Duncan Kyle - Terror's Cradle

Glancing over my shoulder, I was horrified to see how close the Russian boat was now. She seemed to be tearing through the water. And she'd seen me, too. She wasn't slowing or turning to go into Nesti Voe; she was coming powerfully on, directly towards me. But Catriona, too, was picking up speed. Poor Catriona a!

Poor Lincoln, too, for that matter, with his boat smashed deliberately into cliffs and then probably sinking, certainly abandoned. Bressay loomed nearer. Only a few yards to go now, and I could see the waves washing on the half-submerged rocks that jutted forward from the base of the low cliff. I left the wheel and scrambled forward, ready to jump as she struck. A harsh grating noise, then she stopped with a brutal bank and I was half catapulted, half jumping down to the flat, water-covered, sloping rock below me, falling headlong into the icy water. I scrambled upright and began to climb, glancing over my shoulder. The Russian fishing vessel was only a couple of hundred yards away now, knifing forward. I hauled myself desperately upward, insanely grateful that the cliff sloped back, that the rock stratum had buckled under some tremendous pressure of long ago and afforded scrambling angles. In a few seconds I was up and clear of it, but my heart was thundering painfully with each step now, every beat hammering at my eardrums. My legs were latex cylinders, buckling in all kinds of directions at once. That last explosion of effort had done for me. My strength was gone. I stood shakily for a moment on the grass slope at the top of the cliff and looked up. Ahead of me the ground sloped high, five or six hundred feet of rearing hillside,, a steep track that I had no hope of climbing, led to an escape I would now never make.

I was beaten. I'd tried, but I was done. From behind the damned searchlight caught me and I waited for the bullets to smack into me. But no bullets came. Marasov must have decided to catch me alive. Well, he'd have no trouble. I made myself stagger on a few steps more, but it was only a token, a gesture to myself that I hadn't given up. I'd keep trying until they actually caught me; until hands grabbed me and held me and I could stagger no more. The searchlight threw the slope into blinding relief ahead of me and in its great blaze I could see the long stripe of my own shadow, black against the hillside. A few more stumbling steps brought me on to a tiny plateau, and there it ended. I could go no more. The will remained, but not a morsel of

strength. I simply stood still in the searchlight beam, sagging, looking at the ground at my feet. I didn't even turn to watch Marasov's men come over the cliff, just stood there, waiting to hear the footsteps come towards me.

But that sound . . . it wasn't footsteps. An engine? The fishing boat, of course. But no, it couldn't be. This was a clattering sound, and came from above. The searchlight went out suddenly and I was blind in the night, listening still, wondering what the sound could be, but too spent even to lift my head. It grew louder, frighteningly loud, and I cupped my hands over my ears to keep it away. The, light came on again, but differently somehow, then I knew why it was different: it, too, came from above. I made myself look up and saw a huge helicopter quite close above my head, dropping slowly, and a man stood framed in its doorway, waving to me. What did he want? My soggy brain realized he wasn't waving, but beckoning. The wheels touched now, and the huge helicopter bounced gently on her suspension and I staggered towards the beckoning arm. I was grasped and bundled in through the doorway and suddenly there was a great roar as the floor lifted powerfully beneath me.

A voice said, 'You're such a clever bastard!' and I knew the voice, somehow, but I didn't understand why my eyelids were clamped closed. I couldn't open them and I didn't want to. Everything was sliding away.

Pain woke me. Not great pain, just a multitude of tiny agonies in various parts of my body. I tried to ease my limbs to make the tiny agonies go away, but they didn't. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times, looking up directly into a bare light bulb on the ceiling. A white ceiling; white walls, too. I was in a bed. Whose bed, where? I saw the door. Steel, with boltheads, painted a heavy green, battered and scraped. And in the middle of the door a kind of inset cone. Realization came and I sat up suddenly and painfully, grunting at the protests of flaring muscle pains. This was a cell! A cell in a prison. I looked behind me at the window. Bars confirmed it. Memory flooded back. A helicopter. A

voice. I knew now whose voice. Willingham's!

I shouted and a moment later a copper came in. `Where is this?' I demanded. He said easily, 'You're in the cells.'

Where?'

`Lerwick police station.' He went out again and a moment later the terrible twins marched in: Elliot and Willingham.

I remember asking inanely what time it was. Prod a reporter awake and the first thing he does, an instant conditioned reflex, is look for the clock. I knew it must be morning because there was daylight outside. Elliot didn't bother to answer. He said instead, '

Explain.'

`Let me waken up first,' I said. 'Give me a cup of tea, or something. I feel like death!'

`You're lucky you feel anything. What happened? Why were you over there?'

`Tea,' I said. 'Tea for the love of God!'

I didn't want the tea so much as a few moments to get my thoughts together. Elliot compressed his lips, said disgustedly, 'Tea! Tea and Limeys!' He moved to the door.

Willingham said, 'Let him — '

Ìf tea encourages him,' Elliot said quietly. 'Tea there shall be.' He called the copper and passed on the message. I closed my eyes and thought furiously. My mind wasn't quite my own and effective lies were elusive. The tea came far too quickly, in a scalding white mug.

Elliot let me take two sips. 'Okay, you got your tea. Start talking.'

I said, 'Did you find Anderson?'

`No.'

I took another sip and felt better. Tad luck.' Willingham snorted angrily. A real snort, the kind pigs make.

Elliot said, 'You got a lead.' Not a question, a statement.

`Christ knows what happened,' I said. 'I got flung in the

water, then dragged away by some bloody boat. Somebody

was hanging on to me, but I managed to fight loose. When

I got ashore, they were coming after me and' I ran. Pinched a boat. Sailed away. They came after me.'

`There was a guy here this morning,' Elliot said. 'Name of Lincoln. He wasn't too happy. He was due to meet another guy, a guy called Sellers, at eight o'clock. At his boat. So eight o'clock he's there. No boat, no Sellers.'

Ìt was his boat I pinched. I knew where it was, you see.'

`Yeah. Yeah, I see.' Elliot's nostrils were pinched too, and he exhaled exasperatedly through them. 'He also mentioned several other things. About Anderson. About a lady called Petrie.'

I wondered whether he'd also mentioned the Holm of Noss. His picture story. Worth money. Probably not, unless Elliot or Willingham had let him in on the reason for the whole thing.

I said, 'Miss Petrie wasn't much help.'

`She was no help to me either,' Elliot said ruefully. 'We \threatened her with everything from obstruction to the 'Official Secrets Act. All she said was that she'd no idea where Anderson was.'

The tea was a little cooler now. I could drink instead of sip. It's strange how effective hot tea is, even as balm for aching muscles. I said, 'I don't know where Anderson is.'

Òr where to start looking?'

`No.'

Elliot looked hard at me. Ì'm starting to know when you're telling the truth,' he said. 'It doesn't happen often. When it does, your face changes and you look kinda shifty.'

`There's only Miss Petrie,' I said. 'No other way to him that I can see.'

Ì'll tell you something, Sellers. Early this morning we did what we should have done a long time ago. We talked to the postman who got held up. Know what happened yesterday?'