Terror's Cradle

by Duncan Kyle

  round aimlessly, thinking, until a voice said, 'Can I help you?'

  The man who'd spoken was sixty-ish, tall and slightly stooped and with a scholarly air. A grey-haired woman stood beside him.

  `So this is Jarlshof,' I-said, meaninglessly.

  They smiled at one another, and the woman said, 'It's lovely, isn't it.'

  'Lovely,' I agreed.

  The man must have sensed my puzzlement. `Not what you expected?'

  Ì'm not sure what I did expect. I'm looking for somebody.'

  Àt Jarlshof?' He was a little puzzled.

  I said, 'It's part of the address I have. I saw the sign at the airport, and walked over here.'

  Ìf I can help?'

  Ìt's a Mr Anderson,' I said, larlshof, Sandness, Shetland.'

  `Sandness? Dear me, that's a long way from here. It must be forty or fifty miles. Are you on holiday?'

  `Visiting, anyway.'

  The woman said, 'Everybody thinks the Shetlands are tiny. I think it's because maps always show them in a separate little box, quite out of position. But they're very big really.' She turned to her husband. `How will he get to Sandness, dear ?'

  `He'll have to go to Lerwick first.'

  Ì'll hire a car.'

  'Lerwick's the place for that. We'll take you, if you like. We're going anyway.'

  `That's kind

  Not at all. It's a pleasure, isn't it, dear?'

  She smiled at me. 'Anderson. I seem to have heard .. . oh, isn't that the bird man?'

  `He is an ornithologist.'

  `Yes, that's right. We met him once, dear. You remember?' Ì do now,' the man said. '

  One meets so many new

  people. We retired here, you see, a year or two ago, and .. . our name's Dennett, by the way.'

  I said, 'John Sellers. How d'you do'

  We got into their little car and drove away from jarlshof. I wasn't sure I wanted to leave the place without reconnoitring it more thoroughly, but the Dennets had met Anderson and that decided me.

  `There's a rumour, you know, Mr Sellers,' Mrs Dennett said as we headed towards the road junction, 'that your Mr Anderson has found another pair of snowy owls. Of course, that was in the spring . .

  `Really?' I said. 'Snowy owls!'

  `Well, we have some already, of course. Two pairs, I think it is, on Unst, or is it Fetlar?

  One of the other islands, anyway. But it's only' rumour, d'you see, and I expect he's very excited about it and trying to keep it very quiet.'

  `Bound to be.' I thought grimly that Anderson had bigger problems now than keeping a pair of snowy owls secret.

  As we drove alongside the lit-up Sumburgh runway, half a dozen black and white birds marched steadily in line ahead across the tarmac and declined even to look up as a huge helicopter roared low through the night sky over their heads. Beside me Mrs Dennett sighed 'Oh dear, all this oil. It will ruin the islands, you know. You do know?'

  I said I'd heard a little, and she spent the next forty minutes giving me an expert rundown on the local dissension about land options bought by oil companies, the statistical certainty that sooner or later an accidental spill at sea would annihilate the local seabirds, the inevitability of all the profit going elsewhere, and so on. She knew her subject, was good and articulate about it, and determined I should be instructed. She still hadn't finished when the headlights picked out the word Lerwick on a sign and we began to drop down the hill into the little granite town.

  Interrupting her wasn't easy, but I managed it in the end. I was worried about the time. '

  Will I be able to hire a car

  at this hour of night?'

  Òh yes. You see the Shetlands aren't like other places. Not so rigid, d'you see. And much more friendly. People help, d'you see. That's why we're all so worried . . .' We were back to the oil again, but I'd got my answer.

  She was right. About the car, certainly and probably about the oil, for that matter. The Dennetts dropped me outside a garage just beyond the harbour, and drove off, waving. Ten minutes later I was also driving away, in a nearly new purple Mini as stiff as six planks and with brakes that might have been adjusted in a try-your-strength competition between malicious mechanics. The man who rented me the car also told me how to find the Sandness road, and provided me with a map and the advice that I should keep an eye on it, since visitors seemed to find the road signs difficult, though he himself couldn't see why.

  I blinded away with my nasty Metropolitan driving habits and discovered rapidly that the Shetlanders have a few of their own. Twice in as many miles I met them on hairpins, headlights blasting and using all the road and I calmed down a bit, especially as it was borne in on me that these roads hadn't been designed in highway engineering establishments; they'd been scraped into hillsides and round sudden contours and half the bends were on the edges of sharp drops with long, moonlit, gunmetal stretches of water far below. Every so often I'd find a sheep standing transfixed in my lights, brace myself, and touch that fiendish brake pedal and slide towards the beast on locked wheels, thanking my lucky stars I was driving something as sure-footed as a Mini. The Shetland population is thin on the ground, and by the time I was half a dozen miles out of Lerwick, there was only the occasional light from a hillside croft house to interrupt the endless dark landscape. Even these sparse friendly gleams became fewer as I worked my way steadily westward, concentrating ferociously as the road narrowed and wound, stopping occasionally to consult the map when

  a sign arrowed the way to a place that might or might not be on the way to Sandness. I'd made a mental note of the mileage before leaving Lerwick, and driving as fast as I dared on that tricky road, it took me an hour and twenty minutes to cover thirty-two miles to the tiny cluster of houses that was Sandness. I opened the car door and stepped out into half a cold gale sweeping powerfully off the Atlantic Ocean less than a mile away and bringing with it a deep, damp chill.

  Picking a cottage at random, I knocked on the door and asked the old woman who answered about Anderson's house. She told me, in the heavy, Norse-laden accents of the islands, that there were two Andersons nearby. Would I be wanting old Mr Anderson because he was away in Lerwick? No, I said. Mr Anderson the bird watcher.

  `That would be young Mr Anderson, away up the hill.' She was old and bent, but spry and alert, and she slung a dark shawl over her shoulders and stepped out into the wind to point the way. I thanked her, began to return to the Mini, then went back to find out whether anybody else had been asking for young Mr Anderson. Ì didn't hear,' she said firmly, and there was something in her emphasis that said she'd certainly have heard. I thanked her and drove off, backtracking a little way, then turning, up a rough track towards the rearing moonlit bulk of Sandness Hill with the cloud shadows flying across it. The distance from the road was perhaps five hundred yards, a very gentle rise that became steeper near the house. I turned the car round, switched off the engine, and went up the slope on foot.

  No light came from the house. Blind glass shone the moonlight at me as I climbed. The house was of grey stone, small, with a couple of gabled windows to the upper floor and as I moved towards it I looked carefully at the barren, empty landscape around me, feeling a real sense of isolation. Nothing moved except the air; there was nothing to hear except the sound of my own footfalls and the buffeting

  of the wind in my ears. I had hoped to find Anderson there, but the lack of lights made it seem unlikely now.

  The door was white-painted, so the small black lettering was easy to read. One word; the name of the house, Jarlshof. I nodded to myself, then knocked and heard the sound echo emptily. There was no response. I tried again, several times, sadly certain now that the house was empty, then moved away from-the door to look in through the windows. What I could see, lit palely by the intermittent moonlight, was a shadowed and fairly spartan room : a wall full of bookshelves, a bare table with two or three plain wooden seats, a couple of old armchairs. It fitted with what little I knew (which was what Alsa h
ad written) about Anderson. This was a place where one man lived and worked, a man not much interested in comfort, a man who chose remoteness and absorption and didn't care to chase the phantom satisfactions of goods and chattels. You meet people like that occasionally and usually find yourself envying them, grossly tempted to follow their example until the realization of your own dependence on creature comforts enables you to thrust the idea away. But guiltily, always guiltily.

  I worked my way round the house, looking through windows. A couple were curtained, but I peered in through all the others and finally found myself standing before that white front door again, feeling helpless. There were two possibilities now. I liked neither. I could wait here for Anderson, not knowing how long the wait would be; it could presumably be days if he was off on some prolonged observation, and I didn't have days, or even hours, to spare. The alternative was to go looking for him, and that prospect didn'

  t thrill me. He could be anywhere in this mass of islands, pursuing his solitary studies, and unless he made a practice of telling somebody where he was, there'd be no chance of finding him. I remembered what Mr Dennett said, the rumour that he'd discovered some rare birds, and scowled to myself. If he had, he'd be keeping very quiet indeed. The hell with it then. The need to find the man was too

  great for me to be scrupulous. Somewhere in the house there might be an indication of his whereabouts. I'd have to break in.

  But as it happened there was no need. Trying the door without hope, I found that it was unlocked and simply stepped inside, then used my lighter to try to find the switch. No switch. There was a Tilley lamp on the table and I searched back through my memory and fumbled with it until I recalled that it was necessary to get the pressure up before the vapour mantle caught and glowed. Now, at least, I had light. I looked first at the floor behind the door to see if mail was still lying there. There wasn't any, but a couple of opened envelopes lay on a sideboard, window-fronted envelopes, one from the Inland Revenue, the other from a garage. Each bore the Lerwick postmark for three days earlier. I swore, looking at them. Were they the last mail to come to the house? What the hell would have happened to a packet posted to Sandnes, Norway? Would the post office in Sandnes, realizing there'd been some kind of mistake, forward the packet to Sandness, Shetland? Would they even know there was a Sandness, Shetland? And if they did, if they had redirected the packet, how long to reach this lonely spot? Was it conceivable that there was a Jarlshof at Sandnes in Norway? Even the bloody word was straight Norwegian, held here unchanged through long centuries of the powerful Norse link with these islands. I had uncomfortable visions of the blasted packet being shoved through the door of some uncomprehending Norwegian in the other Sandnes, whose house happened to bear the same name.

  I began to ferret round the room, opening drawers and cupboards, then moving to Anderson's old steel desk and rifling through the papers, hoping to find a diary or a log; something here had to give a clue to Anderson's activities. There was nothing. Circulars from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, letters from other ornithologists, a few still photographs, some notes. There were even a few transparencies and my heart thumped as I picked them up and held them to the light. No luck; they were just birds.

  But no! By God, they weren't just birds! I realized suddenly that there was something wrong with these transparencies. I was handling them carefully, by corners and edges, out of long habit. But somebody hadn't been so careful. There were one or two fingermarks on them, sweat leaving whorl patterns on the delicate emulsion. Anderson wouldn't do that; Anderson was a pro, he'd be as careful handling them as I was. No man shins down cliff faces to photograph seabirds, then wrecks his work with careless fingering of the result.

  It was tenuous enough, as evidence, but all the same my scalp prickled. I was almost sure now that somebody else had been here before me, also examining the place. Maybe the same rough fingers whose prints were on the transparencies had opened the envelopes. Maybe Anderson hadn't been here for days.

  There was nothing more on the desk, nor, now, was there anywhere left in that room for me to look. I picked up the lamp and carried it over to the rough little kitchen. A few minutes' search turned up nothing there, either. There was only one other room on the ground floor and I crossed towards the door and went in. A workshop. Two benches; one with an angled drawing board and artist's materials, another for woodworking, with carpenters' tools neatly in racks above it. I looked round the room desultorily, almost certain now that Jarlshof could tell me nothing. I'd go up the stairs and see what was there, but I knew already that it was hopeless.

  I turned to go back into the living room and what I saw stopped me dead in the doorway. A man sat in one of Anderson's threadbare armchairs. He was quite still, quite calm. He held a big, battery lamp in his left hand and at the moment I saw him, he moved the switch and the light came on. His right hand held a pistol.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  For a moment I failed to recognize him. For one thing, he'd. been dressed differently the one time I'd met him. For another, I hadn't imagined I'd ever see him again. Now he wore a dark donkey jacket and a seaman's cap whose peak shadowed the upper part of his face. I heard a sound, glanced quickly round the room and saw another man step through the stairway door, a big man dressed similarly in donkey jacket and cap. His face too, as the lamplight fell on it, I recognized. He was the first Gustaffson, the phony one, who'd come to call on me at the Scanda in Gothenburg! He stared at me in mild surprise. I looked again at the man in the chair, knowing him now. This was the man who had impersonated Schmid. He said quietly, 'Place the lamp on the table.'

  I'd been thinking, but thinking far too slowly, of letting it fall. His hand lamp scotched that idea; there'd be no sudden plunge into darkness, just a target held easily in a beam. I obeyed slowly.

  `Now step away from it. Stand by die fireplace.'

  The pistol followed my movement, pointing low at my

  abdomen. 'At least,' he said, 'you confirm that we are in the right house. Now you can tell me where Anderson is.' I said, 'Who?'

  He sighed. 'Let us not play tiresome games, Mr Sellers. Where is Anderson?'

  I shrugged. 'How would I. know?'

  He looked at me thoughtfully. 'If you knew, you would not be here? That's it, eh?'

  I shrugged again.

  Ì had hoped you were Anderson,' he said. We have been waiting for him for several hours. You can tell me about Anderson.'

  Ì've never met him in my life.'

  `No? Yet you are here and you got here very quickly. How?'

  Ì have a homing instinct,' I said. 'Like a pigeon.'

  `Yes. A pigeon. A swift bird, but vulnerable, Mr Sellers. I admit I was surprised to see you. Almost as surprised as you are to see me, perhaps.'

  `What surprised me most was your clumsiness,' I said. `You left dirty great thumbprints all over his transparencies. It was obvious somebody'd been here.'

  `How clever. And how incompetent to be caught. Tell me about Anderson.'

  `Tell me about Alison Hay.'

  He smiled faintly. 'You are in no position, Mr Sellers—' `Where is she?'

  `You think she has been found? How could I know? I am not, as you must now realize, of the Gothenburg police.'

  `You're here because you heard about Anderson from her. There's no other way —'

  He nodded. 'Of course. The question is how you knew, Mr Sellers. Tell me.'

  Why should I? Who are you, anyway?'

  Who I am doesn't matter. But you will tell me because I wish to know. And because you can be made to tell me.' `Then make me.'

  Òh, I can. Quite simply. And I know more than you think, Mr Sellers. Even about Anderson.'

  I waited.

  `For example. The girl Hay was to be Mrs Anderson.' That hit me and he watched it hit. Two blows at once. Was to be?' I said heavily.

  `You see? Whereas you . . .' He smiled. 'For you friendship. Yes, friendship. But only friendship. For marriage, this Ander
son. You want proof ?'

  I shook my head.

  `No? But you must have the proof.'

  He took a photograph from his pocket and held it towards me at arm's length. I took it from him. The picture showed

  Alsa with a big bony-looking man in his thirties. Alsa was holding tight to a big, fluffy, struggling seabird chick of some kind and laughing and he was watching indulgently. A very happy scene indeed; one for the family album. He said, 'I could tell you more.'

  `Then tell me.' I put the picture on the table, still seeing her in my mind's eye, remembering the way she looked at me, the way she'd put me off with that stagy myheartbelongs-to-another business. Being gentle, because she was like that. Saying it, but wrapping it up, hoping it wouldn't hurt as much. And me refusing to believe she meant it.

  `You will ask me now whether she is alive or dead. Whether it was necessary to kill her.'

  Ì'm asking.'

  `Sometimes, under interrogation, people die. It depends for instance on how much they resist, how urgent the need for information. '

  `For Christ's sake! Is she alive?'

  He pursed his lips. We can exchange information, Mr Sellers. This is painless. I have no wish to hurt you. You will tell me how you come to know of Anderson. And other things. And I shall tell you about Alison Hay.'