The Body in the Bracken

by Marsali Taylor

  ‘A street value of ten thousand isn’t just a lark. Where are you moored?’

  ‘Brae tonight, right under the clubhouse windows.’

  ‘Until the club-goers go home, and there’s nobody to hear you scream.’

  ‘Dad suggested I might go along to the jetty below our house, and give myself an earlier start for tomorrow.’

  ‘But you haven’t done that, and if your night is anything like ours, it’s too dark now.’

  ‘Black as pitch. But I set off for Scalloway tomorrow. Whoever it was had a key for this marina. It wouldn’t be likely they’d have a Scalloway key too.’

  ‘Another marina gate designed to keep honest folk out.’ He paused, thinking. ‘I had a quick trawl through the usual places, and there’s no sign of Hughson. He hasn’t used his credit card or his bank account since the morning of Monday 12th August, when he drew out £200, the maximum, at a cashpoint in Mallaig.’

  ‘Nothing from Aberdeen?’

  ‘No proof that he ever got there.’

  I thought of Georgeson Removals. ‘You could put a car with a body inside into one of those big trucks. But why take it clean across the country like that?’

  ‘Maybe the person who left the body knew the loch, and knew how remote it is. Even if you knew someone was missing here, you still might not find them. The other possibility, if Julie’s right that the girlfriend killed him, is that she shifted the body here to put the blame on Julie. If it didn’t turn up, she still had the stigma of being the deserted wife, and if it did, well, our loch is in the area where they were. If your friend’s mother hadn’t seen him, then there’d be no proof he ever made it home.’

  ‘And how did they get it to where it was found? They couldn’t have carried it.’ It still sounded too rigged, somehow. ‘How would they get it into a boat at the head of the loch without someone seeing?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering that too. But if it is him, and we’re talking late August, the answer is the Argyllshire Highland Gathering. It’s on the fourth Thursday of the month, in Oban. Last year was Thursday 22nd August. We left the farm the moment the cows had been milked and only returned at seven in the evening. It’s a two and a half hour drive, but Mother loves it. She would never miss it, nor would anyone else in the area. It’s like your Up Helly Aa, it’s our local celebration, and anyone who knew the Highlands would know they’d have a good chance of doing anything unobserved on the area’s Gathering day.’

  It still seemed hard work. ‘And then they’d have to carry him from the boat to up to where we found him.’

  ‘There’s an easier way of doing it, on that day, when there would only be the animals and machinery left at the farm.’ I heard the laugh in his voice, and was warmed inside. ‘It may not have occurred to a sailor like you. I’ll leave you to think it out.’

  I thought. ‘You have a quad, don’t you?’

  ‘We do.’

  I wouldn’t fancy taking a quad along the track we’d walked, but Gavin had mentioned a path over the top of the hill, and Shetlanders were well used to going over heather on a quad, to round up sheep. ‘Is there any movement on the dental records front?’

  ‘Our own dentist is on standby to compare the records with the body’s teeth as soon as he gets them. If we’ve got a match, I’ll be sent up. Can you keep yourself safe until Monday or Tuesday?’

  ‘I’ll be fine in Scalloway,’ I assured him. ‘Reidar’s there, setting up his café, remember, so I’d have help on call if I needed it.’

  ‘Don’t overdose on his hot chocolate. Have a good sail tomorrow. I’ll be envying you as I’m dealing with paperwork. Oidhche mhath, beannachd leat.’

  ‘A fine night tae dee an all.’

  Saturday 4th January

  Low Water at Brae UT 04.30, 0.6 m

  High Water 10.51, 2.0 m

  Low Water 17.03, 0.5 m

  High Water 23.35, 1.8 m

  Sunrise 09.06

  Moonrise 09.54

  Sunset 15.08

  Moonset 20.30

  Moon waxing crescent

  Sunday 5th January

  Low Water at Scalloway UT 05.06, 0.6m

  High Water 11.30, 1.8m

  Low Water 17.41, 0.6m

  High Water 00.23, 1.8m

  Sunrise 09.06

  Moonrise 10.15

  Sunset 15.15

  Moonset 21.59

  Moon waxing crescent.

  Da aalie lamb is ethkent.

  The lamb which has been hand-reared is easily recognised; used of spoiled or petted children.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I’d set the alarm clock for seven, but I had a fitful night, hearing every car that went past, every herring gull scraiching on the pontoon. At half past six I gave up on sleep, and put the kettle on. It was still black dark and I felt as though the chill damp had crept into my bones. I had a shower, as hot as I could bear it, keeping my hair dry, and dressed in all my layers. By the time I’d wriggled into my black Musto teddy-bear suit and hauled my red oilskins over it, I was warm again, and my heart was singing. I was sailing today.

  I filled up the flask and made rolls, then started the engine and threw off the ropes that bound Khalida to the pontoon. We backed out, the engine putt-putting softly in the early morning silence. There was a purr of north wind, just enough to blow me to Scalloway. I hauled my light-airs foresail up to the masthead, then went back to the cockpit and hauled on its sheet. The sausage unrolled and filled, a great half-balloon of red, white, blue, and I felt Khalida surge forwards, leaving a broadening V behind her.

  Around me, the world slept in the grey dawn. The houses of Ladies’ Mire were darker rectangles against the green hill; Busta House was a ghost-blur among its trees. The Burgastoo, the little island that guarded the Muckle Roe bridge, was separated from its reflection by a line of foam. I kept well out in the middle of the voe, to stop myself being entangled in the mussel lines; the only indication of their presence in this half-light was the flashing yellow buoy that marked their furthest corner.

  It took three-quarters of an hour to get out of Busta Voe and around the corner. The still air was broken by showers that brought more wind with them, so that the bright geneker strained from its sheets, and Khalida leaned her shoulder to her whispering wake. We came around Muckle Roe, where Dad’s kitchen window glowed orange: Maman making her first coffee. We passed Vementry Isle, the cliffs of West Burrafirth and Melby, and came through Papa Sound with the tide. As I came across to the landward shore, I heard birds singing in the trees around a house in a little bay, chuckling like running water, the first sign of spring.

  By ten o’clock, it was mostly light, and the showers had settled into steady rain. Cat stayed in the cockpit for five minutes, then went below, shaking his paws in disdain. The green fields of Sandness were sodden, water glinting over the grass, and two ponies stood in a corner of a grey stone dyke, noses down, hair in dark points. Water dripped from the mainsail and ran down the cockpit seats, onto the floor, and out through the drains; below, the toilet paper was damp from condensation, and the port window dripped on my barometer. The hills above the shore were as grey as their reflections. Then the rain eased, and a shaft of sun crept from below the clouds to light the water to pale blue, then, as it strengthened, to straw gold. The streetlights were still on as we caught a glimpse of the village of Walls, its grey and fawn houses faded into the hill. To starboard, Foula lay in a wreath of mist on smoke-grey water.

  At last, as we came past Grutness Voe, the colours came clear once more: the deep pinkish rust of the heather, the lichened grey of stone, the soft green of sheep-cropped grass, the olive of bog grass. Within the voe, two mussel lines were magnified by stillness, and four ducks sailed by, trailing their V wakes. A white froth on the shoreline marked where a burn met the sea; a solitary hooded crow flapped up with a derisive caw as we passed.

  Khalida lifted and fell to the ocean swell. Her sails were still filled in a perfect curve, and even in this slight breeze she was goi
ng as fast as the engine would have propelled her. Cat came out again and settled in his corner, head up, paws braced. I ate lunch as the red cliffs of Skeld slipped past, then we were among the little islands that guarded the entrance to Scalloway, Shetland’s ancient capital, the port for the Viking parliament. I dodged between the rocks, circled round the north cardinal, and entered the buoyed channel just after 15.00. Already, the sky was whisky gold to the west, with a sliver of crescent moon against the dimming blue in the east

  From the sea, Scalloway looked like an east coast fishing village, with sycamore trees thick between the grey houses, front doors opening straight onto the pavement, and narrow lanes running up from the waterfront. The tide was near as low as it went, leaving a swathe of pebble shore below the low retaining wall. To my left was the marine college, with the Scalloway Boating Club’s pontoon beside it. Cat stretched his neck, whiskers twitching. He’d spent more time here than in Brae, and he knew it as a haven of peace and plenty, particularly the college restaurant, where the chef, Antoine, thundered French denunciations of all cats while feeding him trimmings of best plaice.

  The long stretch of Port Arthur Road led round the bay to the village. First came the jumble of sheds where the men of the Shetland Bus had repaired the fishing boats they’d used to run arms and radio parts into occupied Norway, with the last rays of sun making fire-red of the wooden building they’d lodged in. Next was the old folks’ home, the nineteenth-century kirk and Dinapore, the doctor’s house, which the Bus men had used as their operations centre. The two-storey cottages with Georgian sash windows that followed were half-hidden by fish processing stations now turned to the youth centre, shops, businesses. Main Street ended with Mary Ruisland’s garden, bare and brown for this month, and the pink-painted height of the seventeenth-century Old Hall. After the Hall came the ‘coloured street’: the white former inn where Sir Walter Scott stayed, the blue house, the ochre, pale green, white again. The shore ended in the tyre-hung wall of Blackness Pier. Behind it, Earl Patrick’s ruined castle lifted its bare gables towards the sky.

  I hadn’t phoned Reidar, but he must have spotted my sails coming through the lines of red cans and green cones, for as I curved into the marina he was waiting on the pontoon, ready to take my lines.

  I’d met Reidar last autumn. He and my friend Anders had come over from Bergen in his high-bridged fishing motorboat, Sule. He was a great, untidy bear of a man, Danish, well over six foot tall, with tawny hair and a tousled beard. He was completely unflappable, and dealt with any emergencies by producing drinking chocolate with marmalade cream on top – the man was a genius, and if ever he wanted to run for Prime Minister of Denmark, I’d go round doors with his leaflets. Best of all, he’d been so horrified by the lack of continental coffee and accompanying pastries in Scalloway that he’d leased the former Museum to turn into a café. He was basing the decor on the Long Room at Busta House, where you sat down in comfortable armchairs, as if you were a visitor, and had tea brought to you. We’d scrubbed, painted, refurbished armchairs and little tables, and starched and ironed embroidered tablecloths found in the charity shops. John Lewis had supplied silk festoon blinds that cost as much as a new mainsail, and Reidar had negotiated with a local drama group for mid-Victorian costumes for the waitresses. I was resigned to the prospect of a long grey dress with pinnie and lace cap for the sake of continuing to fund my college year. ‘But you wait,’ I told him, ‘until I get a job on a tall ship. No more waitressing, ever.’

  ‘The lace cap will look smart against your dark hair,’ Reidar said, consolingly.

  The grand opening was Friday, the day of Scalloway Fire Festival.

  ‘Now, Cass,’ Reidar rumbled, reached over Khalida’s bow for her mooring line, and tweaked it around the cleat. I jumped ashore and was greeted with a large hug, my cheek pressed to his chest. He smelt of oiled wool and spices. ‘The wanderer has returned. Come and have some chocolate and tell me how you enjoyed your Christmas.’

  Reidar took me out for a meal in Lerwick, at the Bengal Tiger, just opposite where the Co-op had been all my childhood, and where Frank Williamson’s was now, on the main North Road out of town. It was warm and welcoming, with red-flocked wallpaper, and buffet dishes laid out on a long table, and Saturday-night-busy, with only a couple of tables left. The waiter was about to put us beside a ten-person works do, but I shook my head and indicated the other free table, in a quiet corner beside two lasses. Work doos tended to spill over every table within earshot, and were no fun for outsiders.

  Brae had an excellent Indian takeaway, but it was a mile walk from the marina, so it was a treat for bonny summer nights. The Bengal Tiger had the same starters range of brown spicy balls served with lettuce strips, and sweetly sticky red-coated ribs. It was while I was negotiating one of these that I became aware of the way one girl at the next table was staring at me.

  I hadn’t paid them any attention as we’d sat down. They were well through their main course and obviously enjoying their dinner, chattering like nesting gannets and trying each other’s food. Now, though, the dark girl’s laughter was forced, and her eyes kept returning to my face – to the long, straight scar across my right cheek. I did what I usually did in these circumstances: caught her eye, stared back for a moment, then looked back to my plate.

  I was sure I’d never seen her before. She was much younger than me, twenty at a guess, with dark hair cut in that fashionable style that left feathery ends sticking out, as if it’d been hacked off by nail scissors. She had level brows under the ragged hair, dark eyes fringed by thick lashes, a long nose and a tilted smile. It was the pixie look, Julia Roberts playing Tinkerbell, with something very vulnerable about the eyes, the soft mouth. An aalie lamb … The youngest of her family, I’d have betted, and never been permitted to lift a finger since her birth. The Tinkerbell resemblance was heightened by her sage green blouse, with a curved neckline. Her voice was Aberdeen.

  The other lass was Shetland, and she was well launched into the saga of what her peerie sister had done over New Year, and what Mam would say when she found out. The pixie girl was laughing until she looked back at me, and saw that I was listening. Her eyes dilated in fright. For a moment, she was a young guillemot watching the boat approach, mesmerised, unable to decide whether to dive or swim away. The other lass leaned over to her. ‘Donna, are you okay?’

  Donna … I definitely didn’t know a Donna. She shook her head.

  ‘I’m fine.’ The colour had drained from her cheeks, leaving the pink blusher standing out. ‘I feel a bit sick, like.’ She began to gather her stuff together, hands shaking. ‘I’d maybe better geng hame. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Here.’ The blonde lass poured her a glass of water. ‘Drink this.’ The glass rattled against Donna’s teeth. She didn’t look at me. ‘I’ll get the bill.’ She went off, and Donna remained standing there, her coat huddled about her, her little face tight with misery. I wanted to lean over and reassure her, but I didn’t know what I could say.

  The other girl came back. ‘You okay to drive?’

  Donna nodded, and the door closed softly behind them. A pause, then a car started up around the corner. I got a glimpse of a small red car going past.

  ‘You were listening,’ Reidar said.

  I grimaced, and agreed. ‘She seemed frightened of me, yet I’m sure I’ve never seen her before, and I don’t know a Donna.’

  ‘Perhaps she has heard of detective Cass, who works with the police.’ Reidar ate his last samosa and laid down his fork with regret. ‘There is something that she is afraid you will find out.’

  ‘I’m not a detective,’ I insisted. Yet when we went up for our next course, I approached the young girl behind the counter. She looked ages with Donna; she’d know her.

  ‘’Scuse me,’ I said, ‘but you don’t ken who that was, the dark lass at the table next to us, who just left? She was looking at me as if she kent me, an’ her face was familiar, so I said “Aye aye”, but it’s going to bug me
now the whole night, trying to mind where I ken her from.’

  The girl smiled. ‘It’s aye the way, isn’t it? You ken someone fine if you’re used to seeing them in that place, then you see them somewye else, and you feel that stupid for kenning you should mind who they are. You’ll have seen her at the north boats, she works to Serco. She’s on the counter, so when you were getting your ticket, it’d be her handing it to you.’

  ‘Of course, I ken her now. Donna something.’

  ‘Donna Fraser, that’s right. She’s a bit shaken ee noo.’ She leaned forward. ‘There’s a rumour going round that they found Ivor Hughson’s body south, somewye near Inverness. So least said, shoonest mended. There’s no need for her to be mixed up in that.’

  ‘Best forgotten,’ I agreed, and headed to the table to re-fill my plate, my brain buzzing. It had been Harald, Inga’s brother-in-law, the one who worked to Serco, who had shaken his head at his wife when Inga’s mother had mentioned Ivor Hughson having a girlfriend. Least said, shunest mended. This, then, was the girlfriend, and ten years younger than me, when Ivor had been a dozen years older. Vulnerable, naïve – had she known, I wondered, that he was a married man? It seemed word had come back to her, maybe through Harald, that Cass Lynch, you ken, her that does the sailing, with the scar apo’ one cheek, had been asking questions about Ivor Hughson. Then she’d seen me asking for a table next to her, listening in …

  When Reidar and I got out at the marina, the wind had backed still more, to almost due southerly, and it was rising. The cold air tugged at my plait and stung my nose and cheeks. Across at the sea wall, the water was not far off as high as it would go, the wind pushing in the flowing tide of a new moon. The stars above us were hazy, and the returning moon was tipped on her back, with the black disc of the new moon caught in her arm. There was a storm coming.