Sun Dance (51 page)

We lay moored to her. I knocked loudly on the hull. Nothing, was she unmanned? It struck me, had Anderson gone over the side? Drowned? Her rigging was slack, it tap, tapped against the mast. Had he been trying to make sail? I didn’t like it, an empty yacht, drifting. The sunlight glancing off the wavelets, rippled along her white hull. The last of our wake caught up. The yacht rolled slightly. Bang, her cabin door banged loosely, a disturbing enough sound. A group of gulls alighted close by and began their hungry wailing. The whole thing was becoming sinister.

One swing and I was aboard. Into the cockpit; I fastened back the cabin door and looked below. Sunlight stabbed the cabin, flitting across the table onto the starboard bunk. Wellington boots were towards me. “Dead drunk,” I breathed to myself.

What now? Step by step I backed down the companion ladder. The cabin reeked of drink. A length of cord lay on the floor, a feather pillow, soundless, only the tap, tap of ropes out on deck. In the chill of early morning it felt morgue- like. I was about to experience something vile. I knew before even daring to look, Anderson was dead. My nostrils caught the first whiff of its sweet smell.

Round the table I moved, looked down on an ashen face. Huge eyes, wide open, bulbous with terror. A red and swollen tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth onto an unkempt beard matted with froth. His shirt was badly ripped, an arm hung over the edge of the bunk, a swollen wrist marked with a massive crimson weal. Physically sickened, I backed away, touched nothing. Anderson had met a violent end.

I hurried on deck breathing deeply and much shaken. “Are you all right, Hector?” Eilidh at the helm of Hilda called up. It took a minute to speak, “The man’s alone, and I’m afraid he’s dead.” Her eyes widened but otherwise she remained calm, “I knew as much when we saw his yacht adrift.”

“Woman, you never fail to surprise me,” and gathering myself together, “We’ll have to tow her into Castleton. Will you handle Hilda if I stay aboard here?” “Yes, but it’s calm enough and if we stay lashed alongside, it might be easier when we reach the harbour.” She was right. I quickly secured the yacht’s tiller and jumped into the Hilda. Once under way, the two boats in tandem moved easily. I spared Eilidh any description of Anderson, except to say, “It could be murder.” Shock spread over her face, she said nothing. In half an hour we laid the Valkyrie beside Castleton pier without a bump.

Our unusual arrival had not gone unnoticed. I threw up the yacht’s mooring line. It was caught and made fast by an impassively waiting Sergeant MacNeil. “Good morning, MacKenzie,” at least he’d dropped the formal Mr. Without replying I motioned him to the pier’s iron ladder. Rung by rung, once on deck he smiled down at Eilidh before addressing me in an official tone, “I take it when you went aboard this yacht, presumably as salvage, she’d been abandoned,” and a shade suspiciously, “by her owner?” “Only abandoned in a manner of speaking, officer,” and not wishing to go below again, “as you’ll see,” I said pointing to the cabin.

Eilidh, sitting in the Hilda, looked tired. I joined her, “Perhaps we shouldn’t take the boat round to the Ach na Mara jetty today, give Ella a phone, I’m sure she’ll come and collect you,” and indicating the problem moored beside us, “I’ll deal with this lot.” To my relief she agreed but speaking carefully and quietly, “You know Hector, by the rules of salvage at sea, we might now legally own the Valkyrie.”

Before I could muster a reply, MacNeil appeared from the cabin. Only the extreme pallor of his cheeks marked the shock of discovering a body, “This is a serious matter, Mr. MacKenzie, you’ll kindly accompany me to the station, immediately. Anything you say may be taken down as evidence and used if required.”

It needed not the gravity of his voice to emphasise my critical situation. I helped Eilidh onto the pier and waited as she phoned Ella. Apart from a rapid mobile phone call the sergeant remained silent and didn’t leave my side. No attempt at handcuffing but in effect I was under arrest. Within minutes a police car drew up beside us. Hasty instruction sent the constable to stand guard over the Valkyrie. “Don’t worry, Eilidh,” I left her waiting for Ella as MacNeil marched me in silence to the police station.

Locking the door and seating himself at his desk, he began taking particulars. On giving the Sandray house as my address, he pinned me with a sharp eye, “This is the second dead body in which you appear to have been involved. I would advise you not be flippant, you may find that eviction warrant is now surplus to the whole matter,” and in a far from easy Highland style he added, “You’re not obliged to say anything, but I’m arresting you pending further enquiries.”

I said nothing. Crossing the room, he held open a door. A curt, “This way.” I walked the length of a corridor under fluorescent lighting. The concrete floor stank of disinfectant. Careful not to be too close behind me, he indicated a door to the left. Without option I entered.

Quicker than I could turn, the door slammed. I swung round sharply. No inside handle, the metallic click of a lock, a loud sound in an empty cell. A mattress on the floor, a slit of window too high to reach, and suspected of two murders.

I leant against the concrete wall, dropped my head into my hands. The sun that meant freedom grew black in the shadow of an eclipse, until only plumes of fire marked its disc

Lying at my feet against the cell wall, the crumpled briefcase from beside our bed swam into my unfocused eyes.

The lift attendant’s smart salute drew a brusque nod from Sir Joshua Goldberg. Swiftly and silently it descended to the labyrinth of reinforced control rooms deep below the Pentagon. A heavily carpeted corridor led him to a private meeting with two top US officials.

Coffee and pleasantries were brief, the Chief Scientific Officer to the US Ministry of Internal Affairs spoke freely in a Texan gun- slinging style, “Bore a hole half a metre wide and five kilometres deep into hard crystalline rock, drop in the canisters of spent fuel, stack ‘em up two kilometres high, cap the little lot with clay, asphalt and concrete and sure thing the geological barrier has only to last a million years for the waste to decay and become as harmless as putty, yup, that’s the method the big boss would very much like your company to adopt here in the US. Simple, keep the stuff close to the site of production and safe as houses; ah wouldn’t mind one in ma own back garden.” A sullen Sir Joshua sat quietly without comment.

Nuen’s Chairman was under pressure, not least from the White House for his company’s extensive nuclear operations to adopt this cheap and easy form of waste storage. Apart from the method involved, Goldberg found the whole proposal entirely contrary to his strictly private ambition. Monumental influence and wealth would be in the hands of an international controller of nuclear waste, he intended those hands to be his own.

Perhaps in an attempt to expose their clients thinking, perhaps to add an element of persuasion, the Chief of Weapons Procurement in the Pentagon broke the embarrassing lack of comment on the part of an aloof Goldberg by changing the subject, “You’ve no need Sir Joshua to let today’s agreement between our boss and the Russian President worry you. A thirty percent reduction in nuclear weapon stocks, yeah, it’s high level window dressing but still leaves us and the Bolshevik’s with ninety percent of the world’s big toys.”

After a deliberate pause the Weapons Procurement official drew himself up, “With Iran’s nuclear programme coming into the cross wires we needed to tame the Trots, which brings me to the point,” he placed the tips of his fingers together. “The arrangement we have with you for the re-fuelling of nuclear submarines at our Indian Ocean base at Diego Garcia is under surveillance,”

“And?” by sounding a little aggressive Sir Joshua attempted to maintain the strength of his position. Should Iran require subduing, he knew it would not follow another Iraq debacle, hence the importance of this strategic base, but under surveillance? Surely Nuen’s lucrative contract for supplying nuclear fuel and fissile material to the oceanic base hadn’t a problem? Surveillance? It was common knowledge that sufficient enriched plutonium to make several nuclear bombs had gone missing. Could his company be suspected? The palms of Goldberg’s hands became sticky.

Less than friendly, the Pentagon Official sought to force an agreement. “It sure would be helpful to get an understanding on waste management before we discuss more delicate issues.” and wishing to keep an edge over the meeting, he continued, a shade threatening, “Nobody outside these walls must know anything, this is top mouth shutting business.” Letting the implication hang in the air, he spoke quietly, “We know fissile material may have fallen into the wrong hands, possibly stolen,” another carefully weighted pause, “or maybe dealt, and you know better than most Sir Joshua, this ain’t the stuff to carry away in a plastic bag.”

The hint of a possible collusion between technical expertise and criminal elements was left boring into the mind of a frightened listener. Looking over the rim of his glasses the Official continued slowly, “Stolen, maybe a deal, whatever way this stuff went off account, the result could be real serious, might give fanatical terrorists a chance to pull off nuclear suicide right here. Maybe a rogue State is involved, it might not be Iran, Pakistan is one helluva close to Afghanistan, then again, just who do you think would want us to take our eye off the Middle East to follow their own private agenda?” He looked keenly at Goldberg, “Missing material, yeah, it’s a specialist job,” and almost in a whisper, “I hope Sir Joshua there’s not any others privy to these shipments to Diego Garcia, or any other place?”

“Certainly not,” Goldberg snapped back, shaking internally, any other place? Couldn’t possibly be the material which Nuen had supplied very privately to a country not admitting a nuclear arsenal? It had had the blind eye treatment from the White House many years ago. Stolen or dealt, his mind raced to Anderson, he might have to implicate him in the missing plutonium. Veiled eyes fastened on Goldberg. Perhaps to catch him off guard, the Texan drawl of the Scientific Officer broke into the Nuen Chairman’s acute concern, “Excuse me for being a mite curious Sir Joshua, how’s that UK deep bunker storage programme of yours coming along?”

Realising this sudden diversion was part of their intention to get his international UK facility abandoned, Sir Joshua responded sharply, “Work is in hand. Under our existing contract I shall be ready for the first shipment of your high level waste in eighteen months time.” Unable to contain his sickening worry, he forced an artificial smile.

Stolen or dealt, shifting the burden of any suspicion now uppermost in his thoughts, Goldberg enquired in a casual manner, “Ever hear of my company’s ex-chairman Anderson these days? I’d just love to keep in touch with him, such a fine chap, the very life and soul of a party, knowledgeable too, but then on the other hand perhaps not all that, ermm…” and hinting a broad note of condemnation, he tapped his lips.

The eyes of two Pentagon civil servants met, “You don’t say,” again the slow Texan speech, “Well now Sir Joshua, ah heard it said a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Nope, we don’t know his whereabouts but my guess is we ain’t likely to hear of him no more.”

“I see. Oh I’m so disappointed, he must really have gone to ground, such a pity.” Attempting to appear genuinely saddened, Goldberg felt a surge of relief.

Should Anderson have met with an accident, he became the ideal, what was that cheap Americanism, the ideal fall guy.

Claustrophobia, perhaps the stench of disinfectant but as a patch of yellow light slanted obliquely across the cell wall- a concrete wall, white and barren- I watched its pattern become narrow and slowly narrower until just a slit, it moved across the counterpane on a bed in a hospital ward. Skyscraper horizons deprived me of sunlight; the beleaguered days returned and with them again the hunger I'd known.

That same hunger which had driven me to work in the open, to heed a call which had become ever more insistent until the sun in some way embraced my every day. Health, vigour, the plants I nurtured, the seals I watched basking on the rocks, its light on the bay when I lifted my head, the colours which excited me, from rising to setting its presence wrought an inseparable bond. The plight of a captive, native of the outdoors would die of longing; the slit of a window, a sun that went away, the eye that looked in, the torture of separation. The pallor of such victims, filled my prison wall, white and blank and I understood.