Terror's Cradle by Duncan Kyle

Author:Duncan Kyle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-05-16T23:00:00+00:00

I'd made a mental note of the mileage before leaving Lerwick, and driving as fast as I dared on that tricky road, it took me an hour and twenty minutes to cover thirty-two miles to the tiny cluster of houses that was Sandness. I opened the car door and stepped out into half a cold gale sweeping powerfully off the Atlantic Ocean less than a mile away and bringing with it a deep, damp chill.

Picking a cottage at random, I knocked on the door and asked the old woman who answered about Anderson's house. She told me, in the heavy, Norse-laden accents of the islands, that there were two Andersons nearby. Would I be wanting old Mr Anderson because he was away in Lerwick? No, I said. Mr Anderson the bird watcher.

`That would be young Mr Anderson, away up the hill.' She was old and bent, but spry and alert, and she slung a dark shawl over her shoulders and stepped out into the wind to point the way. I thanked her, began to return to the Mini, then went back to find out whether anybody else had been asking for young Mr Anderson.

Ì didn't hear,' she said firmly, and there was something in her emphasis that said she'd certainly have heard. I thanked her and drove off, backtracking a little way, then turning, up a rough track towards the rearing moonlit bulk of Sandness Hill with the cloud shadows flying across it. The distance from the road was perhaps five hundred yards, a very gentle rise that became steeper near the house. I turned the car round, switched off the engine, and went up the slope on foot.

No light came from the house. Blind glass shone the moonlight at me as I climbed. The house was of grey stone, small, with a couple of gabled windows to the upper floor and as I moved towards it I looked carefully at the barren, empty landscape around me, feeling a real sense of isolation. Nothing moved except the air; there was nothing to hear except the sound of my own footfalls and the buffeting

of the wind in my ears. I had hoped to find Anderson there, but the lack of lights made it seem unlikely now.

The door was white-painted, so the small black lettering was easy to read. One word; the name of the house, Jarlshof. I nodded to myself, then knocked and heard the sound echo emptily. There was no response. I tried again, several times, sadly certain now that the house was empty, then moved away from- the door to look in through the windows.

What I could see, lit palely by the intermittent moonlight, was a shadowed and fairly spartan room : a wall full of bookshelves, a bare table with two or three plain wooden seats, a couple of old armchairs. It fitted with what little I knew (which was what Alsa had written) about Anderson. This was a place where one man lived and worked, a man

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