by Ann Cleeves
‘I know,’ she said. ‘One storm and they’ll be covered again with salt. But it’s good to get the view, at least for a while. Everyone said Andrew was daft to rebuild his house here, where it’s so exposed, but we wouldn’t like to be lower down. We like the sea all around us and a bit of a view.’
‘I don’t want to disturb you.’
‘You’re not. I was just looking for something to do. A distraction, you know. Another death on the island . . . It’s hard to take in. I didn’t really know the lassie working in Setter but it’s a shock all the same. Come away inside.’
He expected to see Andrew in his usual chair in the kitchen but it was empty. Jackie saw that he was wondering about her husband. ‘Ronald’s taken him out for a peerie drive. Up to the golf club so he can have a bit of company with his friends, then they might call in at the sailing club or have a drink at the Pier House. He’s not been well the last few days. It gets Andrew down, not being able to get out with the boys on the boat. He was the one who made all the decisions. Now he feels kind of powerless. It’s not a physical thing so much; he just gets frustrated. Anna wanted Ronald to make a start on her garden today, but I said to him, “That can wait. Your father’s more important than planting a few beans and tatties.”’
Perez wondered what Anna had made of that. But he just nodded. ‘Can we go through into the other room? Enjoy the view now the windows are so clean?’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Why not? I usually sit in the kitchen, but you go through and I’ll bring the coffee in to you.’
It was a big square room the width of half the house. There was a marble fireplace and the furniture was large and shiny: two sofas covered in grey satin, a highly polished sideboard and a couple of gleaming occasional tables, a gilt-framed mirror on the mantelpiece. The photographs were posed and covered in glass. There was one of Jackie and Andrew’s wedding, Andrew looking very grand in a morning suit, a giant standing next to his little wife. There was a shot of the house when it was first built, Ronald’s official school photos. The room seemed cold and impersonal. Perez wondered how often it was used. He sat on a chair looking out through the long window. He could see the whole of the southern point of the island, from the new bungalow where Anna and Ronald lived, along the boulder beach to Setter where Hattie’s body had been found.
Jackie bustled in with a tray: the best china, milk in a jug and real coffee in a pot, a plate with homemade biscuits. What else did she do besides baking and housework? He thought she must get bored here in the giant show-house. Did looking after her husband take up all her time?
She seemed to guess what he was thinking. ‘When we built the new house, I thought I might take in paying guests. Not so much for the money but because I’d enjoy the company, meeting folks from all over the world. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so big.’
‘Sounds like a good plan. Especially with Anna running the workshops. It would save her having to put people up in the Pier House or in the bungalow.’
‘Aye well, Andrew doesn’t like the idea. Not now. Since the stroke anything out of his usual routine upsets him. He couldn’t face meeting strangers.’ She shook her head, dismissing the dreams she’d had once.
Perez poured coffee, waiting a moment to enjoy the smell. ‘Did you see Hattie James yesterday?’
‘No. I didn’t really know her. We weren’t on visiting terms. Evelyn took it on herself to look after the lasses, but that’s the sort of woman she is. She has to poke her nose in everywhere, especially when money’s involved. She’s not the saint everyone makes her out to be.’
‘How would money be involved?’ He was genuinely curious.
‘They’d surely get a fee for the dig at Setter.’ He sensed there was something more she wanted to say, but she snapped her mouth shut.
Perez left the subject alone. He thought he should defend Sandy’s mother, but really how much did he know about the woman, except that she was hospitable? He found the bickering between the cousins depressing. Suddenly he was back in Fair Isle, at a Sunday-school lesson in the hall, him a child of seven or eight, listening to a gentle, elderly woman talking about a love of money being the root of all evil. ‘The love of money, you see. Not the money itself. It’s when money takes over our lives that things start to go so badly wrong.’ Is that what’s happening here? he thought. It’s not the wealth itself that’s soured relationships between these two families. It’s the bitterness and envy that surrounds it.
‘So the lasses from the dig never came in here?’
‘No. Once we used to have grand parties and invite most of the island. We ’d push back the furniture; someone would start playing music. Grand times. Then the house would be full of young people. Ronald would bring in his friends from the High School and all the boys from the boats would come along with their wives and kiddies. Andrew was a great one with the accordion. There’d be songs and dancing. But Andrew can’t deal with big numbers of visitors these days. He finds it a strain just with the family.’
‘Of course.’ Perez helped himself to more coffee. ‘You must miss the old times.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You’d never guess how much.’
She looked down towards her son’s bungalow. Perez thought her head was full of fiddle music, memories of parties and laughter. Had she expected Anna to take on her role as hostess and party giver? Was she disappointed in the daughter-in-law who seemed more interested in building a business than having a good time?
‘Hattie and her boss went for a walk along the shore here yesterday afternoon,’ he said. ‘You have a great view from the house. Maybe you saw them?’
‘Andrew wasn’t so good yesterday. Sometimes he gets an idea in his head and he can’t let it go. He worries away at it and it drives him crazy. I had to call Ronald in to calm him down.’
‘What was it that troubled him?’
‘It was the accident with Mima. Something about the shooting took him back to when he was young. He’s a good few years older than me and he can remember Mima’s husband. Andrew’s father worked with Jerry Wilson building little inshore boats to go out to Norway on the Shetland Bus. The boats they made were used by the Norwegian resistance and agents in the field. It was a long time ago. Mima’s man died years ago, not so long after the war ended, when I was a very young bairn, so what could he have to do with the accident? But sometimes that’s the way Andrew’s mind works. Things that happened when he was a peerie boy seem more real than what went on yesterday.’
‘So you didn’t get the chance to look at the view of the shore? You won’t have noticed Hattie and Paul Berglund out here?’
She flashed him a smile. ‘Yesterday I didn’t get the chance to go to the toilet without Andrew standing at the bottom of the stairs and asking where I was. Ronald managed to calm him down a bit when he got here. He’s good with his father, more patient than I am.’
‘Perhaps you saw her later, when she was on her own.’
‘No,’ Jackie said. ‘I didn’t see her at all.’
‘But you saw the Fiscal come in this morning? I noticed you with the others.’
‘I saw the crowd gathering when I was upstairs making the bed. I went down to Setter to see what was going on. Pure nosiness. That was the first I heard the girl was dead. I couldn’t stay long. Andrew was in the house on his own.’ She looked up at him. ‘How did the lassie die?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said gently. ‘It’s not something I can discuss.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you can.’ She paused. ‘They’re saying it was suicide.’
‘Really, at this point we don’t know.’
‘What must her parents be going through?’ Jackie said. ‘We ’d do anything to protect our children but we can’t save them from themselves.’ She smiled at him. ‘Do you have children, inspector?’
He shook his head automatically. But surely I do. Cassie feels like my daughter. How would I feel if she was so desperate that she jumped into a hole in the ground and sl
it her wrists?
Chapter Twenty-seven
Sandy was surprised when Perez was at Sumburgh Airport to meet him. He’d left his car there and he could have driven north fine by himself. After a few beers and a meal in the hotel in London he’d slept like a baby until his alarm clock had woken him and in the morning the city hadn’t seemed quite so daunting or closed in.
It helped that he had something physical to bring back to Perez in the form of Hattie’s letters and the SIM card from her mother’s phone. He’d made some notes about the conversation too, but he didn’t trust himself much with words. At least he wasn’t coming back empty-handed.
In the plane he’d looked out for the first sight of Sumburgh Head and landing there he felt relief at being back safely without having messed up in any dramatic way. Then he saw Perez waiting for him in the terminal, leaning against the wall by the car rental desk, and he felt nervous all over again.
‘What’s happened?’ His first thought was that Gwen James had been on the phone to complain about him. Sandy wasn’t sure what he might have done wrong, but that had never stopped him getting into bother. Then he worried about his family.
‘Nothing.’ Perez grinned. ‘I was just curious to hear how you’d got on. I got a lift down from Val Turner. We had a meeting in Lerwick. She’s flying south for a day for a conference.’
‘What did you have to talk to her about?’
‘I wanted to ask her about these bones the girls have been digging up at Setter. Everyone’s assumed that they were hundreds of years old, but we don’t really know that’s the case. If they were more modern we’d look at the recent deaths in quite a different way. Three bodies in the same bit of land. Even the Fiscal would have to accept that was more than a coincidence.’
‘What did Val say? If the body was recent, surely there’d be more than a few bones left.’
‘I suppose so. It doesn’t make sense. It’s probably coincidence. It just seems odd. Both women had a connection with Setter and there’s evidence of another burial there too . . .’ His voice tailed off and he shrugged. ‘Take no notice. I’m probably making too much of it.’
Sandy thought Perez would never have talked to him like that a few months ago, never have taken him into his confidence. There was a moment of the same sort of panic he’d felt before setting off to London. How could he live up to these new expectations? ‘There were always strange stories about Setter,’ he said tentatively.
‘What sort of stories?’ Perez looked up sharply.
Now Sandy wished he’d kept his mouth shut because he didn’t really know, not the details. He half remembered tales of ghosts and the dead walking at night.
‘Some folk didn’t like to go out there after dark. Old folk. It’s all forgotten now.’
‘Would your mother know the stories?’
Sandy shrugged. Even if she did, she wouldn’t tell you. She’d be frightened of looking foolish. He changed the conversation. ‘So what did Val say about the bones?’
‘She thought they must be ancient. Another theory down the drain. But she’s fast-tracked them for testing and she’ll let me know as soon as she can.’
The airport was quiet and they sat drinking coffee at one of the tables outside the shop.
‘Have you read all the letters?’ Perez was watching an elderly couple in conversation with the guy at the check-in desk. Sandy followed his gaze. They were holding hands. Gross, he thought. At their age they should keep that sort of thing for their own home.
‘No. Only the most recent one.’ Of course, Sandy thought, I should have looked at the letters. Perez would have stayed up all night reading them, worrying at them. He wouldn’t have got pissed on expensive lager in the hotel bar and fallen into a drunken sleep. In the plane on the way home Sandy had read a glossy men’s magazine with a topless model on the cover; he hadn’t really given a thought to the case.
But Perez made no comment. ‘What was your impression of Gwen James?’
‘Like you said, she felt guilty. She’d done what she thought was the best for her daughter.’ Sandy found himself wanting to show Gwen in a good light. ‘She didn’t want to intrude on Hattie’s life but you could tell she cared about her. I mean, work obviously takes up a lot of her time but that didn’t stop her worrying.’
‘Does she think Hattie killed herself?’
‘She says that Hattie talked about wishing she was dead when she was very depressed but she’d never attempted suicide. And she doesn’t think Hattie was so depressed at the moment. All winter in the university she’d been positive, looking forward to getting back to work in Whalsay. The last letter seemed to be about plans for the future. It was only the phone call that really worried her.’
‘And we can listen to that?’
‘Yes, I’ve brought back the SIM card.’ Sandy had checked his pocket at least a dozen times to make sure it was still there. Now he took it out and gave it to Perez, pleased to be relieved of the responsibility. ‘I said she could have it back once we’ve finished with it. It’s the only record she has of Hattie’s voice.’
‘Of course. You did well to persuade her to let you have it.’
They’d finished their coffee. Sandy had the impression that there was something else Perez wanted to say. They sat for a moment in silence.
‘Should we go then?’ he said at last. He’d never had Perez’s patience.
Again there was a moment of hesitation. It came to Sandy that Perez was as reluctant to go back to Whalsay as he was. It was the muddle that made things difficult. Should they treat the deaths as crimes or not? We re they on the island as part of the community or as investigating officers? The Fiscal would only support them if it suited her and at the moment she was keener on pleasing the politicians.
‘Aye,’ Perez said. ‘We can’t sit here and drink coffee all day.’
Sandy was going to say that Perez was lucky. At least he didn’t have the funeral of the decade to live through on the following morning. Then he thought that might sound childish and ungrateful and it didn’t tie in with his new adult image. And it might sound disrespectful to Mima too. He was proud that he was learning when to keep his mouth shut.
Sandy had expected Perez to come all the way back to Whalsay with him but the inspector asked to be dropped at his house in Lerwick. He said he didn’t need to be in Whalsay; he had other work to do and he should let the Fiscal know how the interview had gone with Gwen James. He’d come back to the island when there was word on the date of the bones.
In Utra, Sandy’s mother hardly seemed to notice he’d returned. Michael and his family were due in on the last plane from Edinburgh. Sandy had thought she’d be full of things to say about Hattie, but the girl’s death seemed to have slipped from Evelyn’s consciousness, pushed out by essentials like what the baby might eat for breakfast and whether Amelia could possibly cope with towels that didn’t match the bedlinen. Sandy was surprised that the whole family would make the trip from Edinburgh to Whalsay. He wondered what his sister-in-law hoped to get out of the trip. Did she think Mima had anything worth leaving?
Joseph had made himself scarce too. Evelyn said he was in Setter making sure the Rayburn was lit and the house fit for Sandy to stay in.
‘I’ll go and see if he needs a hand.’ Sandy had bought a bottle of single malt at Heathrow. He tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket and walked down the track towards Setter. The weather was fine and still. He thought in London it would never matter what the weather was like and which way the wind was blowing.
Joseph was squatting in front of the Rayburn. The fire had gone out. He was plaiting twisted pages of newspaper and laying kindling on top of it. He heard Sandy come in and smiled when he saw who it was.
‘There’s a pile of peats in the yard. You’ll not go cold at least.’
Sandy took the bottle from his jacket with the air of a conjuror. ‘You’ll take a dram.’
‘Aye well, maybe a small one. Can’t go back drunk with Michael and h
is wife about to arrive. What would your mother say?’
They smiled conspiratorially.
‘Well,’ Sandy said, ‘if it gets too much for you over the next day or two you can always hide away here.’
Joseph put a match to the paper and the kindling flared and caught. He set a peat on top of it, then another. The smell of peatsmoke filled the room, caught Sandy’s throat and reminded him so vividly of Mima that he had to blink to be sure she wasn’t there too.
Sandy turned away and brought two tumblers from the cupboard on the wall, rubbed the dust away with a tea-towel hanging on the range, poured out the whisky. His father shut the Rayburn door. They clinked glasses, a silent toast to Mima, and settled to drink.
‘Did you hear they’d found some more old bones after Mother dug up the skull?’ Sandy thought his father would surely know. He never seemed to be listening to gossip, but he had Mima’s genius for sniffing out what was going on in the island. ‘They could belong to an ancestor of ours. What do you think?’
‘I think they should stop digging up the Setter land.’ The voice was hard, quite unlike Joseph’s. Sandy looked up, shocked. He’d never heard his father talk like that before, even when he was a boy and he’d misbehaved. Joseph continued: ‘I think if they hadn’t been mucking around here my mother would still be alive.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Two deaths in a week,’ Joseph said. ‘When was the last time anyone died from anything other than natural causes on Whalsay?’
Sandy wasn’t sure his father was expecting a reply, said nothing.
‘Well?’ Joseph demanded.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ve been trying to think,’ Joseph said. ‘My father was lost at sea. That was more than fifty years ago. I can’t mind any accidents since then. And now two people dead in a week. I never liked the idea of strangers rooting around in the ground and I wasn’t the only person in the island to feel that way. Mima was an old woman but she wasn’t ready to die. The English lass was a child. Now you say they’ve dug up a pile of bones.’
