Death on a Shetland Isle

by Marsali Taylor

  I kept silent, letting her think.

  ‘He tripped, I think. Yes, I’m certain. I was going downwards, and then there was a scuffle behind me, and a clang, then I felt him push me, and then we were both rolling downwards.’

  The white look was in her face again. I remembered how uneasy she’d been when they’d first climbed the mast, and wondered if she was trying to share suspicions she didn’t dare articulate. I tried to start her talking. ‘Is he your only brother?’

  She nodded. ‘There’s just the two of us. Mum and Dad, well, Dad was a doctor, and Mum was in a firm of accountants in Edinburgh. My great-great-grandfather was one of the original partners. That’s where we both work now.’ She smiled. ‘Nothing like as exciting as a tall ship, but I enjoy it. Maths was my subject at uni. St Andrews, I loved it there. I got involved in everything – they had ceilidhs and sports clubs and an operatic society – all sorts of fun things. I even went on a glider once.’

  ‘Did Oliver go there too?’

  The blonde head shook. She made a face, mouth pulled down. ‘Oliver, well, he’s less settled. Not really academic. Oh, I don’t mean he’s not clever, school just wasn’t his kind of place.’

  Sometimes it was true. As a teenager in France, I’d been too homesick, too land-bound, to give the work my very best shot. Other times, it was what parents said about their children rather than the blunt ‘bone idle and disruptive with it’ that teachers would say in the privacy of the staffroom. Laura seemed to be an indulgent sister who accepted the family excuses line. Not that I was much good at people, but I’d learnt over the years to assess who could be trusted with what, and I wouldn’t have put Oliver in charge of anything that required sustained concentration. He’d fall into chat with the first person who passed, and forget he was steering the ship.

  ‘He had a shot at one of the Edinburgh colleges, but it just wasn’t him. There was a row about that, of course.’ She made a hands out gesture. ‘Oh, I don’t remember, I was busy swotting for exams and touring possible universities. But he wasn’t going back to college, so Mum got him into the firm.’

  She paused to sip her chocolate. I remembered Dad’s friend’s account of the family. Laura didn’t outshine Oliver in looks or charm, but she’d been a stayer at school. Her graduation photo, but not his, would have adorned the family mantelpiece … Oliver wouldn’t have liked that.

  ‘He’s good with figures, and she thought he’d be great on the selling side, but his heart just wasn’t in it, you know? She was disappointed about that, she hoped he’d enjoy being practical. But there isn’t anything else he really wants to do either, so he’s just stayed with the firm, doing bits and pieces.’

  ‘While you’re flying upwards in it,’ I suggested.

  She nodded, mouth still turned down. ‘I’m one of the directors now. There’s always been a family seat on the board. Oliver was—’ She came to a sudden stop, mouth twitching, eyes turned away from me, as if she was remembering something unpleasant. That went with the Oliver type too, I thought; not willing to work themselves, but resenting the promotion of others, especially his little sister.

  ‘He thought it was unfair, since he was older, and the boy?’ I suggested.

  She laughed at that. ‘Yes, how old-fashioned can you get? There was a row about it, just before the crash.’ She broke off abruptly, mouth working. Tears filled her blue eyes. She took a deep breath and went on. ‘Dad was adamant. I’d worked for it, he said. They were going to create an extra seat for me.’ Her hands came back up to clutch the cup. ‘Poor Oliver, it made it harder for him, that they’d been on bad terms before they died.’

  That was a bit of gossip Dad’s friend hadn’t known.

  Laura’s eyes brimmed over. ‘And then, after all, I got Mum’s seat.’

  There was nothing I could say. I waited in silence while she mopped her eyes with her hankie. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘No, it’s OK.’ Seven months ago, Oliver had said. The worst of the shock should have worn off by now. That white look about her eyelids, and the blankness of her eyes should have been replaced by grieving; unless something else had brought it back – something like the fear that her adored, indulged big brother was trying to get rid of her.

  I wondered whose idea this holiday had been, and felt that was something I could safely ask. ‘I know it’s hard, but don’t think about it just now. Focus on your holiday. A tall ship must be the cleanest break from reality that you can get – a really good idea.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s what Oliver said. We’d always meant to go to the northern isles as a family.’

  Oliver’s idea. I didn’t like this: the sister a high-flyer, the brother in the family firm at the ‘find him a job’ level, the row over his position and hers – the row that had blown up just before a car crash that didn’t seem to have any cause. She hoped he’d enjoy being practical … Then that fall down the stairs. I felt him push me … I was about to take the bull by the horns, lean over and say, ‘What’s wrong?’ when there was a cheerful bustle at the door and Oliver came in, with Gavin behind him.

  They headed straight for the counter and ordered coffee, then Oliver came over to us with a plate of assorted fancies: a chocolate brownie, a cupcake with a swirl of moon-frosted icing, slices of lemon meringue pie and pecan maple cake.

  ‘I thought you’d want some forbidden carbohydrate,’ Oliver said. He’d left Gavin to pay for it, I noticed.

  ‘I never refuse fancies,’ I said cheerfully. ‘What d’you say, Laura?’

  Her smile was steadier now. ‘But there’s no gym to work it off.’

  ‘There’s a whole sailing ship,’ Oliver retorted, ‘with three masts, and the voyage to Fetlar this afternoon. Plenty of exercise opportunity there.’

  Gavin, coming over now, gave me a bright, intelligent glance and sat down beside me. He offered the cake plate to Laura, then to me. I took the lemon meringue pie. It was beautifully tangy; worth the calories.

  The men seemed to have walked halfway along Da Street, up one of the lanes and back down another before coming to join us. ‘It’s a quaint town,’ Oliver said. ‘All this grey stone, and the little alleys running seawards.’

  ‘I must try to visit the museum this afternoon, before we go,’ Gavin said. ‘Do you know if there’s a tradition of Inuit men visiting?’

  I gave him a blank look. ‘Not that I’ve ever heard. Do you mean on the whaling ships?’

  Gavin shook his head. ‘Blown here from Greenland. There were several sightings of them in Orkney, and one even made it to Aberdeen – his kayak’s in a museum there.’

  I suspected a programme on the History channel during quiet night shifts. ‘We’re a long way from Greenland.’

  ‘There was a little Ice Age in early modern times that extended the size of Greenland almost to Iceland, and they came along the edge of it, then across the sea. Apparently, that’s where the Orcadian idea of the Finn men came from, the sorcerers who could raise a magic cloak and disappear on water. The Inuit could raise a sail on their canoe, but because it was so low in the water, they could also hide among the waves the moment they dropped it.’

  The Finns again … ‘I thought the Finns were a Norse thing,’ I said. I would need to ask Magnie more. ‘In Shetland they were Laplanders. Shaman people.’

  Gavin shook his head. ‘In Orkney they were linked with the selkie people.’ He turned his head to smile at me. ‘There’s an Orcadian woman after your own heart too, Cass. Isobel Gunn, from the early 1800s. She dressed as a man and signed up with the Hudson’s Bay Company. One of the best loggers they had, and apparently fooled everyone until she became pregnant.’

  ‘Not quite everyone then,’ Oliver said.

  ‘So what happened to her?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Well, naturally, she couldn’t be allowed to continue as a logger.’

  ‘Naturally not,’ I agreed. ‘Even though she was one of the best.’

  ‘So she became a housemaid instead, until they could s
hip her home.’

  ‘Much more suitable,’ I said, drily, and Gavin smiled.

  There was a sudden throat-clearing noise beside us, then the grandfather clock began its chimes. Eleven o’clock. We were hoping to make the 11.30 Mass, since there would be no chance to get to church tomorrow. I flashed Gavin a quick glance, and then smiled at Laura and Oliver. ‘We need to leave you – I have stuff to do in town.’ Why did it sound so show-off to say, I’m going to church? I picked my cap up from the table, and put it on, checking its straightness in the clock glass, and looked over at Laura. ‘I hope you’re OK now.’

  She nodded and smiled. ‘I’m fine. We’ll explore carefully.’

  ‘You do that. See you on board.’

  We came out into the bustle of a Saturday morning street, with country folk in ganseys carrying shopping bags, and toonies in light summer frocks strolling and meeting their friends.

  ‘If we have time,’ Gavin said, ‘I’d like to drop in on the police station and say hello to the folk I’ve met here.’

  Sergeant Freya Peterson, no doubt. ‘Course,’ I said lightly. ‘I’ll just check on Cat, then head for the church – meet you there?’

  ‘Twenty minutes?’

  ‘Plenty of time.’

  He set off at an unhurried walk up the lane by the town hall, kilt swinging, and I headed for the ship: down past the Clydesdale Bank and towards the sea, where she lay swan-white against the pier, her long masthead banners flying out in the breeze. It would be a good sail up to Fetlar. I wanted to run, but a good officer never gave the appearance of being hurried, according to Captain Sigurd, so I compromised on a brisk walk.

  As I came around the bank corner, I stopped dead. Alain was standing at the foot of the road, two hundred yards from me. He was talking to someone, a woman, smaller than him, hands gesticulating. Even as I looked he glanced forward and gestured to the ship, and I shrank back into the shadows.

  Her back was to me. She had straight, dark hair cut in a chin-length bob. I couldn’t see any more than that, no details of her face or skin, though there was something foreign about that dark, glossy hair … French, like Alain, or Spanish?

  She was wearing a bright yellow jacket.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I couldn’t spy on one of my fellow-crew, and I couldn’t ask either. I didn’t want even to imagine Alain’s amused look if I asked, like a jealous lover, ‘Who was that woman?’ I turned my shoulder on them both and headed for the ship at a measured officer walk. By the time I was at the gangplank, Alain was walking along to the toilets, and the yellow jacket was nowhere in sight.

  The ship was open to visitors now, with Lars, Alain’s watch leader, at the gangplank, issuing laminated visitor tickets and taking names. It was a new system which, in theory, should mean we would be able to name everyone on board if we needed to. The idea was that you doled out a ticket to each visitor, who then had to print his or her name beside the ticket’s number on the register sheet. I suspected that there would be a flaw in practice, but at least it meant nobody could hide on board to hitch a ride to wherever. There were a good few folk aboard already, strolling round the decks and looking up at the masts.

  I went below to check on Cat. He was settled comfortably on my berth, with the air of someone who’d eaten too well to need any more tinned stuff. There was a suspicious raw-fish smell about his paws. I had no doubt he’d remembered the fish shop opposite, and tried his luck. I left him to sleep it off, and headed towards the gangplank.

  That flash of yellow caught my eye again, as someone folded up a jacket. It was Alain’s woman, hair glinting in the sun. She was queueing up to come aboard. I gave her a swift glance as I came down the gangplank, but she turned her head away, as if she sensed me watching. I got only an impression of high cheekbones and a bronzed complexion.

  Well, why shouldn’t she want to come and see our ship? Perhaps she’d simply been asking him if we were open to visitors. I shoved the woman out of my mind, and strode swiftly along the seafront and up to our church. Mass would be in the little chapel, but I went to the church first, and felt its peace enfold me. It was beautiful, our church, with a green carpet sweeping between the wooden pews and a tall, carved altar like a miniature cathedral outlined against the gold paint behind it. I knelt in a patch of sunlight, chequered green and white from the panes of the tall windows, and prayed: for Maman and Dad, for Gavin and myself, for our lost child, for Laura and Oliver, and for Alain, whatever he was up to.

  I was about to rise when the door I’d come in by snicked on its latch. There were footsteps, then someone settled into the pew behind me. Alain’s voice came suddenly in my ear. ‘You don’t still believe in all this?’

  I wasn’t going to leap up, as if I was ashamed of praying. I turned my head to look over my shoulder at him, heart thumping. He was Alain, and he knew me, and he’d slipped up. ‘Why did you say still?’

  For a moment he was at a loss. His mouth fell half open, as if he didn’t understand what I was talking about, then his eyes cleared. ‘Oh. Well, it’s the twenty-first century.’ He gestured round at the candles, the altar table with its embroidered cloth, the flowers arranged beside the tabernacle. ‘All this superstition. Angels and saints and the like. In this day and age?’

  The French militant rationalist at his worst. He could say what he liked now; he was pretending to be Rafael, and he’d made a quick recovery, but no Spaniard, steeped in the traditions of a country that had never disowned its Catholic heritage, would have spoken like that. ‘Time makes no difference to whether something’s true or not,’ I said. ‘If you feel like that about it, then don’t you think it’s a bit of an insult to the feelings of the people who created it for you to be in here at all?’

  His eyes danced. ‘Can’t I admire it as a work of art?’

  ‘It isn’t a work of art,’ I retorted. ‘It’s a church. A building created for a purpose.’

  He laughed and came round to sit beside me. ‘That’s better. That spark in your eyes suits you. Let me take you to lunch.’

  I shook my head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’m waiting for Gavin. We’re going to Mass together.’

  His brows rose. ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche.’

  I felt my temper rising. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be left in peace.’

  He shrugged, and rose, then looked down for a parting shot. ‘Who were you praying for so earnestly anyway?’

  ‘You,’ I said. It silenced him for a moment, leaving his face naked and young. Then he turned on his heel and left. The snick of the door echoed for a long moment after he’d gone.

  There was something constrained about Gavin’s manner when he joined me. I wasn’t sure whether he’d seen Alain leaving the church, or whether meeting up with Freya Peterson had reminded him how much easier it would be to have a wife who didn’t hanker for the ocean. We stood side by side for the readings and went up for communion, but I didn’t feel that usual sense of togetherness, and we were silent as we walked back down to the ship.

  Gavin glanced at the busy decks. ‘Listen, I’ll go and check out the museum.’ He turned his head to look upwards at the town hall clock. ‘Leaving at two, right?’

  ‘Muster at one, though.’

  ‘A very quick look.’ He strode off in the direction of the museum, head up, kilt swinging, and I felt a pang at my heart as he became lost among the crowd on the Esplanade. Goodness’ sake, Cass … I checked my cap was straight, and joined Jonas at the gangplank. ‘How’s the new system working?’

  ‘A bit complicated.’ He grimaced at the clipboard in his left hand, the wad of laminated tickets in his right. ‘I’m having to explain it over every time.’

  ‘You look very efficient,’ Oliver said, appearing suddenly in front of me among the line of tourists. ‘Do I need to sign back in?’

  I shook my head. ‘Just make sure your peg in the peg board is in the right place.’ I looked past him. ‘Is Laura OK?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. She w
as just a bit stiff after her tumble yesterday.’ He gave me that dazzling smile again, and I felt a trickle of unease down my spine. He thought he was clever enough to get away with anything, and cute enough to talk his way out of punishment if he was caught. I felt him push me … ‘I can see why you need this system. I’ve been exploring the ship, and there are a hundred places stowaways could hide.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said, watching him. ‘Where would you hide a stowaway, then?’

  He waved a hand. ‘Oh, there are the tunnels below the banjer, and the sail locker, and the kitchen area, and the cubby-hole where the anchor chain goes. Loads of places.’ The hand rose in a Wait up gesture. ‘But don’t worry.’ That untrustworthy smile again. ‘I’m not planning to elope with a local girl, like your broch couples. Your captain looks like he’d crack down hard on any monkey business.’ He paused to scan the busy pier. ‘Laura’s fine. She went off shopping.’

  He sketched a cheerful wave at me and strolled onto the ship, then, five minutes later, came off again, being charmingly helpful to a family party with a double buggy, a toddler and a five-year-old. He helped carry the buggy down the gangplank, prised the tickets from the mother’s hand and passed them to Jonas, then waved at me again and strolled off. I watched his upright back crossing the pier and wondered if Laura had felt safer shopping on her own.

  The ship was filled with people: curious teenagers, older men in fishermen’s jackets, women in jeans and vest tops, a family with half a dozen loose children swarming around them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Petter moving forward to intercept them and take them aft for shots at the wheel. I turned my head to give a Good man nod. There was chattering and laughter on deck, with people posing in the bows for selfies, or getting Nils, who was on duty there, to take a group shot. If you hadn’t photographed yourself being there and shared it round your entire acquaintance, you hadn’t been. Cat had obviously decided a bit of admiration would be acceptable, for he was holding court from his bench on the aft deck, his spectacular plumed tail curled round his white paws.