The Dark Isle

by Clare Carson

  The curator’s face blushed below his beard.

  ‘Oh, it’s...’ he waved his hand. ‘The public one isn’t very salubrious. Perhaps you’d like to use the staff...’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Anna said. ‘I can pee in the woods. I’m sure the plants will appreciate a bit of liquid.’

  She didn’t care what she said, she knew she could get away with it because she was so attractive. Anna linked her arm through Sam’s, frogmarched her to the entrance.

  ‘Bye,’ she said over her shoulder and was out and pulled the door shut before the man had time to question her.

  They ran across the courtyard, jumped the fence, thrashed through the nettles, skidded down the bank to the river.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Sam demanded.

  Anna grinned and stuck her hand in the pocket of her shorts. ‘Guess what I’ve got.’

  ‘I can’t.’ And then she realized. ‘Anna. You can’t do that. You have to take them back.’

  ‘Don’t be a spoil-sport.’

  ‘But that’s stealing. It’s an ancient monument.’

  ‘Nobody will notice. I’ve only got a few. Anyway, they belong to the people. Not some stuffy man with a beard. You heard him. The Romans stole them from the Celts. It’s like you said, the treasures of the Fisher King.’

  ‘Anna, I was... You’ve got to take them back.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You can’t. Are you going to tell on me? Are you going to betray me? You sodding traitor.’

  Sam opened her mouth, astounded by the onslaught.

  ‘I thought we were friends,’ Anna said. ‘Blood sisters.’

  ‘Why did you take them?’

  ‘It was your idea. Your story. Anyway, he was a creep. His beard was disgusting. Did you see all those bits of food that were clinging to the hairs around his mouth?’

  ‘Yes, but you...’

  ‘I what?’

  The grumble of thunder cut their argument.

  Sam said, ‘God, we shouldn’t be out here in a thunderstorm. Under all these trees. This is the worst place to be. Let’s go back to the villa.’

  ‘No, come on, I’m not going back to that old perv. I’m going to find my bike.’

  Anna ran along the river bed, lanky legs picking through the rocks and dying reeds.

  Sam chased after her, thunder rolling as they hounded through the oaks, struggled up the hill. The car park. The Cortina was sitting there, windows down, Jim scowling.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, hurry up. Get the bikes in the boot.’

  Even Anna’s presence was not enough to charm him. They clambered into the back seat. Jim swivelled around, directed his face at Sam’s.

  ‘Do you ever do anything you’re fucking told?’

  She didn’t answer. His face had gone a peculiar colour, a whiteness made sickly by the yellow storm light.

  ‘Anything could have happened.’

  She sat there fuming, couldn’t quite work out what all this was about. It wasn’t Jim’s grumpiness that surprised her, but the fact that he had bothered to come and pick them up. His random warning. Anything could have happened. They drove back in silence. The thunder had stopped by the time they reached home. Not even a drop of rain, she wanted to point out to Jim. But she didn’t. Jim dumped them and the bikes in front of the house without a word, drove off somewhere. Valerie was waiting in the kitchen. Her face was pale and there were dark rings under her eyes that made her look ghostly.

  ‘I’m going upstairs for a rest,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you get yourselves something to eat?’

  Sam made cheese and salad cream sandwiches and they ate them in front of the telly. Blue Peter.

  ‘I prefer Magpie,’ Anna said. ‘Blue Peter’s wet. All they ever do is make houses for Cindy dolls from shoe boxes. I’ve never had a Cindy doll in my life.’

  ‘Neither have I. Sometimes they do other stuff which is quite good, though. Did you see the time capsule?’

  ‘The box they buried in the Blue Peter garden with all those things in it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Anna stuck her hand in the pocket of her shorts, rummaged.

  ‘That’s what I’m going to do with these. I’m going to give them to people I know, tell them to bury them and then in thirty years’ time I’ll go around and dig them all up.’

  ‘How many did you get anyway?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Anna opened her cupped hands, Sam peered. Seven dusty mosaic tiles. Four deep red, two marbled white and one glassy flint blue. Barely half an inch square, if you could call them square because all of them were misshapen with faint cracks marking their surfaces like fingerprints.

  ‘They were on the edge, loose. I just reached down and grabbed them and they came away in my hand.’

  Sam prodded the blue tile with the tip of her finger; a tingle ran up her arm.

  ‘I’m going to give a red one to Liz.’

  Anna said it with determination, as if she had already planned how she was going to distribute her bounty.

  ‘Liz? Why?’

  ‘I think she’s cool.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yeah. I like the way she does her own thing.’

  Sam hadn’t thought about Liz that way before. Cool.

  ‘And two red tiles for my mum – one for her and one for her baby.’

  Sam squealed. ‘Baby?’ She didn’t know anything about a baby.

  ‘She’s pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘Didn’t you realize? That’s why she’s spending so much time in bed.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sam mulled over this piece of information, felt dumb for having failed to notice, and concluded that Liz must have known, which was why she made sure Valerie had her own room. Liz was quite thoughtful sometimes, she supposed. Or, at least, more thoughtful than she sometimes appeared. She was surprised Anna hadn’t said anything about the baby before. Perhaps Anna was annoyed that she was about to be lumbered with a much younger sibling.

  ‘Is it going to be a boy or a girl?’

  ‘It’s too early to tell yet.’

  Anna gave her a you’re so stupid look, which made Sam decide she wouldn’t ask any more questions about Valerie’s pregnancy.

  ‘I’m going to keep the blue tile,’ Anna continued. ‘And here. This one is for you. My blood sister.’

  Anna took her hand, squashed it tight. Sam opened her palm and stared at the red Roman mosaic tile lying across the crease of her lifeline, radiating warmth. ‘This must be one of the tiles made from the statues the Romans found in the old Celtic temple.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Anna said, and Sam sensed again that she had some plan in mind, telling a story with the mosaic tiles, weaving some kind of magic. Her body pulsed with the thrill of being a piece in Anna’s design.

  ‘That leaves the two white ones.’

  ‘Those are for Pierce.’

  ‘Why two?’

  ‘Because that’s what I’ve decided.’

  ‘What about Jim, doesn’t he get one?’

  Anna held her hand flat, rocked it; a gesture of iffiness. ‘I’m not sure about Jim.’

  She wasn’t either, she thought. Nobody was sure about Jim.

  CHAPTER 5

  Orkney, September 1989

  PIERCE FILLED THE kettle, placed it on the hob. She stood by the window, watched the rain moving out to sea, a shadow on the ocean. He had regained his composure, although now she had seen below his cover, she found she was looking at him differently, less easily able to dismiss him as a toff, more sympathetic to his upper-class English banter which was, after all, the crutch of his generation and class. Retreating to his bedroom to express his emotions. Perhaps that was what he had done with the tiles, hidden them away in a bedside drawer, too personal and precious to leave lying around.

  Pierce returned to his chair with two mugs. She sat down again too, mirroring his moves; a game of
human chess.

  ‘I know I should contact Anna again,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’m desperate to be back in touch with her. But of course, it’s not that straightforward.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  He reached for the packet of Digestives, removed one, broke it in half, held a piece in each hand.

  ‘Nothing is ever straightforward when you are a spook. Or even an ex-spook.’

  He dropped a jagged fragment in his mouth. She reached for a biscuit too, caught his eye, blue and clear, and was reminded of Anna’s directness. She had never heard Jim refer to himself as a spook or a spy, although that was precisely what he had been for a large part of his life. She dunked the Digestive in her tea, the liquid seeping into the biscuit, dissolving its edges. She was warming to Pierce; he might be an old spook but he wasn’t afraid to reveal his emotions, wasn’t ridiculously secretive about his work, didn’t talk in riddles and fairy tales.

  ‘Did Jim ever tell you why I had to exile myself to Hoy?’

  ‘Jim never told me anything.’

  He noted the tone of her comment. ‘You shouldn’t be too harsh on your father. He was of a generation that believed in public service, duty, the importance of keeping the state’s secrets.’

  ‘He was a younger generation than you.’

  Pierce leaned back in his chair. ‘I’ve had time to reflect.’

  His generosity about Jim reassured her.

  ‘Jim was a great help to me,’ Pierce continued. ‘All in all,’ he added. He swallowed the remainder of his biscuit.

  All in all – a more ambiguous judgement. It was where she had ended up on Jim and his work as well; all in all, in the final analysis, all things considered.

  ‘We were colleagues, as you probably know.’

  Colleagues not friends. Not like Jim and his old mate Harry.

  ‘Different employers of course, but same line of work, and we ended up being chucked in the soup together. Quite a complicated story...’

  A gust of wind whistled down the chimney, fluttered the stack of old newspapers waiting to be folded into kindling bricks.

  He stood, walked to the window, checked outside as if he were looking for watchers, returned to his seat, his limp noticeable even in the few steps he took across the room.

  ‘You know I worked for MI6 – foreign intelligence?’

  ‘Yes, Anna told me you worked for the Firm.’ She grimaced as soon as she said it, afraid she had betrayed Anna, revealed his daughter had passed on his secrets. Traitor.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I was probably more open with Anna about my work than I should have been. We’re not supposed to say anything, but it can become ridiculous, as you must know, trying to maintain that level of secrecy with your nearest and dearest. In the end, we’re all part of the same family.’ The family, that was the phrase Jim had used as well.

  He flicked a crumb from the arm of his chair.

  ‘All these events are long past, so I don’t think there’s any harm in telling you, obviously I wouldn’t want you to...’

  She interrupted. ‘I find it easier to say nothing than to talk.’

  He nodded, approvingly. ‘As I thought. One becomes a good judge of character in this game, and my sense is that you are trustworthy.’

  She reddened, flattered but uncertain whether she merited his confidence.

  ‘My area of specialism ended up being the illegal arms trade. Gun running. Rifles in the banana crates, that kind of thing.’ His brow furrowed. ‘It’s a rum old world, the world of the illegal arms trader, that heady cocktail of money and violence and glamour.’

  She glanced at his manicured nails, his spotless white shirt.

  ‘Everybody knows everybody else. You wouldn’t get anywhere without the contacts. It takes a while to work your way in, set yourself up.’ He nodded, remembering the time when he was a player, she supposed.

  ‘Do you know Czechoslovakia’s main source of foreign currency?’

  ‘No.’ She had no idea, although Czechoslovakia rang a muffled bell.

  ‘Firearms and Semtex. Major exports. They’ve never been too fussy about the buyers, as long as they’ve got the readies. Back in ’76, there was this Czech arms dealer who was selling the stuff and some terrorists who wanted to get their hands on it.’

  Terrorists. She reached for the tea, her hand shaking as she lifted the cup to her mouth. She’d lost her nerve. Four years ago, a conversation like this would have excited her, the thrill of secret information, seeing below the surface of the shadow state; but now it worried her. She’d learned her lesson, had her fingers burned. She wasn’t as fearless as she used to be, or perhaps she was just less naïve.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She took a sip, gulped it down. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘Tell me if I’m telling you things you’d rather not hear.’

  ‘Honestly. I’m fine.’

  She appreciated his sensitivity to her reactions. But she had come here because she wanted to know.

  ‘I’m not giving you any details that could get you into trouble. None of it is news. Seventy-six. History. The Red Army Faction. Better known as Baader-Meinhof. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.’

  She had; the name Baader-Meinhof had cropped up regularly on the news in the seventies. Even as a child, she had picked it up and remembered the reports of assassinations and bombings. ‘Weren’t they a gang of West German terrorists?’

  ‘Yes. They called themselves anti-fascists – protesting against ex-Nazis employed by the West German state and in private companies. There was a lot of sympathy for them until they started killing people – industrialists, military personnel. Cold-blooded assassinations. And then there were bombings. And hijacking.’

  He shook his head, sipped his tea.

  ‘So why did you have anything to do with them if they were doing all this in West Germany?’

  ‘Well, the original gang were rounded up in the early seventies, but some of the more extreme followers got away – on the run from the West German authorities. They were trying to make contact with other terrorist groups. The Palestinians. The Provos. We had to step in; they were threatening our national security. The Firm wanted to set up a sting – lure the leaders of this particular breakaway faction into an arms deal and then spring the trap. This Czech dealer...’ He stalled. ‘My role, my part in the chain, was to liaise between the Germans and the Czech. It was a long-drawn-out operation. The Red Army Faction – they were very excitable. Trigger-happy. I spent a good year establishing my cover. Stressful, of course, but like most people who do that kind of work, I enjoyed it. Playing a part. Doing my bit. One of the unseen and unsung who take the risks so ordinary people can sleep peacefully at night.’

  He said it with a note of self-mocking irony, but she found herself drawn along by his story.

  ‘And it was all going very smoothly.’

  He rubbed his leg.

  ‘I finally arranged a meeting between the Czech and the Germans in Paris. But then, somehow...’ He emphasized the somehow and stared at her when he said it, which gave her an uneasy feeling... ‘somehow, the Germans got wind that there was something rum going on. And then the Czech heard from his sources that the meeting was a trap and he didn’t show up. Of course, as the middle man, some of the suspicion fell on me. There was a bit of... bother. I thought I’d got away with it – escaped without too much damage. Then I heard word they were on to me, found my name and number.’

  ‘The Red Army Faction were after you?’

  He looked blank.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Not them.’

  She felt reprimanded, too slow to follow the plot, and then he smiled as if he’d just worked out what she was asking. ‘The Red Army Faction? I dealt with them.’

  She wondered what that meant, I dealt with them.

  ‘No, it was the Czech I was worried about. It was the Czech who had a bullet in his Glock with my name on it. He was the man with the connections and cash. Ruthless.’ His
Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘No qualms.’

  She squashed the last piece of her biscuit against the roof of her mouth, turned Pierce’s story over in her mind, and tried to mesh his account with the pieces she already held, her fragmented recollections from the summer of ’76. Water. Fault.

  ‘How did Jim fit into all of this?’ As soon as she asked, she wished she hadn’t. Pierce gazed into the middle distance, as if he didn’t want to meet her eye, and was debating what he should say. He took a deep breath, shifted in his chair to face her.

  ‘Jim was working for some secret part of the Force that did undercover operations, of course. You knew that, didn’t you?’

  She did. Or at least, if she hadn’t known the details at the time, she had discovered them after his death.

  ‘And the Force, in their wisdom...’ His mouth twisted into a smile. ‘Well, put it this way, it all got a bit complicated. It didn’t necessarily help...’ He trailed off.

  He was leaving her to join the dots.

  ‘Did he... did Jim...’

  Pierce closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the armchair. She began to fear she had said the wrong thing, revealed that she knew too much, hit on a raw and painful nerve.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s none of my business. It’s probably not something you want to talk about. It must have been...’ Her sentence tapered. ‘So you came to Hoy,’ she said.

  He didn’t budge, eyes tight shut. A knot of gulls bickered above the bay, their squawks filling her head. Eventually he blinked and said, ‘Yes, that’s right, I came to Hoy. This magical island.’

  ‘It is a magical island,’ Sam agreed. ‘I remember Jim saying he thought Hoy was like the island in The Tempest.’

  ‘The Tempest? Shakespeare’s Tempest?’

  He sounded surprised; perhaps he hadn’t expected Jim to know anything about Shakespeare.