Gertrude Petersen left shortly after that. The warps were all ready aft, the anchor stowed and the chain flaked neatly on the foredeck, heaving lines and fenders handy. Nothing to do after lunch but watch the tide making and the sea slowly building as the wind increased — and think about what happened next, why they should have sent an inspector from London. In the privacy of my cabin I poured myself a stiff whisky. I should have been worrying about the tow. Instead, I was thinking how hard she was, my mind going back to the problem that had been with me ever since that night in Hull. A local matter surely, not something for Scotland Yard. Unless.. But I shied away from the thought. It was just a matter of intimidation. Intimidation that had got out of control. I must concentrate on that. Did I identify the men or not? That was all that mattered.
Johan poked his head round the door. 'We can see the tug now. It is steaming out in the bay. fixed courses, so he is making speed trials.'
I followed him into the bridge, relieved to get away from my thoughts. The sky had cleared, the whitecaps in the bay bright in the sun. The supply ship was just turning at the extremity of her northward run up by Stany Hog. The high superstructure for'ard and the flat run aft certainly gave her the look of a tug. She completed the turn and started south. The time was 14.55. Less than an hour to go. I went all round the ship with Johan, checking that everything was ready and that each man knew what he had to do. Then I went back to the bridge and tested the loudhailer. No sign of the ship. She was lost to view behind the dune-like hills of Ward of Brough.
Ten minutes later she poked her bluff fendered bows round Cunning Holm islet, moving slowly now, coming in on her echo-sounder. A few minutes and she was in full view, turning and pointing her bows straight at us. And at almost the same moment I felt a slight lift to the deck under my feet, heard the first faint rumble of the keel knocking on boulders. She came in very slowly, feeling her way, until her bows were level with the spit. She hung there for a while, her engines throwing a froth of water for'ard along her sides as she maintained station against the wind funnelling down the voe. I could see Jim Halcrow seated at the controls high up in the little glass wheelhouse, Gertrude Petersen beside him. He put a microphone to his lips and loud across the water came his query — 'Are you off the bottom yet?'
I was out on the bridge gangway then and I called through the loudhailer for him to come and get us. He gave me a thumbs-up and drifted round the end of the spit, turning on his own axis and bringing his stern right against ours. I had never seen one of these vessels operating in a confined space; it was like driving a Dodgem. We didn't need heaving lines. Johan just passed the end of our big warp straight into the hands of the man hanging out over the stern roller. He hitched it on to the winch hawser and my men hardly had time to make fast before the supply ship was going ahead, rope and hawser taking the strain. There was an ugly grinding noise, a jar on the soles of my feet as we came up against rock, then we were off, our bows swinging away downwind.
It was the neatest thing; one moment we were aground, hammering on boulders, the next we were out in the channel, clear of the spit and stern-on to the voe. The supply ship had 6,000 h.p. and Jim Hal-crow used the wind to get us positioned, then he just plucked us out stern-first into the bay. The tail end of our warp was already made fast at the bows. All we had to do was cast off astern. As soon as our bows were round the tow began.
We had to go round Bressay and enter Lerwick from the south, but even so, we were anchored off the Halcrow yard before dark. A constable in uniform was standing on the boat jetty watching us.
By the time we had finished flaking down the tow warp the work boat was alongside, Jim Halcrow coming on board, followed by Gertrude Petersen, her eyes shining. 'It worked,' she said laughing. 'Your patch is all right.'
'So long as the pump keeps going.' My voice sounded sharp. I was quite incapable of responding to her mood. I hadn't expected a constable. Trials go off satisfactorily?' I asked Halcrow.
'Fine. Manoeuvring and towing made a good test for the new shaft.' He glanced at the sky upwind of us, then at his watch. 'Well, let's have a look at your problems. Where's your Chief, in the engine-room?'
I nodded and led him below. We could hear the water sloshing about in the bilges as we went down the ladder. The sound of it was loud now the ship was floating to her marks. Duncan appeared out of the gloom. 'Ye'll have to have a resairve pump on board.' Apparently we had made five inches during the tow. I introduced him to Halcrow and left them to it. When I got back to the deck the yard boat had arrived and the constable was waiting for me. He was a big, tow-headed young islander with a friendly face. 'You the captain?'
'Yes.'
He had his notebook open in his hand. 'Michael Mouat Randall. Would that be the name?' And when I nodded, he said, 'I must ask you to accompany me to the station.'
'Any reason?'
'No, sir. Only that Inspector Garrard would like a word with you.'
So their witness hadn't perjured himself yet and there was no warrant. 'I've a lot to do,' I said. 'If the Inspector wants to talk to me he's welcome to come on board.'
The young man hesitated. 'I'll tell him that if you like, sir. But he's not one of us, y'know, so I'd advise you to come along and see what it's all about.'
I didn't like it. Sending a constable to fetch me to the station, instead of coming down to the ship himself… 'Oh, for God's sake!' Gertrude Petersen exclaimed. 'Go on down to the station with him and get it over. We've got a lot to do.'
'Well, you get on with it then,' I told her. I wasn't in the best of moods as I went ashore. The constable had his police car parked behind the yard, and as we started down the shore road, I asked him what branch Inspector Garrard was assigned to.
'Ye'll have to ask him, sir.'
'Does that mean you don't know?'
I think he knew, but he had his orders and he didn't talk as we drove into Lerwick.
The police station was in the County Buildings up on Town Hall Brae, a brown sandstone building opposite the Garrison Theatre. I was taken straight through into a small bare room. The constable switched the light on. 'I'll tell the Inspector ye're here.' The door closed and I resigned myself to a long wait. Stupidly I had left my pipe on the bridge. I felt lost without it now that my mind had to grapple once again with problems of conscience and expedience. Did they really have a local witness who would get up in court and swear he'd seen me throw that petrol bomb? I could remember the hard line of the man's mouth, the shut face pale in the deck lights, and Aberdeen harbour glimmering in the rain. Where was he now, I wondered?
I was still thinking about him, and why an inspector was checking on my movements, when the door opened and a slightly stooped man in a tweed jacket entered. 'Sorry to keep you waiting.' He had the tired air of a man who has been up all night, but his eyes were bright as he put the briefcase he was carrying down and sat at the table, waving me to the chair opposite. 'I gather you're busy trying to get that wrecked trawler back into commission.'
I nodded.
'Any particular reason?'
'Reason?' It wasn't the opening I had expected.
'Yes. Why are you doing it?'
'I don't see that it concerns the police.'
'No? Well, maybe it doesn't.' He reached into the briefcase, pulled out several files and laid them on the table in front of him. 'But motivation is something that does concern me. If you know what motivates a man, then you are at least halfway to solving a case — or avoiding trouble.' He was soft-spoken, his manner quiet and relaxed, almost conversational. 'We'll come back to that in a moment. Meanwhile- He opened the slimmest of the files in front of him — 'let us take a look at your record.' He fished out a pair of gilt-rimmed half-glasses; these and the slight stoop gave him a somewhat academic air. 'I would guess you have never done anything without strong motivation.' He looked across at me. 'Not perhaps the right word. Without ideological convictions. Would that be a reasonable assessment of your somewhat unusual shifts of work and environment?' He was staring at me over the half-glasses. 'I see you don't want to admit to that. Is it the word ideological you object to?'