Duncan Kyle - Terror's Cradle

`Go on,' I said soberly, half-knowing.

`He met Anderson on the road, that's what. Anderson was coming into Lerwick; the postman was leaving. The postman stopped and gave Anderson his mail. Against regulations, of course, the bastard! They got him fifteen miles further on.'

He stopped and looked at me, making me ask the question. Òkay,' I said. 'What kind of mail was it?'

Elliot said, 'There was a little package. About three by one, as he recalls 'it. Kind of a cylinder. Redirected from Sandnes, Norway.'

`Really?'

`Really.' His tone was heavily sarcastic, his face threatening. 'You know about that package, Sellers. I want to know how. Because he's got it now and he's missing and he's got to be found.'

I said, 'All right. I'll tell you. Do I look shifty enough to believe?'

`Just talk.'

So I told him about Alsa's contact lens case, about the optician's shop, about the. fact that Alsa and Anderson intended to get married. The information was no use to him now. When I'd finished he agreed I'd looked sufficiently shifty to be telling the truth, sat down on the bed and looked at me as though he could have garotted me. Ìf you'd said this in Gothenburg –'

`To a National Geographic writer?'

Èven later. When Schmid got you. It could still have been stopped. Only just, but it could.'

Willingham entered the conversation again, in his characteristic way. He said, 'I give you a firm promise Sellers. Look round this cell. Get used to it. Because you're going to spend a hell of a lot of your life in one just like it. You have my word on it.'

I swallowed, not doubting he meant it, or that it was true, or that he had the means to accomplish it. 'Can I have a bath?' I said. 'Prisoners are always given a bath.'

Elliot groaned.

I said, 'I just might have an idea. I need to think about it.'

`Tell me.'

Àfter the bath.'

They didn't let me soak long, but bathtime lasted long enough and because there were bars on the bathroom window too, was private enough for me to think the thing through. But there was one little detail I couldn't remember, a detail that was absolutely vital. The hot water also eased my bodily aches and pains somewhat and a hard rub-down with a magnificently harsh white cop-shop towel helped even more. Back in the cell, I dressed in Lincoln's clothes and felt in the pockets of the trousers. They were empty. I said, 'Where are my things?'

`They were removed,' Willingham told me with evident pleasure. 'Standard practice with prisoners. You will be given a receipt.'

I turned to Elliot. 'In my wallet,' I said, 'probably very wet, is a photograph. It was taken at an office dinner. It shows Alsa Hay and me together.'

He said, 'So?'

`So to Anderson Miss Petrie's been almost a surrogate mother. They've known each other a long time. He stays at her cottage when he's in Lerwick. Do you suppose,' I said, `that he might have taken the girl he's going to marry to see Miss Petrie?'

Ì still don't get it.'

`Don't you? He's hiding, right? And she's protecting him. Possibly even in touch with him. He's got what somebody wants. His girl's sent him a picture and some kind of warning. There's a fire in his cottage and the postman who gave him the package is attacked. Anderson can't do much except wait and see what happens. Wait for some kind of approach. But the approach has to be from somebody he can trust. Right?'

Willingham said, 'Fine. We'll take the photograph.'

Ì don't look like you, Willingham, I'm very glad to say!

Nor does Elliot. The only person here who looks like me is me. There's just a chance Miss Petrie might trust me. If she's met Alsa. But you can't do it. The photograph's no use to you unless I'm present, nice and clean and smiling earnestly.'

Elliot looked at me doubtfully. Then he said, 'There's one more thing you don't know. Anderson has a partner in his bird--watching. Guy called Newton. He seems to have vanished, too.'

I thought I could guess how. This man Newton must have been on the Holm, doing his stint. Anderson was on the way to relieve him when the postman gave him the package. Anderson probably went to Noss, taking his mail with him. They changed places and Newton returned to Lerwick, where Marasov grabbed him in the mistaken belief he was Anderson. Bad luck on Newton, but it got us no further. I said, Ì can't see it changes anything. Now, do we show the photograph to Miss Petrie?'

Elliot nodded slowly, then said, 'Yeah. We'll see her. I'll have your things brought in.'

I had a bad moment of waiting. I wasn't absolutely certain, couldn't quite remember, whether I'd changed all my things from one set of clothes to the other aboard Catriona. I was relying on the fact I usually do, out of habit. Whenever I change my clothes, my wallet goes first.

The copper brought in a miscellaneous collection of small change, keys, a soaked passport and a wetter handkerchief. And the wallet. I opened it and looked among the soggy money and indestructible credit cards for the picture. It was there. Water doesn't damage photographic prints unless they dry out and stick to something.

`Got it?' Elliot asked.

I nodded.

Òkay. Let's go!'

I slipped the wallet into my back trouser pocket and said, `There's one more thing.'

`What's that?'

`Nature calls.'

`Jesus!'

Àbsolutely imperative,' I said.

So off I went to the lavatory. There's paper in lavatories, and for anyone who wonders, some British police stations haven't introduced the soft stuff yet. Not, at any rate, for prisoners. The stock in there was lethally harsh, but plenty strong enough for writing, and my wallet held, as always, a little ball-point pen of the kind they put in the spines of diaries. I carry it because my first boss said a reporter should never be without one in reserve and the habit stuck.

I wrote my message quickly, put the pen away, folded the paper small and went out to join the other two. 'Shall we go?'

When we got to the neat little cottage, Miss Petrie took one look at Elliot and said, 'I told you. I don't know where he is!' Having told him, she noticed me. 'I told you too.'

I said, 'Miss Petrie, I'd like to show you something. May we come in?'

Ì see no need —'

Ìt's important. It really is important, Miss Petrie. Please! May we come in?' She didn't want us in. She hadn't lived a life of trickery and deception and clearly felt safer with the more obvious practitioners of the arts in the street. But her manners won. She stepped back reluctantly and allowed us into her spotless little sitting room.

`Well, young man?'

I pulled my wallet out, removed the photograph and handed it to her. Alsa and I had sat side by side at somebody's retirement dinner and I'd trimmed the rest of the print away to leave just the two of us. Romantic. A little pathetic. I handed the picture to her and said, '

Alison Hay.'

Miss Petrie looked at it closely, then at me, even more closely. I said, 'I've never met James Anderson. But Alsa is an old friend. So was her father.'

She looked hesitant, unsure how to play it. I said, The picture was taken at a dinner. We work for the same newspaper. My name is John Sellers. I was hoping that at some time, Alsa might have mentioned my name.' But there was no reaction. Ì see. And these gentlemen? Are they her friends, too?' `No, Miss Petrie, they're not.'

Elliot said quickly, 'Just a minute, Sellers!'

Ìt's okay,' I said. 'They don't know her, but they are involved in this.'

`Hmm.' The bright, alert eyes looked me over again. I was no beauty in those dried and creased clothes. I hadn't shaved. Miss Petrie wasn't convinced and I could do nothing more to convince her. Or could I? I said, 'She told me about Aggie-Waggie.' It was true in a way.

Àggie-Waggie?'