by Clare Carson
The emptiness of Lyness surprised her. She had expected something more – a shop, a post office, police station, a sign that the people who lived on the island had a visible means of support. But there was little beyond the remains of the old army barracks. How many people had been stationed on this island during the Second World War? Thousands. Hard to believe. She rode through the straggle of houses and turned right, heading north. Hoy was separated from Mainland by a narrow stretch of water, and yet it felt as if it was part of a different archipelago. Mainland was an emerald glowing in the ocean. Hoy was dismal; wind-lashed crags littered with boulders and scree. But as the road dipped to the lush green and gold of Pegal Bay, she was reminded that the barren mountains nurtured unexpected fern-fringed burns and coves where rowan and ash trees flourished. There was something bewitching about these glens, enchantments that could easily blind the unwary to the dangers of the waves and wind and cliff-edge drops to the water.
She left Pegal Bay behind, passed the solitary headstone marking Betty Corrigall’s grave, the story of her sad death playing on her mind as she crossed the moor. A buzzard circled overhead, searching for rabbits in the ling and moss. She took the road to Rackwick, an inland cut through the mountains, kept her eye on the tarmac – the vertical walls of the valley made her dizzy – and breathed a sigh of relief when the moraine gave way to the wild tangle of Berriedale. The view ahead brightened; a hollow of blue sea and sky caught between soaring cliffs. A scattering of crofts littered the dip and the northern slopes of the bay; ruins, most of them, left to crumble. The road became a bumpy track then dwindled to a dead end in the middle of the deserted hamlet. She wheeled the Honda into a roofless bothy, parked it among the rosebay willow herb that had colonized the interior, returned outside and leaned against the wall. Sight of the Volvo parked beside the highest croft knotted her stomach, although now she had satisfied herself that he must still be living here, she wasn’t quite sure what to do. She needed an excuse, even though she knew he would see through any casual deception. She surveyed the low building, with its whitewashed walls and blank windows staring warily from underneath the turf roof. She had the feeling she was being watched. Was he waiting for her? She fished an apple from her rucksack, crunched, spat the pips, rested the back of her head against the stones. The autumnal sun warmed her face. She closed her eyes and pictured the cumulus clouds hanging over the Atlantic, drew them nearer, imagined their colour shifting from white to mercury and lead. The pounding of the waves and mews of gulls lulled her. She was startled by a spit of water on her face. She squinted; the sky above was overcast, threatening rain. A sudden shift in the weather. She willed the clouds to dump their load on Hoy.
She followed the path winding through the crofts. One or two were occupied, wood smoke curling from chimneys, gardens fenced and ordered. A few more people living here, she reckoned, than there had been in ’76. But not many more. She reached the final bend before the track became steeper and climbed the cliff. She was level with the whitewashed croft. She paused, turned and surveyed the bay below; fulmars gliding over a garnet crescent of sand, a copper burn burbling through the peat. She detected a movement in the furthest corner of her vision. He was standing at his door. He had been waiting. Watching. Her head swivelled when she felt his gaze on her face, too late to pretend she hadn’t seen him. Even from here, she could tell he was attractive in the same way as Anna; the couldn’t-care-less-what-anybody-else-thinks confidence, hands in sagging jeans, baggy jumper, the ease that made him seem as if he belonged anywhere and everywhere. He did the same head scoop as Anna as well, a movement that gave the impression he was looking up at her even though he must be nearly a foot taller.
‘Good day for a stroll,’ he said; the bantering tone she recognized from her encounters with old Etonians at Oxford.
‘Do you think so? I was worried it might rain.’
He twisted his eyes in an exaggerated movement, looked at the sky. ‘Oh that’s nothing. If you worried about a few clouds here in Hoy you’d never get anything done.’
‘Right.’ She mimicked his body language, stuck her hands in her pockets.
‘Just here for the day, are you?’
‘Yes.’ She wondered which of them would blink first, acknowledge they knew the other’s identity.
He made his move. ‘Did I see you yesterday at the Earl’s Bu?’
‘Yes, I was there.’
‘The Earl’s Bu. And the Round Church, built by Earl Hakon to atone for the murder of St Magnus, a place of penance for past sins I always think. Are you a penitent?’
She smiled; the spy’s ability to put you on the back foot, bypass any small-talk and ask a barbed question as if they were asking the time of day.
‘No. Not a penitent. I’ve been helping with an archaeological survey. How about you? What were you doing in Orphir? I thought I recognized you from somewhere.’
‘Indeed.’ He raised one eyebrow. ‘You thought correctly. And I think you’re after something more than a glimpse of the Old Man. Am I right?’
She bit her lip, wondered whether she should back off now, leave it while she could, finish her walk. Keep her distance. A raindrop splattered against her cheek, then another and another, hammering the path.
‘Well I never, you were right about the rain,’ he said. ‘That came out of nowhere.’ He pulled a bamboozled face, and she remembered Anna’s comedic flair, her lanky limbs made for slapstick. ‘Perhaps you’d better come in until it’s passed.’
He stepped back, held the door.
*
OVER THE THRESHOLD into a gloomy space that served as kitchen and living room. The darkness surprised her after the brightness of the day. There was only one window, overlooking the bay. The floor was stone flagged, a wood burner nestled in the hearth, armchairs either side, a bookshelf in one corner. He lived here alone she guessed, a hermit. A simple life.
‘Have a seat.’ He gestured at a chair in what Sam suspected was as much an attempt at confinement as an offer of hospitality. She perched on the chair opposite the one he had offered; a small act of assertion. He strolled to the sink, filled a kettle, placed it on the hob, leaned back against the kitchen table, folded his arms. He had a prominent Adam’s apple which bobbed as he swallowed and was the only sign she could discern that he was even slightly apprehensive about her visit.
‘Let me guess.’ He paused, nodded. ‘You’re Jim Coyle’s daughter.’
‘How did you work that one out?’
‘You’re taller, but you haven’t changed that much.’
He had taken some notice of her then, that day in 1976.
‘Sam,’ she said.
‘Good to meet you properly after all these years. And as I’m sure you know, I’m Pierce. Anna’s father. So, Sam... what brings you to this remote spot?’
He spoke in a jocular voice, the knowing tone of double bluff she remembered Jim using – the refusal to be serious because he wasn’t going to pretend that he was entirely straightforward and, because he had acknowledged the shadiness of his persona, he was, in effect, suggesting he was honest. Conversation for a spook was, she suspected, always a game of stealth. And here he was tipping the conversation around, implying she was the one with a hidden agenda, even though he had been watching her all summer. Although now he was asking, she realized she hadn’t prepared an answer. What did bring her here? The rain pounded the window.
‘I suppose... I suppose I was curious. I wanted to find out what had happened to Anna.’
‘Anna.’ He rubbed his stubbled chin. ‘Well now...’ The kettle rattled on the hob. ‘Tea? I’m afraid I can’t offer you coffee. I don’t drink the stuff myself. Gives me palpitations.’ He scoffed when he said palpitations, as if he were deriding his own frailties; she suspected the display was a diversion, an attempt to head her away from the subject of Anna.
‘Tea is fine. Thank you.’ She wasn’t that fond of tea, but in the absence of proper coffee she would drink it. ‘Milk no sugar.’
He messed around with a mug and some tea bags, handed her the brew, sat in the chair opposite, stretched his long legs, crossed them at the ankle.
‘You picked the best chair. The one with the spectacular view.’ Her small act of defiance hadn’t gone unnoticed. ‘At least, it’s spectacular when you can see it.’ He gestured at the window, the downpour curtaining the cliffs. ‘Rackwick Bay wasn’t exactly where I expected to end up, but there are certainly worse places to be confined.’
‘Are you confined here?’
‘Ah. Like your father. Cut through the crap.’ He was buttering her up for some reason. ‘Confined is probably the wrong word. I suppose I am my own gaoler. I prefer to stay on Hoy. I take the ferry to Stromness every couple of weeks, do some shopping, make a few phone calls...’
‘Don’t you have a phone?’
‘No. No phone. I still rely on the telephone box in the valley. No television. No electricity.’
He pointed to a flickering paraffin lamp on the table. ‘The old crofts were built to keep the heat in, so there aren’t many windows. Sometimes I have to light the lamps during the day.’
The lamp cast a pale arc, failed to dispel the murk.
‘To be honest, nothing much has changed since I washed up here in ’76. A couple more neighbours in the summer. Running water, which is a blessing. I have a radio for company. The World Service. Thank god for the BBC.’
He nodded his head at a battered Bush radio with a red dial sitting on a desk. ‘But I live a solitary existence. I make the trip to Stromness, then I return here and pull up the drawbridge, draw the curtains.’
She wasn’t entirely convinced; ex-spies never completely retreated. If there was one thing an old spy couldn’t bear to relinquish, it was the inside track on information. They always had to be in the know, share their whispers and conspiracies, enjoy the feeling of superiority over lesser mortals who were oblivious to the conversations behind closed doors. He rapped his fingers on his mug; his nails manicured – short and clean. He lived this simple life in a deserted fishing village without the basics that most people took for granted, but he still managed to exude this sense of good living. Perhaps it was in his genes, the air of the upper classes.
‘Doesn’t it get lonely here in the winter?’
He flashed a well-maintained smile. ‘Oh, I’ve lived in worse conditions.’ His irises gleamed, the same cornflower blue as Anna’s, although his eyeballs bulged more than hers, which made him seem more intense. He leaned forwards, caught her gaze. ‘I heard Jim... died.’
‘Yes.’
She shrugged, nothing more to add. She didn’t want to go into the details, she assumed he had heard anyway – the stories, official and unofficial. He furrowed his brow and nodded sympathetically; an acknowledgement of bereavement, an indication that he would keep a respectful distance from her feelings about her father’s passing. He leaned down, rubbed his ankle. The old wound perhaps. She cast her eye to the window, the deluge easing enough for her to spot the dark wings of a skua gliding over the valley, and she wondered why she had come here. Anna. Stick to Anna.
‘Biscuit?’
He offered her an unopened packet of Digestives. She shook her head. She tried again.
‘Anna. How is she?’
He winced when she said her name.
‘Anna, yes. Being a spy doesn’t always sit comfortably with family life. I’m not sure many people have successfully combined the two. As you may know, Anna and her mother went their own way.’
Her mother, that was an odd way of describing Valerie. They’d obviously drifted apart, as marital partners often do. Especially if one of them goes into hiding on a remote, windswept island. But surely his daughter was different. She persisted. ‘You keep in contact with Anna?’
He sighed, stood, crossed to the window, locked his hands behind his back, shoulders sloping. She found her gaze flitting around the room, alighting on the shelves, searching in the gloom.
‘It seemed better to make a clean break at the time.’ He was talking to a point on the other side of the rain-splattered pane, halfway up the sandstone cliff.
‘What, you mean you haven’t seen her?’
‘Not since the day I drove her over to your house. The summer of ’76.’
She sat in stunned silence for a while, listened to the gurgle of water pouring from the downpipe. Pierce had stopped seeing his own daughter. How did that happen? Jim had broken away from his parents too. Maybe all families had these unbridgeable chasms, or were the families of spooks particularly prone to fracture? The double lives, the secrets and deceptions. These were the foundations of any relationship with a spy, even if the spook happened to be your father. Sam thought of Liz and Jim, the arguments, the standoffs, the long disappearances, the drinking and tension when he was at home. She sometimes wondered how their family had managed, why Liz hadn’t walked away. Maybe it wasn’t that simple. And anyway, in the end, Jim made an effort. ‘Haven’t you contacted her at all?’
‘I’ve spoken to her a couple of times over the phone. A few years back...’ He took a deep breath. ‘I know, Anna’s been playing on my mind too, to tell you the truth. I’m getting old.’ He was still talking to the rain clouds curtaining the bay.
‘You can’t be that old.’
‘Sixty.’
Jesus, he was well preserved for sixty. She’d imagined he was, what, fifty-odd. ‘Sixty isn’t old.’
‘No, but time passes more quickly once you’re past the half-century mark, and you can never be sure how much more sand you’ve got left to run. We never know when...’ He stalled, his voice wavering. He turned and looked straight at her and she could see his eyes were glistening in the watery daylight. She was momentarily surprised and touched by his reaction, the tears of somebody who was a professional at covering his emotions. She thought of Jim, the tears in his eyes the night before he died, foreseeing his own death, trying to reach out to her and bridge the gap that had grown between them over the years. Too late. Her eyes were blurred, she blinked and wiped the dampness with a finger. Grief was like that – she thought she was over it, striding along happily, and then she lost her footing.
‘You’ve got to contact her again,’ she blurted. ‘You’ve got to contact her before it’s too late.’
‘Yes, of course. You’re right. I know you’re right.’ He sniffed and she didn’t know what to do, too shy to put her arm around him and offer him comfort, more inclined to behave as she would have done with her own father and play the chin-up, no-crying game, pretend she hadn’t noticed his tears.
‘Hang on a moment,’ Pierce said. ‘Let me find a hanky.’
He limped to a doorway which, she presumed, led to his bedroom and closed the door behind him. A moment’s privacy, a chance to regain his composure. She stood too, still disturbed by his revelation that he had lost contact with Anna, wandered over to the bookshelf, examined his clutter absentmindedly. The artefacts of a traveller; a woven basket with karibu tena stitched in its base, a tiny carved wooden figure pounding some grain in a bowl – West African, she guessed – a carved gourd pot, a string of cowrie shells, a bejewelled elephant from India perhaps, or Thailand. She was looking for something else, though, something from closer to home: the white mosaic tiles. She couldn’t see them on the shelves. He would have them somewhere, she was sure, because those tiles, she realized now, must have been Anna’s last gift to him. Those precious tiles, the ones she and Anna had found at Blackstone. Found. Stolen, more like.
CHAPTER 4
London, July 1976
ANNA HAD BEEN at their place for nearly a week when they went to Blackstone. They had run out of things to do; they had cycled to the park, dared each other to go higher on the swings, fed apples to the gypsy horses tethered along the bypass, taken the bus to Tooting and been swimming in the lido. Well, it was hard to swim in the lido because there were too many people. They had splashed about in the fountain and found a space to lie on their towels and picked the hun
dreds and thousands off their Fab lollies and licked the melting strawberry ice cream from their sticky hands, ignored the boys showing off with their shouting and diving into the pool. Anna was a weird mix, Sam had decided, somewhere between her and her sisters, a not quite teenager. She felt flattered that Anna hung out with her, didn’t try and edge in on Helen and Jess’s occult pursuits unless she was invited. Sam was happy to keep Anna to herself; she didn’t want to share her with her sisters or her friends even though her air of superiority and her mocking digs sometimes rankled.
‘I’m bored,’ Anna announced.
‘Let’s cycle to Blackstone,’ Sam said. Blackstone was at the top of the steep hill, beyond the line of mock Tudor mansions. Rotten Row. ‘We could go to the Roman villa.’
‘Is it a real Roman villa?’
‘Yes. Actually, it’s a ruin. But there’s a big mosaic.’
‘OK. Let’s go and look.’
*
JIM WAS SITTING with Valerie in the kitchen. Since Anna and Valerie had arrived he had been at home more than usual. He had the air of somebody who was skiving off school. Liz had made herself absent; preparing for lectures, important meetings about the future direction of the department. Jim looked around with a guilty expression when Sam entered. It annoyed her a bit, the way he was with Valerie, all calm and understanding. He wasn’t like that with Liz, at least, not much of the time.
‘We’re going for a bike ride,’ Anna announced.
Anna was more assertive than her. Sam had developed a habit of not telling anybody what she was doing or what she thought, because then it couldn’t be contested.