Duncan Kyle - Terror's Cradle

Àre you on?'

`Have you two pence for the phone?'

I gave him some coins. 'Better check the plane's there, too.'

I waited in the cab while he phoned his office and the airfield from a pub. When he came out his walk was spring-heeled.

Àll right?' I asked.

`They don't think it's funny, but I've still got my job, I think.'

Ànd the plane?'

Òkay.' He settled back in his seat. 'Better than work, sport. Tell him Elstree. I'll direct him when we get there.'

I made one phone call from Elstree: to Scown on his private line. I didn't care now who overheard. I said, 'Tell the official circles to look for Anderson, Jarlshof, Sandnes, Norway,' and hung up.

We were off the ground within an hour. His flight plan was accepted straight away, which was a bit of luck, and I watched the metamorphosis of a slightly boishie Australian journalist into a hard-nosed precise pilot. He seemed to my untutored eye to have a lot of experience. I said, 'How many hours?'

`Five-fifty. Five fifty-six to be accurate. Average cost about fifteen quid an hour, I reckon, by the time it's all in. Comes expensive. That's why this trip's tempting. What in hell did you say you're doing it for?'

Ì didn't say. But not for fun.'

`Not at that price, sport. Must be a good story. Maybe I'll hang on. Work myself back into favour at the Mirror.'

I said, 'When we land, you get a cup of tea and turn round. If you have to stop over, do it in Scotland somewhere. You're not staying on Shetland.'

He laughed, 'Okay, blue. Now do me a favour. Shut up and let me fly.'

Obediently, I shut up and watched the cloud patterns beneath us. I also thought a good deal, to no great purpose. After a while I took out the layout photostats I'd made at Strom Brothers and stared at them hopefully for a bit. Nothing emerged, though, and I put them back in my pocket again; but the feeling persisted that there was something there, if only my purblind eyes could see it. We came down to refuel at Dyce, Aberdeen, then flew on. The clouds had disappeared as we crossed the Pentland Firth. Once we'd passed the Orkney beacon, Brucie Hinton talked to Sum-burgh control then turned to me looking pleased. 'There's a twenty-knot bloody crosswind. Have to be bloody careful, sport. Glad I came!'

It must be nice, I thought sourly, to have nothing on your mind but the challenge of landing in a dangerous crosswind. `Well be careful.'

'I've got a one-third share of this bastard. You watch how soft I put her down.'

But he didn't. He came in one-wing low and didn't ease her across properly and we bounced sickeningly four times.

But he was happy.

`Well, I tried, sport. I'll do better next time.'

Ì hope there won't be a next time.'

`Pity.' He pocketed the two hundred and I told him to send the hangarage and maintenance bills to Scown. He said, 'Now there's a useful guy to know.'

Ì'll introduce you, one day,' I said. I hoped I'd have the chance.

`Do that!' He climbed back into the Cessna, yelled, `Thanks, sport,' and started the motor. While I walked across to the airport building, he roared off south. There was a four-sheet Ordnance Survey map of the Shetland Islands pinned up in the terminal building and I stopped for a minute to get some idea of what the place was like. I'd intended to take the first available transport to Lerwick, the island's capital, but something I saw on the map stopped me. There was the single word Jarlshof, in the Old English typeface used on Ordnance Survey maps to indicate antiquities. Furthermore, Jarlshof was no more than a mile from where I stood.

I' left the terminal buildings, looked around me and set off walking down the road. After a while it forked. The main road led away to the east, but a smaller road signposted Jarlshof. I followed it and quite soon the archaeological site came clearly in view. It looked deserted. The day was dying and the tourist season probably over. Overhead a small twin jet screamed down towards a landing at Sumburgh, incongruous in the stillness. I swore to myself, turned to walk back and in doing so noticed a car. Well, 'at least somebody was here. I began to walk round. Notices set out the history of the place, and I read one cursorily. Excavations had revealed habitation there from mediaeval times right back through the Viking Age and the Iron Age to the Bronze Age. But I was wondering where this collection of ancient stones came into my own problem. The place was well cared-for, grass neatly trimmed to the bases of the walls, paths carefully marked and I walked

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.