‘Stay where you are,’ said a voice.
I froze.
Above me I could see clear blue sky; soft, white clouds; and the imminent prospect of a violent death.
Charles’s forelegs came down with a thud on the bank and he sobbed. I know, you’ve never heard of a horse sobbing and doubt it’s even possible, but believe me, that’s what he did. A tanned, freckled arm covered in fine golden hairs was wrapped around his neck and two enormous hands were gripping his mane, holding him still. It was impossible. No man is strong enough to hold a panicking horse, without reins or even a head collar, but Gifford was doing it.
As I lay half in and half out of the ditch, unable to move a muscle, I watched Gifford stroke Charles’s mane. Gifford’s head was pressed against Charles’s nose and I could hear his voice, whispering softly in words I couldn’t understand. Gaelic, possibly, or some obscure Shetland dialect. Charles was trembling, still visibly distressed, but otherwise perfectly still. This was my chance. If I moved quickly I’d be able to cut the two remaining strands of wire. I had to do it now because Gifford would not be able to hold Charles for long. Yet I must have been in shock because I still didn’t move.
‘The pliers are behind your head, slightly to your left,’ said Gifford, without moving from his close embrace of the horse. His left hand was still clutching Charles’s mane, his right was stroking his neck; short, quick, firm strokes. There was something slightly hypnotic about the movement. ‘Get them now,’ he said, and I turned. Lying on my stomach, I reached out for the pliers and then pushed myself forward, closer to Charles’s hind leg. Charles shuddered and Gifford resumed his low Gaelic chanting. Shutting my mind to what could, at any moment, come slamming down on top of me, breaking my back and rendering me crippled at the very least, I reached forward with both hands, clamped the pliers around the closest piece of wire and cut it. Without stopping to think I reached for the second wire and squeezed. It broke with a high-pitched zinging sound that seemed to echo around the voe.
‘Get out of there,’ called Gifford and I rolled, over and over, until I judged I was far enough away to be safe. I looked back to see that Gifford had pulled Charles out of the ditch and was struggling to hold him still. Free at last of the painful brace, Charles just wanted to bolt, but Gifford was having none of it. He hung close around Charles’s neck, being tossed this way and that by the superior strength of the horse, muttering in his ear all the while. After a minute or two, Charles admitted defeat. He drooped, seeming to lean against Gifford.
It was, quite simply, incredible. I’d heard, of course, of people with uncanny abilities to calm animals. I’d seen the film The Horse Whisperer, and had even gone so far as to read half the book, but I’d never seen anything like it in real life.
‘Tora, will you get over here?’ said Gifford, sounding half exasperated, half amused. I struggled to my feet and looked round for the pliers I’d dropped when I rolled out of the ditch. They were nowhere to be seen but the other, smaller pair lay close by. I picked them up and, glancing nervously at Gifford – I wasn’t sure how long this mojo of his was going to last – approached Charles. He gave me his leg quite easily, as though it was any normal day at the blacksmith’s.
Carefully, slowly, I snipped at the wire around Charles’s leg. Five snips and the wire fell away. I picked it up, stepped back and Gifford let go. Charles reared and bucked and then cantered off towards the fence, where Henry had been watching the whole incident with increasing impatience. After a few paces Charles slowed to a walk. He was lame but still able to put weight on the damaged limb. I started to hope that it wasn’t going to be too bad after all.
‘How’d you do that?’ I asked, without taking my eyes off Charles. ‘He wouldn’t let me near him.’
‘You were more afraid than he was,’ replied Gifford. ‘He could sense that and it made him worse. I wasn’t scared and I wasn’t standing for any nonsense.’
It made sense. Horses are herd animals, following without question a strong leader – equine or human. Horses like to know who is boss.
‘And I used a bit of hypnosis. Just to calm him down.’
That made no sense. I turned to look at Gifford.
‘Animals are very susceptible to hypnosis,’ he said. ‘Especially horses and dogs.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure. He looked perfectly serious.
‘You’re right, I’m kidding you. Now, painkillers and a tetanus jab. Possibly antibiotics.’
‘I’ll call the vet,’ I said, watching Charles and Henry nuzzle each other over the fence.
‘I’m talking about you,’ said Gifford, running his hand up my right arm towards the shoulder. The pain was as sharp as it was surprising; either Charles had kicked me after all, without my noticing, or I’d fallen on a pretty sharp stone. I turned towards Gifford and – oh shit – the pain disappeared beneath a stab of lust so unexpected it made me want to run for cover. I swear he’d grown two inches since I’d last seen him and in jeans and a T-shirt he was definitely not dressed for work. He was gleaming with sweat.
‘Let’s go in,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I’ve got in my bag.’
Gifford’s car was parked in our yard and he took his bag from the boot as we walked past. In the kitchen I took off my riding helmet and sat down at the table, acutely conscious of the debris from breakfast, my red, sweaty face and hair that badly needed washing. I probably didn’t smell too good either. Gifford turned on the tap and let it run till the water steamed.
‘I can take you into the hospital where we can be properly chaperoned or you can have my word that I’m not about to behave inappropriately.’
I’m sure I blushed at that but my face was so red to start with he couldn’t have noticed. I unbuttoned my shirt – an old one of Duncan’s – and wriggled out of the sleeve. I held the fabric close to me, less out of modesty, if I’m honest, than because my bra was not the pure-white lacy one I’d probably have chosen for the occasion.
Gifford started to bathe my arm and I turned my head to assess the damage. Most of my upper arm was already starting to bruise. There was a nasty scratch, which was bleeding, but I didn’t think it looked too deep. I had no recollection of it happening but, now that I was no longer running on adrenaline, it was hurting like hell.
Gifford dressed the wound and gave me a tetanus jab. Finally, he offered me two small, white tablets. They were painkillers, stronger than the sort you can buy over the counter, and I took them gratefully.
He looked at his watch. ‘I have surgery in twenty minutes.’ He started to pack away his things.
‘What are you doing here?’
He laughed. ‘Thank you, Mr Gifford, for saving my life, not to mention that of my horse, and offering immediate and highly efficient first aid.’ He closed his bag. ‘I was planning to ring the vet for you but I guess I won’t bother now.’
‘Put my bad manners down to shock. Why are you here?’
‘I wanted to talk to you away from the hospital.’
And there was my heartbeat, skipping away on a roller-coaster ride of its own again. I just knew there was bad news coming.
‘Oh?’
‘There’ve been complaints.’
‘About me?’
He nodded.
‘From whom?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Does to me.’
‘I told them I’m highly impressed with what I’ve seen so far, that you’re doing a perfectly acceptable job and that I have every intention of keeping you on the team. But that you are in a very new environment, things will seem strange for a while and they need to cut you some slack.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, feeling no better. Having one friend is never enough; not if everyone else hates you.
‘Don’t mention it.’ He closed his bag and lifted it.
‘Why are you telling me?’
‘Because you need to know. You need to make the effort, too. Your technical skills are all there but
you don’t handle people that well.’
That pissed me off, big time. Probably because I knew he was telling the truth. I stood up. ‘If you have a problem with my performance at work there are procedures you need to follow. You don’t need me to tell you that.’
Gifford wasn’t remotely intimidated. ‘Oh, get over yourself. We can do it by the book if you want. It will take an immense amount of time that neither of us can spare and the end result will be no different, except there’ll be a cumbersome and potentially damaging paper trail on your file. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He turned and was gone, leaving me alone with a very sore arm and my self-esteem in tatters.
8
TEN MINUTES LATER the vet had been summoned and the pain in my arm had faded to an ache. I sat on the fence, watching Charles hobble around, knowing there was nothing more I could do for him but reluctant to leave him by himself. I found both pairs of pliers and used the stronger pair to cut several strands of wire from the broken fence posts. Then I gathered it up and carried it back to the yard.
Goddamned Gifford for a patronizing, manipulative bastard. I knew exactly what he was up to. I’d come across those exact tactics before, the first time in the primary-school playground. Sally Carter had taken me gently to one side and told me that none of the other girls in our class liked me. They thought I was stuck up and bossy and a know-it-all. But I wasn’t to worry because she, Sally Carter, thought I was nice and had stuck up for me. To this day I can remember the bewildering mix of emotions that hit me at that moment: misery at my recently discovered unpopularity; a sort of pathetic gratitude for having at least one friend; fury at the said friend for telling me all this and ruining my day; and, at the bottom of it all, a sneaking, half-formed suspicion that she wasn’t much of a friend anyway, if she could make me feel this bad. I’d met other Sally Carters over the years and learned to recognize this crude but highly effective piece of professional one-upmanship.
I took the pliers back inside. Duncan was fussy about his tools and took a dim view of my using and abusing them.
Of course, recognizing the tactic was a long way from being able to deal with it. I could (and was frequently tempted to) dismiss it as a bit of obnoxious power play. On the other hand, I’ve always known I’m not popular: I don’t have the gift of making small talk and I’m uncomfortable in large groups; I know I don’t smile easily and I have quite a way with the clumsy remark and the ill-timed joke. Much of the time I try, unsuccessfully, to be different; but sometimes I just want to scream at the people around me to grow up. I am a perfectly competent doctor; I work hard, commit no crimes, never knowingly carry out a mean or dishonourable act. I’m one of the bloody good guys, but because of a lack of surface charm, I’m doomed to be disliked by those around me. Well, fuck that for a game of soldiers!
On the third stair up there was a gold ring.
I stood, staring at it. It was a wide band, with some sort of pattern etched around the upper and lower circumferences. Gifford, I wondered briefly, but Gifford hadn’t left the kitchen all the time he’d been here. In any case, this ring hadn’t been worn for some time; it was caked in dried mud.
I bent down to pick it up. Some of the mud flaked away, a sizeable piece with a definite indentation down one side. I sat down and took off one of my boots. Hunter boots have a distinctive pattern on the underside and the piece of mud that had fallen away from the ring seemed a pretty good match. The ring must have spent the last few days stuck to the underside of my boot. My running up the stairs earlier or, more likely, my falling down them had dislodged it.
I felt a bolt of panic. I’d been wearing these boots when I’d found the body last Sunday but had taken them off before entering the house to get a knife. The police forensics team had taken away the trainers I’d replaced them with, but I’d forgotten all about the boots. I’d seriously fucked up a major investigation.
It’s her ring. That’s what they were looking for in the field the other night.
I sat there, thinking hard. I really didn’t want this ring to be connected in any way to my lady from the field. For one thing, I found it highly disturbing that I’d been walking round with a piece of her jewellery stuck to the underside of my foot. For another, if someone had been looking for it, then whoever killed her was, without question, still on the islands.
Suddenly, I was nervous. I stood up, listening for sounds in the house, as though someone might be creeping up on me even now. Then I walked back into the kitchen and closed the back door. I even considered locking it. Instead I went to the kitchen sink and ran about two inches of lukewarm water. I dropped the ring into it, waited a few seconds then rubbed it between my palms. I dried it on a tea towel and held it up to the light. Without really thinking, I slipped it on to the third finger of my left hand. It wouldn’t go past the knuckle; it had been made for slim fingers.
The body I’d seen on the morgue trolley was that of a slim woman. Was I now looking at her ring? When I’d cut open her linen shroud, pretty much all my attention had been on the horrific chest wound. If a ring had fallen off her left hand, I could have stood on it without noticing.
Well, her ring or not, I had to let Bossy Tulloch know immediately. Naturally, she’d be furious with me. Not only had I been responsible for carrying a crucial piece of evidence away from a crime scene and delaying its discovery by several days, but I’d even gone as far as to wash away the surrounding mud. I’d pretty much driven a cart and horses through the forensic evidence.
I put the ring down on the kitchen worktop and crossed to the phone. As I started to dial the sun flashed in through the window, making the ring gleam. I put the phone down and picked up the ring again. There was an inscription inside.
Too easy, I thought, too, too easy. I glanced round at the door again. This time I did move to lock it before holding the ring up to the light. The inscription was hard to read, written in that pretty but virtually indecipherable script that I think is called italic calligraphy. A period in the peat hadn’t helped much.
The first letter was J, the second H or maybe N. Then there was a K followed by what could have been a C or a G. Then there were four numbers: a four, a five, a zero and a two. If they were the initials of the marrying couple and the wedding date and if – big if, this – the ring had come from my friend, then we’d done it. We’d identified her.
I turned round to look at the phone. Over here, now! it barked. I turned my back on it and found the phone book. There were twenty registration districts on Shetland. I dialled the number for the Lerwick office. It was answered immediately. I took a deep breath, heart pounding, feeling ridiculously, inexplicably guilty, and then told the woman who I was, stressing my position of seniority at the hospital. As usual, it worked; she became interested, eager to help.
‘We’ve found a piece of jewellery,’ I explained. ‘I think you may be able to help trace its owner.’
‘Of course, what can we do, Miss Hamilton?’
‘I think it’s a wedding ring. It has an inscription that looks like a wedding date and some initials. You keep records of weddings, don’t you?’
‘All weddings in Lerwick, yes. Did the wedding take place in the town?’
‘I’m not sure; I think so. I don’t have a name, though. Can your records be searched just with a date?’
‘Well, you could look up all the weddings that took place on that particular day and see if your initials matched any of them.’
Was it really going to be that simple?
‘Can I do that? Can a member of the public just come along and search the records?’
‘Absolutely. We normally charge £10 for an hour’s search but I’m sure in your case we could . . .’ She left the offer hanging.
‘Do I need to make an appointment?
‘No, just come along. Our hours are 10 a.m. till 1 p.m. and then 2 p.m. until 4 p.m.’
I glanced at the clock. The vet was due any second and I had nothing planned for the rest of the day
that couldn’t wait.
I knew I should hand the ring over to DS Tulloch and let her get on with it. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll be along this afternoon.’
Two hours later I arrived at the register office in Lerwick. The vet had been and gone. Charles was going to be fine: lame for a few days, but then good as new. The news had softened, a little, my fury with Gifford. He might have given my fragile professional confidence a kicking but at least he’d saved my horse.
Before leaving home I’d phoned DS Tulloch and left a brief message on her voicemail, telling her I’d found something that might be connected to the murder and that I’d drop it by the station on my way into town. I hadn’t been specific. I’d put the ring in a sterile bag and enclosed it, with a brief note, inside a large brown envelope. When I’d arrived at the station, Dana was still out so I left it, marked for her attention, at the front desk. I felt like I’d just lit the blue touch-paper on a firework and needed to stand well back.
Marion, the woman I’d spoken to on the phone, led me to a computer screen. I checked my watch. Twelve-thirty. I had half an hour before the office closed for lunch. Taking a folded Post-it note out of my bag I double-checked the date I’d noted before handing the ring in: 4.5.02, 4 May 2002. I found the right year and scrolled down until I came to the May weddings. It was a popular month for tying the knot. There had been four Saturdays in that particular May and several weddings on each; also a few mid-week ceremonies. Twenty-two weddings in all. I scanned down the list until I found the fourth of the month and immediately spotted a definite possibility. Kyle Griffiths married Janet Hammond at St Margaret’s Church. I scribbled down all the details before checking the rest of the list. Nothing else.
‘Found anything?’
I jumped before I could help it, then took a deep breath and told myself that I was not going to look guilty, apologize or ramble on mindlessly. I turned round.
Sacrifice Page 9
