Terror's Cradle

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?'

`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?'