by Clare Carson
‘What are you doing?’
‘Building a stone circle.’
‘Oh God. Why?’
Because she was fed up with dodging his bloody questions about Jim.
‘It’s a shrine to the dead.’ She grubbed around the flowerbed, selecting more rocks. ‘I’m going to light a bonfire here on midsummer’s night to celebrate the solstice and appease the ancestors.’
‘You don’t even know who half your ancestors are. You wouldn’t even recognize most of your nearest relatives if you bumped into them in the street.’
She ignored his sneering tone, stood upright facing the disappearing sun and flung her arms open wide. ‘I am the High Priestess.’
‘You are the queen of the potheads.’
‘I am the High Priestess,’ she repeated. ‘Seeress and worshipper of Freyja.’
The sun dipped behind the ridge of the hills, drenching the garden in a sepia wash. Goose pimples formed on her bare flesh, her shoulders hunched instinctively.
She dropped her arms to her sides. ‘Midsummer is more depressing than midwinter. It’s darker in December, but at least the days are bound to get lighter. Midsummer is like a long goodbye. You can sense in your stomach that it’s all downhill from here, when the nights start to stretch out after the high point of June.’
She shivered, uneasy, suddenly aware that she was exposed out here on the flank of the hill. She felt a prickle in the back of her neck. ‘Here, give me the bins a moment.’
‘No. I’ve just spotted a very nice curlew.’
‘Seriously. Let me have them. It feels like someone is watching us. I want to check.’
He puffed his cheeks as he handed her the binoculars. ‘Here you are then.’
She scanned the coastline, swept the hills behind them.
‘Well? Can you see anyone spying on us?’
‘No.’ She paused. A movement in the corner of her vision drew her head towards Tirlsay. She locked on a flicker, a gleam, focused, steadying her hands, trying to distinguish shadows from solid objects. She half expected to spot the black Rover. But there was nothing. She swung the lenses back towards the post office. The Merc was still parked outside, no sign of its driver.
‘Too much pot makes you paranoid,’ said Tom.
‘Just because you’re paranoid… Let’s go in,’ she added. ‘I’m getting cold out here.’
The resident crow cawed and cackled as they trekked back to the kitchen.
A half-empty glass of Jameson’s and a plate of broken crab limbs sat on the mottled carpet. Jim was fiddling with the television.
‘No reception. Must be the hills. Shame. I wouldn’t mind watching something mindless for half an hour or so. I’m knackered after all that driving.’
‘The video might work,’ said Tom. They riffled through the cassettes stacked under the television and Jim selected one labelled ‘The Sweeney’. The video player refused to co-operate. Jim threatened the machine and Tom offered helpful comments about connections while she surreptitiously unwrapped the bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk which Tom had left lounging on the sofa. She stuffed a couple of squares in her mouth, squashed them against her palate. Savoured her sweet revenge for the unshared Hobnobs.
Jim was about to give up when the video player sprang into life of its own volition.
‘First series,’ said Jim. ‘The best one. Gone downhill a bit since then, though. It’s always the way. Still my favourite cop series though.’
‘It must be every cop’s favourite cop series,’ she said.
‘Inspector Regan is a great character,’ said Tom. He turned to Jim. ‘Do you think The Sweeney is realistic?’
Jim paused. She cringed. They had only been at Nethergate a couple of hours and already Tom was quizzing Jim. He would flip. She counted to five.
‘Well, there’s an element of truth there,’ said Jim. ‘In the characters more than the plot, though. And, in fact, the writers talked to a lot of cops. In the bar, of course. Best place to get stories out of cops.’ He laughed. She watched him curiously. What was his game? ‘I spoke to them a couple of times,’ he added.
Tom looked impressed. Sam rolled her eyes.
‘So did they base Regan on you?’ Tom asked.
‘Better ask the scriptwriters that.’
‘I bet every detective in Scotland Yard would like to think they were the inspiration for Regan,’ she said.
Jim and Tom stared at the television, laughing chummily at the banter between Regan and his sidekick Carter.
She was feeling bored. ‘Isn’t it funny that everyone loves a fictional detective but nobody likes a real-life copper?’
Jim and Tom ignored her.
She continued anyway. ‘Why do you think that is? What is it about policemen that makes them so popular on television yet so unpopular in real life?’
Jim lobbed a crochet-covered cushion at her. ‘Belt up.’
She bit into another square of the chocolate bar, regarded the paltry remains slyly and decided she might as well polish off the lot.
‘Have you ever noticed that television cops are never happily married?’ she said.
No answer.
‘Why is it that in cop shows policemen’s daughters always end up being kidnapped or murdered?’
‘Maybe it’s because they don’t know how to keep their mouths shut,’ Jim said, then clenched his jaw.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugged them, glared at the screen angrily.
‘The Sweeney is about the Flying Squad anyway,’ she said in Jim’s direction. ‘You don’t have anything to do with the Flying Squad. That’s Harry’s lot, isn’t it? Wasn’t he trying to move to the Flying Squad? Maybe the scriptwriters based Regan on Harry.’ She knew that would get his goat.
‘Harry?’ said Jim. ‘Harry? I doubt it. And anyway, the Flying Squad’s not his lot.’
‘Who is his lot now, then?’
‘Well, after he left Tilbury he went to the drugs squad, but he couldn’t put up with the early morning raids. So then he tried to get a transfer to the Flying Squad and they wouldn’t have him.’
‘Why not?’
‘Cos he’s a lazy bloody bugger; likes to sit around. He’ll do anything to avoid getting off his fat arse.’
‘What’s he doing now then, if the Flying Squad wouldn’t have him?’
‘He’s on diplomatic duties. Managed to finagle a good sitting-down position.’ Jim laughed, for some reason. ‘That reminds me,’ he added swiftly. ‘I’d better send him a postcard.’
‘Why?’ She tried to remember whether she had ever received any kind of card from Jim. He didn’t even sign her birthday cards. It was always Liz who wrote his name on them. And now he was sending postcards to Harry.
‘You don’t usually send postcards.’
‘I won’t see him before he heads off to the Algarve for his summer holiday. He’s going in August.’
‘So?’
He stared fixedly at the television. Regan and Carter were searching for something to pin on the bank robber because he’d nobbled half the jury and walked away from the court scot-free.
The credits rolled and the theme music died away.
‘But don’t the plots have some element of truth?’ Tom asked. ‘I mean coppers do fit people up, try and get them sent down for crimes they haven’t committed, don’t they?’
Jim’s eyes sparked. God, thought Sam, Tom had better watch it; he had better not push his luck. If he wanted to survive the week. But Jim was still in a question-answering mood.
‘Well, of course there are plenty of cops who go in for fixing and fitting. But the thing all these television scriptwriters don’t seem to realize is that it’s actually quite difficult to fit someone up, create a watertight case that will stand up in court. Some of the shit always floats to the surface. So I tend to think it’s easier to look for the real evidence: the facts.’ He paused long enough to allow Tom and Sam a silent sceptical exchange.
‘Of course, if you can’t g
et at the facts, then it’s always possible just to spread the muck a bit. Tell a few stories, put somebody out of action for a while by ruining their reputation. That’s easier. Smear campaign.’
She heard an undertone of self-pity in Jim’s voice, a hint that he was speaking as a victim not a perpetrator, and wondered whether it was the Jameson’s talking. Or an act. Or something different. She watched as he turned and trained his eye on Tom, locked him in his sights.
‘Mind you, it’s not just policemen who spread the crap. They don’t work by themselves. It helps if they have a tame hack to help do the dirty work. You’ll soon find out. Reporters trying to fill the pages. Stringing together a few stories they’ve heard from someone down the bar, concocting some old cobblers to fill the columns. Preferably some old cobblers that allows them to plaster a picture of a woman with big tits on the front page.’
She grimaced, conjured up an image of the tabloid spread about Jim’s brother, Ian Coyle; the lurid story with its extra-large photo of the topless Page Three model.
Tom crossed his arms. ‘Maybe some reporters are happy to pump out crap,’ he said. ‘Especially if they work for the tabloids. But most journalists want to get at the facts because their credibility depends on it.’
She wasn’t convinced Tom really knew what he was talking about, but she had to admire his bottle, refusing to be bulldozed by Jim.
‘Serious journalists have standards,’ Tom continued. ‘Codes of professional ethics they have to follow.’
‘Professional ethics my arse,’ said Jim. ‘Only standards most hacks follow are the ones they think will get their name recognized, push up the circulation figures.’ He drained the last of the whiskey before pushing his hands down on the antimacassars and levering himself up from the soft depths of the armchair.
‘Anyway, I’m just going to drive down to Tirlsay. Use the phone; see if I can arrange for the Cortina to be fixed tomorrow and call Bill to see about borrowing a car. See you later.’
They listened to the crunch and splutter of the Cortina pulling away across the courtyard.
Tom scanned the room. ‘Where’s my Cadbury’s Dairy Milk?’
‘Sorry. Was that yours? You could always have a bit of crab.’ She nodded at the dismembered body lying next to them.
He eyed the hacked-off claws suspiciously. ‘I’ll give it a miss.’
She swiped a leg, crunched it, nipped at the shreds of meat inside, picked the strands of white meat from her front-teeth gap with a fingernail while she scoured the shelves.
‘Hey look – there’s a box of Trivial Pursuit. That’s lucky. I can beat you with my superior knowledge of science and nature.’ She stood up to reach for the game. Her movement was accompanied by a sudden scrabbling up on the roof above the fireplace, as if she had disturbed the crow from its post by the chimney.
‘He doesn’t like journalists much, does he?’ said Tom.
No, she thought, he doesn’t. ‘He doesn’t think too much of television scriptwriters either,’ she said. ‘There aren’t many professions he does admire. He always thinks he can do everybody else’s job better than they can.’
Tom gave her a sidelong look. She could sense him lining up more questions. She took out the Trivial Pursuit board, fiddled about with the pieces of coloured plastic, reached for the dice, threw it quickly.
‘Green question, please.’
8
They left the mechanic staring sorrowfully at the Cortina. Jim said he was going to find Bill and pick up the car. He headed off with his haversack. Sam and Tom ambled into the centre of Stromness, following narrow side passages hemmed in by thick granite walls. They stumbled across the museum by the water’s edge, meandered through its rooms holding a mishmash of stuffed birds, Neolithic pots, telescopes, chronometers from ships of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Tom was drawn to an exhibition about Scapa Flow, the stretch of sheltered water between Mainland and Hoy, used as a harbour by the Vikings and then the British navy in the First and Second World Wars.
Sam examined the photos of old battleships. ‘Scapa Flow is a bit of a watery graveyard.’
An accidental fire had caused an explosion on board HMS Vanguard, anchored there in 1917, killing eight hundred and four men. And then in 1939, a German U47 had penetrated the eastern end and torpedoed HMS Royal Oak, killing eight hundred and thirty-three men. Tom seemed unmoved by the loss of life, more gripped by the fear of diving below the waves in a U-boat. He said there was no way he could be part of a submarine crew because he was afraid of drowning; he had toppled over the side of a dinghy into the sea when he was four, but fortunately his mum had managed to hoik him out of the water and saved him, and now she regularly recounted the story of seeing his little white face staring up at her pleadingly from below the waves. Sam said that the idea of being in a submarine freaked her out as well.
‘I thought you loved the sea.’
‘Claustrophobia. I can’t go in lifts. The tube is fairly difficult too. The Northern line is the worst. It’s deeper than the others.’
‘What do you think that’s all about, then?’
‘No idea. I think it’s pretty common. All those people standing for hours at bus stops in London; I reckon they are all just there to avoid the tube. There’s no other reason to wait for a bus in London.’
‘Phobias,’ he pressed the tips of his fingers into a steeple, ‘usually have their root in childhood.’
She checked her watch. ‘Let’s go and look at the boats.’
She peered into the oil-filmed water slapping against the quayside, her pale face peered back imploringly, pulling her down, drowning in bleak thoughts about Jim and his shadowy life. And his death. Operation Asgard. The pistol. Uncertain whether she was anxious. Or sad. Resentful perhaps. Angry. A shoal of tiny fish shattered her image, darting this way and that, flashing silver as they twisted.
‘What kind of fish do you think those are?’
Tom wasn’t listening. He had spotted a gang of men, early twenties, joshing, swearing, unloading creels from a string of gently rocking boats. He strolled towards them, hands in pockets. She left him to it, meandered off in the other direction, wandering along the harbour wall, eyeballing the ranks of honking black-backed gulls. She found herself at the top of a slipway, close to a boatshed with its rusty metal sliding door pulled half-open, the gap filled with a curtain of thick black plastic strips. She poked her head through without thinking and almost as quickly pulled it back when she glimpsed yellow oilskins inside. She heard a shout as she sidled away.
‘Come back!’
She wavered, unsure which way to jump. A sinewy arm appeared through the flaps followed by a head of coarse curls, forget-me-not eyes and a fat-lipped smile. He seemed sad, despite the smile.
‘Do you want something?’ he asked. Not aggressively.
‘I was just being nosy.’
‘Yes. That’s okay to be nosy. Come in, take a look around.’
He spoke with an offbeat grammar, the hint of a foreign accent. He held the curtain aside to reveal a gloomy interior. She hesitated, caught between wariness and curiosity. He smiled again. What the hell.
She breathed in the whiff of old fish and diesel as he waved his hand proudly around: plastic crates neatly stacked, blue polypropylene ropes coiled in a corner and an array of dirty engine parts spread out on an oily floorsheet, like a schoolchild’s frog dissection. She suddenly felt a bit coy, grinned inanely.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘A bit of repair work.’
She guessed now he was Scandinavian with his near-perfect English.
‘A boat engine?’
‘Part of a trawler.’
‘You are a fisherman,’ she suggested.
‘Very good. Almost correct. In fact I am the skipper of a trawler. I’m not going out again until the beginning of next week, so I’m just taking some time to make sure everything is in order. And you are…’
‘Sam. I’m on holiday here.’
‘Nils.’ He wiped his hand on his oilskins and then gripped her hand, shook it, his flesh warm and firm.
‘So, Sam. What do you think?’ He nodded at his domain.
‘It’s great, very neat.’ Searching for appropriate compliments. ‘It must be hard work being a fisherman, though. Sorry, I mean it must be hard work being a skipper.’
‘Of course. Hard work, yes. But I enjoy it. It’s my vocation. It’s what I was born to do.’
She kinked her head to one side. ‘Are there many fishermen in Stromness?’
‘Not as many as there used to be. There are a few offshore trawlers based here, like mine, after the whitefish. And then there are the smaller fishing boats that put out the creels around the coast and catch the crabs.’
‘Do you catch a lot of fish?’
‘Nobody catches huge amounts of fish here these days. Fish are nearly as rare as mermaids in these waters. I catch more than most, though. Fish that is, not mermaids.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because I am Norwegian.’
She couldn’t quite tell whether he was being serious or not.
‘What difference does being Norwegian make?’
Grief, she was picking up bad habits from Tom. Still, he seemed happy enough to answer her questions.
‘Norwegians are born to the sea.’ He flourished his hand dramatically. ‘It is in my genes, seafaring. I can read the flow of the tides, the pulse of the currents and I know where to find the fish. That is why I always land the biggest catch in Stromness. Because I am a skilled skipper.’
She tugged her earring, smiled, bemused by his boasting.
‘I lead the way to the fish grounds. Wherever I go, the other boats come behind and they get the fish I haven’t managed to catch.’
‘That’s probably why you catch the most. Because if the others come behind you, they have to make do with your leftovers.’
She hunched her shoulders awkwardly, realizing too late that her comment was too critical, not the kind of thing she should say to somebody she had only just met. He smiled. He obviously didn’t mind her odd mix of shyness and directness.
‘Well, maybe you are correct. But I don’t ask them to follow me. They could go elsewhere, find other places to trawl. It is their choice to come behind. That’s part of the skill of being a good skipper, leading the pack, knowing how to do a bit of magic: change fish into money.’