. The comforting chunkety-chunk of the train on its tracks was making her eyelids droop when the metallic screech of grinding wheels and the intoxicating scent of brake oil filled the air and yanked her back to consciousness. She heard men shouting, saw torchlight beams sweeping the cabin ceiling. She panicked. She was back at Greenham. Inside the base. By the telephone cable box. The patrol was chasing her.

She had unearthed the secrets of the bunker’s communications system almost unintentionally from an off-duty Ministry of Defence policeman in a pub in Newbury. She was on her way back with Becky from one of their day trips to Greenham and had stopped off for a quick drink. He was standing at the bar. Young. Bit laddish. He had started chatting to them while they were waiting to be served. He must have thought they were locals. The smoky atmosphere of the pub must have covered the smell of the campfire in their hair and clothes, because he had told them that he was part of one of the patrols that guarded the exterior of the perimeter fence at the base. He started teasing Sam, guessed she wasn’t eighteen. Not that anybody took much notice of the laws about the legal age of drinking. He was digging, trying to find out exactly how old she was. She had told him – just to change the subject – that her dad used to be in the army and now he was a cop. Of course, that had got him going; it was like a masonic handshake, a sign that she was one of them. So he had opened up, fed her some of his stories. Boasted about his exploits. Trying to impress.

She had asked him about the bunker, the command and control centre inside the base that was the subject of much feverish speculation among the women around the campfire. He had told her it was an impenetrable fortress that housed the legendary hotline to the White House; the phone line the President used to give the order to light the blue touchpaper of the cruise missiles. Then, without any prompting from her at all, he had revealed the chink in the bunker’s armour: the telephone cables. The US officials had installed their own communications system because they didn’t trust the assholes at British Telecom. He had laughed when he said that – assholes – and she had laughed too. Although now, he had added, the American military had been forced to revert temporarily to the British system because their imported, high-tech equipment was suffering from too many glitches. Voltage incompatibilities leading to long-term damage apparently. So the American military had closed the US system down for overhaul. Of course, they had radio and other forms of communications too. But the landline, the legendary hotline to the White House, was currently routed through the ageing British Telecom underground telephone cables.

She had smiled. And he had casually added that maybe the Americans did have a point about British Telecom, because the White House hotline was easily accessible in the Crookham Common end of the base via an above-ground telephone junction cabinet. The cables had originally been installed in the sixties, when Greenham was little more than a barracks for RAF personnel. The cabinet was standard practice, in case additional lines were required. It had just been left there. A green metal box, right by the perimeter fence.

Becky had listened in astonishment to the policeman’s story, open-mouthed amazement at the ease with which Sam had extracted this ridiculously sensitive piece of information. The policeman had caught sight of Becky’s slack jaw and immediately realized he had made a mistake. Given too much away. Much too much. Sam saw his features drop into lockdown as it dawned on him he was chatting up the enemy. He had walked off abruptly, pint glass trembling perceptibly in his grasp.

They had returned to Greenham in May, just after their exams had finished, on a demob high. Becky had suggested they drive round to the Crookham Common end of the base and take a look for the telephone cable cabinet. Sam had been happy to fall in with Becky’s plan. She enjoyed roaming the common at night, listening for owls. Didn’t think there was much risk of being caught. It was ridiculously easy to break in at the far north-eastern end of the base, where it merged almost seamlessly with the scrappy woodlands. Everybody knew that.

They didn’t need a torch; it was a clear night and a waxing moon lit their track across the common to the twelve-foot perimeter fence. It didn’t take them long to locate a section that had already been cut by a previous invader from the camp and hastily repaired by the Ministry of Defence police. Pliers were sufficient to reopen the hole. They checked for patrols and crawled through to the other side, hands and knees in the sandy soil and tangled undergrowth. Sam hadn’t really expected to find anything, assumed it would be a quick jaunt. In and out. Adrenalin hit. Triumphant high. But Becky had insisted on scouting around and had spotted the refrigerator-sized military green metal cabinet squatting behind the fluorescent yellow of a gorse bush. Easy to find if you knew what you were looking for. It had to be the telephone cable box. What else could it be? Becky had wanted a closer look. They traipsed over the heather. They were standing right in front of the cabinet, scrutinizing the locks on its doors, when they heard the dogs baying. Torch-beams directed at them. Lights jumping around as the patrol ran along the perimeter. Men shouting. Ordering them to stand away. They had sprinted back to the fence. Scrabbled though. Slipped among the silver birches of the common. Melting into the moon shadows of the night.

Becky had been exhilarated. She was full of plans to return and sabotage the cabinet. Sam had been unnerved. Panic-stricken. She tried to talk Becky down while she silently worried that the policeman would have reported his slip-up to his superiors straight away, recounted his pub meeting with the copper’s daughter. The information he had given away was far too sensitive to let it lie. They were probably making enquiries already. Putting two and two together. Trawling through photographs in the police files on the camp. Looking for her face. Alerting all forces. She was plagued by the sense that she had breached some unspoken boundary, abused the fact that she was a copper’s daughter. She couldn’t contain her anxieties. The crosswire of the fence was making random appearances in her dreams and she would wake, sweating, uncertain whether she had been inside looking out or outside looking in.

She sat up, banged her head, realized it was only night workmen repairing the tracks and lay back on her scratchy pillow. She couldn’t get back to sleep. She needed to pee. She tried to ignore the urge but she knew it was useless. She levered herself down over the edge of her bunk, searched with her toe for a safe spot on the bed below, made it to the ground and fumbled her way in the semi-darkness through the compartment door. The overhead bulbs cast a stark, surreal light along the corridor. She stumbled right towards the toilet, glanced back over her shoulder and jumped when she saw a guard leaning against the wall at the end of the carriage; sleeves rolled, arms folded, gazing into space. He looked up, barely acknowledged her through hooded eyes, made her feel uneasy.

She closed the toilet door, double-checked the lock. The stench of urine made her gag. She washed her hands, trying not to step in the piss-puddles covering the floor, and caught sight of her face in the clouded mirror above the sink. Her image had a greenish tinge: a ghoulish doppelgänger. She lurched out in to the corridor again. The guard was still propped up against the carriage wall, gawking at nothing. She noticed a small bare patch on his hairy forearm that made him look like a sick monkey; a shaved spot for a scabby new tattoo of something dark. Scorpion. She pushed her way hurriedly into the compartment, locking the door firmly behind her. She accidentally trod on Tom’s overhanging leg as she clambered back into her bunk. He stirred and asked whether they had passed Manchester yet.

‘You’re on the wrong track,’ she whispered.

She stared at the ceiling through whiskey-blurred eyes, saw the outline of a scorpion in its crosshatch patterns and wondered how long the guard been standing outside their compartment. Whether he had been listening to their conversation. Wondered what on earth Jim was doing. How she managed to end up going on holiday with a reprobate undercover cop, a pistol and an aspirant hack on a quest for a headline. She pulled the blanket over her head. The train rattled north. On the run to Orkney.

A sea of blue dawn mists hung low over the cutting. She was almost close enough to touch the heather-tufted slopes rising steeply above the single track. Tom wormed his way out of his bunk and stood behind her.

‘The Highlands,’ he said.

‘Aviemore, to be precise,’ she replied.

She saw the silhouette of an antlered stag up above them on a spur, poised, ready for flight. ‘Look.’

‘What?’

‘Stag.’ She pointed, but it had vanished.

The train strained as it started its descent along the incline, then rolled into the station and stopped shy of the buffers. Passengers swarmed on to the platform in the grey light. Jim appeared from nowhere.

‘Follow me,’ he said authoritatively as he marched off, puffing dragon breath into the cold morning air, skilfully dodging any early-morning social niceties.

‘Good morning, Dad,’ she shouted after him. He ignored her, heading along the platform. The Cortina had already been offloaded from the trailer and was in the car park, its decrepit state exaggerated by the two gleaming metallic saloons parked on either side. Jim strolled off to collect the keys from the guard.

‘We’ve got about six hours to reach Scrabster and catch the ferry,’ he said on his return, glancing at his watch, ‘which should be plenty of time, but we’ve got to cross Caithness, so I don’t want to bugger about. No shilly-shallying.’