‘I know just what you’re thinking. I thought the same thing myself first time I came out here.’
Rebus nodded. The Nationalists said it was Scotland’s oil, the oil companies had the exploitation rights, but the picture out here told a different story: oil belonged to the sea, and the sea wouldn’t give it up without a fight.
Their guide led them to the relative safety of the canteen. It was clean and quiet, with brick troughs filled with plants, and long white tables ready for the next shift. A couple of orange overalls sat drinking tea at one table, while at another three men in checked shirts ate chocolate bars and yoghurt.
‘This place is mad at mealtimes,’ the guide said, grabbing a tray. ‘Tea all right for you?’
Lumsden and Rebus agreed that tea was fine. There was a long serving-hatch, and a woman at the far end smiling at them.
‘Hello, Thelma,’ their guide said. ‘Three teas. Lunch smells good.’
‘Ratatouille, steak and chips, or chilli.’ Thelma poured tea from a huge pot.
‘Canteen’s open twenty-four hours,’ the guide told Rebus. ‘Most guys, when they first arrive, they overeat. The puddings are lethal.’ He slapped his stomach and laughed. ‘Isn’t that right, Thelma?’ Rebus recalled the man in the Yardarm telling him much the same thing.
Even seated, Rebus’s legs felt shaky. He put it down to the flight. Their guide introduced himself as Eric, and said that seeing how they were police officers, they could skip the introductory safety video.
‘Though by rights I’m supposed to show you it.’
Lumsden and Rebus shook their heads, and Lumsden asked how close the platform was to decommissioning.
‘Last oil’s already been pumped out,’ Eric said. ‘Pump a final load of seawater into the reservoir and most of us will ship out. Maintenance crew only, until they decide what to do with her. They’d better make up their minds soon, manning this even just with maintenance shifts is an expensive business. You still have to get the supplies out here, the shift changeovers, and you still need the safety ship. It all costs money.’
‘Which is all right so long as Bannock is producing oil?’
‘Exactly,’ said Eric. ‘But when it’s not producing... well, the accountants start having palpitations. We lost a couple of days’ worth last month, some problem with the heat exchangers. They were out here, waving their calculators about...’ Eric laughed.
He was nothing like the roustabout of legend, the myth of the roughneck. He was a skinny five and a half feet and wore steel-rimmed glasses above a sharp nose and pointed chin. Rebus looked at the other men in the canteen and tried to equate them with the picture of the oil ‘bear’, face blackened with crude, biceps expanding as he fought to contain a gusher. Eric saw him looking.
‘The three over there,’ meaning the checked shirts, ‘work in the Control Room. Nearly everything these days is computerised: logic circuits, computer monitoring... You should ask for a look round, it’s like NASA or something, and it only takes three or four people to work the whole system. We’ve come a long way from “Texas Tea”.’
‘We saw some protesters in a boat,’ Lumsden said, scooping sugar into his mug.
‘They’re off their noggins. These are dangerous waters for a craft that size. Plus they circle too close, all it’d take is a gust to blow them into the platform.’
Rebus turned to Lumsden. ‘You’re the Grampian Police presence here, maybe you should do something.’
Lumsden snorted and turned to Eric. ‘They haven’t done anything illegal yet, have they?’
‘All they’re breaking so far are the unwritten maritime rules. When you’ve finished your tea, you’ll want to see Willie Ford, is that right?’
‘Right,’ Rebus said.
‘I told him we’d meet him in the recky room.’
‘I’d like to see Allan Mitchison’s room, too.’
Eric nodded. ‘Willie’s room: the cabins here are twin berths.’
‘Tell me,’ Rebus said, ‘the decommissioning — any idea what T-Bird are going to do with the platform?’
‘Might still end up sinking it.’
‘After the trouble with Brent Spar?’
Eric shrugged. ‘The accountants are in favour. They only need two things: the government on their side, and a good public relations campaign. The latter’s already well under way.’
‘With Hayden Fletcher in charge?’ Rebus guessed.
‘That’s the man.’ Eric picked up his hard hat. ‘All finished?’
Rebus drained his mug. ‘Lead the way.’
Outside, it was now ‘blustery’ — Eric’s description. Rebus held on to a rail as he walked. Some workers were leaning over the side of the platform. Beyond them, Rebus could see a huge spume of water. He went up to the rail. The support ship was sending jets of water in the direction of the protest boat.
‘Trying to scare them off,’ Eric explained. ‘Keep them from getting too close to the legs.’
Christ, thought Rebus, why today? He could just see the protest boat ramming the platform, forcing an evacuation... The jets continued their work, all four of them. Someone passed him a pair of binoculars and he trained them on the protest vessel. Orange oilskins — half a dozen figures on the deck. Banners tied to the rails. NO DUMPING. SAVE OUR OCEANS.
‘That boat doesn’t look too healthy to me,’ someone said.
Figures were going below, reappearing, waving their arms as they explained something.
‘Stupid buggers, they’ve probably let the engine flood.’
‘She can’t be left to drift.’
‘Could be a Trojan horse, lads.’
They all laughed at that. Eric moved off, Rebus and Lumsden following. They climbed up and down ladders. At certain points, Rebus could see clear through the latticework of steel flooring to the churning sea below. There were cables and pipes everywhere, but nowhere you could trip over them. Eventually, Eric opened a door and led them down a corridor. It was a relief to be out of the wind; Rebus realised they’d been outdoors for all of eight minutes.
They passed rooms with pool tables in them, and table-tennis tables, dart boards, video games. The video games seemed popular. Nobody was playing table-tennis.
‘Some platforms have swimming pools,’ Eric said, ‘but not us.’
‘Is it my imagination,’ Rebus asked, ‘or did I just feel the floor move?’
‘Oh aye,’ Eric said, ‘there’s a bit of give, has to be. In a swell, you’d swear she was going to break free.’ And he laughed again. They kept walking along the corridor, passing a library — no one in it — and a TV room.
‘We’ve three TV rooms,’ Eric explained. ‘Satellite telly only, but mostly the lads prefer videos. Willie should be in here.’
They entered a large room with a couple of dozen stiff-backed chairs and a large-screen TV. There were no windows, and the lights had been dimmed. Eight or nine men sat, arms folded, in front of the screen. They were complaining about something. A man was standing at the video recorder, holding a tape in his hand, turning it over. He shrugged.
‘Sorry about this,’ he said.
‘That’s Willie,’ Eric said.
Willie Ford was in his early forties, well built but slightly hunched, with a regulation number one haircut: down to the wood. His nose covered a quarter of his face, a beard protected most of the rest. With more of a tan, he might have passed for a Muslim fundamentalist. Rebus walked up to him.
‘Are you the policeman?’ Willie Ford asked. Rebus nodded.
‘The natives look restless.’
‘It’s this video. It was supposed to be Black Rain, you know, Michael Douglas. But instead it’s some Jap flick with the same name, all about Hiroshima. Close but no cigar.’ He turned to the audience. ‘Some you win, guys. You’ll have to settle for something else.’ Then shrugged and moved away, Rebus following. The four of them went back along the corridor and into the library.