Orkney Twilight by Clare Carson Read Free Book Online Page B

rapidly up the hill.
    Slouching against the bus stop, attempting to hold the fears at bay, she wondered whether she should say anything to Jim about being caught. He would find out soon enough anyway, the cop would make sure of that. She glanced back down the road and thought she spotted a dark figure outlined against the park fence, a broad-shouldered man standing, waiting among the shifting shadows of the horse chestnuts. But when she peered into the dimness again, there was nothing. She looked up, searching for the comfort of the moon’s face, and was greeted instead by the red winking eye of the radio mast peering down. She twiddled her lip between her finger and thumb and hoped the night bus would hurry up.
    Jim had been absent and she didn’t come face to face with him until the morning after the march. Monday. The pungent tang of his breakfast engulfed her as she ran down the stairs, making her want to retch. Offal. Jim was at the table, wiping up kidney juice on a slice of bread with one hand, holding the Guardian up like a shield with the other. She sat down opposite, read the headlines while she waited for the inevitable confrontation. The front page was full of the miners’ strike. The creases of Jim’s forehead floated above a black-and-white photograph of the picket line, policemen being pelted with fruit and bricks. And she wondered then whether there was a connection between Jim’s strange behaviour – mutterings about Operation Asgard – and the strike. Every force in the country was affected by it one way or another, according to the copper who caught her spray-painting.
    ‘Do you think the miners will win?’ she asked.
    Jim’s newspaper stayed firmly in place, his voice floating upward from behind his cover.
    ‘Not a chance.’
    ‘Because the coal stockpiles mean the strike won’t have any effect?’
    ‘No. Because the government is determined to crush the unions to buggery.’
    ‘Oh? Is that you as well? Are you involved in crushing the unions to buggery?’
    He didn’t reply. The furrows on his forehead deepened; an answer of sorts, she decided, as she waited for him to pronounce on her run-in with the local constabulary. She sensed him strategizing behind his screen, trying to unnerve her, picking his moment, taking his time. Cold War tactics.
    Eventually he lowered the paper, skewered her with his steely gaze. ‘Do me a favour,’ he said slowly. ‘Next time you have the urge to decorate public property with spray-paint… make sure you don’t get caught.’
    The biggest crime you could commit in Jim’s book, she reckoned, was the inexcusable offense of being stupid enough to get caught.
    ‘I won’t do it again,’ she said. ‘Get caught, that is.’
    A flash of concern crossed his face. ‘You’ve got to be more careful, you know.’
    What did he mean? Was that a general warning or was he talking about something specific? She half considered mentioning the Rover with the south London registration, but when she thought about it, tried to grasp the concern, there was nothing to say: shadows in the night, paranoid delusions, too much Red Leb.
    ‘You don’t tell any of your mates about my work, do you?’ It wasn’t the first time he had asked that question.
    ‘Of course not. Well, I mean obviously I have to tell them something, so I tell them you are a plainclothes cop. A detective.’ One of Jim’s tricks: don’t lie; just don’t reveal the whole truth. Omission rather than commission.
    She waited, expecting more; a dig, extraction of penalties at the very least, but there was no further comment. He re-erected his newspaper barrier and flicked it into an impenetrable double-page spread.
    She poked at her bowl of muesli. Ate in silence.
    Jim folded the paper, placed it on the table, pushed his chair back, stood up to leave. He hesitated. ‘So I hear you’re coming with me to Orkney,’ he said.
    ‘You heard wrong. I’m not.’
    ‘Are you bringing a