by Clare Carson
‘Yes. It’s my favourite, in a perverse sort of way.’
‘Oh right. I see. Hoy is like the island in The Tempest, an enchanted place to which I have been banished, because of my brother’s treachery.’
She twitched when he said treachery. Was that a dig at Jim, or was he just recounting Shakespeare’s plot? She twiddled her hair around a finger. Pierce crossed to the kitchen, filled the kettle again. He gave her a reassuring smile, and she could see something of Anna in the generosity of his mouth.
‘I suppose I’m like one of those Japanese men hiding out in the jungle. It’s probably been safe for me to come out for ages. These dealers, they move on. Find new markets, new targets. And anyway, the Cold War is all but over. Times are changing. They’ve elected a bloody non-communist government in Poland for god’s sake. Moscow has new puppet masters now.’
Was he going off on a tangent with Moscow, she wondered, or were they part of the story too? ‘Was the KGB involved in the arms deal in some way?’
A shaft of sunlight pierced the rain-smeared window. He twiddled the paraffin lamp on the kitchen table, extinguished its feeble glow. ‘We don’t need that any more. KGB? No,’ he continued. ‘Not the KGB. They didn’t have anything to do with it. The Czech – he originally worked as some functionary for the StB – that’s the Czech secret police. He was checking end user certificates for Omnipol.’
‘Omnipol?’
‘Sorry. The state-owned arms manufacturer. But then in 1969, after the Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion, the KGB had a purge of the StB and the Czech had to move out pretty quickly. Of course, he kept his contacts in Omnipol – his guest pass into the arms game. But he went freelance. Private arms dealers, much worse than the state-run show, I’m afraid. More ruthless. It’s their own capital at stake after all.’
He winced, walked to the door, opened it, the damp, salty air blasting the room, shut the door. Restless. He sat down again. ‘You know, hardly anybody knows I’m here.’
She almost laughed. ‘Surely everybody knows you’re here. You can’t keep anything secret in a place like Orkney.’
He laughed too. ‘Of course, everybody knows I’m here, but nobody knows my real identity.’
‘You use a false name?’
‘Steven Hill.’
‘Don’t you ever slip up?’
‘No. I’ve had so many identities in my life. I’m used to it, moving from one persona to another. The trick is to make sure you believe in your own character, then you can inhabit the part. Steven Hill is a reclusive writer, which is, in fact, quite true.’
He gestured at a desk in a corner of the room, a typewriter, reams of paper.
‘He came here after a painful divorce from which he’s never quite recovered.’
‘And nobody’s ever questioned your story?’
‘No. Why should they? There aren’t many people around here to ask questions anyway – a couple of old fishermen with nothing much more than whisky to see them through the winter. And then there are the creative types who rock up in the summer – a violinist, a photographer. I talk to them, but we respect each other’s privacy.’
‘So Pierce disappeared, and nobody knows his location?’
‘Not quite. There are a couple of people in the Firm who know where to find me, a couple of other colleagues in different parts of the show. There was Jim, but he’s dead. And then there’s you.’
He gave her the sharp-edged stare from under his brows and she tried not to be drawn in, but she couldn’t help feeling flattered that she was in the club, a trusted member of the inner circle.
‘Keep it tight. That’s always the best way. In the family.’ He nodded at her. ‘I would like to see Anna again, but as I said, it’s not straightforward. I have to tread carefully.’
‘Surely you can trust Anna?’
‘Of course I can trust Anna. The thing is...’ He sighed, stood, crossed to the cooker, removed the boiling kettle from the hob. ‘More tea?’
‘OK, thanks. What’s Anna doing these days anyway?’
‘She went to university – Cambridge – like her old man.’ He beamed, the proud father, and she felt a stab of jealousy – her dad was no longer around to laud her achievements. ‘She got drawn into all that Footlights stuff. Which is great, of course. Fantastic. And now she’s acting for a living. So I hear.’
He didn’t sound that impressed with Anna’s career choice but Sam couldn’t help smiling; Anna was a natural actress, somebody who would thrive in the spotlight.
‘I’m sure she’s a brilliant actress,’ Pierce continued. ‘But some of these actors – creative people, dreamers, idealists – they don’t understand the real world. Easy to manipulate. And she has obviously got carried away by some of them.’ He returned to his chair with the steaming mugs. ‘Look, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way because I suspect you’ve done similar things yourself, but she’s involved with all these hard-core politicos herself these days.’
‘Who is she hanging out with then?’
‘This bunch of protestors against the poll tax.’
‘Poll tax protestors?’ Sam couldn’t help the tone of incredulity. ‘They’re just ordinary people who think it’s unfair to be slapped with a massive tax bill they can’t afford to pay.’
‘Of course, I’m not saying they don’t have a good cause and I’m sure some of them – like Anna – are well-intentioned and genuine. But I wouldn’t want word leaking out that Anna’s old man is a spy and he’s been involved with all sorts of stuff and he’s hanging out in Hoy. God knows who might get to hear.’
‘I’m sure Anna wouldn’t say anything if she thought it might harm you.’
He leaned forward.
‘Sam, all I’m saying is, I have to tread carefully. Let’s not be naïve. The poll tax campaign might be a good cause, but there’s always some hard-line group lurking, scheming and prodding behind the scenes. Militant, for example. They see the poll tax as their big moment, the chance to overturn the state etcetera, etcetera.’ He offered her another Digestive. ‘You’ve not had anything to do with them by any chance?’
‘The anti-poll tax campaign?’ She took a biscuit. ‘No.’
He was giving her his incisive stare again.
‘I haven’t got time these days...’ she faltered. Actually, now she came to think about it, she remembered her housemate Becky mentioning a poll tax meeting. Becky, her best mate from school. The friend she always trusted. No nonsense, training to be a doctor Becky. She had shouted up the stairs as she headed out the door, See you later, I’m just off to this meeting about the poll tax. When was it – early June, just before she set off to Orkney for the summer. She hadn’t taken much notice because she had other things on her mind, and anyway, why should she take much notice? Pierce drooped one side of his mouth, a hammed-up expression of sheepishness, held his hands palms to rafters.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should probably come clean.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘It’s not as bad as you think. Somebody on our side was just keeping a check.’
‘MI6 was watching a bunch of poll tax protestors?’
‘Not the Firm. MI5. Domestic brief. Nothing heavy-handed, a list of names, that’s all.’
‘Why was anybody spying on them?’
‘It’s not straightforward.’ He smiled. ‘There I go again. But it’s not. The problem is that if our side didn’t keep an eye on them, that would give the other side free rein to turn up and manipulate and use innocent people as vectors for all sorts of... unpleasantness.’
She’d heard it all before, the justifications for spying. Commies. Reds under the beds. She could see the need for watching would-be terrorists, and she could understand that Pierce’s experiences might have made him suspicious of lefties. But poll tax protestors?
‘Don’t you think the other side has got more pressing things to do at the moment than manipulate a bunch of students and unemployed actors who are protesting against th
e poll tax? I mean, seriously, you yourself pointed out that the Soviet Union is collapsing – surely their spies are more concerned with protests on their side of the Iron Curtain.’
She couldn’t disguise the disdain in her voice.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’d be surprised.’
She leaned back in her chair.
‘What I’m saying is, I still know people and they tell me things and I hear what Anna’s up to.’
It gave her the creeps, the way these spooks used their networks to keep an eye on their offspring, a secret state nannying service to fill the gaps in their inadequate parenting.
‘And last time I spoke to one of my contacts, they mentioned your housemate. They laughed about it, funny, the fact that this woman who was attending the same meetings as Anna shared a house with Jim Coyle’s daughter.’
Bastards.
‘I don’t go to any of those meetings any more, I’ve stopped doing all that kind of stuff, so how does anybody know who I’m sharing a house with? Why is my name still on anybody’s list?’ She sounded like a whiny teenager, but she didn’t care. She’d tried so hard in the last couple of years to keep below the radar, she’d not been on a single protest or a march and had focused on her studies. Yet here she was, still on somebody’s bloody watchlist. Maybe she was being naïve to think her name would ever be erased. She was, after all, the daughter of a police spy.
‘Look, don’t worry. You’re not on a list per se.’
Per se, what did that mean?
‘People know your father’s name. They might know who you are, but there’s not necessarily any black mark attached.’
Not necessarily, that wasn’t particularly reassuring.
‘It wasn’t anything official. I was chatting to this contact, and they knew Jim and your name came up as the housemate of this person. What’s her name? No, no, don’t tell me. I don’t need to know. First rule of espionage. Information strictly on a need-to-know basis. Anyway, I simply enquired – curious, I suppose – what you were doing these days. And this contact told me he’d heard on the grapevine you’d had a rocky couple of years after Jim’s death, but you’d found the right path. You were studying archaeology and, funnily enough, he’d heard you were back doing some work in Orkney. So of course, it was interesting to discover that you were on my doorstep. And then when I saw you in Orphir...’
‘Were you looking for me?’
‘No. Not at all. It’s one of my favourite places. The Round Church. I spotted you there one day, early summer it must have been. July perhaps. Please don’t be cross with me. I should have said something straight away of course, but I have to be careful, and I’m just desperate to see Anna again.’
He rubbed his hands. ‘I was hoping you might help me.’
Here we go; he was after something. Of course, she’d known he was the one pulling the strings, watching her, reeling her in.
‘I can see I’ve blown it.’
His eyes were wet again. God, she shouldn’t be so brutal.
‘But how could I help you?’
‘Look here, I don’t want to demand too much of your time and energy. I just wondered if you could test the waters. Find out whether Anna is up for a meeting. I haven’t seen her for thirteen-odd years. I don’t want to call her out of the blue, say here I am, hiding out in Hoy, let’s meet. Who could blame her if she blew up in my face, told me to sod off, ranted to her mates?’
She extracted another biscuit, bit into its edge.
‘I believe she was very fond of you. I heard you got on well.’
Sam blushed, she couldn’t stop the ends of her mouth curling into a smile. Pierce latched on to her reaction. ‘I thought you might like to see her again. What do you think? Would you be prepared to do it?’
She wanted to steer clear of Pierce’s spying networks, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t particularly want to see Anna again.
‘If all this makes you feel uncomfortable, say no. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t end up on anybody’s list. In fact, I could find out whether there are any old files with your name on them, just to be sure. Wipe your slate clean.’
A tempting bonus – it would be a relief to know her name had been removed from the cavernous vaults of the secret state.
‘You wouldn’t have to do much. Go along with your housemate to one of these meetings perhaps. See if she turns up. And if she does, you could say hello. You’d have to be careful how much you revealed, you couldn’t tell her you’d met me here, in Hoy. Not until I’m sure it’s safe. Just find out whether she’s interested in being in contact with me again, that’s all.’
There didn’t seem to be anything too difficult or underhand in his request.
‘Obviously, you can’t simply phone me and report back. Or write. I mean, I wouldn’t want anybody else to know... I was wondering...’ He rubbed his chin, the silvery bristles glinting. ‘Is there any reason for you to come back to Orkney this autumn? Will you still be doing whatever it was you were doing at the Earl’s Bu?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘The work is over for the summer. I’m hoping to come back next summer to help with another survey. I’m going to make the Earl’s Bu the subject of my PhD. I wasn’t intending to come back before then, not least because of the cost.’
‘Cost?’ he said. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Aren’t there some archives you need to consult?’
‘Archives?’ Sam’s voice lifted; she hated to admit it but there was nothing she liked better than digging around in archives. ‘Well, I will have to check the archives at the library at some point to see what I can find out about the history of the area and previous excavations.’
‘There we go,’ he said. ‘A visit to the archives. I’ll pay you. I’ll cover your costs to come back and report sometime this autumn when you’ve had a chance to talk to Anna.’
‘Really?’ The prospect of a paid-for return visit was definitely tempting.
‘Of course, I wouldn’t want you to be out of pocket. I can give you some cash now.’
He turned and disappeared through the door on the far side of the living room before she had a chance to object. She gazed out the window. The rain had stopped, the clouds had cleared and the sun was beaming, the sand golden, the ocean turquoise. A solitary raven flapped past, its feathers emerald in the rays.
‘Here.’ Pierce had returned, waving a fistful of tenners, his face more relaxed, the lines softened. He really was incredibly good-looking, she thought. Like Anna.
‘Oh, this is like old times,’ he said. ‘I feel like a case officer again.’
‘Case officer?’
‘Handler.’
She must have blanched at the word.
‘Handler, you’re right, it’s not a very pleasant term. Spook talk. I was a case officer for the Firm before I decided to go off piste. Into the field as it were. Set myself up as an arms dealer. So it’s back to the good old days for me. You’re my source, the one doing the demanding stuff, digging out the information.’ His words were tumbling out, relaxed now he’d come clean with Sam and sealed the deal. ‘I’m the one sitting back, dishing out the readies, waiting for you to deliver the product. You’re an invaluable asset. Sorry, old habits die hard. I can’t help thinking in those terms. I’m going to have to give you a code name.’
‘A code name?’
‘Yes, a code name. Always give your source a unique code name, especially if you’re handing out cash. I’ve learned the hard way, I’m afraid. Jotted a name I shouldn’t have done next to some payment. Wasn’t thinking.’ He raised an eyebrow, shook his head, momentarily distracted by the memory. ‘Gave me plenty of sleepless nights, that’s for sure. Still, I seem to have got away with it.’
‘What did you...’
‘Enough of the questions now.’ She was momentarily taken aback by the sharpness of his response.
‘What am I going to call you? Let me think. Hmmm,’ he continued pleasantly, which made her wonder whether she’d ima
gined the sudden edge to his tone.
‘Hah, I know. You can be Ariel.’
She was being sensitive; there was nothing fierce about his manner now.
‘Oh. Ariel. We could all have code names from The Tempest.’
‘Good idea. I’m old man Prospero stuck on this island, and you’re Ariel the free spirit who seems to be able to conjure rainstorms out of thin air.’
‘OK. And Anna is Miranda, your beloved daughter.’
‘Yes indeed. And I’m afraid she is in many ways just as innocent as Miranda, which is precisely the problem. I don’t want her to be used or manipulated by scheming Trots or desperate Eastern Bloc spooks going for one last jab at their Western counterparts, so let’s do it this way. Keep it between you and me. In the family.’ And what was Jim’s code name in this drama, she wondered. She was afraid he might be Antonio, Prospero’s scheming brother, whose treachery was the cause of his exile to the island. Pierce flicked through the notes in his hand. ‘There. Three hundred.’
Her eyes widened.
‘If you spend more than that, keep the receipts. Let me know how much.’
He stepped over to his shelves, returned with a notebook and biro, flicked to the back page, scribbled, ripped the page out, handed it to her. ‘That’s a PO Box, where you can contact me to let me know you’re coming. Give me a date and sign it Ariel. That’s all. It’s not a direct line, so to speak. It will take a week or so for a message to get to me. Oh, and don’t forget, my name is Hill. Steven Hill.’
He flipped the pages again, jotted Ariel, £300 and then the date. 10th September 1989. ‘Anal, I know,’ he said. ‘I like to keep a note of cash flows.’
He pointed the biro at her. ‘We need a name for the operation.’
‘Operation?’ She was trying to pretend she wasn’t enjoying this, the code names, the secrecy, but part of her was having fun.
‘The mission for you to contact Anna. Operation Tempest? No, that makes us sound like a bunch of storm troopers.’
‘How about operation Fisher King?’
‘Fisher King?’