We went back to the flat and changed into jeans and sturdy shoes, and then I took a few minutes to slap together some sandwiches. ‘It won’t help Mr Norquist if we starve, and I’ve made some for him, too, in case he hasn’t been eating.’
‘And bring walking sticks if you have them,’ said Larsen. ‘We’ll run out of road rather soon.’
It took a moment to remember where we’d put them, but in a very short time we were off, Watson quivering with the excitement he’d caught from us.
We headed west and north, to a part of the island I hadn’t seen. It began to be very hilly, and the road very narrow. We munched on sandwiches, getting food into us while we could, though my stomach was so full of butterflies it was a wonder there was any room for bread and meat. What were we getting ourselves into? Would we find Mr Norquist in this apparently deserted countryside? Or would we find … something else? Was this apparently pleasant man leading us to our doom? Surely not. We were three against one, after all, if you counted Watson – who had demonstrated his protective instincts. And Larsen was a decent man. Wasn’t he?
I cleared my throat. ‘I hope this isn’t just a wild goose chase,’ I said. ‘It was Mrs Tredgold who put us onto it, as we said. She was pleased to hear we were going with you to search.’
Alan recognized my motives in mentioning that someone else knew what we were doing. He also recognized my unspoken anxiety. ‘Steady on, old girl,’ he murmured, patting my hand.
‘The road comes to an end just up here,’ said Larsen from the back seat. ‘You can leave the car anywhere you like. No one comes up here except the odd farmer. From here we walk.’
Well, we were committed now. Alan got our walking sticks from the boot, and Larsen pulled on the small pack he had tossed in the car. I very much wondered what was in it.
He saw me looking at it and obligingly offered me an inventory. ‘Map, compass, torch, my folding stick, and a few other oddments like trowels and brushes. One never knows what might turn up.’
I wasn’t altogether reassured. ‘Oddments’ might easily include things like a hammer. I moved a little closer to Alan and grasped Watson’s lead firmly, and we set out.
‘Watch your step,’ said Larsen cheerily. ‘This is a pasture, you know.’
‘For cattle or sheep?’ Alan asked.
‘Both.’
‘But they’re not here now, are they?’ I asked a little anxiously. ‘I mean, I can see they’re not, but are they apt to appear soon? Because of Watson,’ I added. I didn’t intend to admit that large animals with horns terrify me.
‘Don’t know. Don’t know much about farming. I’d think that the beasts would spend most of the summer moving from one pasture to the next, as the grass grows, but I don’t really know a thing about it.’
Great. Any time now, someone might open a gate somewhere, and we’d be stampeded by a thundering herd of something or other. That was one of the few hazards I hadn’t imagined in dreading this expedition.
I reminded myself that we were trying to save a man’s life. If we could accomplish that, my petty fears were of little importance. I tried to focus on Larsen and what he was telling Alan.
‘A lot of peat hereabouts, you see, not just here, but a bit farther north, round Evie and Birsay. It’s still an important resource. People don’t use it for fuel so much anymore, but the distilleries use a lot of it to dry the malt. It’s what gives whisky the smoky flavour. Most of what’s dug in Orkney goes to Highland Park, of course.’
That was actually interesting, and took my mind off cattle and hammers for a few seconds.
We came upon the cairn with no warning. There was nothing, to my eyes anyway, to mark the little rise as anything special, but Larsen walked around it to the far side, and there, sure enough, was a small opening perhaps eighteen inches wide and high. I’d have thought it the burrow of some biggish mammal, if I’d thought about it at all. A raccoon, say, or a big groundhog. If either of them inhabits burrows.
‘It hasn’t been properly excavated, of course,’ Larsen was saying. ‘The entrance was a good deal taller when it was built, and people were shorter. But even they would have had to stoop to enter. We think it was a gesture of respect to the dead, or perhaps to the gods that inhabited the place. There’s no telling, now.’ He reached in his pack, pulled out a powerful flashlight, and shone it on the ground around the entrance opening. ‘Hmm. We can go in if you like, but it doesn’t look to me as if anything bigger than a rabbit has been here for some time.’
The ground was soft in front of the entrance, and bare of grass. I could see by the strong slanting light of the torch what the sky light hadn’t shown me, the tracks of quite a number of small animals. I recognized only a few, familiar from tracks in the snow back in Indiana. Rabbits, yes, mice, others I couldn’t identify.
Alan shook his head doubtfully. ‘I’m sure you’re right, but we’d best look anyway. I’m not sure I’ll fit, but I’ll give it a try. I’ll need a shoehorn.’
Larsen was the slimmest of us. I knew why Alan preferred to examine the cairn himself.
With some difficulty, he managed to get his head and shoulders through the opening. That was a bad few moments for me. All my claustrophobia kicked in on his behalf. What if he couldn’t get out? What if the roof caved in? What if there was something horrid in there? What if Larsen attacked him while he was helplessly on his knees, and then went after me?
He’d borrowed Larsen’s torch, and the two or three minutes seemed like hours, during which I scarcely breathed, before he backed out and got to his feet. ‘Ptthah!’ He spat out bits of mud and leaves and I didn’t care to consider what else. ‘It’s pretty foul in there. And certainly no human has been inside recently, probably not since Norquist discovered it.’
Larsen nodded. ‘Right. Shall we go on to the next? We’ve hours of daylight left.’
I left my fears behind at the third or fourth cairn. I could see them for the foolish fancies they were. I could also see this as an increasingly futile expedition. Some of the cairns were considerably bigger than the first one. I even ventured, briefly, into one myself when Alan pronounced it rather interesting inside. In none of them did we find the slightest evidence of human occupation, at least not in the last few millennia.
‘There are a few more,’ said Larsen at last, ‘but they’re even smaller than the smallest we’ve seen, and the light’s fading. You don’t want to be out here on the moors in the dark, even the twilight of a midsummer’s night. There are bogs, for one thing.’
‘You’re right,’ said Alan. ‘We’ll have to give up, at least for tonight.’
‘Mr Larsen, it’s been wonderful of you to give up your time for this.’ I shook his hand. ‘I’m sorry it’s turned out to be a wild goose chase.’
‘But it might not have done,’ said Larsen. ‘If Norquist is alive, and frankly that seems more unlikely every day, this is the sort of place we might expect to find him. If you want to continue tomorrow, I’m quite free.’
We agreed to let him know, and drove back to Kirkwall in sombre silence.
We were dead tired when we dropped Larsen off at the university, and very hungry. Those sandwiches had been a long time ago. But the state of our clothes prohibited a restaurant meal, and after eleven o’clock we probably wouldn’t find one open anyway. So Alan popped into a fish-and-chips café we spotted on the way back to Stromness, and we ate our greasy meal sitting in the car. Watson insisted on his share, and we gave it to him. ‘It’ll probably make him sick,’ I pointed out.
‘Just now I simply do not care. It may make us sick, for that matter. Never mind. Let’s get home to bed.’
TWENTY-TWO
My dreams were uneasy that night. In the morning I remembered none of the details, only the feeling of imminent disaster and my own helplessness to avert it. Alan was still asleep when I fought my way out of an especially awful dream and staggered down to the kitchen for some coffee.
My predictions about Watson had, all too obvi
ously, come true. He was looking shame-faced, his tail between his legs. ‘Never mind, dog,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s not your fault. We shouldn’t have fed you that junk. I’m not really feeling too well myself. Out you go.’ I opened the patio door and he slunk out, still not sure he wasn’t in disgrace. I made coffee and took it upstairs to the sitting room. I was definitely not up to that clean-up job until I’d had some caffeine.
The smell of coffee woke Alan, who padded out to the sitting room looking as dishevelled and out of sorts as I felt. ‘Watson was sick all over the kitchen floor,’ I said by way of cheery greeting. Alan groaned and poured himself some coffee.
We cleaned up the kitchen in grim silence, cleaned up ourselves, and then by common consent put Watson on his leash and headed for the nearby café for breakfast. He had to wait outside, of course, but he was feeling quite a lot better by that time and was happy to receive the admiring pats and coos of passers-by.
We couldn’t talk about our problem in the crowded café, which was a real blessing. It gave us time to sort out our ideas and psyche ourselves into better moods. After we’d eaten we took Watson for a long walk along the harbour and then back up along The Street.
It didn’t come as any real surprise when we ran into Mrs Tredgold. She smiled, observed our faces, and said, ‘There’s no need, I see, to ask how you fared yesterday.’
‘Badly, I’m afraid,’ said Alan in a low voice.
‘We can’t talk here,’ Nora said. ‘Come back to the vicarage with me. That is, how does Watson feel about cats?’
‘He loves our two,’ I replied. ‘In fact, the only one I’ve ever known him to dislike …’ I trailed off, and she sighed and nodded.
‘Entirely understandable. We’re up this lane.’ She turned into a steep by-way that was signposted ‘Khyber Pass’.
Shades of the Empire, I thought, and tugged at Watson, who had located an interesting smell and wanted to linger.
The vicarage was small and cosy. Watson trotted in with no hesitation and set about sniffing out the cats he knew were there. We followed him and our hostess into a sitting room furnished with soft squishy chintz-covered furniture and, sure enough, two soft squishy cats asleep in a window seat. They opened their eyes at Watson’s advance, yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep again.
‘No trouble there,’ said Nora. ‘Now tell me.’
We told her, omitting no nasty detail. The mud and excrement in the cairns, the smells, the horrid confinement of the interiors that nearly drove me mad, even when it was Alan venturing in. ‘And it was a complete waste of time and effort,’ I finished morosely. ‘Norquist wasn’t in any of them; hadn’t ever been there.’
‘But it wasn’t a waste, was it?’ she said. ‘You’ve crossed one possibility off your list.’
‘Larsen said there are a few more cairns,’ I reminded her.
‘But even smaller and less convenient. I think you can say you’ve eliminated the cairns. And you’ve eliminated Larsen as a suspicious person.’
‘He could have taken us to the cairns because he knew perfectly well Norquist wasn’t there,’ I said without much conviction.
‘He could, but is it likely he’d spend an evening at a fruitless endeavour, an evening, moreover, when he had other responsibilities?’
‘Probably not. I suppose not.’
‘You’re tired,’ she said charitably, ‘and no wonder.’
‘We both are,’ said Alan. ‘Tired and discouraged. We don’t seem able to make any progress at all.’
‘You will. The great thing is not to give up. For a start, you may remember that I suggested one other possible hiding place for Charlie.’
‘You did? Oh, I remember. You said it would have something to do with his mother. But she’s incommunicado right now, and probably not very helpful at the best of times. I don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but I don’t see how that line of reasoning leads anywhere.’
‘Nor do I. At the moment. But bear it in mind. And my dears, do know that several of us are racking our brains trying to think of anything that might help. Ruth, Isabel, even Celia Freebody.’
‘Oh, has she finally decided I didn’t kill Sandy?’
‘She’s accepted that. I don’t say she’ll ever be your best friend, and she certainly isn’t a great friend to Charlie, with his fear of cats.’
‘You said he didn’t have any real friends.’
‘Nor does he. But he’s one of ours, and we stick together. People do, in a village. In any case, nearly everyone feels a certain sympathy for him, because of what he’s had to put up with from his mother. So you’ve lots of support in your endeavour, my dears.’
‘I wish,’ I said, ‘that made me feel much better. We don’t know what to do now.’
‘What I think you should do is forget all about it. It’s a lovely day. Go on a sightseeing tour. Not the Neolithic sites. They would keep your mind on your troubles. Have you seen the Italian Chapel?’
‘I have, years ago. Dorothy hasn’t,’ said Alan. ‘That might be just what’s wanted. And when we get there, we can take Watson for a lovely long walkies.’
He thought Alan meant now, and trotted to the door. ‘No, darling,’ I said firmly. ‘You’ve had your walkies for this morning. Later.’
He understood the tone, at least, and walked the short distance back to the flat in resignation.
When we got there I sank down on a kitchen chair. ‘Alan, I don’t think I want to go anywhere. You were polite to Nora, but I’m just not up to it.’
‘Yes, you are. You’ll enjoy it. Wash your face and brush your teeth, or whatever you need to do, and come along.’
I was nettled. Alan almost never tries to force me into anything. ‘Look, I’m tired and depressed and I do not want to go!’
‘Dorothy.’ He ran a hand down the back of his head. ‘I understand exactly how you feel, and of course you’re free to do as you like. But this might be our only opportunity to see the Italian Chapel, and it would be a great pity for you to miss it. And Nora is quite right. It’ll be good medicine. If you stay here all by yourself you’re just going to brood.’
There are times when an understanding husband can be a great trial. I remember once, as a child, when I was furious about something and had a temper tantrum. With me a tantrum consisted not of screaming and kicking, but of sulking. My two older sisters tried to snap me out of it by making me laugh. They succeeded, against my will, and then I was madder than ever, because I wanted to sulk.
Today I wanted to brood and wallow in gloom. Alan had no right to walk into my mind, figure it out, and try to amend matters.
Tight-lipped, I followed him to the car, got in the back seat with the dog, and sat in utter silence as he drove east, toward Kirkwall.
I had to fight to hang onto my bad mood as we drove, in silence, through the countryside. It was truly a glorious day, the hills warmed and gilded by the sun, the sea diamond-sparkling. The very sheep seemed whiter and fluffier than usual, the grass greener, the birds more melodious. All nature was inviting me to rejoice, and I wanted to sulk.
Alan began to talk. ‘We’ve talked a little about the Churchill Barriers. It was during the Second World War. Most of the British fleet, what there was of it, was berthed at Scapa Flow, the large basin southwest of Kirkwall. When the Second World War began, it was thought that the ships were safe from U-boats, because a good many German ships had been scuttled there at the end of the Great War, and were lying on the bottom creating a hazard to underwater navigation. However, the pundits were wrong. A U-boat got through and sank a ship, killing hundreds of men. So in 1940, I believe, Churchill ordered barriers built to shut off the eastern approaches, underwater walls from one island to the next, as it were. As most British labourers were serving in the military, someone had the bright idea of using the Italian prisoners of war, housed on Orkney, to do much of the work.’
I opened my mouth to comment, and shut it again.
‘It was probably very hard work, but appare
ntly the men had some time on their hands, because the beauty-loving Italians began to beautify their camp. Their most urgent wish was for a chapel, because of course they were Catholic and the local churches were either Church of Scotland or Church of England. So the officials, who seemed to have been reasonably sympathetic, gave them two extra Nissen huts.’
Quonset huts, I mentally translated. ‘Must have been a pretty ugly chapel.’
‘It happened that one of the prisoners was an artist, and he and the others set out to make a place of worship worthy of its purpose. They lined the walls so the corrugations wouldn’t show and then painted them in trompe-l’oeil fashion to look like carved marble and vaulted brickwork. They made an altar and altar rail of concrete. One of the men was good at metal-work, so he made candelabra and a beautiful wrought-iron rood screen. The artist in charge painted a beautiful image of the Virgin and Child over the altar, flanked with saints and angels.
‘And then something happened. The war ended. The prisoners were free. But the artist hadn’t quite completed his work. He was given permission to remain behind and finish the font.
‘But that wasn’t the end of the story, either. Harsh weather conditions and the nature of the structure combined to allow serious deterioration, but local interest was strong and money was raised for repairs and restoration. And in 1960 the original artist was brought back, at local expense, to supervise the repairs and do some of the repainting himself. At the rededication service, some two hundred Orcadians crowded in to the tiny space to pay tribute to the dedicated and gifted men who built it.’
Alan brought the car to a stop. ‘And there it is.’
Somewhere in the middle of the story I’d forgotten why I was annoyed with Alan. Now I forgot everything except what was in front of me.
The site was austere and windswept. In the fields on either side livestock moved slowly, oblivious to anything except their food. But the chapel …
It was simple. Painted brilliantly white, with red trim, it reminded me a little of the adobe mission churches of the American southwest. A tiny porch, flanked with two narrow windows, was decorated with a bas-relief head of Christ, with his crown of thorns. ‘Made by the prisoners?’ I asked. Alan nodded. And we went inside.
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