Death on a Shetland Isle

by Marsali Taylor

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘There’ll always be someone on the ship to run him over.’ I felt a ridiculous sense of relief. He would be on the ship while she was ashore, and Petter had clambered into the shuttle bus with Daniel, headed for Brough Lodge. Laura climbed down and sat beside a tanned girl in a knitted cap. I turned the key in the ignition, nodded to Jonas to let us go, and buzzed over to the pier, where the shuttle bus was already waiting again.

  ‘Eastwards first,’ I heard the driver say, ‘to Funzie, with the phalaropes and the geowall.’

  ‘Eastwards sounds good,’ Laura said. ‘Which way are you going?’

  ‘Oh, I want to see the birds,’ the girl replied.

  I pointed our prow shipwards again. Jenn had taken over at the boarding ladder. She nodded up at the group on the foredeck: Oliver, a couple from Nils’s watch, one from Alain’s. ‘Five still on board, including your Gavin.’

  ‘Fifty-seven ashore,’ I said.

  She lifted her head and frowned. ‘Fifty-six?’

  ‘Fifty-seven. Five tens and a seven.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, that can’t be. Five on board, and sixty-one trainees.’

  I looked at the pegs still in the holes. It was a simple system: trainees just had to remove the peg of their hammock number from its hole as they left the ship, and put it back in as they returned. For added clarity, there was a banner headline: ON BOARD = PIN IN, ASHORE = PIN OUT.

  ‘Four pegs still in,’ I said. ‘Red 63 and 64, blue 7 and white 36. That’s where it’s gone wrong – white 36 is Gavin, and Oliver’s stayed on board too.’

  Jenn dug in her pocket for her list. ‘He’s white 34.’ She lifted a peg from the box and stuck it in the hole. ‘I wish they would take this seriously. He’s never bothered to put himself back on board in Lerwick.’

  ‘I suppose I miscounted,’ I agreed reluctantly.

  ‘Well, that’s it sorted now.’ Jenn put her list away, and headed off below, leaving me uneasy. The pegs had been right in Lerwick. I remembered Jonas checking them, and saying everyone was on board, just after Magnie had arrived. I went slowly aft and sat down on the bench, trying to think. I’d counted each load: five tens, and a final seven. Maybe I’d counted Jonas in the last load – but getting it right was second nature.

  Gavin came to sit beside me. ‘We’re off guard duty over Oliver, then.’

  ‘He’s not feeling well, Laura said.’

  ‘What are you puzzling about?’

  ‘The numbers didn’t tally, for people going ashore.’ I tried to visualise the last load. Laura and the girl with the knitted hat. Two. A couple of men from Alain’s watch, binoculars at the ready for bird-spotting. Four. On the starboard bow, Jonas, then the pair of teenagers from Nils’s watch. Six. The teacher, Unni Pedersen, at my elbow. Seven. I shook my head. ‘No, I definitely had seven in the last load. There must have been only nine in one of the earlier trips.’ I sighed. ‘Still, I’d better report it.’

  Alain was standing at the aft rail, looking out over the green headland and sparkling water. His voice echoed still in my ears. Nothing. Nobody. Whoever I was before, it was gone. I headed up to him. ‘There’s a mismatch in the numbers ashore and on board.’

  He lifted his head. ‘So?’

  ‘I counted fifty-seven off, and there are five aboard. Sixty-two instead of sixty-one.’

  He frowned over it for a moment, then his face cleared. ‘Your friend Magnie. Did he go ashore with the trainees, to direct them towards the things they wanted to see?’

  I felt a ridiculous relief flood me. ‘Of course. That solves it. Thanks.’

  I was turning to go when he put his hand on my arm. His eyes were dancing. ‘Cass, how’s your baking?’

  I heard his lips on the point of adding these days, and my suspicions flared up once more. I gave him a black glare. ‘Better than it used to be.’ It was only half a lie; it was hard to bake without an oven, but I’d become a dab hand at girdle bannocks and pancakes, and I’d even tried pizza base.

  ‘Good,’ he said. A wicked smile curved his mouth. ‘Your man looks like he’s used to his mother’s home cooking.’ He was watching for my reaction, and when I gave none, he prodded more. ‘You’d need to learn to make jelly, too.’

  I raised my brows at him. My voice was cool. ‘For children’s parties? A bit premature.’

  For a moment he seemed disconcerted, then his face cleared. ‘You Brits call it jam.’

  Had it been a slip on purpose to remind me of his American persona? I watched him watching me, and wasn’t sure. ‘I already know how,’ I retorted. I hadn’t actually tried it on board, but I’d watched Inga do it, and the theory was simple: equal amounts of fruit and jam sugar, boil until a teaspoonful set on a saucer, put into jars, cool, eat. His grin warned me not to rise any further. I took a deep breath and pronounced my words with clear calm. ‘That’s fine, then. I won’t write that anomaly in the log.’

  I swung round on my heel and returned to Gavin. Although he smiled at me, his eyes were still withdrawn, wary. ‘All well?’

  I wanted to slide my hand into his, but that sense of distance between us stopped me. ‘I forgot Magnie. He went ashore in the first load.’

  ‘That’s that, then.’ He rose. ‘Well, are we going to go and explore?’

  PART FOUR

  Beginning the Attack

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I’d decided to leave Cat aboard so that we could have a good walk. He could come ashore for the afternoon, while we were at the hnefatafl contest. I left him grooming his tail on his favourite bench, and got Jonas to put us to the pier before he went back to do the formal bringing-the-captain-ashore, with the senior officer being last on and first off, which always wasted a ridiculous amount of time. We headed east first, past the Interpretative Centre, where there were a cluster of trainees photographing each other against the rainbow wall mural or trying out the red phone box; past the fretworked elegance of Leagarth House and the modern village hall. The road was smooth under our feet, and the verges bright with orange hens and chickens flowers. It was fertile earth, with thick grass growing in parks each side of the road. Seawards, there were large sheep of breeds I didn’t recognise; the rich pasture obviously made it worth experimenting. One was more like a goat – black, with a white stripe down its nose – and another had a square, blunt face and chunky legs like a pig.

  ‘That could be a Badger Face,’ Gavin said, pausing to look at the black one. ‘It’s a Welsh breed, very hardy, with fast-growing lambs. The broad-faced one’s a Beltex. They’re meaty, you get good gigot joints from them.’

  He was making conversation as if we were strangers, instead of the lovers we’d been last night.

  ‘Mint sauce,’ I said.

  He laughed and nodded downwards. In the field below us, there was a stone-covered mound, overgrown with longer grass. ‘That’ll be the Giant’s Grave. Shall we go and look?’

  ‘Yes, let’s.’

  We strolled down towards it and checked out the interpretation board.

  ‘A woman,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know they got boat burials.’

  ‘A woman of some status too. Unless there was a man and wife buried there.’

  ‘No, don’t spoil it. I like the idea of Viking women getting some status.’ The big Up Helly Aa in Lerwick still didn’t let women be in the squads, although they joined in all the country ones, and the south mainland of Shetland had even had its first woman Jarl.

  ‘It was a faeren,’ Gavin said, still reading. ‘The boat.’

  It was a lovely spot to be buried in, this headland looking out towards Norway. The waves shooshed gentle on the broad pebble beach below. I gazed out over the bay, and wondered about the woman who’d been buried here. Perhaps she’d been one of the original pioneers, sailing across this burnished water to a new life; or maybe she’d been the ruler of this community, or of noble blood in Norway. I was sorry they’d disturbed her grave.

  ‘You wonder when grave-robbing becom
es archaeology,’ Gavin said, echoing my thoughts. ‘Did you read about the woman they found in Siberia?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘She’d been laid in a cave, with horses around her. Never disturbed, until the archaeologists came.’ He looked down at the boat-shaped hump in the green grass. ‘When my time comes, I hope they’ll leave me to rot. Dust to dust.’ He smiled. ‘And from which earth, and grave, and dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust.’

  His voice made a poem of it. I looked a question.

  ‘Sir Walter Raleigh, a man after your own heart.’

  I thought about the words, and the man standing beside me who could recite them with such simple certainty, and loved him. ‘I like that.’ My God shall raise me up, I trust.

  I slipped my hand into his, and this time he didn’t move away. The wind was soft on our faces as we strolled on. Around the corner, the land each side of the road became moorland, with a line of square plantie-crubs marching along it. The first glimmer of the Loch of Funzie lay before us, a saucer-shaped reflection of the sky cradled in the green hills, with the land dipping beyond it, so that it looked as if it was suspended in the air. There was a gaggle of trainees there, and a couple of bright T-shirts straggled up the wide green hill, the silence swallowing them.

  A couple of bright T-shirts … I jerked my head up towards the hill, but the people I’d seen had gone over its crest. They’d had their jackets tied around their waists. One set of dangling sleeves had been powder-blue, the colour of Laura’s jacket. I glanced up at the hill, wondering if we should be following.

  Gavin followed my gaze. ‘You’re concerned about those two?’

  I nodded. ‘Laura had a jacket that colour.’

  ‘Keep it casual.’ He fished a neat little monocular out of his sporran. ‘See if you can see the phalaropes.’

  There was a handy picnic table overlooking the loch. I scanned the trainees at it. No Laura. Past it was a chittering of terns on a rocky beach, a red-throated diver with a chick sculling along behind her, but no starling-sized bird with red cheeks bobbing about. ‘Shall we try the hide?’ I suggested.

  It got us moving towards the hill where they’d disappeared. I kicked off my shoes to walk across the soft turf. The peat was springy under my feet, the grass bright with candy-pink ragged robin and drifts of feathery bog-cotton.

  The hide was in a little plantation. We’d almost reached the wooden hut when there was a sharp crack in the distance. Gavin jerked his head up and whisked around in a swirl of kilt-pleats. ‘That was a shot.’

  We waited, breath stilled, but the sound didn’t come again. Gavin was looking diagonally upwards to a valley in the land between this hill and the wall that guarded the cliffs. For a moment, I thought something flashed yellow. ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘An oilskin jacket.’ He was already swinging his leg over the fence. ‘That was a pistol shot. Let’s get there.’

  It wasn’t far to the top of the hill, but Gavin took it at a fast pace, and it turned out to be one of those deceptive ones where you think the rise above you is the summit only to find another one further on. The ground under my feet changed from soft turf to the harsh bristle of sparse heather stems and cool, damp spagnum moss that oozed water between my toes. We came out at last at a square cement structure, a war lookout post. My chest was heaving, but Gavin was barely out of breath. He hauled out his spyglass and took a long look round.

  The whole sweep of hill was in our view now, though not the sloping tops of the cliffs behind their long stone wall. There was nobody in sight; no sound except the cry of the kittiwakes swooping around the headland.

  ‘What’s that flashing?’ Gavin said, and pointed. Past the valley, almost at the wall between us and the cliffs, the sun caught something that winked in the grass. Slowly, we crossed towards it, losing it as it blinked out, finding it again. ‘Stay here,’ Gavin said, as we got to within twenty metres of it. He went slowly forward, eyes on the ground, and stopped at the spark of light. He fished out a plastic bag out of his sporran, put it over his hand, and bent forward to pick something up. Then he stood up, frowning. I could see him calculating. He went off to the left, and began walking forwards, slowly, eyes on the ground. I took a step forwards, and he held up his hand to still me. Two more steps, then he straightened and turned. He fished out another bag and his pen-knife, and bent down. I saw him cutting a root of heather and placing it in the bag. A dark drop fell from it as he lifted it. He went forwards to the wall, gave a long look in each direction. I heard him call, twice, and wait, listening. Then he shook his head, and returned to me, taking care to come exactly as he’d gone.

  The bag with the heather root was smeared inside with blood and greyish-white tissue. The other bag held a gun cartridge.

  I stood there, gawking, as Gavin placed the bags in his sporran. He gave me a wry smile. ‘I’ll feel stupid if it’s rabbit remains.’ He glanced down at the heather. ‘A pity it’s such springy stuff. There are no signs of footprints, but I didn’t want to walk any more than I could help. If it turns out to be a forensics job, as I hope it won’t, the less interference the better.’

  He bent down to spear a white paper hankie to the place with a heather stem. ‘There.’

  We walked slowly back to the road fork and paused there. ‘Well,’ I asked, ‘what do we do now?’

  ‘Continue sightseeing.’ He made a sympathetic face. ‘Yes, I know, but I can’t start a full-scale fuss over a shot in the countryside. We need to wait till your trainees are counted. Till someone goes missing.’

  There was a bleak coldness in the pit of my stomach. ‘We won’t know till teatime. Some of them were going to stay out all day.’

  ‘Then we have to wait till then.’ He gestured his hand round the empty hill, and along the line of dyke. ‘There’s nobody here, nor behind the wall.’ His glance returned to the white hankie fluttering against the green heather. ‘I’m afraid that it won’t make any difference. If someone is injured, it’s not a flesh wound.’

  We walked slowly back down the hill. My mind was refusing to grapple properly with it all. Oliver safe on board, Daniel watched; how could Laura have come to harm? Then I remembered that flash of yellow oilskin; the woman who’d followed us in Lerwick. I thought of Laura, with her blonde hair glowing against the tracery of the rigging, and felt sick inside. She might have been Gloriana in the family firm, but Oliver wasn’t going to allow any crown but his.

  The shuttle bus had just arrived at the loch, disgorging a dozen people including Daniel, with Petter still in attendance, and Frederik Berg at his side. Whatever skulduggery was going on, Daniel hadn’t fired the shot we’d heard. Then I remembered Magnie and decided to double-check. ‘Petter, you know you took Magnie in the first load, to the pier – did you squeeze him in as an extra, or did you take only nine trainees?’

  ‘Magnie went over with ten trainees. I stayed behind to keep the load number right,’ Petter said.

  That was what had been knocking at my memory. I had seen him leaning over to catch the ropes when the inflatable returned, then clamber aboard to steady it for the next load of trainees. My counting hadn’t been wrong: fifty-seven. We’d had an extra trainee on board who’d gone ashore here. I had a sudden memory of Oliver being charmingly helpful with the family’s tickets as they left the ship. That had been after the woman in the yellow jacket had come on board. Was that when he’d palmed her ticket back to Jonas? It couldn’t be just coincidence that it was Oliver’s peg which had been taken out; one of the few people who’d stayed aboard, so that there’d be no fuss about a missing peg when its owner tried to sign out. Oliver and the woman acting together. No wonder he was flourishing his alibi so triumphantly, dozing innocently on deck under the gaze of the on-duty crew … and we’d failed to keep Laura safe.

  Gavin gave me a quick look. I saw that he’d caught the implications of that too.

  Daniel glanced at the shimmering loch, then set off back towards Houbie. Petter gave me a worried lo
ok. ‘The bus will go to the end of the road and then come back. If we keep walking behind him, and he gets on it, we will lose him. But if we get on, and he doesn’t, it is the same.’

  ‘You get on it,’ I said. My legs gave a spasm of protest. ‘If he joins you, well and good, and if he doesn’t, well, you enjoy the rest of your day, and we’ll keep with him.’ But if that shot had meant what I feared it did, we were shutting the stable door after the horse had gone.

  ‘I was right,’ I said, once the minibus had trundled off. ‘We did have one too many.’

  Gavin nodded. ‘We’ll see who turns up at lunchtime.’

  We walked back towards Houbie at a gentle pace, Daniel in front of us. We’d gone about a mile along the road, when Daniel stopped, looked around him, gave us a second glance, then fiddled in his bag for a camera and flourished it ostentatiously. He took a few shots from the road, then turned into a side track towards a crofthouse, and meandered down it with an elaborate air of ‘just wanting to photograph this’. Gavin and I exchanged glances, and strolled on. As we got nearer, we saw the sign: CAMPING BÖD.

  ‘Böd – is that a bothy?’ Gavin said, not altering his stride. ‘Basic accommodation?’

  I nodded. It was a cheap way of seeing Shetland: a bed, a shower, and cooking facilities, usually in a gloriously scenic place. This one was gable-end on to the road, a substantial two up, two down with small-paned windows and a slate roof. There was yellow lichen growing up the chimney stack and a blackwood porch jutting out in front. I glanced at the cottage with what I hoped was an air of casual curiosity, and was just in time to see the porch door closing. Another glance showed me a dark silhouette moving in one window, then a twitch of the curtains as the person dodged behind them. I didn’t see what Daniel would be doing in a camping böd, and if his motive was simple curiosity, he had no need to be so furtive about it.

  ‘Let’s inspect the Giant’s Grave again,’ Gavin said, ‘and see what he does.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s still an hour to lunchtime.’