Red Bones

by Ann Cleeves

  Sandy had described Ronald as intelligent. For the first time Perez caught a glimpse of that. The man turned away suddenly and put his head in his hands. Perez and Sandy saw themselves out.

  Chapter Eight

  Sandy felt shattered. He’d always prided himself on being able to manage without much sleep. At Up Helly Aa he’d keep going for two or three days without getting to his bed, fuelled by the drink, the dancing and the company. He supposed this tiredness was to do with the shock. He’d never much understood the response of bereaved relatives when he’d come across them at work. He’d known he should be sympathetic, but their slow blankness and dull exhausted eyes had irritated him. He’d wanted to shake them. Maybe in the future he’d be less impatient. It had been such a relief when Jimmy Perez had arrived. Sandy had watched the ferry cross from Laxo with a sort of desperation, willing it to put on a bit of speed, knowing it was pathetic to want his boss to take things over, but not being able to help himself.

  Now he was grateful that Perez had been so gentle with Ronald. Sandy had always got on well with Ronald, even though they were different. Sandy had never been one for schoolwork. He considered Ronald to be his best friend; when he finally took the plunge and decided to get married, he’d ask Ronald to be his best man. Jackie and Evelyn had never been friends. There’d always been the grit of envy and competition, and while Joseph and Andrew had been more civilized, Sandy had sensed a tension there too. Perhaps he and Ronald had become so close partly because their parents disapproved.

  Perez hadn’t said anything after they’d left the Clouston house, except that he’d wished he’d thought to bring his wellies because the grass was so wet. He could go half an hour at a time without saying a word, and that really spooked Sandy. He liked chat, even as background noise, always had the radio or the telly on if he was on his own in his flat.

  They were back standing by the car. ‘Where now?’ he asked, thinking if he didn’t move them on they could be here all day with Perez staring out towards the shore.

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Anywhere we could get a decent breakfast?’

  ‘There are no cafes on the island, but my mother does a good fry-up.’ As soon as he’d spoken, Sandy knew this was probably a mistake. Evelyn was an embarrassment. She’d be telling the inspector stories from his childhood, bringing out the photographs of him with the chickenpox, asking how soon Sandy could think about putting in for promotion, telling him about Michael’s new job in Edinburgh. She could talk for Shetland, mostly about her sons. But it was too late to take back the offer; Perez had already got into the car and started the engine. The inspector leaned forward and wiped the condensation from the windscreen with a dirty handkerchief.

  ‘Sounds just the thing. Which way are we going?’

  They drove down the road past Setter and along the loch where the divers would breed later in the year, then came to the field with the pig arcs and the four russet-coloured pigs. Of all the beasts on the croft Sandy liked the pigs best. His mother must have heard the car coming down the track because she had the door open and was standing there waiting for them. Utra was the biggest croft in Lindby, because it included most of the Setter land now. Sandy’s father had extended the house over the years, bullied by Evelyn, who’d wanted separate rooms for her sons, a decent-sized bathroom. Money had been tight in those days. Joseph Wilson hadn’t worked on the boats, had never made as much money as the fishermen. Evelyn had never said but Sandy thought it must have been hard for her, watching the other women with their smart clothes bought on the trips to Bergen or Aberdeen.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, as soon as they got out of the car. ‘You’ll need to get warm and you’ll be ready for something to eat. The kettle’s just boiled. What a terrible thing! I couldn’t believe it when Sandy told me. Poor Jackie. I don’t know how she’ll stand the shame of it.’

  Sandy hoped Perez hadn’t picked up the unpleasant note of satisfaction in her voice. Sandy knew what Evelyn was thinking. Her son’s fancy education and all that money he’s making will be no use to him now. Standing back to avoid her embrace, he saw that the drizzle had stopped and the sky was lightening a little. Perhaps the weather would clear soon. Then he thought that of course Perez would know just what his mother was thinking. He could pry inside people’s heads like a mind reader or a magician.

  Inside the house, he saw his mother through Perez’s eyes: little, round, short hair that she trimmed herself if she couldn’t get into Lerwick, dressed today in her best hand-knitted sweater because she was expecting guests. Enough energy to power Shetland Hydro. She’d already warmed the pot and made the tea and she was still talking. But she’s not a stupid woman, Sandy thought, and Perez will see that too. She got all that money out of the Arts Trust for the community theatre project last year and everyone says she’s the best chair the island forum has ever had.

  There was a newborn lamb in a cardboard box next to the Rayburn. ‘An orphan,’ Evelyn said. ‘We’re hand-rearing her. No one else would bother, but Joseph’s a soft old thing.’

  Now that the tea was brewing she turned back into the room. ‘What can I get you to eat? We’ve got some of our own bacon and Mima gave me a dozen eggs yesterday, so I have plenty to spare. Will that do you?’

  Sandy found himself remembering the day his father had killed the pig. Because it was for the family’s own use there’d been no need to send it out to the abattoir, but it was a horrible job. The pig always made a dreadful noise before the throat was cut. He’d seemed to sense what was about to happen to him. Sandy had been on the island that day, but he’d not been a lot of use. He’d stood watching along with Anna. His father had been the strong one, finishing off the job with Ronald’s help, and Evelyn had caught the blood in a bowl.

  ‘It sounds brilliant, Mrs Wilson,’ Perez said. He’d made himself at home already. His shoes were left in the porch and he’d taken the chair by the table where Sandy’s father usually sat. She beamed, took down a heavy frying pan from the wall, opened the Rayburn hotplate.

  ‘Mrs Wilson, indeed! No one’s called me that in this house since that politician from the SNP came canvassing at the last election.’

  It was warm in the kitchen and Sandy felt himself nodding off, heard the conversation between Perez and his mother as though from a long distance.

  ‘What time did you last see Mima?’ Perez asked.

  ‘About two o’clock. I called round to have a chat about the dig. The two lasses from the university were there. What nice wee girls they are, though I think that Hattie could do with a bit of feeding up. She’s a skinny little thing. All eyes and bone.’ She paused to take breath.

  Sandy knew his mother had hoped he’d take up with one of the ‘nice wee girls’. She thought he should settle down and give her grandchildren. Michael, after all, had obliged by marrying an Edinburgh lawyer and producing a daughter who was already attending private nursery. But that wasn’t like having a grandchild close at hand to meddle with. Jackie scored now on that too. Sandy had liked the students well enough. Not Hattie so much, who was intense and far too clever for him, but Sophie, who was more laid-back. She liked a few beers and a bit of a laugh, she was kind of flirty. Posh, but friendly all the same. The boys teased him because he always had a different woman on the go, but he was starting to think it was time for him to settle down. It was tiring chasing after the lasses and there were more single men in Shetland than there were women. But would he really want to be like Ronald, married to a woman who nagged and bossed? It would be like living at home again.

  ‘The dig is so exciting!’ Evelyn was distracted from Mima’s death by her passion of the moment. ‘Hattie thinks there’s a merchant’s house there. It was built at the time when the Hanseatic League was starting to collapse and folk were told they couldn’t trade through Bergen any more. I found a skull, you know. Part of a skull. Hattie thinks it might belong to the merchant who built the house. It’s been sent away for carbon dating. They’ve been ex
ploring the same trench and Sophie found more bone. Part of a rib and maybe the pelvis. Imagine what a tourist attraction it would be, if we excavate the site properly. I’d like to build a house, just as it would have been. We could run workshops, family days. We have to look to the future if we’re going to provide work for our young people.’

  Sandy stifled a yawn, thought again that Evelyn had a lot in common with Anna. He couldn’t get worked up about the island’s future. He’d left Whalsay for Lerwick as soon as he could escape from his mother and felt more at home in town now. ‘That bacon’s not burning, is it, Mother?’

  Evelyn shook the pan, scowled at Sandy for questioning her ability to fry a couple of rashers.

  ‘When you visited Setter, was Mima in the house, or outside with the women?’ Perez asked.

  ‘We were all inside. The weather had just turned nasty and Mima had invited the girls in for a hot drink. When I arrived the three of them were in the kitchen, giggling over some silly joke. You’d have thought Mima was the same age as they were. This project seemed to have given her a new lease of life. That’s why this stupid accident is such a tragedy.’

  For the first time Sandy thought his mother was genuinely upset. She’d always treated Mima as a bit of a nuisance, a wayward teenager likely to cause the family embarrassment, but now he saw she’d miss her. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t a little bit pleased Ronald had got himself into bother over it.

  His mother was still talking, her words running as a background soundtrack to his thoughts. ‘I had some tea with them then the girls went back out. They’d been drenched through and Mima had put their coats and socks near the Rayburn to dry. It was steaming like a laundry in there, condensation running down the windows so you couldn’t see out. Mima already had the eggs ready for me and I couldn’t waste any more time chatting. I was driving and got wet just running from the house to the car. The students went back to their work though. I could see their bright yellow waterproofs from the car.’ Evelyn lifted the bacon from the pan and put it on a plate in the bottom oven to keep warm.

  ‘So you had a little time with Mima on her own?’

  ‘Just a few minutes.’ She cracked four eggs into the pan, flipped the bacon fat over them, turned back to the table to slice bread.

  ‘How did she seem?’

  ‘Like I said, on fine form. Mischievous. But then she was always that way.’

  ‘Did she tell you she had any plans for the evening?’

  ‘No, she never went out much at night. She liked her telly too much.’

  ‘Did you notice if her washing was out when you left?’ Perez asked.

  ‘I noticed it was there when I arrived, asked her if she’d like me to fetch it in for her. She said it had been there two days already and one more wouldn’t hurt. That was Mima for you.’

  She set the table and put the food in front of them. Sandy roused himself from his stupor long enough to eat, was vaguely aware of Perez complimenting his mother on the food, a discussion about the problems of rearing pigs, the best treatment for pigs’ sunburned nipples.

  Sandy watched with admiration as Perez brought the conversation back to Mima’s death. He thought he’d never be such a skilful interrogator even if he worked for the rest of his career as a detective.

  ‘Later you went to see the Cloustons?’ Perez asked Evelyn, as if it were the most natural conversation in the world.

  ‘After tea, yes. Sandy was back for the weekend but he was away to the bar to catch up with his pals.’ She looked disapprovingly at her son; Sandy pretended not to notice. He’d heard it all before. ‘He tends to treat this place like a hotel. Joseph had sport on the television. There was nothing to keep me in and I don’t like to bother Anna during the day. With a new baby you catch up on your sleep when you can and I know she’s always busy. Young mothers these days don’t seem to think they need to rest.’

  ‘How did you find them?’

  ‘Well enough. Tired, of course, but that’s the way when there’s a new baby in the house. Anna’s always very pleasant, though she seemed kind of tense. I wondered if I’d walked in on a row.’

  ‘And Ronald?’

  ‘Ronald’s always been a moody sort of man. He was the same as a boy.’

  Now Sandy felt compelled to speak. ‘You can’t say that, Mother. It’s just not true. Maybe he wanted some time to himself.’

  ‘He was lucky to find that woman and he treats her badly.’ Evelyn piled the plates into the sink and switched on the tap, swished the washing-up water with her hand. ‘I’ll leave these to soak for now, do them later when you’ve gone.’

  ‘Badly in what way?’ Perez asked.

  ‘She’s new here. They’ve only been married a couple of years. He should make more of an effort to help her settle. The trouble with Ronald Clouston is that he’s lazy. He’ll not put himself out. The Cassandra suits him just fine. He’s only working for a few months of the year. The rest of the time he sits on his backside reading. He likes the money right enough. The Cloustons all like money. But they’re not prepared to contribute anything back to the community.’ She took a towel from the rail on the Rayburn, dried her hands, folded it back neatly.

  ‘Fishing’s not pleasant work,’ Perez said. ‘I get seasick going home to Fair Isle on the Good Shepherd. I’d not fancy weeks in the Atlantic in winter.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Evelyn was dismissive. ‘These days on the fancy ships, it’s all pushing buttons. Not much different from being in an office.’

  Sandy wondered how his mother could know anything about fishing. If Perez weren’t there he’d have made some sort of sarcastic comment: You’ll know all about that, will you? When was the last time you were out in a force-eight north-westerly? Could you cope with the sleet and cold, the deck running with ice and the stink of fish?

  ‘Did Ronald talk about his plans to take the gun out while you were there?’

  ‘He didn’t talk about anything much. Anna had some ideas about funding for the dig. She had experience in putting together funding applications in her previous work. Ronald’s always claimed to be interested in the history of Whalsay but he won’t put himself out to preserve it.’

  ‘What did Anna do before she moved here?’

  ‘She was a kind of social worker, specializing in young offenders. But she’s always been interested in traditional crafts; that’s what brought her here.’

  Sandy caught the inspector giving a little grin and wondered what was going through his mind. Maybe he was thinking Anna treated Ronald like one of her naughty boys.

  ‘Did Ronald have anything to drink while you were there?’ Perez asked.

  ‘One can, but I was only there for half an hour.’

  ‘Does Ronald drink too much?’

  ‘All the boys here drink too much,’ Evelyn said sharply. Sandy knew she was preparing to sound off on the subject, and was relieved when they were interrupted by a bang on the kitchen door. Before anyone could answer it, the door was pushed open. One of the archaeology students was standing there. She was small and slight and to Sandy she looked about twelve. She had short choppy hair and enormous black eyes and seemed swamped in the cagoule that reached below her knees and met the yellow wellingtons.

  ‘Evelyn,’ Hattie said. ‘Is it true? I’ve just heard that Mima’s dead.’

  Chapter Nine

  That morning Hattie had woken early. She was lying curled, foetus-style, inside her down sleeping bag, but she still felt cold. They’d lit a fire in the Bod the evening before to warm up when they got back from the dig, but then they’d gone to the Pier House Hotel and by the time Hattie got back the fire was out. She had gone to the Pier House to be sociable, but soon felt uncomfortable and she’d left Sophie drinking with a couple of the local lads. Sophie could drink as much as the men, stumble back to the Bod in the early hours, fall into a deep sleep and be wide awake and hangover-free ready to start work on the dig the next day. Hattie had never got the knack of either holding her drink or sleeping. Ideas and
plans seemed to swirl around in her head. She’d been awake when Sophie came in the night before. She’d lain still on the hard wooden bunk but she saw the swinging beam of torchlight, heard the whispered oaths as Sophie tripped, climbing out of her clothes, then almost immediately afterwards her regular deep breathing. Sophie sounded like a child when she was sleeping, or an animal.

  She could hear the same sound now. Sophie’s sleeping bag wasn’t as good as hers but the cold never woke her. Hattie flicked on her torch. Six o’clock. Still dark outside and still misty. She could hear the regular moan of a foghorn far in the distance. Since they’d returned to the dig at Lindby, it seemed to her that Whalsay had become her entire universe. It was as if the fog cut the island off from the rest of the world. Her mother was a politician, a junior minister, and growing up Hattie had been surrounded by discussion of current affairs. The latest policy on healthcare, education, overseas aid, had governed their daily lives. Here she rarely read a newspaper, only saw television if it was on at Mima’s house or in Utra where Evelyn lived. World affairs had no relevance to her here. Digging away the layers of soil from the buried house at Lindby, she found herself engrossed in political concerns – the decline of the Hansa, the emergence of wealthy men in Shetland – but ones that had nothing to do with the present.

  Sophie thought Hattie was driven on by ambition, and it was true that at one time the only future she saw for herself was as an academic. That meant a good PhD and a reputation as a solid and intelligent archaeologist. Now another, more personal obsession had taken over. She wanted to stay in Shetland.

  The site had been a merchant’s house, much grander than she’d first thought. Whalsay had been an important port in the Hanseatic League – the medieval trading community of towns along the Baltic and the North Sea coasts – and she’d assumed that the owner had been a trader. But there were no records, no name for the owner. The university had been working in Shetland for years and Hattie had come first as an undergraduate, working on the dig at Scatness. She’d come across the site at Setter by chance and had found herself tantalized by the mystery. How could such a substantial house have disappeared so completely from Shetland’s history? It didn’t show up in any of the early maps or the records. She hoped the dig might provide an answer. Paul, her supervisor, had first thought that there might have been a fire to wipe away traces of the dwelling, but they’d found no evidence of that.