Major Weir nodded, lifted his newspaper to eye level. The interview was over.
16
Welcome to the Mainland,’ Rebus’s guide said, meeting him on the tarmac.
Major Weir had already been installed in a Range Rover and was speeding from the airfield. A row of helicopters stood in repose nearby. The wind was... well, the wind was serious. It was flapping the helicopters’ rotor blades, and it was singing in Rebus’s ears. The Edinburgh wind was a pro; sometimes you walked out your front door and it was like being punched in the face. But the Shetland wind... it wanted to pick you up and shake you.
The descent had been rocky, but before that he’d had his first sighting of Shetland proper. ‘Miles and miles of bugger all’ didn’t do it justice. Hardly any trees, plenty of sheep. And spectacular barren coastline with white breakers crashing into it. He wondered if erosion was a problem. The islands weren’t exactly large. They’d crossed to the east of Lerwick, then passed some dormitory towns, which, according to Sheepskin’s commentary, had been mere hamlets in the 1970s. He’d woken up by then, and had come armed with a few more facts and fancies.
‘Know what we did? The oil industry, I mean? We kept Maggie Thatcher in power. Oil revenue paid for all those tax cuts. Oil revenue paid for the Falklands War. Oil was pumping through the veins of her whole fucking reign, and she never thanked us once. Not once, the bitch.’ He laughed. ‘You can’t help liking her.’
‘Apparently there are pills you can take.’ But Sheepskin wasn’t listening.
‘You can’t separate oil and politics. The sanctions against Iraq, whole point was to stop him flooding the market with cheap oil.’ He paused. ‘Norway, the bastards.’
Rebus felt he’d missed something. ‘Norway?’
‘They’ve got oil, too, only they’ve banked the money, used it to kickstart other industries. Maggie used it to pay for a war and a bloody election...’
As they swung out to sea past Lerwick, Sheepskin had pointed out some boats — bloody big boats.
‘Klondikers,’ he said. ‘Factory ships. They’re busy processing fish. Probably doing more environmental damage than the whole North Sea oil industry. But the locals just let them get on with it, they don’t give a bugger. Fishing’s a heritage thing with them... not like oil. Aah, fuck the lot of them.’
Rebus still hadn’t learned the man’s name when they parted on the runway. There was someone waiting for Rebus, a slight grinning man with too many teeth in his head. And he said, ‘Welcome to the Mainland.’ Then explained what he meant in the car, during the short trip to the Sullom Voe terminal. ‘That’s what Shetlanders call the main island: Mainland, as opposed to mainland with a small m, which means... well, the mainland.’ A snort for a laugh. He had to wipe his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. He drove the way a kid would when seated in its father’s car: bent forward, hands overly busy on the steering-wheel.
His name was Walter Rowbotham, and he was a new recruit to the Sullom Voe Public Relations Department.
‘I’d be happy to show you around, Inspector,’ he said, still grinning, trying too hard to please.
‘Maybe if there’s time,’ Rebus conceded.
‘My pleasure entirely. You know, of course, that the terminal cost one thousand three hundred million just to construct. That’s pounds, not dollars.’
‘Interesting.’
Rowbotham’s face practically lit up, encouraged now. ‘The first oil flowed into Sullom Voe in 1978. It is a major employer and has helped contribute greatly to Shetland’s low unemployment rate, currently around four per cent or half the Scottish average.’
‘Tell me something, Mr Rowbotham.’
‘Walter, please. Or Walt if you like.’
‘Walt.’ Rebus smiled. ‘Had any more trouble with the LPG chilldown?’
Rowbotham’s face turned pickled baby beet. Jesus, Rebus thought, the media were going to love him...
They ended up driving through half the installation to get to where Rebus wanted to be, so he heard most of the tour narration anyway and learned more than he hoped he’d ever have to know about debutanising, de-ethanising and depropanising, not to mention surge tanks and integrity meters. Wouldn’t it be great, he thought, if you could fit integrity meters to human beings?
At the main administration building they’d been told that Jake Harley worked in the process control room, and that his colleagues were waiting there and knew a police officer was coming to talk to them. They passed the incoming crude lines, the pigging station, and the final holding basin, and at one point Walt thought they were lost, but he had a little orientation map with him.
Just as welclass="underline" Sullom Voe was huge. It had taken seven years to build, breaking all sorts of records in the process (and Walt knew every one of them), and Rebus had to admit that it was an impressive monster. He’d been past Grangemouth and Mossmorran dozens of times, but they just weren’t in the picture. And if you looked out past the crude oil tanks and the unloading jetties, you saw water — the Voe itself to the south; then Gluss Isle over to the west, doing a good impression of unspoilt wilderness. It was like a sci-fi city transported to prehistory.
For all of which, the process control room was about as peaceful a place as Rebus had ever been. Two men and a woman sat behind computer consoles in the centre of the room, while the walls were taken up with electronic charts, softly flashing lights indicating the oil and gas flows. The only sounds were those of fingers on keyboards, and the occasional muted conversation. Walt had decided that it was his job to introduce Rebus. The atmosphere had quieted him, as if he’d walked into the middle of a church service. He went to the central console and spoke in an undertone to the trinity seated there.
The elder of the two men stood up and came to shake Rebus’s hand.
‘Inspector, my name’s Milne. How can we help?’
‘Mr Milne, I really wanted to speak to Jake Harley. But since he’s made himself scarce, I thought maybe you could tell me a little about him. Specifically, about his friendship with Allan Mitchison.’
Milne wore a check shirt, its sleeves rolled up. He scratched at one arm while Rebus spoke. He was in his thirties, with tousled red hair and a face pitted from teenage acne. He nodded, half-turning to his two colleagues, assuming the role of spokesman.
‘Well, we all work beside Jake, so we can tell you about him. Personally, I didn’t know Allan very well, though Jake introduced us.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever met him,’ the woman said.
‘I met him once,’ the other man added.
‘Allan only worked here for two or three months,’ Milne went on. ‘I know he struck up a friendship with Jake.’ He shrugged. ‘Really, that’s about it.’
‘If they were friends, they must have had something in common. Was it bird-watching?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Green issues,’ the woman said.
‘That’s true,’ Milne said, nodding. ‘Of course, in a place like this, we always end up talking about ecology sooner or later — sensitive subject.’
‘Is it a big thing with Jake?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ Milne looked to his colleagues for support. They shook their heads. Rebus realised that nobody was talking much above a whisper.
‘Jake works right here?’ he asked.
‘That’s right. We alternate shifts.’
‘So sometimes you’re working together...’
‘And sometimes we’re not.’
Rebus nodded. He was learning nothing; wasn’t sure he’d ever actually thought he would learn anything. So Mitchison had been into ecology — big deal. But it was pleasant here, relaxing. Edinburgh and all his troubles were a long way away, and felt it.