North Star (9 page)

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 halfglasses. ‘I see you don’t want to admit to that. Is it the word ideological you object to?’

‘My ideological convictions, presuming I have any, are my own concern.’

He nodded. ‘Perhaps. But there are things I don’t understand and I would appreciate your co-operation.’

‘What about?’

‘Why you suddenly decided to come up here, for instance?’ The academic air had receded, the pale eyes watching me. ‘You know the Hull police were waiting to interview you – a question of intimidation.’

‘I had nothing to do with that.’

‘Then what were you doing there?’ He didn’t seem surprised at my not answering. ‘Lucky you were,’ he murmured. ‘For the little girl, anyway.’ He paused, letting the silence run on. Finally he said, ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’

‘Not your department,’ I said. ‘You’re not from Hull.’ That question about ideological convictions … ‘What department are you – Special Branch?’

He smiled. ‘Let us say I am a police officer who knows quite a lot about you, has learned more since he has been here and now wants to know what the hell you’re up to.’

‘Do I have to be up to something?’ But he’d see it differently, of course. Once a man has been in trouble with the police … ‘You’re part of the Establishment,’ I said. ‘You don’t have
to worry about finding a job. It’s always there. But for others it’s different. Do you find that difficult to understand?’ I was being sarcastic, but it didn’t seem to upset him.

‘You don’t have to worry about a job either, Randall. You’re not just a trawlerman. You’re a highly intelligent, highly trained individual. But your record, if I may say so, is a somewhat unusual one.’ He picked up the top page of the file, leaning back with it in his hand. ‘This is a summary. Shall I read it to you?’ He did not wait for me to reply, but went straight on: ‘You were born on 2nd April, 1937. Your mother, Muriel Caroline Randall, taught in kindergarten in Aberdeen. In November 1938, following the Munich crisis, she took a course in nursing at Glasgow Infirmary. There she met Henry Wilkin Graber, a wealthy American business man. In fact, she was one of the nurses who looked after him when he was brought into the hospital in February 1939 following a car accident. Shortly after his return to the States he offered her the job of governess to his two children. She turned him down then, but just over a year later, in July 1940, she took passage on one of the refugee ships to the States. That was after the fall of France, so presumably her concern was for you. Would that be right?’

‘You work out your own answers,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘I’m only trying to get at the motivation. Your father, for instance. Have you ever visited Shetland before?’ And when I shook my head, he said, ‘Now, suddenly, you go to West Burra, where he was born, and start making enquiries. Why?’

‘A man ought to know something about his father,’ I murmured.

‘He was a Communist. But you knew that before you came up here.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is he now?’ He was leaning forward, his eyes on my face.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘You’ve been to Hamnavoe, and to
Grundsound, too. You know damn well he died just before Madrid fell to Franco’s forces.’

He nodded. ‘Of course. The plaque. Who put it there?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Your mother perhaps?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘And you’re an only child – no brothers or sisters.’

‘No.’

‘But it was somebody who knew him well, eh? That line from Browning – the conflict within himself. Are you sure you’ve never met him?’ My bewilderment must have shown, for he added, ‘The plaque was sent to the Clerk of the Presbytery of Shetland in 1958 by an anonymous donor with instructions where it was to be placed and a sum that more than covered the cost of the work.’

‘I only saw it just over a week ago. I had no idea how it came to be put there.’

He stared at me for a moment, looking me straight in the eyes. He was still staring at me when he suddenly said, ‘Are you a Communist?’

‘No.’

‘But you believe in Communism?’

‘I also believe in Christianity.’

He smiled and I caught a flicker of interest, even sympathy, in those pale eyes. ‘And there is a difference between the Christian faith and the Christian church. Is that what you mean?’

I shrugged.

‘Just as there is a difference between the Communist ideal and Communism itself, say the Russian brand?’

‘You don’t need to get me down to a police station to state the obvious.’

He laughed, leaning back in his chair and relaxing again. ‘Well, let’s get back to your file. And please pick me up if they’ve got it wrong at all. In January 1941 your mother took up residence in Graber’s house on Rhode Island. You were
then three-and-a-half years old. Did you like Henry Graber?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘And you don’t remember your father either?’

‘No.’

‘Yet you accepted the one and rejected the other. Was that because of your mother’s marriage? Were you jealous of Graber?’

I reached into my pocket for my pipe, realized it wasn’t there and heard him say something about the physical relationship of a mother and her only son. ‘For Christ’s sake, where’s this leading?’ I demanded angrily.

His strangely quiet face looked suddenly grim. ‘I’ll tell you where it’s leading – to your record. It’s here in this file, two dozen separate items at least – shop floor convener, agitator, union organizer and militant. You’ve been in prison, you’ve been charged with inciting others to create a disturbance, resisting arrest, intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and in your public speeches, your writings, in the way you have incited pickets and moved bodies of strikers, you’ve demonstrated a degree of violent reaction to or from something that is quite abnormal. Now, let’s get back to your mother’s marriage. It was her second marriage and Graber’s third. The date is given here as 5th November, 1944 – is that right?’

I nodded. ‘I think my stepfather was very lonely. His wife had just died.’ But it had started before then. ‘She had been ill for a long time – a mental illness. And my mother – ’ I checked myself. No point in telling him about that moment of appalment when, as a little boy, I had discovered she didn’t regard me as her entire world. ‘It was natural enough, I guess.’

‘But a shock to you?’

‘I imagine so.’

‘He had an explosives and small arms factory and made a fortune out of the war. Is that why you suddenly left home?’

‘I wanted to travel.’

‘To Calcutta – Düsseldorf?’

I felt my muscles tense, the past turning over in my mind. ‘My God, you’ve done your homework.’

‘Not me,’ he said. ‘It’s all here.’ And he reached for the second file. ‘You were educated very expensively – the Phillips Exeter Academy, then Princeton. At Princeton you studied economics. Do you remember a Professor Hansbacher?’

I nodded, the thick glasses, the round beaming face leaping to mind, his brilliant lectures on the nature and defects of capitalism.

‘You should, because he remembered you.
One of the cleverest students I ever had
. That’s how he describes you. He was a Communist, wasn’t he?’

‘I’ve no idea. I was just a kid.’

‘That was what he was accused of. He lost his job in the McCarthy witch-hunt.’ He leaned towards me. ‘You were at an impressionable age. He must have had considerable influence on you.’

‘He had a very logical, very clear mind.’

‘A brilliant teacher, in fact. Yet within a year you left. Why?’

‘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 Düsseldorf. What were you doing in Düsseldorf?’

‘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 co-operate, 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 sea.’

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?’