Orkney Twilight (12 page)

Squatting, knees up by her armpits, in a dark, wind-free corner of the furthest barn, next to a rusty Qualcast lawnmower, she fumbled with a couple of Rizlas, licked the glue strips, pressed them together, ripped open the white stomach of a Silk Cut and disembowelled its contents on to the carefully crafted paper shroud. Balancing her efforts in the palm of one hand, she dug around in her overcoat pocket with the other, pulled out the matchbox and removed the cling film wrapped resinous lump.

Tom screwed his nose as she heated and crumbled. ‘Whacky backy. Won’t Jim smell it?’

‘No. And even if he did, he wouldn’t care. It’s only a bit of dope.’ She struck another Swan Vesta, held it under her hash.

‘Does he ever actually arrest anybody for anything?’

She looked up. ‘Ow, shit.’ The acrid tang of burned skin momentarily filled the air.

‘You should be more careful with your drug habits,’ Tom said.

She blinked in the surreal pink light as they returned outside, lay on her back on the coarse grass of the lawn, searching for the last warmth of the evening sun, extremities tingling. She was sinking into the earth. She was atoms, dust, sediment, sandwiched between sky and sea, nothing more than a thin layer of history. Tom lifted his binoculars and focused over the stunted rose bushes at the panoramic sweep of the Bay of Firth beyond. The mournful notes of a bird’s song drifted through the air.

‘Curlew,’ said Sam.

‘You’re good on wildlife. That’s why you always win Trivial Pursuit, because you can do the green questions,’ he said. Accusingly.

‘Knowledge of science and nature is not normally considered a form of cheating.’

‘Where did you learn all that stuff anyway?’

She was going to tell him that Darwin had been her first crush, filled her with a lifelong desire, compulsion, to classify the flora and fauna around her. She had collected beetles when she was younger; asphyxiated them in a jam jar with torn-up laurel leaves, their corpses kept in a neatly labelled matchbox morgue. She decided against giving him that bit of information.

‘Jim used to tell me the names of the birds when we were here every year for our summer holiday. He loves nature, wildlife. He’s an instinctive environmentalist. I reckon it’s something to do with his Jesuit education. He’s been taught to appreciate the order and beauty in all things; he sees the spiritual in nature, he looks beyond the physical reality. I sometimes think that’s what makes him a good cop. He sees the shadows and the ghosts.’

Tom snorted derisively. ‘Is there anything to look at here other than birds?’ he asked.

‘You could see if there’s anything going on in Tirlsay.’

He swung the bins in the direction of the village, nestling in a coastal dip.

‘There’s absolutely nothing happening. Oh, hang on. I’m wrong. Someone’s just got out of a silver Merc and walked into the post office.’

She tried to lever her head up without moving her body from its comfortable horizontal position, decided it was not worth the effort and lay back on her grass mattress again.

‘Does it get dark here at midsummer?’ he asked.

‘Not really. The sun sets at ten, but it doesn’t drop very far below the horizon. There are about six hours of crimson before it reappears. Like a drawn-out sunset. Eternal twilight.’

‘So you can see clearly all night.’

‘Well, I remember people playing golf at midnight on midsummer’s day, but I think it’s harder to see clearly in the half-light than in the dark. Eyes can adapt to the dark. In the twilight it’s like trying to watch television with a broken aerial; nothing is clear.’

She glanced back at the magenta cloudland building behind the darkening purple hills.

‘Still, it’s very pretty.’

The clank of pans spilled out through the open kitchen door into the evening air; the gushing of a tap, Jim filling a pot with water.

‘Dad, will you shut the door,’ she yelled. ‘I don’t want to hear the crab scream.’

‘That’s a bloody old wives’ tale, you big eejit,’ he shouted back. ‘Of course they don’t scream.’

There was a pause in the pot bashing. A click. The twang of an acoustic guitar wafted around the courtyard – a lament for the lost bones of Tom Paine. Jim’s favourite folk song. Hers too.

‘Folk music? He likes folk music?’ Tom asked.

She nodded.

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit funny?’

‘What? The song?’

‘No. I didn’t mean the song. I meant, don’t you think it’s funny that an undercover cop likes listening to lefty folk music?’

‘Oh. No. Not really. Maybe I’m just used to it.’

She was more than used to it; she was inured to it. She’d had to put up with years of the playground taunts, the snotty-nosed looks from the stockbrokers’ kids. ‘My mum says your dad is a dirty hippy. So I can’t come round to play at your house.’ And all she could do was shrug her shoulders and say so what with carefully practised indifference. Always covering for Jim. She gazed down the hill at the shifting light on the bay below, casting dark shadows among the waves like bobbing seals’ heads. Or maybe they actually were seals’ heads, it was hard to tell in the dusk. A thin scream emanated from the kitchen.

‘Did you hear that?’ she asked. ‘That must be the crab.’

‘It was the tape. Why do folk singers have to wail like that? They always sound as if they are suffering from indigestion. Which bit of the Force did you say he worked for anyway?’

‘I didn’t.’

He focused the binoculars on her. She raised her arm in front of her face to avoid his scrutiny, heaved herself half up and crawled over to the scrubby roses. She scrabbled around among the thorny stalks, examining the sandstone rocks that marked the bed’s border and identified a flat-bottomed stone that satisfied her requirements, lifted it, brushed away the millipedes, lugged it over to the centre of the lawn and attempted to balance it upright. It remained standing. She identified another, carried it over, placed it carefully next to the first and sat back on her heels to admire her handiwork.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Building a stone circle.’

‘Oh God. Why?’

Because she was fed up with dodging his bloody questions about Jim.

‘It’s a shrine to the dead.’ She grubbed around the flowerbed, selecting more rocks. ‘I’m going to light a bonfire here on midsummer’s night to celebrate the solstice and appease the ancestors.’

‘You don’t even know who half your ancestors are. You wouldn’t even recognize most of your nearest relatives if you bumped into them in the street.’

She ignored his sneering tone, stood upright facing the disappearing sun and flung her arms open wide. ‘I am the High Priestess.’

‘You are the queen of the potheads.’

‘I am the High Priestess,’ she repeated. ‘Seeress and worshipper of Freyja.’

The sun dipped behind the ridge of the hills, drenching the garden in a sepia wash. Goose pimples formed on her bare flesh, her shoulders hunched instinctively.

She dropped her arms to her sides. ‘Midsummer is more depressing than midwinter. It’s darker in December, but at least the days are bound to get lighter. Midsummer is like a long goodbye. You can sense in your stomach that it’s all downhill from here, when the nights start to stretch out after the high point of June.’

She shivered, uneasy, suddenly aware that she was exposed out here on the flank of the hill. She felt a prickle in the back of her neck. ‘Here, give me the bins a moment.’

‘No. I’ve just spotted a very nice curlew.’

‘Seriously. Let me have them. It feels like someone is watching us. I want to check.’

He puffed his cheeks as he handed her the binoculars. ‘Here you are then.’

She scanned the coastline, swept the hills behind them.

‘Well? Can you see anyone spying on us?’

‘No.’ She paused. A movement in the corner of her vision drew her head towards Tirlsay. She locked on a flicker, a gleam, focused, steadying her hands, trying to distinguish shadows from solid objects. She half expected to spot the black Rover. But there was nothing. She swung the lenses back towards the post office. The Merc was still parked outside, no sign of its driver.

‘Too much pot makes you paranoid,’ said Tom.

‘Just because you’re paranoid… Let’s go in,’ she added. ‘I’m getting cold out here.’

The resident crow cawed and cackled as they trekked back to the kitchen.

A half-empty glass of Jameson’s and a plate of broken crab limbs sat on the mottled carpet. Jim was fiddling with the television.

‘No reception. Must be the hills. Shame. I wouldn’t mind watching something mindless for half an hour or so. I’m knackered after all that driving.’

‘The video might work,’ said Tom. They riffled through the cassettes stacked under the television and Jim selected one labelled ‘The Sweeney’. The video player refused to co-operate. Jim threatened the machine and Tom offered helpful comments about connections while she surreptitiously unwrapped the bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk which Tom had left lounging on the sofa. She stuffed a couple of squares in her mouth, squashed them against her palate. Savoured her sweet revenge for the unshared Hobnobs.

Jim was about to give up when the video player sprang into life of its own volition.

‘First series,’ said Jim. ‘The best one. Gone downhill a bit since then, though. It’s always the way. Still my favourite cop series though.’

‘It must be every cop’s favourite cop series,’ she said.

‘Inspector Regan is a great character,’ said Tom. He turned to Jim. ‘Do you think
The Sweeney
is realistic?’

Jim paused. She cringed. They had only been at Nethergate a couple of hours and already Tom was quizzing Jim. He would flip. She counted to five.

‘Well, there’s an element of truth there,’ said Jim. ‘In the characters more than the plot, though. And, in fact, the writers talked to a lot of cops. In the bar, of course. Best place to get stories out of cops.’ He laughed. She watched him curiously. What was his game? ‘I spoke to them a couple of times,’ he added.

Tom looked impressed. Sam rolled her eyes.

‘So did they base Regan on you?’ Tom asked.

‘Better ask the scriptwriters that.’

‘I bet every detective in Scotland Yard would like to think they were the inspiration for Regan,’ she said.

Jim and Tom stared at the television, laughing chummily at the banter between Regan and his sidekick Carter.

She was feeling bored. ‘Isn’t it funny that everyone loves a fictional detective but nobody likes a real-life copper?’

Jim and Tom ignored her.

She continued anyway. ‘Why do you think that is? What is it about policemen that makes them so popular on television yet so unpopular in real life?’

Jim lobbed a crochet-covered cushion at her. ‘Belt up.’

She bit into another square of the chocolate bar, regarded the paltry remains slyly and decided she might as well polish off the lot.

‘Have you ever noticed that television cops are never happily married?’ she said.

No answer.

‘Why is it that in cop shows policemen’s daughters always end up being kidnapped or murdered?’

‘Maybe it’s because they don’t know how to keep their mouths shut,’ Jim said, then clenched his jaw.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugged them, glared at the screen angrily.

‘
The Sweeney
is about the Flying Squad anyway,’ she said in Jim’s direction. ‘You don’t have anything to do with the Flying Squad. That’s Harry’s lot, isn’t it? Wasn’t he trying to move to the Flying Squad? Maybe the scriptwriters based Regan on Harry.’ She knew that would get his goat.

‘Harry?’ said Jim. ‘Harry? I doubt it. And anyway, the Flying Squad’s not his lot.’

‘Who is his lot now, then?’

‘Well, after he left Tilbury he went to the drugs squad, but he couldn’t put up with the early morning raids. So then he tried to get a transfer to the Flying Squad and they wouldn’t have him.’

‘Why not?’

‘Cos he’s a lazy bloody bugger; likes to sit around. He’ll do anything to avoid getting off his fat arse.’

‘What’s he doing now then, if the Flying Squad wouldn’t have him?’

‘He’s on diplomatic duties. Managed to finagle a good sitting-down position.’ Jim laughed, for some reason. ‘That reminds me,’ he added swiftly. ‘I’d better send him a postcard.’

‘Why?’ She tried to remember whether she had ever received any kind of card from Jim. He didn’t even sign her birthday cards. It was always Liz who wrote his name on them. And now he was sending postcards to Harry.

‘You don’t usually send postcards.’

‘I won’t see him before he heads off to the Algarve for his summer holiday. He’s going in August.’

‘So?’

He stared fixedly at the television. Regan and Carter were searching for something to pin on the bank robber because he’d nobbled half the jury and walked away from the court scot-free.

The credits rolled and the theme music died away.

‘But don’t the plots have some element of truth?’ Tom asked. ‘I mean coppers do fit people up, try and get them sent down for crimes they haven’t committed, don’t they?’

Jim’s eyes sparked. God, thought Sam, Tom had better watch it; he had better not push his luck. If he wanted to survive the week. But Jim was still in a question-answering mood.

‘Well, of course there are plenty of cops who go in for fixing and fitting. But the thing all these television scriptwriters don’t seem to realize is that it’s actually quite difficult to fit someone up, create a watertight case that will stand up in court. Some of the shit always floats to the surface. So I tend to think it’s easier to look for the real evidence: the facts.’ He paused long enough to allow Tom and Sam a silent sceptical exchange.

‘Of course, if you can’t get at the facts, then it’s always possible just to spread the muck a bit. Tell a few stories, put somebody out of action for a while by ruining their reputation. That’s easier. Smear campaign.’

She heard an undertone of self-pity in Jim’s voice, a hint that he was speaking as a victim not a perpetrator, and wondered whether it was the Jameson’s talking. Or an act. Or something different. She watched as he turned and trained his eye on Tom, locked him in his sights.