Duncan Kyle - Terror's Cradle

I smiled. 'Three jolly workmen.'

She said, 'It's only called Aggie-Waggie in Shetland.' Ì know. Alsa told me.'

Elliot said, 'What the . . . What's Aggie-Waggie?'

À children's game,' .1 told him. 'They play it in the school yard, don't they, Miss Petrie?'

Ìn the street too.'

I said, 'Miss Petrie, I can't offer you more than that in the way of bona fides. I can only say I'm on Anderson's side.' Àre you? You've never met him. Why should you be?' `Because I'm on Alsa's.' Then I added quickly, and flatly so it wouldn't hurt so much: 'I wanted Alsa to marry me Miss Petrie.'

She glanced from my face to the photograph and back again and for a moment it seemed to me that the frost in her eyes just might have held something else, perhaps sympathy. `

You're generous, Mr — ?'

`Sellers. Miss Petrie, I don't know whether you can get a message to Tames Anderson.'

She opened her mouth to speak, but I ploughed on. 'I

don't expect you to tell me whether you can or not. But

I suspect you can. And if you can, I'd like you to do so.' She didn't answer, just stood waiting.

Ìt would be better if we could actually meet him, but we must at least speak to him. He can name the time and place and the circumstances, but it should happen as soon as possible.'

She thought about it for a moment, looking for the deceptions, finding none because there were none to find. Not yet. At length she said, 'I don't know if .. Ìf you can, Miss Petrie.'

She glanced at me once more, then opened the door. I wanted Elliot and Willingham to precede me, but, naturally they didn't so I had to force it a bit. I had the little message held between my fingers and I offered my hand for her to shake. She took it immediately and palmed the little folded paper as though she'd been doing it all her life. I smiled, thinking she'd probably watched it all her life : classroom notes slipped from inky fingers to grubby paws. I said, 'We can be reached by telephone, at the police station.'

She closed the door behind us and Elliot sighed. 'Will she do it?'

I shrugged. I didn't know either. I thought I might have convinced her, but my note could just as easily undo it all again. The note was a real piece of duplicity.

`We'll have to wait,' I said, 'And hope.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN,

We went back to the police station to do our waiting. There was nothing else to be done. The police were still continuing to search for Anderson, but Sergeant McAllister's occasional reports on lack of progress had a hopeless air. He knew as well as we did that if Anderson didn't want to be-found, there was no way on earth of finding him. We did a few desultory, time-passing things. I had some breakfast and later another and longer bath in the hope of easing away some of the embedded stiffness and soreness from my body. It helped a bit, but not much. Elliot went into purdah to telephone London and emerged looking as though parts of him had been gnawed. Willingham conceived the bright idea that all Russian vessels should be ordered from Shetland waters forthwith and tried to convince Wemyss in London that it was a wise and far-seeing strategy. After listening to Wemyss for a moment, he asked McAllister whether Polish and East German boats came into Lerwick too, reluctantly agreed with Wemyss that it was the same difference, and abandoned the idea. McAllister added his jot to the general uncertainty by telling us that a squad of Russians was actually marching in the Up-Helly-Aa procession that evening. A few weeks earlier, some Russian fishermen had proved that professional comradeship overrides the ideological variety by performing a particularly heroic rescue of a dozen fishermen from a local boat wrecked off the Shetlands, and the invitation was the island's way of saying thanks. In Lerwick, at this moment, the Russians were clearly fireproof. Noon came and went. Time drifted by. Not much talking was done. Willingham unearthed another bright idea. Now he wanted to pressure Miss Petrie really hard. 'In circum-' stances like these, any means are justified,' he urged Elliot doggedly. I wondered for the hundredth time what this psychopathic idiot was doing in intelligence at all. Elliot simply said she didn't look the kind who bullied easy and forget it. We stared at the phones and waited for them to ring.

It was a long wait, and its end merely signalled the start of another. The phone rang at three-thirty. Elliot answered it, handed it to me, and picked up another linked phone so he could listen, too.

`Mr Sellers? Catherine Petrie here. I'm given to understand that you should wait at the entrance to the Town Hall at six o'clock.'

I said, 'Thank you.' And asked carefully, 'He's accepted what I said?'

Ì believe Miss Hay has spoken of you, Mr Sellers.'

, With Elliot on the line, I couldn't take it further. I just had to hope. Miss Petrie rang off and the second long wait began.

We went to the window and looked across the street. The Town Hall entrance was a mere thirty yards or so away, and

could easily be watched from where we stood. Willingham started watching at three thirty-five and kept up a shuffle of irritation as daylight died and the lights came on, inside and out. Elliot telephoned London again to say that things might be looking up now. I kept my fingers crossed and stared at my shoes, and wondered exactly where Alsa was. I no longer even considered the possibility that she might be dead. The phony Schmid had put an equation to me : that whether she was dead or not didn't matter, so long as we could hope she was still alive. The equation didn't hold any more. Anderson now had the transparency, and when he knew the rest of the story, he'd want to see Alsa alive and kicking before he even considered anything else. And the Russians would be well aware of that. They'd be here now, in the darkening streets, waiting for us to move, ready to make their play. So they had to keep Alsa somewhere near. On a fishing boat perhaps. Even one of those in the harbour. Several times I looked down the hill at the tied-up boats, and had to restrain myself from rushing out of the police station, down to the quay and on to the nearest vessel that was flying a hammer and sickle. Towards six o'clock, the streets were filling up. The UpHelly-Aa procession was scheduled to begin at seven and all Lerwick, plus half the rest of the population of the Shetlands and a hell of a lot of tourists, would be standing watching. People were coming from all directions, the pavements were already becoming crowded and the police had given up their forlorn search for Anderson after Miss Petrie's phone call. Tonight was whisky night, festivity night, and there were other matters demanding Lerwick's small force's attention.

At five minutes before the hour, the three of us left the room and crossed the road. People hurried past us, heading for the procession route, a little way inland from where we stood. Bottle shapes were visible in many of the passing pockets; some of the men wore elaborate fancy dress and carried long poles capped with sacking: torches to be lit for the galley procession.

We took up our position by the Town Hall entrance and waited, looking at our watches. At six the Town Hall clock boomed out above us and the carillon began to ring out a tune I didn't know. We looked at the hurrying faces, Elliot and Willingham hopefully, I no less anxiously. The difference was that I was praying no one would approach us.

`He's not coming,' Elliot said heavily at five past.

Ìt'll be difficult to move through the crowds,' I pointed out. 'He'll come. The message was clear enough.'

So we waited. High above us the clock chimed the quarter, then at last the half. I said, '

Perhaps there's a reason. Somebody else hanging about. Maybe he's watching us now. Maybe he's waiting to be sure.'