North Star

'I told you. I wanted to travel.'

'To Calcutta? Isn't that where the dropouts go? What did you use for money?' I don't think he expected an answer and I sat there, silent, knowing what was coming: '4th January, 1957 — you were twenty then and in Dusseldorf. What were you doing in Dusseldorf?'

'Why ask me since you've got it all there?'

He nodded. 'You were charged with being in the possession of drugs and you had one of the leading German advocates to defend you. Who paid for that? Was it your stepfather?'

'His lawyers. Yes, he paid for it.'

'You got three months. A year later you had reached India. And then, suddenly, you pulled yourself together. You came to England and studied at the London School of Economics. Did he pay for that too?'

But by then I'd had enough. 'I don't have to sit here going over my past with you.' I got to my feet. 'It's over and done with, and I've got work to do.'

'You're here quite voluntarily.'

'You sent an officer to bring me in.'

He sighed. 'Well, if you're not prepared to cooperate, why did you come?' He leaned back, the pale eyes staring up at me. 'Was it because you knew I'd been making enquiries about you?'

'Why should that worry me? And if you want to know, I paid my own way while studying at the LSE. Nothing to do with Graber.'

'And when you got your degree you joined the staff of a national daily as a financial journalist.'

'I specialized in industrial relations.'

'You were earning good money. Then suddenly you abandoned your well-paid job, moved to the Clyde and became a shipyard worker. Any particular reason?'

'I found I only knew the management side. I didn't know what it was like from the worker's point of view.'

'Nothing to do with your father?'

'No.'

'And two years later you were a convener, fomenting wildcat strikes and organizing picket lines. Three charges in four years and a short prison sentence. Then you dropped out of that, went to Grimsby and got a job on a trawler. That was after your marriage had broken up. Four years later you had your mate's ticket, then your master's. And now you've dropped out again — into Shetland, enquiring about your father, refloating an old trawler with a contract to act as stand-by boat to an oil rig.' He put the sheet of paper down. 'What was your motive in all this?' He got to his feet then and stood facing me. 'That's all I want to know — your motive.'

'Does there have to be one?'

'I think so.'

'Life isn't like that,' I told him. There's no logic in human behaviour.'

'Not always, I agree. But there's often a pattern.' He paused, looking meditatively down at the file. 'I could pull you in for questioning,' he said.

'You've got no warrant.'

He looked at me. 'I could get one.' His voice was suddenly hard. 'Did you start that blaze?'

'No.'

'But you were there. You know who did.'

I didn't answer.

'And you've no intention of going to Hull to help the police in their enquiries.'

'I've got a job to do and there's a lot of work getting that trawler ready for use.'

He nodded. 'I'll tell them. They may issue a warrant or they may not.' He considered me for a moment, frowning, as though uncertain what to do next. 'All right. We'll leave it at that then. But if they make an arrest, you'll be called as a witness. You realize that?' He gave me time to think about it, and then he said, 'I'm going to give you some advice. A warning, rather.' He was suddenly very still, the pale eyes fixed on me. 'The stakes up here in the North Sea are big now,' he said, speaking slowly and with emphasis. 'Big enough to attract a lot of interest, not all of it welcome. Do you understand what I'm talking about?'

'I think so.' I suddenly wanted to get out of there, the little office very quiet and his eyes fixed on me.

'Good.' He hesitated, then reached for the pad and pencil on the desk and wrote down a number. 'If you find yourself getting out of your depth-'

'Why should I?'

He looked at me for a moment. Then he said, 'You're vulnerable, that's why. You're tough physically, but you're vulnerable.' He didn't explain. He didn't have to. 'If you want to talk to me again, go to any police station and have them ring that number. Or you can telephone direct.' He handed me the sheet of paper. It was an 01 number — London. 'What's the name of the rig you're going to work with?'

'North Star.'

'And the company?'

'Star-Trion, a subsidiary of Villiers Finance and Industrial.'

He nodded. 'Well, just remember what I said, and stay out of trouble.' He went to the door and opened it for me. But as I was going out he stopped me. 'One other thing. Your father. He wasn't killed in 1939.'

I stared at him incredulously. 'What the hell are you talking about?'

'Just that. They picked him up in Norway in 1942.' The door closed and I was in the passage leading out of the County Buildings, past the flagpole into Town Hall Brae.

CHAPTER FOUR

I should have gone back and asked him what else he knew. But I was scared. Those files, that dossier on me. The offences I had committed were all minor ones, but he had made them sound formidable, stringing them together like that. A pattern… Of course, there had been a pattern. And once the authorities get their teeth into you — Christ! they had taken a lot of trouble.

And my father… That plaque. Who the hell had erected that plaque? And why? Why should anybody do that if he hadn't been killed in the defence of Madrid?

He would have been sixty-eight now, if he were still alive. Too old to be involved in anything very active. But in 1942, when Norway was occupied by the Germans and the Russians were our allies… So many questions, and my mind in turmoil as we sweated to get that trawler fit for sea. And all the time that feeling of something hanging over me, a frightening sense of insecurity as I tried to grapple with a mental change of life that seemed to have altered my whole outlook. Work was a panacea, and God knows there was plenty of that.

We slipped on the evening of Friday, llth April, working through the weekend to get her off at dawn on the Monday. It was the only patent slip in Lerwick and we were lucky to get the use of it, even though it meant doing most of the work ourselves. By then I had had a telegram from the Star-Trion office in Aberdeen requesting confirmation that we would be on station by 20th April as required under the terms of the charter. The location was also given — 60°22′ N, 2°40′ W, which was some thirty miles west of Papa Stour, in Block 206/17. We went for sea trials on the Thursday immediately after survey, steaming north as far as Rams Ness, the southern point of Fetlar, in a nor'westerly Force 5–6 with a dirty sea spilling down through Colgrave Sound.

There was still a lot that needed doing. But the repairs to the hull stood up to it and the engines gave full power. We were back off Halcrow's yard by 10.30 on the Friday morning and Gertrude got a telegram off to Star-Trion confirming. We were in business, provided we could keep the vessel going for three months at a stretch.

I was at the chart shelf outside my cabin, working out an ETD based on steaming time required to reach the location, when she returned. 'You'll go south round Sumburgh Head?'

'Yes.'

'Then you can anchor at Taing and sail out to the rig from there.'

It was a thought. A last peaceful night and the chance of a final check on the way round. We could even get delivery of anything we had forgotten.

'Then perhaps you will have time to discuss the agreement between us.'

I looked at her, standing in the doorway at the top of the companionway, a solid figure in an oilskin jacket. Clouds were scudding in over the brown stone smudge of Lerwick town. I couldn't see the expression on her face, but her voice had sounded a little tense. 'I'm afraid I had forgotten about that.'