Shadows of Death (3 page)

‘There was no speech about emergency procedures,’ I commented to Alan.

‘No. I’m sure there are life jackets somewhere if we should need them.’

But it was apparent we weren’t going to need them. The air was perfectly smooth, without so much as an alarming downdraft, and the sun, as Alan had promised, came out quite soon after we took off. The sea below us sparkled and I saw the occasional fishing boat. Not that I know a fishing boat from most other craft, but they weren’t sailboats or ferries, so I made the assumption.

And then we were approaching land, and flying over a field full of sheep that paid not the slightest attention to this odd bird over their heads, and then with a couple of small bumps we were on the ground.

‘Well.’ It was almost anticlimactic. I hadn’t realized how accustomed I was to the usual rituals of flight until they were missing. No speeches about seatbelts and tray tables. No tray tables, for that matter. No admonitions about staying in our seats until we’d arrived at the gate, no canned thanks for flying with them. We landed. We got up, collected Watson and our belongings, and got out onto the tarmac.

Mr MacTavish accepted an embarrassingly small amount of money from Alan, waved us in the direction of the tiny terminal, and there we were in Orkney.

‘Well,’ I said again. Watson sat down, not quite sure of the next procedure. I wasn’t sure, either.

‘Why don’t the two of you make yourselves comfortable while I find the car I’ve hired,’ Alan suggested. So Watson and I trotted obediently to the terminal café, where I had a cup of coffee and Watson was kindly given a bowl of water, which he disposed of noisily.

It was all an airport should be, in miniature. Everything was contained in one fair-sized room, including a gift shop and coffee shop. There was one arrival and one departure gate, a tiny baggage-screening area, and a minute lounge. It was charming, and utterly without the impersonally intimidating aura of big airports.

I had only just finished my coffee when Alan returned. ‘Ready, darling?’

‘That was quick.’

He picked up our bags, I collected Watson, and we went to the car.

While we drove, Alan gave me a quick geography lesson. Orkney consists of some seventy islands, only seventeen or eighteen of them inhabited. We were on the principal island, called the Mainland, which has two towns. The bigger one, Kirkwall, boasts the airport, the cathedral, and – Alan added with a grin – the important Highland Park Distillery. The smaller Stromness, about twenty miles away, is noted principally for the ferry landing, with huge car ferries from Scrabster coming in several times a day. The population of the whole island group is only about 20,000, in an area of maybe 400 square miles.

After that dry selection of facts, I settled in to see for myself what Orkney had to offer. I could claim that I was enchanted with the place from that very first drive from Kirkwall to Stromness. It would make a better story that way, but it wouldn’t be true. I was pleased with the bits of Kirkwall that we saw. The cathedral was impressive, and many of the houses were pretty. But when we got out into the rolling countryside I was aware of a vague uneasiness that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

The weather was perfect. The sky was that chill, pale blue of a northern country, with wisps of high cirrus clouds making a painter’s dream. The pastures were nicely filled with sheep and cattle grazing together, something I’d never seen elsewhere. Small stone farmhouses dotted the landscape here and there, with their outbuildings sprawled in the manner of farm buildings everywhere in the world. Cottage gardens appeared in front of most of the houses, and neat kitchen gardens at the back. But …

‘Alan, there are no trees!’

‘No. The winds in winter can be rather fierce, I understand, so trees don’t thrive. Wildflowers, on the other hand, grow in profusion, including a kind of wild orchid that’s found nowhere else.’

‘Hmm. I like trees. I
need
trees.’

‘There’s a nice little wood at the castle on Shapinsay, though I don’t know if we’ll go up there on this trip.’

‘Castle?’ My ears perked up. I’m a sucker for castles.

‘Not a real one. Not medieval, that is. Victorian, or thereabouts. We’ll have to find you a guidebook or two, and you can read all about it.’

We drove on. There was almost no traffic, which was a good thing, because the road was quite narrow. The landscape was beautiful, no denying it. The sweep of hill and sky made me wish I were a painter. But it all seemed much of a muchness, the same pattern of fields, livestock, farm, road repeating around every—

‘Alan! What’s
that
?’

Alan slowed the car to a stop by the side of the road to let me gape to my heart’s content.

Quite close to me, a piece of stone rose out of the ground. More than three times as tall as it was wide, and quite flat and thin, it looked like a piece of modern sculpture. The top slanted at a perfect forty-five degree angle. Nearby, three other stones thrust against the sky, one nearly a twin of the nearest one, another appearing to have been damaged, and the third more like a petrified tree trunk.

‘What
is
it?’ I repeated. I had edged a little closer to Alan. Something about those stones …

‘It is what remains of an ancient stone circle, a henge, probably around five thousand years old.’

‘Something like Stonehenge?’

‘A bit, but much older.’

We sat in silence. Even Watson seemed struck dumb, until someone walked down the road with a dog in tow, and our dog barked, breaking the spell.

‘I took us a bit out of our way to show you that,’ said Alan as he turned the car around. ‘It’s far from the most impressive monument on the islands, but I wanted you to have a glimpse of Neolithic Orkney straight off.’

‘It’s … uncanny, somehow. I’m …’ I couldn’t finish my thought. I wasn’t sure what I felt, or what I wanted to say. If I remembered what I thought I remembered of high school French, I was
bouleversée
.

If this was the effect of a few minutes at one of the less impressive sights, I wondered whether I’d have any wits left at the end of a week.

W
e found our holiday flat without the slightest difficulty. It would, indeed, be a little difficult to get lost in Stromness, which has only two principal streets, the one skirting the harbour, by which we entered town, and the one above it (above in the literal sense: the town is built on a hillside). Our modern flat faced the harbour, almost across the street from the ferry landing. It had an attached garage, which was an important consideration, since parking is always at a premium in old towns.

‘Where will we get the key?’ I asked as Alan pulled the car up in front of the garage door.

‘Andrew said the door would be open. No one ever locks doors in Orkney.’

Sure enough, the door was unlocked. It opened on a minute entrance hall and thence directly into a lovely, well-equipped kitchen. There was a pot of flowers on the table.

‘From Andrew,’ I said, reading the card. ‘How nice of him! Is that one of his own pots?’

‘Probably.’

‘It’s beautiful! And look,’ I said as I continued to explore the kitchen, ‘he’s given us some food, as well. Cereal, bread, butter, milk, tea, coffee … even a couple of bottles of wine!’

‘He’s a good chap. I’ve not seen him for years, but we’ve corresponded. I’m looking forward—’

There was a knock at the door, but before either of us could get there, it opened and a man walked in.

If he’d had a beard, he would have made a perfect Santa Claus. White hair, rosy cheeks, little wire-rimmed glasses, and the most delightful smile I think I’ve ever seen.

‘Andrew! What a pleasure! It’s been too long, my friend.’ They shook hands heartily. ‘Andrew, this is my wife, Dorothy Martin.’

I held my hand out, but Andrew enveloped me in a hug.

‘And a bonny wife you are, indeed,’ he said, kissing me on both cheeks before releasing me.

‘Goodness! Thank you for that, and for all you’ve done to make us welcome.’ I gestured around the kitchen. ‘Flowers, food, even wine. I’ll pour you a glass if there are any glasses.’

‘Not just now, thanks, but I’ll take a rain check. I just stopped in to welcome you to Orkney and invite you to dinner tonight. Sigrid can’t come; she’s at her weekly mah-jongg tournament, but I’d love to have your company. Alan, you remember the Royal Hotel up on The Street?’

‘I can find it.’

‘Splendid. I’ll see you at seven, then.’

I spent a little time unpacking and getting acquainted with my home for the next week while Alan found the garage door opener and put the car away. Then we set out for a walk with Watson.

Alan hadn’t been to Orkney for many years, but it’s a part of the world where things don’t change rapidly. The ferry terminal was new, built to accommodate the huge ‘RORO’ (roll on, roll off) car ferries from Scrabster. That had changed the appearance of the harbour a great deal, and not, I suspected, for the better. But with tourism an important source of income for the islands, it was plainly necessary to make their transportation convenient. We had, after all, planned to arrive at Kirkwall on just such a monstrosity, so it didn’t behove us to throw any stones.

We moved away from the harbour street, though, up to the one that had several names on the map, but was locally called simply The Street. It was the oddest roadway I’d ever seen. For one thing, at its widest it barely allowed two small cars to pass, and the pedestrians who shared the same thoroughfare had to back into doorways whenever a car came along. At the narrowest point, where it curved a little and buildings jutted out on either side, even one car was hard put to get through. The driver had to exercise great care. I pointed out to Alan the scrapes on the walls where various drivers over the years hadn’t been quite careful enough.

‘They were, as I recall, talking about widening the street when I was here last,’ said Alan.

‘And that would have been …?’

‘In the 1970s sometime.’

We both chuckled.

The street wasn’t terribly busy, it being Sunday, so we were able to get a good, leisurely look at our surroundings. There were two hotels, a grocery-cum-bakery-cum-post office, several take-aways, two banks, a pharmacy, a bookstore, clothing stores, a church, gift shops, charity shops, all jammed cheek-by-jowl into the one street, mixed in with houses and B & Bs. Steep little lanes (for walkers; most had steps) led on up to houses at the top of the hill, or down to the harbour. We caught glimpses of tiny, riotous cottage gardens crammed under front windows.

We wandered, getting our bearings, and then decided to wander back to the apartment for a nap before dinner. We hadn’t got very far, though, before Watson stopped dead in his tracks, braced all four feet, and began to growl, low in his throat.

Alan and I stared at each other. Watson never growled.

Then we saw the problem.

Around one of the corners, in the exact middle of the street, lay a large orange cat. The biggest cat, in fact, that I’ve ever seen. One ear was nicked; the tail was bushed. His white bib looked somehow aggressive. He simply lay there and looked at Watson, ignoring the pedestrian traffic, ignoring the car that was approaching, ignoring everything except this dog that had dared encroach upon his territory.

Now, Watson likes cats. He lives with two of them, and they all sleep together. He passes the time of day amiably with the neighbourhood cats in Sherebury.

But he didn’t like this one, and he was making it plain.

I tugged on his leash. I might as well have tried to move the wall next to me.

‘Watson!’ said Alan sharply.

The dog ignored him. The cat began to growl, too. Its hackles rose. Its tail bushed.

The car, meanwhile, had come to a stop, unable to pass the cat. The few pedestrians stopped to watch. I was at a loss. Our sweet-tempered dog had never acted this way before.

Alan made a move to grab Watson’s collar. He growled and snapped. The cat hissed and spat, and lifted a fully armed paw.

Behind us, a door opened with a bang. ‘Don’t get between them.’ The woman who had emerged spoke urgently, but quietly. ‘Let me deal with this.’

She crouched and looked the cat in the eye, from a cautious distance. ‘Bad cat! Stop it this instant!’

The cat looked at her with what I would have sworn was a sneer.

‘Be off with you, then!’ The woman took the water pistol out from behind her back and aimed a stream straight at the cat’s face.

The cat unleashed a string of feline profanity that would have made a sailor blush, but it took off, disappearing into someone’s garden.

Watson sat back with a silly grin, plainly feeling he had been the victor in the skirmish. He was still there, and unharmed. The cat was gone.

‘Ninny!’ I said. ‘You didn’t do a thing except make threats. And whatever made you act that way, anyhow?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said the woman with the squirt gun, which she now tucked away in a pocket. ‘It’s not your dog’s fault. That cat antagonizes everyone, and he can do a lot of damage if he wishes.’

‘Is he yours, then?’ asked Alan, with deceptive mildness. He didn’t like to see animals left untrained.

‘No, praise the Lord! He doesn’t belong to anyone; he’s the town menace.’

‘Does he have a name?’

‘He has several names,’ said the woman grimly. ‘Some of them are polite.’

We laughed at that, and the scene broke up. The patient driver steered her car past us, and we followed the woman back into the cat rescue shop she’d come from.

‘You can come in for a moment if you like, but you’ll have to leave your dog outside,’ said the woman, pleasantly enough. ‘We’re not open. I came over to feed our strays, and most of them are afraid of dogs.’

‘But … if the orange cat is still around …’

‘He won’t be. He’ll be washing his face and plotting revenge somewhere.’

Alan took Watson back outside, and I gave the woman a quizzical look. ‘But you must like cats, or you wouldn’t be working for a cat charity.’

‘I love cats, but not Roadkill.’

‘Roadkill!’