Red Bones

by Ann Cleeves

  The tension between his parents could be caused by anxieties about money. He preferred to think it was about that. Any other cause – sex: that one of them had fallen for someone else – was simply horrible. They were old and they were his parents; he couldn’t contemplate it. He wondered if he was overreacting. Perhaps the two deaths so close to home had made him jittery and caused him to blow trivial arguments out of proportion. Then he remembered his father yelling at his mother after Mima’s funeral. Joseph had never raised his voice to Evelyn throughout their marriage, even when he was exhausted after working all day for Duncan Hunter. Sandy wasn’t overreacting. Something was wrong between them.

  Then came the difficult part. He forced himself to order his ideas and take the next logical step. If his parents had problems with money, was it possible that one of them had shot Mima for her house and her land? Not Joseph. He could tell how upset his father was. Besides, he’d been made a good offer for the house already and he’d turned it down. Evelyn then? Sandy had known all along that this was where the thinking would end up. Evelyn had never particularly got on with Mima. She could shoot well enough and there was a shotgun in Utra. But if the couple had no money problems, then there would be no real motive. That was why Sandy was lurking in Utra like a thief or a spy.

  He knew where his mother kept the bank statements: in the drawer in the sideboard in the living room, where the lasses had put the silver coins before the man from the university had taken them away. It was locked, but the spare key was hanging from a hook in the larder along with all the others. Evelyn had always been the one to look after the family finances. Even when his father had worked for Hunter she’d sorted out the bills and the invoices and filled in Joseph’s tax returns. Sandy could remember her sitting at the table every month, going through the bank statements, frowning when she saw how little they had to live on until the next paycheque.

  He found the key and unlocked the drawer. The statements were neatly clipped together in the blue file he remembered. He looked immediately at the balance and felt a wild relief when he saw it was in credit. He scanned back over the past twelve months. No problems. Little excess in the pot, but no debt. He wondered if Evelyn could have taken out a loan, but there was no sign of that and the paperwork would be in the drawer too. How could I have doubted her? he thought. How could I have even considered for a minute that she would be capable of murder?

  He looked at his watch. It was almost six o’clock and he felt suddenly ravenous. He hadn’t had any lunch. He felt like celebrating. He thought he’d go down to the Pier House for his supper, maybe have a couple of pints. Some of the boys might be in and they could play cards, talk about the old times. Davy Henderson should be around. Maybe Anna had relented and let Ronald out for the evening. Then he remembered that Perez had asked him to talk to Sophie. He locked the drawer and hung up the key again, making sure everything was as it had been before. He hated the idea that his parents might know he’d been snooping.

  On the way to Symbister he stopped by the Bod. The Pier House would be quiet this early and they’d have the chance to talk. It wasn’t such a chore; Sophie was good company. She had a knack of making every man she was with feel special, attractive. He wondered whether he could persuade her to open up. If he’d made more effort to get to know Hattie, perhaps she’d have felt able to confide in him too. But when he knocked on the door there was no answer. He looked inside. All the archaeological equipment was still there in a heap at one end of the living room, but Sophie’s personal belongings seemed to have gone.

  In the Pier House, Cedric was behind the bar, staring into space. He’d looked the same age since Sandy had been a boy, but recently he seemed to have got older. His responses were slower.

  ‘Have you seen the lassie from the Bod?’

  Cedric turned his head to look at Sandy.

  ‘Aye she was in earlier. She took the ferry out. I was down at the pier to meet Jean. Sophie was all loaded up like a packhorse with that huge rucksack. She seemed pleased to be away.’

  Sandy phoned Perez and told him what had happened. Perez went very quiet, but he didn’t seem to think Sandy was to blame for allowing the girl to leave. It occurred to Sandy that Hattie might be travelling to Aberdeen on the same ferry as Sophie, but she’d be in the anonymous Transit van that the undertaker used to carry bodies for post-mortem, and Sophie would be in the bar.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  When Perez arrived back in Lerwick, he called in to his office. It had a sleepy feel: most of his team were taking Easter leave. He phoned the Fiscal’s secretary and learned she’d be in a meeting for most of the afternoon. He made an appointment to see her first thing the following morning. He was looking forward to getting home early, sticking some clothes in the washing machine, cooking a meal for himself. In the meantime he began to wonder about the best way to track down the nationality of Berglund’s family.

  Although he’d planned a quiet evening at home, when he got there he couldn’t relax. He found it impossible to stop thinking about Sophie, rerunning in his head the conversation on the cliff by the golf course. She was right about the note. Of course not all suicides left notes, but Hattie was a writer. If she were planning to kill herself she’d have written a considered letter to Gwen James explaining what she was doing. There wouldn’t have been a panicky phone call. Suddenly he wanted this over. Soon Fran would be home. He didn’t want her to arrive back in the middle of an investigation, to find him distracted and exhausted.

  In the end he ran himself a bath. His bathroom was thin and narrow, the bath old and deep with scarred enamel. The room filled with steam and condensation ran down the window. It didn’t matter. The house was damp anyway, what difference would it make? He lay back, trying to let go of the case, but the possible scenarios, the shifting relationships, swirled into his head and out again. He was half asleep. A Dance to the Music of Time. Who had written that? He saw the Whalsay folk past and present waltzing in and out of his consciousness. A Norwegian sailor and a screwed-up young archaeologist, an ambitious businesswoman and an old man disabled by a stroke. How did they all fit together? He shut his eyes and felt he was floating towards a solution.

  The phone rang. He wanted to leave it, to continue with his thoughts, but it could be Fran. He’d found it difficult to talk to her away from his own surroundings and now he was desperate to hear her voice. He climbed out and grabbed a towel – he always thought his house on the shore gave him privacy, but he’d been caught out before when a canoeist or sailor floated close to his window. The phone stopped just before he reached it. She would leave a message, he thought. And he’d call her straight back, before she rushed out to meet her friends at some experimental piece of theatre, some gallery opening or smart restaurant.

  But when he pressed 1571 to pick up the message he heard quite a different woman’s voice. It was Val Turner, the local-authority archaeologist. ‘Jimmy, I’ve got an initial report back on the Whalsay bones. I’ll be in the office for half an hour if you want to give me a ring.’

  He went back into the bathroom but now the water seemed grey and uninviting, his contemplations ridiculous. He pulled out the plug and got dressed.

  Instead of phoning Val back immediately he called Fran’s mobile. There was no reply and he left a message. When he rang Val, she picked up her phone straight away. ‘You’ve just caught me, Jimmy. I was just about to leave.’

  ‘Have you got time to meet up? I’d be happy to buy you dinner. A thank-you for rushing through the analysis of the bones.’ After all, he thought, he needed company. It would do him no good to sit in on his own, brooding. And he still had questions about the dig. The laundry could wait for another day.

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘You don’t know the favours I’ve had to call in to get that done so quickly. I’ve never known it happen in under six weeks.’

  ‘I owe you, then. Shall we see if they can squeeze us into the museum?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Half an hour?’<
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  She was there before him in the upstairs restaurant, sat at a table for two looking over the water. It was only just starting to get dark; the nights were drawing out. She was sitting over a glass of white wine and there was another for him.

  ‘I didn’t get a bottle,’ she said. ‘I’m driving and I presume you are too. Is that OK?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Now, the bones . . .’ She grinned. She knew how much he needed the information.

  ‘Just tell me. How old are they?’

  ‘Most are old,’ she said.

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Given the unusual circumstances, I sent four pieces of bone for dating. Three of them returned dates that fell between 1465 and 1510, and it’s probably one individual, not several people. So they’re not contemporary. They can’t have anything to do with the recent deaths in Whalsay. The age fits in perfectly with Hattie James’s theory about the building. Fifteenth-century. Like the coins.’

  So not the dead Norwegian. Is that old story from Mima’s youth just a distraction?

  Val Turner was still speaking. ‘I wish I’d been able to tell her. Perhaps if she’d known absolutely that she was right about the age and the status of the house she wouldn’t have killed herself.’

  If she did kill herself, Perez thought. But he didn’t say anything. It would take one chance remark to start a rumour. It suited him fine for the time being if people thought Hattie’s death was suicide. Then he took in the importance of Val’s first words.

  ‘You said most of the bones were old. What did you mean by that?’

  ‘There’s one piece that seems more recent than the rest. I’ve asked them to check it. It’s probably an error.’ She seemed suddenly aware of the effect her words had on him. ‘Really, it happens. You shouldn’t take it too seriously.’

  ‘Do you know whereabouts on the site it was found?’

  ‘I’ll be able to check. Hattie was a meticulous record taker. I’ll talk to Sophie.’

  ‘Sophie’s gone home,’ Perez said.

  ‘Then I suppose she’s left the paperwork with Evelyn.’

  ‘How well did you know Hattie?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d met her several times, obviously,’ Val said. ‘The dig’s part of post-grad research, but it’s on my patch. Ultimately it’s my responsibility that it’s carried out to a professional standard.’

  ‘What will happen in Setter now?’

  ‘I’m hoping the university will take it on, make a large-scale project of it. We ’d certainly support that. Whalsay would be a good place to have a reconstruction open to the public. There are some enthusiastic local volunteers.’

  ‘Evelyn?’

  ‘You know her? Yes. She’s a dream to work with. It’s amazing the way she’s found her way round the grant system.’

  ‘I understood Joseph Wilson wasn’t so keen to have the dig on Setter land, and he’s the new owner.’

  ‘Really?’ Val didn’t seem too bothered. Perhaps she thought Evelyn would always get her way.

  ‘What’s the next step in the process?’

  ‘Public consultation,’ Val said. ‘And Evelyn’s taken care of that too. She’s planning an event in the community hall in Lindby to explain about the coins and the remains to the island. Next week. She asked if we could host it here in the museum, but we wouldn’t have time to organize it. Will you be able to come along?’

  Fran will be back by then, he thought. It might be something she’d enjoy.

  ‘Why the rush?’ he asked.

  Val laughed. ‘Evelyn doesn’t really do patient.’

  ‘Doesn’t it seem a little tasteless, so soon after Hattie James’s death?’

  ‘The idea is that it’ll be a memorial for her too. A celebration of her work. Evelyn’s invited her mother, the MP .’

  ‘Has Gwen James agreed to come?’ Perez was surprised. The woman had refused to come to Shetland when her daughter had first died. Why would she turn out for something so public? But perhaps that was the point: the public domain was where she felt most comfortable.

  ‘Apparently.’

  Perez looked out over the water, where examples of traditional Shetland boats were moored. He thought they could be in a ship themselves here, something large and grand, one of the cruise ships that put in to the islands in the summer. ‘Is she expecting Paul Berglund back?’

  ‘Presumably. Now Sophie’s gone, he’s the only person left to represent the university. I need to be sure the site’s going to be properly written up. That’s down to him.’

  They sat for a moment in silence.

  ‘What did you make of Hattie?’ Perez asked. ‘You must have met her a few times.’

  ‘She was very bright, passionate, meticulous. She would have had a brilliant future in archaeology.’ Val broke off as the food arrived. ‘This is going to sound really sexist, but I thought she needed a man in her life. Someone to share things with. Someone to stop her taking herself too seriously.’

  Perez said nothing.

  ‘There’s something else though,’ Val went on. ‘Something about the bones. The bones that were accurately dated. It’ll fascinate you.’

  He looked up. His thoughts were elsewhere. Back in Whalsay, with a beautiful young woman lying in a trench, close to where those ancient bones had lain for centuries.

  Val didn’t seem to notice. ‘They’re part of the body of a man. We found enough of the pelvis to establish the gender. He didn’t die a natural death. He was murdered, killed by a stab wound. That’s what it looks like, at least. The ribs have shattered. We ’d not have been able to tell from the skull. We ’ll never know why he was killed, of course, though it’s fun to guess.’

  Now he was starting to be interested. ‘What do you think might have happened?’

  ‘Hattie’s theory was that a local man took over the role of merchant in Whalsay. He’d suddenly acquire wealth, status. I’d guess that wouldn’t make him very popular with his neighbours.’

  ‘You think he was killed so people could steal from him?’

  ‘That,’ she said, ‘or because they were jealous of him. They were poor and he was rich. Envy, the green-eyed monster, perhaps that was what finished him off.’

  Val Turner hurried away as soon as the meal was finished but Perez stood for a moment outside before driving home. Through the long plate-glass windows he could see the reconstruction of the top of a lighthouse that stood in the museum, the huge glass dome and the workings. Once, the flashing beams had guided ships away from a rocky shore. Throw some light my way, he thought. But he felt he was groping towards a solution. Being away from Whalsay had given him some perspective and the conversation with Val had brought an even sharper focus.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Sandy made no attempt to move back to Utra even though his room was free. He even took it upon himself to milk Mima’s cow. Early in the morning and late in the afternoon he would sit on the box in the shed, wipe the udders with the cloth he’d brought out from the house and watch the liquid squirt into the bucket. After the first few tries, with his father watching and grinning, it had come easily to him. Maybe it was like riding a bike, he thought, one of those skills that, once you learned, you never forgot. He remembered Mima teaching him when he was a child, laughing at his first tentative attempts to get milk to come. ‘You’ll need to be firmer than that boy. Squeeze and pull. They’ll not come off in your hands. That’s more like it.’ It had been one of the few things he’d managed better than Michael. Sitting here this morning, the smell was exactly the same. Cow and muck and the rich sweet smell of the new milk. There was the same sense of achievement too when the pail was full.

  Later he took the churn round to Utra. His father was out on the hill. Sandy could see him in the distance as he walked down the track to the house. Evelyn was in the kitchen at the table, poring over sheets of paper. More lists. He’d thought all that was over after the funeral, but now it seemed she had other plans; there was something else for her t
o organize. At first she didn’t talk about it. She took the milk and poured half into a jug to go in the fridge. The rest she set to stand in the kitchen.

  ‘I thought I’d make some soft cheese,’ she said. ‘Do you mind, Sandy, we used to make it when you were bairns?’

  ‘What’s all this?’ he asked, nodding towards the paper, the ruled columns, the round handwriting.

  ‘We’re having a do in the Lindby Hall,’ she said. ‘A sort of memorial for Mima and Hattie. And to give folk a chance to see the silver coins and hear about the project. The press will be interested too. I can organize the catering.’

  Sandy thought that was his mother all over. Once she’d made up her mind about something there could be no delay. It had to happen immediately. The timing seemed in poor taste to him. What was the hurry?

  ‘What does my father say about it?’

  ‘He thinks it’s a good idea.’

  ‘Really?’ Sandy was astonished. The last he’d heard, Joseph hadn’t even wanted the dig on Setter land. Wouldn’t all these visitors want to see where the coins had been found? His father was a private man. He would hate all the fuss and the disruption to his routine.

  ‘He understands how much it means to me.’ Her face shut down with that closed, obstinate look she could have sometimes. He knew there was no point questioning it. She shuffled the papers into a pile and slipped them into a clear plastic envelope. He thought again she should have had a career of her own, a business to use up all that energy. She looked up at Sandy.