And the Land Lay Still (44 page)

Nevertheless, he could be useful, Croick said. Get him on his own. Groom him. Take your time.

They talked it through. Frederick or Derek Boothby was in his late fifties, the son of a naval officer and a daughter of the Earl of Limerick. He’d gone to an English public school, done some ranching in South America and then joined the army. In the war he’d served in a tank regiment in North Africa. He still called himself Major, even though he’d been out of the army for fifteen years on a disability pension. Since then he’d flitted from job to job – estate manager, labourer, caravan salesman – in different parts of England. A top-heavy butterfly, Croick said. He’d disappeared for a while, then re-emerged in Edinburgh, a convert
to nationalism and working for the SNP. He and the party didn’t see eye to eye though and he’d moved on, into wilder political terrain. He was currently living with his third wife in a cottage in Lanarkshire, from which every month he sent out duplicated copies of
Sgian Dubh
to subscribers. Boothby’s politics, when you scratched the surface, were about as far to the right as MacDiarmid’s were to the left, and yet the two men seemed to get on pretty well. They lived about twelve miles apart.

Croick said, If you go round the back of the moon there’s a good chance you’ll meet another lunatic coming the other way.

It bothered Peter that they seemed to want him to go chasing after clumsy butterflies. It wasn’t as if Boothby was unique, with his dreams of being hunted across the moors by helicopters and tracker dogs. There were plenty of oddballs like him knocking about on the SNP sidelines: Gaelic revivalists with cut-glass accents; former Chindits who stood at the foot of the Mound in Edinburgh on Sunday afternoons berating London rule; men who’d been Desert Rats, or liaison officers with the Yugoslavian partisans, who reckoned it was time for a bit of guerrilla action in the Highlands. The SNP squeamishly tried to keep them all at a distance, but how could it? Its cause was their cause: they thought of themselves as the soul and conscience of the party, even if they’d left it or been thrown out.

Boothby was just another of these, surely? Or was he? Croick didn’t seem to think so. He seemed to take Boothby seriously. With Croick, there was another dimension.

Can I ask you a question? Peter said, when they’d finished and he was about to leave.

Go ahead.

Where are you from? I can’t place your accent.

Good, Croick said, with a brief grey smile.

EDGAR
: What do you mean when you say there was another dimension with Croick?

BOND
(
swilling the whisky in his glass
): Another agenda. Couldn’t work out what it was but it was there. Like he was an independent operator.

EDGAR
: Perhaps he was.

BOND
: Then what was he doing there with Canterbury?

EDGAR
: Briefing you, by the sound of things. Look, it’s in the nature of a state Security Service to have its rogue elements. If you’re in the business of defending the realm you’re already
thinking
the unthinkable. Sometimes the unthinkable may actually have to be done. What’s the golden rule in that eventuality?

BOND
: Don’t get caught.

EDGAR
: Precisely. Rogues are useful. They can do things the Service can’t, not directly. They’re prepared to get their hands dirty, allowing the Service to keep its own clean. So far so good. But the trouble with rogues is that often they don’t know when to stop. They forget where their loyalties ought to lie. Then
they
have to be dealt with. Damage has to be limited, bad apples disposed of.

BOND
: Why are you telling me this?

EDGAR
: I thought you were telling me. But you appear (
casting an eye round the debris
) to be having a little difficulty sorting it out on your own. Perhaps I can help.

December 1967: the 1320 Club held a press conference in Edinburgh to launch their new magazine,
Catalyst for the Scottish Viewpoint
. Peter attended. If anybody asked he was a freelance reporter. Nobody asked. The event was at Lucky MacLeuchar’s, a pub in Newington. MacDiarmid, Boothby and company were behind a row of tables along one wall, the journalists lined up opposite and fired questions. The atmosphere was pipe smoke, kilts and beards. Peter kept well back.

When the meeting ended, he followed Boothby outside and caught up with him striding down the street, taking enormous, noisy breaths of the cold, fresh air. Could he spare a minute or two? He was an admirer, just starting out in journalism, and intended to write a piece about
Catalyst
and its aims. Now that it was up and running, did Boothby mean to keep producing
Sgian Dubh
? Peter sincerely hoped so. He was a subscriber, by the way.

Boothby stopped his steam-engine impressions and gave him an assessing look.

Your name?

Peter Bond.

Ah yes. And what it is you like about
Sgian Dubh
?

He was a big man, the Major, a solid presence in his kilt and black jacket, with bristling knees and eyebrows and a pugnacious jut to his chin. He had large, gnarled hands, a grey beard clipped like a hedge and a great bald expanse of forehead. A genial face but the eyes were intimidating. Peter started to talk.
Sgian Dubh
was practical, hard-hitting, realistic. It not only accepted the likelihood of violence but also planned for it. He liked the frank discussion of military strategy, the appeals for equipment and uniforms, the advice given on guerrilla tactics. He liked the statements printed on behalf of the Scottish Liberation Army. This was courageous, honest stuff. It showed that there were Nationalists who, unlike the pathetically supine, shilly-shallying SNP, meant business. He only hoped that by being so forthright the editor wasn’t handing valuable information to the enemy.

Boothby inclined his head. Meaning?

The British state, Peter said.

That imperious stare again. Young man, for whom did you say you work?

I didn’t. I work in a bookshop, but I’m also a journalist. Freelance.

And where has your work been published?

Well, I’m just starting out.

Boothby frowned. Peter hung his head, a nice touch.

Nowhere, as yet.

Boothby looked disdainful.

That’s why I wanted to speak to you, Peter said. I want to be useful.

The most useful thing you can do, Boothby said, is not waste my time. Do you think I don’t already know that every word I publish is read, pored over, by the authorities? I am deliberately taunting them, challenging them. Do you imagine that I don’t dupe them into drawing conclusions about my plans that are
entirely misleading
? I have years of experience, young man, which you clearly do not. So please do not suggest to me that I am unwittingly handing information to the enemy.

Peter backed off. He didn’t wish to imply … He had no doubt Major Boothby knew exactly what he was doing. What he really
wanted to say was … perhaps in the future, if he could think of a way to put him to work for the cause … he’d be more than willing. He only wanted to help. Grovellingly apologetic, he turned to walk away.

The effect was immediate. Boothby came hurrying after him, put a big clutching hand on his arm. Wait. Don’t rush off like that. I can tell you’re passionate. We’ll think of something for you to do. The cause needs new blood, enthusiasm, keen young minds. But you must learn from older and wiser heads. You must learn from me.

It sounded like a command, it was a command, but it was also a plea. Boothby wanted a disciple.

Others from the meeting were catching up. Now wasn’t the time. Write to me, Boothby said. You have the address from
Sgian Dubh
? Excellent. And remind me, where are you yourself? In Glasgow? Good, very good. Glasgow is crucial. Now, I must be getting along. What was your name again?

Bond, Peter said. Peter Bond.

He said it just the way Connery did in the films. Boothby was oblivious.

Peter had a lot to learn about Glasgow. There were codes and signs in that city more complex than anything the Service could devise. Sectarian undercurrents bubbling away in wee towns further east were as nothing compared with what he found in Glasgow. It was the friendliest place on earth but it could turn vicious in seconds if you misread those signs, broke those codes. He overheard two affable, middle-aged businessmen in a West End bar discussing how you could always spot the Fenians. You don’t have to know their names, said one. Tone of voice, turn of phrase, that’s enough. Ach, who needs to hear them speak? the other retorted. Skin type, colour of hair, curliness of hair. Nine times out of ten I can tell by looking. They were laughing, they didn’t really mean it, but actually they did. The disturbing thing wasn’t the casual nature of their bigotry but the truth it contained: how the tics and signals became ingrained in people’s everyday behaviour, till they hardly noticed them themselves, yet reacted to them subconsciously. Force of habit. Peter stood on Argyle Street or in Central Station
as the crowds flowed past, picking out Catholics, picking out Protestants. He knew he was getting it right. He understood that he would have been a master interpreter had he grown up in Glasgow. He did have, after all, the right kind of brain for spotting the enemy, whoever they were.

Except, of course, that he didn’t. He sees that now. An innocent walking in the valley of the shadow of faith, that’s what he was.

One Saturday, his first summer in Glasgow, he was on Union Street when a huge Orange march swaggered down towards the Clyde. Police and stewards brought the traffic to a halt and crowds of shoppers found themselves stranded at junctions while the parade went past, a train of bright blue-and-red uniforms, orange sashes, bowler hats, banners and flags, ranting flutes and battering drums, followed by a phalanx of white-gloved, high-heeled, steely-eyed women with jaws like flat irons. Behind the lines of waiting pedestrians, some of whom were clapping and cheering while others stood silent and disdainful, a constant stream of drunk, belligerent men kept pace with the procession. When a young woman made an attempt to cut across the street between two marching bands she was flung back furiously by a red-faced steward, and one of the drunks yelled and spat at her. The air was thick with loathing.

All through June and July, whenever Peter heard the flutes and drums of another march, the idea of a Scotland united in rebellion against the British state dissolved into the atmosphere. There seemed to him an infinitely greater chance of folk tearing each other to pieces over religion.

He went to a couple of Old Firm games, one at Ibrox and one at Parkhead, to check the hate levels. He stood with the home support on each occasion, and learned that it was impossible to be a neutral: he had to join in the abuse, the deep, blind passion of tribal belonging, in order to walk away safely at the end of the game. He put on a reasonable display, yet there was a wall between him and the men standing around him, a barrier he could not cross. He was not of their kind and he realised he never would be.

For the mad Nats, as Croick called Boothby and his associates, a new convert meant a new listener. They loved the idea that
because they were plotting to break up the British state they must therefore be under its constant surveillance. This meant there were traitors in their midst. Whenever Boothby expressed doubts about X or Y, Peter agreed with him; whenever he was with X or Y, he withheld his opinion until the other party revealed his mistrust or loathing of Boothby, at which point Peter would concur. Boothby changed his mind about individuals on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis: only if they surrendered entirely to his point of view were they ‘sound’. Peter never doubted that he came in for criticism when he was absent, but it didn’t matter. The least bit of flattery at their next meeting would win him Boothby’s confidence again. The others were the same. They all accepted that their networks were riddled with police informers and agents. This was fine: better to be monitored than ignored. They were capable of deep cynicism when it came to each other’s motives and activities; but in the wider scheme, most of them were utter innocents.

It takes one, of course, to know one.

From the pages of
Sgian Dubh
, some sound advice from Major Boothby:
The name Scottish Liberation Army is not patented. Any old gang can call themselves that. So be careful what, and who, you get involved with. Be careful who you speak to. Freedom fighters are better without girlfriends – and outside pubs.

Peter didn’t have girlfriends, he’d even given up on going with prostitutes, but he wasn’t so good at staying out of pubs. Then again, he wasn’t a freedom fighter, was he?

Boothby couldn’t bear the idea that anybody else was more monitored than he was. This was a verifiable conceit. Peter left work early one day, caught the train to Lanark and met Boothby at the back of a teashop on the High Street. Peter said he was pretty sure his mail was being intercepted. Boothby glanced round before answering, even though they were alone apart from the waitress and two elderly women who it was impossible to believe were informers.

You think so, do you? Well, I can’t tell you how many Nationalists I’ve met who have told me the very same thing.
Convinced that their every move is being watched by the police. It isn’t. Even since Hamilton, I estimate there are no more than half a dozen people in all Scotland in whom the police have an interest because of their Nationalist activities. And that goes for MI5 too.

He paused, looked sternly at Peter. He had on a spiky tweed suit with a thick jumper underneath it, and a shirt collar and tie poked out from beneath that. The suit had an earthy scent about it, the shirt collar was worn. He could have been a farmer, or the headmaster of a prep school on his afternoon off.

If somebody is occasionally steaming open a letter of yours now and then, he said, or doing a bit of eavesdropping on your telephone line, it will be entirely because of your association with me. Nothing will come of it. The government’s policy is to contain Nationalism, not to persecute it.