Orkney Twilight

by Clare Carson

  She edged herself off the bed. Crept towards the door. Peered into the gloomy hallway. The door handle to the front garden glinted as it moved. The intruder was trying to break in. She froze again. Inside her petrified body the panic was rising. No air drawing into her lungs. Her eyes locked on the door handle as it was forced down and up, down and up. She willed the external presence away with her mind. The handle stopped, horizontal, released from the pressure of the outside force. Footsteps retreated along the side of the house, eaten up by the wildness of the wind. She sidled along the hallway, listening to Tom’s stertorous breathing. She considered waking him, rejected that course of action, peeled away from the wall and put one foot over the entrance to the sitting room. She stopped. A distant flash of lightning illuminated the menacing clouds and outlined a shadow against the window, the gleam of a handgun arcing through the air. She would have screamed if she could have found her voice. She pushed herself back into the darkness. Hardly breathing. Another lightning flash. And then another. Jagged electric bolts flared above the sea, turning the sky blue, outlining the square-shouldered figure of the Watcher retreating.

  She flung herself across the sitting room. Down the steps. Hurtled into the kitchen. Jim was already standing there. Filling the doorframe. Dull black metal in his hand. Walther. Licensed? Or not.

  ‘Back,’ he snarled. ‘Get back in there. Behind the sofa. Don’t move until I tell you.’

  She hesitated, eyes frozen on the gun’s barrel.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, just do what you’re told for once.’

  She noticed a sheen on his upper lip.

  ‘Where’s your mate?’ he asked.

  ‘Asleep.’

  He grunted, headed to the kitchen door and out. She charged back into the sitting room, crouched down, jammed herself between the sofa and the back wall, the gale booming as it gusted down the chimney, rattling the windows, determined to enter one way or another. The force of the thunderbolts shaking ornaments, rocking the floorboards. How did Tom manage to sleep through this? He could sleep through a bloody revolution.

  She cowered behind the sofa, waiting for the crack of gunshot. Holiday cottage shoot-out. In the terror of anticipation, she imagined Jim lying in the courtyard with a wave of blood seeping from his body. A tsunami rolling towards her. Tomato soup not blood, she told herself. It was just Heinz tomato soup spilling across the table. She pushed the image of Jim’s oozing corpse out of her mind. But all she could see now was the round end of a gun barrel. She lay still, squeezing her eyes shut, reciting the comforting litany of the stations on the line to Victoria: Sydenham Hill, West Dulwich, Herne Hill; and there she was back on the train heading for Dennis Cockell’s tattoo parlour, yakking to Becky, blathering on about being a wrinkly seventy-year-old with a tattoo, a lifelong inked sign which, she had added, would still be there if and when she died, and Becky had laughed, pointed out there was no ‘if’ about it. Halfway between West Dulwich and Herne Hill she had realized she was mortal. She was going to die. But please Lord, not there and then, curled up below a game of Trivial Pursuit and a pile of well-thumbed copies of the Reader’s Digest.

  A clattering on the roof made her look up. Christ, what was that? It sounded as if somebody, or something, was running across the slates. Scrabbling. Slithering down the tiles. Was it Jim? The hooded crow? She heard a bird craw. Another answered. And then the screech of an owl, carried along in the baying wind. A flash of lightning turned the room white. Almost immediately thunder cracked. Deafening. The storm must be right overhead now. She caught sight of the print above the fireplace. The black horses were moving, galloping across the night sky, animated by the lightning strikes, the malicious spirits of the night. She had a sudden urge to follow, a deep pull luring her out from her hiding place, calling her, telling her to do something, anything. Stop playing the part of the secret policeman’s daughter. Forever doing what she was told. Shut up. See, don’t say. Head down, keep quiet, be invisible, stay below the radar. Or else. Or else what? Or else she’d had it. A lifetime of crouching behind sofas in case she was caught in the crossfire.

  From somewhere faraway Jim’s voice floated in on a gust. ‘And don’t fucking come back.’

  A crack? A shot? Or wind slamming a door shut. Rain peppering the window like a burst of machine-gun fire. Heavy footsteps on the gravel.

  Jim reappeared in the doorway. Breathless. Puffing. Drenched by the summer night downpour, a watery trail behind him. ‘You can come out. I’ve seen him off.’

  She hesitated, reluctant to move.

  ‘Out now,’ he ordered.

  She crawled out from behind the shelter of the sofa.

  ‘I need a cup of tea,’ she said. She stumbled wearily into the kitchen, reached for the kettle, let the gushing tap water splash over her wrists, its coldness making her skin tingle, reminding her she was alive. The storm was still raging, but not as violently now; blowing itself out in the valley, not tearing across their roof. She could sense Jim standing there behind her, arms folded.

  ‘Have you seen him before?’ he demanded.

  She concentrated on filling the kettle. Remained silent, uncertain of the best response.

  ‘Well?’

  She turned and saw the bead of sweat on Jim’s upper lip still. At least he didn’t have the pistol in his hand. He must have returned it to his haversack.

  ‘It was the Watcher, wasn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘The Watcher?’

  She momentarily considered telling him about the murky face in the window of Mark Greenaway’s house. Decided against it. There was too much to explain. He would kill her if he knew what she had been doing with Tom.

  ‘There was a man with black hair and a moustache watching Nethergate from the woods in Tirlsay.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you saw him there?’

  ‘I wasn’t really sure what he was doing.’ She looked down at her feet. ‘And anyway, I didn’t have a chance,’ she added. ‘I didn’t want Tom to overhear.’

  ‘I told you not to be a smartarse. I told you there were dark forces at work.’

  She seethed. What right had he to be angry with her? No one had ever asked her if she wanted to be the daughter of an undercover cop. She wasn’t the one who had signed up to the fucking Force. She folded her arms, mimicking his body posture, staring at him truculently, resenting him and his questions, his stupid bloody job.

  ‘Anything else you should have told me?’ Jim asked.

  She tried to avoid his gaze, but she could feel the daggers of his eyes needling her. ‘There was a woman,’ she said. ‘Short brown hair. Drives a Merc.’

  ‘You’ve seen her, have you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Up on the hill behind Nethergate.’

  He paused, puzzled perhaps, the half-light exaggerating the deepening lines on his forehead. ‘I know about her,’ he said. She wasn’t sure what that meant.

  She tried to turn the tables, pose the questions. ‘So who is the Watcher?’

  No answer. He stepped over to the window, opened it, the red underbelly of the clouds announcing the sun’s return from its brief dip below the horizon, the passing of the storm. And when he turned to face her again, he had his skew-whiff smile in place.

  ‘Good name that, the Watcher,’ he said. ‘Suits him.’

  She studied his expression sceptically.

  ‘Maybe I should tell you about the Watcher,’ he continued. ‘So then you’ll know to steer clear.’

  ‘Go on then, tell me.’

  ‘The Watcher does odd jobs for Intelligence.’

  ‘Intelligence?’

  God, she had thought of lots of possibilities, but Intelligence wasn’t one of them.

  ‘Keep your voice down. I don’t want your mate waking up.’

  ‘The Watcher works for Intelligence?’

  ‘On an arm’s-length basis. He used to be a security clearance fact-checker. But he had a nasty habit of finding out more th
an Intelligence needed to know. So they moved him down a notch or two. Put him on a contract basis. And then a very occasional contract basis. Only use him when they are up to something really dodgy and want to deny any knowledge. A floater.’

  ‘Floater?’

  ‘Somebody they can cut loose quickly. A middleman. Intelligence set him up to hire the blokes who carry out the dirty work. He’s the one who makes sure orders are carried out. And cops it if they aren’t.’

  He walked over to the kitchen door, opened it. A damp gust muscled in, carrying the mews of distant seagulls. He stood on the threshold, surveying the courtyard, lingering for a moment before he shut the door again and returned inside. His face clouded.

  ‘Not good news that he’s involved in this,’ he said. ‘Not great that Intelligence have put him on my tail. They must know that he’s got it in for me, that he has his own reasons for wanting me out of the way. Typical manoeuvre, letting loose a nutter with a gun and a grudge. Muddies the waters a bit, makes it less obvious that it’s them that are after me.’

  ‘Intelligence is after you?’

  He shrugged. She took that as a yes. And almost smiled, nearly gave away her relief to hear Jim confirm that the Watcher was after him not her. Nothing to do with her trespassing at Greenham after all.

  ‘But why? Why is Intelligence after you? Aren’t you on the same side as Intelligence? Doesn’t your lot work with them?’

  He snorted with exasperation. ‘You’re so bloody green sometimes. It worries me. You have to wise up. Of course we’re on the same fucking side as Intelligence, but that doesn’t mean we fall in with everything they bloody do. Doesn’t mean we just say yes sir, no sir, three bloody bags full sir. This isn’t some happy-clappy fairy tale. We’re not in sodding Wonderland. We’re not all sitting round at one big bloody tea party. Pass your cup, why don’t you, duchess. Here, have one of my fucking jammy dodgers. It doesn’t work like that. Everybody is out to protect their own slice of the cake. Their seat at the table. You have to watch your back in this game. You can’t afford to trust anybody. Not even the people you think are on your side.’

  The cawing of the crow back on its chimney-top perch broke his flow.

  ‘Especially not the people you think are on your side,’ he added.

  She scowled, trying to fathom what was going on. ‘But I thought Intelligence was only interested in Russian spies. I still don’t see why they are after you.’

  ‘Intelligence is branching out,’ he said. ‘The spooks have territorial ambitions. They’re expanding their reach, finding new ways to keep themselves employed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They can see the writing on the wall; they know the Cold War can’t last forever. And the miners’ strike has meant they’ve been given the wink from the top, the blind eye to their methods, the political licence to expand their remit on domestic subversives.’ He glowered at her knowingly. ‘And they are moving pretty bloody quickly. So you and your mates had better watch it.’

  ‘But do they know anything about domestic…’ She stopped herself from saying subversives. She was beginning to sound like a member of the security forces.

  ‘Intelligence? Know about domestic subversives?’ Jim spluttered. ‘All they really know about is their bloody Whitehall dining clubs and their embassy dinners. Intelligence is run by a bunch of bloody public school boys. They haven’t learned anything over the years. They still think a posh education is a guarantee of reliability. Still can’t quite bring themselves to trust the hoi polloi. Although, of course, the ones they contract to do the dirty work – the arm’s-length floaters like the Watcher, the quickly disowned night-trawlers and shit fixers – they’re from a different class altogether. They’re all from the scummier end of the spectrum. Riff-raff. And worse.’

  The kettle rattled on the stove. She lifted it hastily to stop it whistling and waking Tom, poured the water into her mug, left it to stew.

  ‘That’s why the Commander started our lot,’ Jim continued. ‘He used to work for Intelligence for a while. So he knows what they’re like. He could see the need for ordinary men on the ground, men who understood what was going on in their own backyard. Normal men. The Commander’s not stupid. Did Classics at Cambridge of course.’ He laughed. Sourly perhaps. ‘Latin. That’s what impressed him about me. I can read Latin. Suppose I have to thank the Jesuits for something. But he’s a practical man. Despite the education. He did a spell in the city before his stint with Intelligence. He’s quick at doing the sums, keeping a clear eye on the books. That’s what makes him a good manager of cops. Doesn’t lose the thread, doesn’t waste time on sentimentality; it costs too much. But of course he doesn’t like to see his investments undermined, his assets going to waste. All that training and experience. Doesn’t want his lot pushed out of the way by his one-time mates in Intelligence. So he tasked me with finding out what they are up to. Get the gen on Intelligence.’

  He stared fixedly at the floor. The tick of the clock punctuated the silence; it had a backbeat she noticed now, an after-tick like the deadly murmur of a sticky heart-valve, a silent killer.

  He shook his head wearily, his mouth a grim slash. ‘You think our lot is bad, you should see what Intelligence gets up to. There’s something a bit reckless about this outfit that’s operating on our turf. I don’t like their methods.’

  Jesus, what was a bit reckless by Jim’s standards? Or was he was pulling the old trick; pointing at somebody else in order to distract from his own activities, sending her running in the wrong direction so he could nip out the back door and over the garden wall. She tried to pull together the information he had given her.

  ‘So Intelligence is involved in the miners’ strike in some way,’ she asserted. ‘And Intelligence is after you because—’

  He didn’t let her finish her conjecture. ‘Intelligence tried to shove me out of the way. Ordered me to hand over the names of my contacts. I refused, but I knew they were shadowing me, watching the people I met. Targeting the people I knew. So I had to lie low. I guessed they wanted to use my contacts for their own ends. I thought they might try and plant somebody into my turf. But it’s backfired, because my contact decided to give me the dirt on them.’

  His contact; that was Anne. So the manila envelope that Anne had handed to Jim must contain information about Intelligence. Their involvement in the miners’ strike. The Watcher was following Jim to try and retrieve the information, hand it back to Intelligence. She scratched the back of her neck. Agency rivalries, turf warfare, office politics. She wasn’t sure it all added up. What exactly was in the envelope that made Intelligence so keen to retrieve it? They must be doing something fairly dodgy if they were prepared to send the Watcher north to Orkney to track Jim and the envelope.

  ‘So Operation Asgard is a sort of secret services in-fight,’ she said.

  His face darkened. She thought he was about to lose it. ‘I told you not to mention Operation Asgard.’

  For a moment she was back at the Coney’s Tavern, Jim’s drunken declaration of doom, his finger jabbing in her face, telling her not to mention Operation Asgard again. She closed her eyes briefly, confused by Jim and his orders of silence that so often seemed to be mixed in with his dropped hints and revelations. She tried again to clarify. ‘This information on Intelligence you’ve picked up; you are going to hand it over to the Commander,’ she asserted.

  He rubbed his mouth with the tips of his fingers, nodded slowly, eyes fixed on the mid-distance. Her mind kept churning. She pictured Jim at the Battery, the folded pages of The Orkneyinga Saga, the grid reference for the Ring of Brodgar. What was that all about? Was the Ring of Brodgar a meeting point? Or a drop-box perhaps. A place where he could leave the envelope for somebody else to collect so Jim didn’t have to hand the information over to the Commander himself? A courier who could slip past the Watcher’s surveillance undetected.

  Jim cut in, interrupting her line of thought. ‘You have to keep on your toes in this game. Keep thr
ee moves ahead. If you want to stay alive, that is.’

  The donkey’s nose nuzzled against the kitchen window. Jim picked up a hunk of bread from the counter, walked over, opened the window, fed the sodden beast. She stared at his back. Sensed his mind working overtime; fighting the fatigue. Sorting out his strategy perhaps. His next three moves.

  He waited for the donkey to finish before he turned back to face her. ‘I should have guessed it was him,’ he said. ‘Should have known it was the Watcher when I saw that picture of my van in the local rag.’

  She blinked, trying to grasp the relevance of the newspaper report, but Jim was moving on, not waiting for her to test the undercurrents.

  ‘We go back a long way,’ he continued. ‘Slimy piece of shit. He’s been after me for years. He disappears for a while. Goes off to do his dirty business elsewhere. Then he reappears again. Finds new ways to aggravate me.’

  ‘Why does the Watcher want to aggravate you?’

  ‘Long story,’ he said. He looked up at the clock.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Tell me. I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep now.’

  Jim hesitated. And then he grinned. ‘Okay. Nothing like a good spook story for a stormy night.’

  He paused again to collect his thoughts, check his lines were straight.