Red Bones (22 page)
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?’
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 postgrad 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.
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 to 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.
‘When are you planning to get back to Lerwick?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he said vaguely. ‘I’ve got some leave to take.’
‘So you’ll be here for the evening when we show off the coins. I was thinking Friday would be a good day. It’s fine that you’ll be here. Hattie’s mother is going to come. It’ll be nice for her to see a friendly face. Can I put you down to meet her at the airport?’
‘Does she know what she’s letting herself in for? She’s not even buried her daughter yet.’ Sandy thought these island events could be daunting for anyone. He couldn’t face them without a couple of drams and a few cans in his belly. He remembered Gwen James in her London flat, chain-smoking, guilt-ridden. How would she deal with the curious islanders, the intrusive questions? Then he remembered she was a politician and probably capable of putting on a show.
‘I spoke to her this morning,’ Evelyn said. ‘She said she wanted to see where Hattie died.’
‘Would she rather not do that without an audience?’
‘I explained what we were planning.’ The stubborn tone had returned. ‘It was her decision. She didn’t have to agree.’
But it would suit Evelyn’s purpose, Sandy thought, to have the woman there. An MP, something of a celebrity, to give the Setter project a bit of credibility, almost a touch of glamour. Sometimes he was shocked by how ruthless his mother could be. She would make a fine politician herself.
‘I’ve booked her a room at the Pier House,’ Evelyn went on. ‘I said she could stay here but she didn’t want to put us out.’
At least, Sandy thought, the woman would have her own space to escape to. He wondered if Perez knew what his mother had planned and what he would make of it.
‘Who else have you invited?’ he asked.
‘Everyone who’s been involved with the dig. Paul Berglund, of course.’
‘Will he come?’
‘I’m not sure. He said he might have other commitments.’
I bet he has.
‘But I’ve talked to his head of department at the university and said how important we feel it is for him to be there.’
Sandy found himself grinning. His mother could be as persuasive as a bulldozer. Where had this drive and nerve come from?
‘And what did the university say?’
‘They were sure Professor Berglund would find time in his diary for such an important occasion, especially as it would be dedicated to one of his students.’ Evelyn looked up and caught his eye. For a brief moment they shared the conspiratorial laughter.
‘I’d have liked Sophie to be there,’ Evelyn said. ‘Did you hear that she’d gone south?’
‘Aye, I had heard that.’
‘It was all very sudden. She didn’t even drop in here to say goodbye, and that seems kind of rude. I don’t suppose you have an address for her, her mobile phone number?’
‘No, Mother, I don’t.’
His mother seemed about to press the point, but thought better of it. ‘I suppose the Cloustons will be there,’ she said. ‘You can never keep Jackie away from any sort of party.’
Sandy went out on to the hill to look for his father. Walking over the heather he thought the week in Whalsay had made him a bit fitter. He didn’t feel the strain in his legs or that dreadful heaving in his lungs that came sometimes when he followed his father up the hill. In town he never walked anywhere and he lived off takeaway food. He thought with longing of sweet and sour pork, the batter all crispy, the sauce rich and thick with sugar and pineapple. What was so great about feeling fit?
He found Joseph squatting over a dead newborn lamb. It had already been picked over by ravens and hooded crows.
‘It was tiny,’ Joseph said. ‘It was never going to survive. Maybe the smallest of twins.’ He straightened and looked along the ridge of the hill. ‘I thought you’d be away back to Lerwick now the funeral’s over.’
‘Perez said I should take some leave. I’ve got plenty owing and I can’t carry it forward after the end of April.’
‘Your mother will be pleased to have you around.’
‘Yeah, right!’
‘Really,’ Joseph said seriously. ‘She misses you.’
‘She misses Michael right enough.’ But he couldn’t help feeling pleased and hoped it was true. ‘What’s all this about a big do in the hall to show off the project at Setter?’
Joseph didn’t answer immediately. Sandy thought he was choosing his words carefully. For a moment his father reminded him of Jimmy Perez.
‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ Joseph said. ‘Your mother made up a flask for me.’ He pulled a Thermos from his pocket, then took off his coat and laid it on the grass. They sat together, both looking north-east up the island.
‘Couldn’t you talk her out of it?’ Sandy took a swig from the cup they were sharing. The coffee was strong and very sweet.
‘I didn’t try too hard,’ his father said. ‘You know how she is once her mind is made up.’
‘She always listens to you.’
‘Not this time.’
‘I don’t want to her to make a fool of herself.’ Sandy’s voice came out louder than he’d expected. The wind flicked the words away and he could hear the panic in them, the underlying thought:
I don’t want her to make a fool out of me.
‘Oh, between us I think between us we can keep her under control.’ There was an attempt at humour, but it didn’t quite work. Joseph’s words were serious and matter-of-fact.
‘Is anything wrong, Dad? Anything I can help with?’
For a second Sandy thought his father would confide in him. A curlew called and in the distance he could hear the barking sound of a raven. Then Joseph screwed the cap back on the flask and stood up.
‘What could be wrong? We ’re all upset because of the accidents. Two deaths. Terrible bad luck. There’s nothing wrong between your mother and me.’
Sandy remembered his last conversation with his father at Setter. Then Joseph had spoken of the deaths as more than ‘terrible bad luck’. He knew his father was lying, but he was grateful for the lie. If his parents were having problems, Sandy didn’t really want to know.
They were on their way back to Utra, walking at a stiff pace down the hill, so Sandy could feel his breath coming in tight little bursts, when Joseph spoke again.
‘I was thinking maybe your mother has been right about Setter. Perhaps we should consider selling it.’
Sandy stopped in his tracks and bent over. It was as if someone had thumped him in the stomach, winding him.
His father didn’t seem to notice. Now he’d started talking it seemed he couldn’t stop.
‘We’re neither of us getting any younger. We need to think about our future. What do I need with another house? Neither you nor Michael will ever live there. I’ve taken most of the Setter land into Utra anyway. It’s only a building.’ He realized that Sandy wasn’t with him and stopped for him to catch up. ‘But I’ll not sell it to Robert,’ he went on. His voice was defiant. He shouted his words into the wind. ‘I’ll not sell it to that rich bastard so he can put his fancy daughter in there. We’ll do as your mother says. We’ll offer it to the Amenity Trust. They can make a museum out of it. Something to the memory of Mima Wilson. A house in her honour.’
Sandy had straightened his back. He walked down the hill towards his father. His legs felt weak and he had to concentrate so he didn’t trip.
‘What made you change your mind? You said you didn’t want strangers walking all over it.’
‘It’s my house,’ Joseph said. ‘I can do what I like with it.’
‘I ken that fine. But something’s made you change your mind. What’s happened?’ Then came the same question and this time he hoped his father would give him the truth: ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
As he spoke, Sandy was still further up the hill than his father and looking down at him. Joseph wasn’t an old man; he was wiry and strong. But from this perspective suddenly he seemed small.
‘No,’ Joseph said at last. ‘There’s nothing you can do to help.’
Perez spent most of the day in the office, glad of the routine, the familiar paperwork. He spoke to a local historian who’d written a book on the Shetland Bus, and put in a call to the Norwegian Embassy. Later he had a meeting with the Fiscal. They drank tea in her office, discussed depression and date rape as they sipped Earl Grey and nibbled shortbread biscuits. The horrors of her work never seemed to affect her.
‘Well, I think we can put the girl’s death down to suicide now,’ the Fiscal said. ‘She must have been under considerable stress, working with a man who had once assaulted her. She even used his knife to kill herself. That works for me as a final communication, to him and to us. She held him responsible for her misery. And now you say she discussed the rape with her colleague just before she disappeared; that confirms our original decision.’
Perez could see it would make life easier for Rhona Laing if they could tidy away Hattie’s death like that. Two tragedies on Whalsay, one accident, one suicide, only connected in that Mima’s death had made Hattie feel lonelier and even more depressed.
He sat for a moment in silence. The Fiscal waited. She hadn’t been in Shetland long, but she was used to his ways and she was a patient woman when she had to be. Eventually though she’d had enough.
‘Well? Don’t you agree?’
‘I think there was more to it than that. I don’t understand why she should phone me if she intended to kill herself. There was something she wanted to tell me, something about Mima’s killing.’
‘You believe she was murdered?’ There was something close to ridicule in the Fiscal’s question.
‘Almost certainly.’
‘Are you sure emotion isn’t getting in the way here, Jimmy? Guilt, perhaps, because you didn’t do a proper search of Setter when you had the chance?’
‘I believe both women were killed,’ he said. ‘I just can’t prove it yet.’
‘I can’t dither over a decision for much longer,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘How long do you need?’ Dithering was bad for a politician’s reputation, but so was making the wrong call on a suspicious death. She set her cup carefully on its saucer. ‘How long do you need, Jimmy? I can’t keep the case open indefinitely.’
‘Somebody knows what’s been going on there,’ he said. ‘Not just the murderer. In one of the houses in Whalsay a friend or a relative is keeping a secret. It’s that sort of place.’
‘So, how long, Jimmy? I really can’t give you more than a few days.’
‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that’s all I need.’
‘You have a suspect in mind?’
He nodded but he didn’t speak. She looked at him with curiosity but didn’t press the point. At this stage she didn’t want to know.
‘If I don’t have something by the end of next week, we call Hattie’s death as suicide. I can’t turn it into an accident, however kind that would be for her mother. Then we can get through the inquest and release the girl’s body back to her family.’
He nodded again, but he was already preoccupied. He needed proof. He didn’t have time for long conversations, for allowing the truth to emerge over time. He worked well that way, was much more patient than the Fiscal. But now he’d have to make things happen. He had to precipitate a crisis. He wasn’t sure how he could do that without putting other Whalsay folk at risk.
On his way home he stopped at the Co-op for food, but walking down the aisles he was still thinking of the case. The case and Fran, who was always with him.
The problem with the Whalsay investigation was that so much was going on there. It was hard to unpick the actual causes and connections. Like Fair Isle knitting, he thought. Four different coloured threads, tangled together in the working to make a pattern. It was difficult to follow the line of each yarn, to decide how much impact each colour had on the overall effect.
In the house, he poured a glass of wine, fried a salmon steak quickly on each side, drained spinach and potatoes.
Shit
, he thought,
I forgot to buy a lemon
.
He’d finished the meal without really tasting it when there was a knock on his door. He put his plate to soak in the sink before going to answer it. Walking down the hall there was a moment of excitement when he imagined that perhaps Fran had come home a few days early. Would he find her there, standing in the street, looking up at his window, stamping her feet impatiently, waiting for him to answer? He pictured her wrapped in her jacket against the drizzle, the blue scarf with the silver threads tied at her throat. But it wasn’t Fran. It was Sandy, leaning against the frame, obviously drunk and desperate to talk. Perez stood aside to let him in.
He was apologetic in the snivelling way that drunks are – if they don’t become violent. ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy, I’ve let you down. But I couldn’t stand it there, I had to get out.’ After that he became incoherent. He was red in the face and his nose was running. Perez sat him in the living room and made him coffee.
‘Where have you been?’ Perez’s immediate fear was that Sandy had been shooting his mouth off in a bar in town, telling all the world about events in Whalsay. It was only eight o’clock. When had he started drinking?
‘In The Lounge with a few of the boys.’ He must have been sufficiently aware to see the alarm in Perez’s face. ‘But I didn’t talk about the case, Jimmy. I wouldn’t do that!’ He slurped the coffee, pulled a face as he burned his tongue. ‘I just made out I was fed up being stuck out there with my folks, that I was glad to be back in town. You can’t blame me for having a few drinks.’
‘What’s happened at home?’ Because something must have happened, Perez could tell that. Sandy had been calm enough when he’d got back after the trip to London. He’d done well there. He’d proved the Fiscal wrong.
Sandy set down his mug and put his head in his hands. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’
‘What time did you leave Whalsay?’ Perez thought if he kept to the facts, Sandy might drop the drama and come up with a rational explanation.
‘This afternoon. I had a pint in the Pier House and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop at the one drink. You know how it is sometimes. I couldn’t get pissed in there. Davy Henderson was coming into Lerwick so I got a lift down with him. I phoned up a few of the boys.’ He looked up at Perez, belligerent and defensive at the same time. ‘I’m on leave. I can do what I like.’
‘Do your parents know where you are?’
‘I haven’t told them.’
‘For Christ’s sake, man, there’ve been two deaths on the island. They’ll be frantic. Give them a ring and at least let them know you’re safe.’
‘Mother will have been on the phone to Cedric, trying to track me down. He’ll have told her I went out on the ferry.’ He was sulky as a child.
‘That’s not good enough and you know it.’
‘Look, I don’t care! This is all their fault.’
Perez looked at him. Earlier in the week he’d thought Sandy had matured. The man had dealt with Gwen James with sensitivity, come back with more information about Hattie than Perez had expected. Now he was like a toddler throwing a tantrum over a lost toy, blaming his parents for his misery.
Sandy met his eye. He must have realized how disappointed Perez felt because his tone changed. ‘OK, I’ll phone them.’
Perez carried the coffee cups into the kitchen. Through the wall he heard Sandy’s muffled voice, still defensive and angry, but he couldn’t make out the words. When he returned to the room the conversation was over. He drew the curtains and waited for Sandy to speak. That was why the man was here, after all. Why else would he have turned up on the doorstep in such a state?
‘My parents are going to sell Setter,’ Sandy said.
Perez nodded. ‘It makes sense. They wouldn’t want to leave the house standing empty, and doesn’t Joseph work most of the croft anyway?’
‘You don’t understand. My father doesn’t want to sell. He hates the idea. He didn’t even want the dig to go ahead. And now there’s this grand do in the hall. Mother says it’s about showing folk the coins found on the land, but it’ll be about persuading the Trust to buy the house. If the sale goes ahead, they’ll be digging up all over the land, maybe even knocking down Mima’s house to put up some sort of replica. And my father just says, “Fine, go ahead.”’
‘What are you worried about, Sandy? I don’t really see the problem. It’s your parents’ house now. Their decision.’
‘I want to know why he changed his mind.’ It came out as a shout, so loud that Perez thought the neighbours would hear through the wall. ‘He’s not a man to change his mind.’
Perez sat still and waited for the rest.
‘Someone’s put pressure on him,’ Sandy said. His voice was quieter but still intense.
‘Your mother, maybe. She’s a woman used to getting her own way. Nothing sinister in that. You know how excited she is about the history.’
‘Not my mother. She’s all bluster and talk, but he takes the decisions in the house.’
‘What then?’
‘Blackmail,’ Sandy said. ‘I wondered if that could be it. He needs the money to pay someone off.’ He looked at Perez, desperate to be told that it was a crazy idea. He was Sandy Wilson and he got everything wrong.
But Perez didn’t speak for a moment. He was considering the possibility seriously. The scenario he’d dreamed up to explain the Whalsay deaths didn’t involve blackmail, but perhaps it could fit in with the facts. At this point anything was possible.
‘What might Joseph have done that he could be blackmailed? You’re not saying he killed Mima?’
‘No!’ Sandy said immediately. ‘Not that. Not deliberately.’ He paused. ‘I’ve been going over and over it in my head. Wild ideas. Just churning round and round and making no sense at all. I thought the drink would give me some peace from it.’
‘Let’s look at them then. The wild ideas.’
‘My father could have killed Mima by accident. A mistake. Hattie saw him and so he killed her too. You said yourself he was at Setter the night she died.’
‘But he was in his house the whole of the evening of Mima’s death, watching television. Your mother confirmed it.’
‘Of course she did. She’d lie for us all.’
Perez smiled. ‘So she would. What’s the next wild idea?’
‘Could the killer have mistaken Mima for Hattie? They were both small and slight and Mima was wearing Hattie’s coat. Mima was out in the field next to the dig – Hattie would have had more reason to be there.’
‘It’s something I’ve thought about,’ Perez said. ‘But what reason could your father have for killing Hattie?’
‘None at all. He hardly knew her. Another crazy idea.’
‘Pretty crazy.’ But Perez thought Sandy wasn’t doing badly. The ideas the man had come up with had floated around in his head too. ‘Anything else?’
‘Nah,’ Sandy said. ‘That was about as far as I got.’ He gave a self-deprecating grin. ‘Not much of a detective, huh? Maybe I should give up policing and take up crofting after all.’
‘I think perhaps you’re overreacting about the sale of your grandmother’s home. Hardly surprising. You were very fond of her.’
‘Things aren’t right at home,’ Sandy said suddenly. ‘I hate it.’
‘Joseph and Evelyn are under a lot of strain. Things will sort themselves out when this is all over.’
‘Will it ever all be over?’ Sandy was almost sober now, but gloomy. ‘I’m not sure how anyone on Whalsay will cope if we don’t find out what happened.’
‘They’ll cope if they have to,’ Perez said. He thought the islanders had suffered worse than this. The fracturing of a community during the fifteenth century. The huge storm that had killed half the male population of Whalsay at the end of the nineteenth century, when boats out to the fishing had capsized under freak waves. The murder of the young Norwegian from the Shetland Bus during the war. ‘But I want to know. Not for them but for me.’ He looked at Sandy. ‘What are your plans for the rest of the night?’
Sandy shrugged. ‘I was going to stay in town but I’ll only carry on drinking. Maybe I’ll get home.’
‘It’s still early. We’ll get a ferry. I’ll give you a lift back.’ Perez looked at the man. ‘That is if you’re sure you’re OK to go home?’
‘Aye,’ Sandy said. ‘You’re right. I’ve been a fool. My father’s not a murderer.’
Perez was going to say Sandy hadn’t been a fool at all, but that wasn’t what the man wanted to hear.
Sandy stumbled down the road towards Setter. Perez had offered to take him right up to the house, but Sandy thought he’d put his boss out quite enough tonight. He’d already made a fool of himself. It was a dark, damp night, much like the one when he’d found Mima. He ignored the picture of the woman’s body, hardly more than a pile of cloth-covered bones lying in the rain, that forced its way into his head, tried to concentrate instead on avoiding the pot-holes and not falling flat on his face in the mud.
As he rounded the bend in the track he saw there was a light in the house. Had he left it on? He didn’t see that he could have done: it had been early afternoon when he’d gone down the island to the Pier House. And this wasn’t the white glow of the strip light in Mima’s kitchen, with its plastic case greasy and filled with dead flies. This was flickering and red.
Sandy broke into a run and he was already wheezing when he got to the house. He opened the door and the heat hit him, scorching his face. There was thick smoke that stung his eyes and made him choke. He tried to push his brain into gear, to remember the training he’d been given in fighting fire. The blaze had started in the kitchen and still hadn’t taken hold of the rest of the house. It was licking up the paint on the cupboards and the wooden panels under the window were alight. There was a towel on the table and he threw it over the flame on the cupboard, smothering the fire, hitting out the air from it. He filled the washing-up bowl with water and threw it over the flames by the window. There was a hissing, but the wood was still burning. He filled the bowl again. This time the fire was doused. He was left heaving for breath, his heart pounding.
He heard a nose outside. A strange kind of cry, like an animal in pain. He stood at the door and looked out. Anger stopped him feeling frightened. Anger and stupidity.
‘Who is it?’ he yelled. ‘What the fuck are you doing out there?’ He wanted to hit someone, to smash in the face whoever had desecrated his grandmother’s home.
A figure moved out of the shadow of the cowshed. His father stood in front of him. He looked small and old. For the first time Sandy saw how like Mima Joseph was physically. The same small frame and wiry strength.
‘Did you see him?’ Sandy demanded. ‘Did you see who did this?’
Joseph didn’t speak.
‘You stay here,’ Sandy said. ‘The fire hasn’t long started and there wasn’t a car. I might catch him.’
‘It was me.’
Something in his father’s voice stopped Sandy short. He’d started to move down the track, but now he turned back.
‘What are you saying?’ Sandy was still wearing his jacket and felt bulky, huge even, looking out at his father.
‘I set fire to your grandmother’s house.’
They stared at each other. Sandy knew he should make sense of this, but he couldn’t. Even when he was sober as a judge he would never make sense of it. The drizzle had stopped and there was a faint fat moon showing through the mist.
‘I don’t want to go inside,’ Sandy said. ‘Not with the kitchen the way it is.’ He walked round to the back of the house, past the dig to the dyke looking over the loch. The moonlight was reflected on the water. He didn’t look behind him but he knew his father was following. They leaned against the dyke to talk, not looking at each other.
Sandy had questioned suspects in his time. It was a part of the job he enjoyed. When he was taking statements from offenders or witnesses he was the boss, in control. It wasn’t like that for much of his life. Now he wished his father would take the lead, but Joseph just stood there in silence.
‘Why would you do that?’ Sandy asked at last, not loud, not in his bossy police voice, but with a kind of desperation. ‘Why would you set fire to your own house?’
‘Because I couldn’t face anyone else living here.’
‘Is this to do with that Norwegian?’ A sudden idea. If he weren’t still a bit pissed Sandy didn’t think he’d have had the nerve to bring the subject up.
‘What do you know about him?’
‘I know that your father found him in bed with your mother, took him outside and shot him.’
‘There isn’t much else to know,’ Joseph said, and then, in a quiet voice. ‘And I’m not even sure that story’s true.’
But Sandy wasn’t ready to listen to that. ‘How did you find out about it?’ he demanded. ‘Did Mima tell you when you were a boy?’ He wondered what it would be like to discover that your father was a murderer. How would Mima pass on that bit of information? Would she tell it as a bedtime story along with the tales of the trows?
‘She didn’t tell me at all.’
‘Who did then?’
‘It was always going to come out,’ Joseph said. Sandy shot a look at him. The moonlight turned his beard and his hair to silver. ‘You can’t keep a good story like that a secret on a place like this. It was while I was at school. The little school here in Whalsay. There was a scrap. You know how boys are. Andrew Clouston came out with it then. A fit of temper, a way of hurting me. He was never much of a fighter when he was young. He was a good bit older than me but a coward. He must have got the tale from his father, old Andy. I ran straight out of the schoolyard to ask Mother if it was true.’ Joseph paused. ‘She was out here, planting neeps, her skirt hitched up and big boots on her feet. I’d been running and I was red, my face all covered with tears and snot. “Why didn’t you tell me my dad was a murderer?” I shouted it out at her. She straightened her back and looked at me. “I’m not sure that he was.”’
Joseph looked up at Sandy. ‘I was angry. As angry as you are now. I started screaming at her, asking what she meant. She stayed very calm. “They took the man away,” she said. “I was never certain what happened to him and your father would never discuss it. I hoped they took him across to Lunna, maybe beat him up a bit. I never knew he was dead. Even when the stories started. I should have told you. But I hoped you wouldn’t have to find out.”’ And she carried on shaking the seed down the row, her shoulders bent and her eyes on the soil.’
‘Did she ever talk to you about it properly?’
‘Later that evening. She’d had a couple of drams. She talked about the Norwegian: “They called him Per. I never knew his second name. He was tall and blond and he treated me kindly. Your father was an exciting man, but he was never kind to me.” That was what she said.’
‘Where did they bury him?’ Sandy asked.
‘I don’t know. I told you, she didn’t even know he was dead. We didn’t discuss it.’
‘You must have thought about it.’
The mist had cleared even more and now there were just a few threads of cloud flying in front of the moon. It was so light it felt like the simmer dim of a midsummer night.
‘When I was a teenager I got it into my head that the Norwegian could have been my father,’ Joseph said. ‘I heard things about my real dad I didn’t like so much. There were stories he beat Mima up. But the Norwegian couldn’t have been my father. The dates don’t work. I wasn’t born in the war.’
And you look so like Jerry
, Sandy thought, remembering the photo that stood in Setter.
You couldn’t be anyone else’s child.
‘Do you think your father was drowned at sea?’ Sandy asked. The question came into his head unbidden.
Now Joseph turned. ‘That’s what I was always told,’ he said.
‘I don’t understand why you have to get rid of Setter,’ Sandy said. Was he being stupid? Too thick to understand? ‘Why now? When you were so set against selling it, when you hate the idea so much that you’re prepared to set fire to it, to get the insurance instead of selling it on?’ Because it seemed to Sandy that money must come into it somehow. Money was always important in Whalsay.
‘That’s not my story to tell,’ Joseph said. ‘You’ll have to ask your mother about that. Now come home. You can’t stay in Setter the state that it’s in.’
‘I’ll tell Mother it was me,’ Sandy said. ‘A chip pan. She knows I was drinking.’
Joseph didn’t say anything. He put his arm around his son’s shoulder and they walked together back to Utra.
Sandy had to suffer a lecture from Evelyn the next morning about the evils of drinking and frying chips in the middle of the night. ‘You could have been killed. You could have burned the house to the ground!’ He thought about his father and made a pretence of looking contrite.
He hadn’t slept well. The amount he’d had to drink, you’d have thought he’d be out like a light, but ideas had been churning round in his head all night. He’d tried to rerun the conversation with his father. The earlier part of the evening he remembered fine: drinking in the bars in Lerwick, his arm round the shoulders of that fat lassie, the one married to the soothmoother who worked in the canning factory. Then turning up like a fool on Perez’s doorstep. He’d been pretty sober by the time they got back to Whalsay. At least, he thought he had been. But the details of finding the fire, standing with Joseph in the moonlight by the loch, all that seemed harder to pin down. It was as if he’d dreamed it all. Perhaps he didn’t want to remember the way his father had been last night.
Evelyn put a bacon sandwich and a mug of coffee in front of him. Joseph was already out; he’d been gone when Sandy got up.
‘Will you not sit down and have some breakfast with me?’ he asked. His mother was busy with three things at once as usual. She buzzed round the kitchen like a bluebottle trapped in a jar.
‘I had my breakfast hours ago.’
‘Then just sit down and have a coffee!’
She looked at him strangely but she did as he said.
‘Why has my father changed his mind about selling Setter?’
‘He realized it made sense. What would he want with an old house?’ Sandy recognized the tone. She was all bluster and bravado, like some teenage lad who’d stolen a car and driven it into a ditch.
Sandy shook his head. ‘He loves the place. He grew up there. He doesn’t want it full of strangers.’
‘That’s sentiment,’ Evelyn said. ‘You can’t eat sentiment.’
‘He said you’d tell me what this was all about.’
She paused for a beat, stared at him sadly for a moment. ‘Oh Sandy, you’re the last person I could tell.’
It was as if she’d slapped him in the face.
The phone rang then and his mother went to answer it. She came back frowning. ‘That was your Auntie Jackie. She wants to know if you could go up to the big house. Andrew’s fidgeting to talk to you, she says.’
‘Aye. Why not? I’ll walk over.’ He knew he was a coward but he couldn’t wait to get out of the house.
Walking up the track to the Clouston place, he did feel better. There was a wheatear bouncing along the stone wall and skylarks singing in the field beyond. He found Jackie in the kitchen. The table was full of clutter – bags of flour, sugar and oats, tins of syrup and treacle. ‘You look busy. Is this for something special?’
‘Evelyn’s asked me to do some baking for her grand do in the hall,’ Jackie said. ‘I thought I’d make a start today. Anna’s helping me out.’ Then Sandy saw that Anna Clouston was there too, sitting in the corner. She was breastfeeding the baby. You couldn’t see exactly what was going on because she was wearing a loose jumper, but he felt embarrassed just the same, felt his face colour. He turned away.
‘As you see,’ Anna said, ‘I’m not helping very much at the moment.’
‘I’ve told her she should give the bairn a bottle.’ Jackie began to beat together a lump of butter and some sugar. ‘He might start to sleep at night. He’s probably starving.’
‘He’s fine,’ Anna said. ‘He won’t be a baby for long. I don’t mind a bit of disturbance for a while. I don’t mind putting myself out for my child.’ The implication was clear: she thought Jackie was selfish.
Sandy thought this was how women fought. With civilized words carrying poison.
‘Where’s Andrew?’ Because it had come to him that the room seemed quite different and that was because of his uncle’s absence. Andrew usually sat in his chair by the stove, a permanent fixture, like the shiny American fridge and the china dog on the dresser. Huge and imposing, he seldom spoke but somehow made his presence felt.
‘He’s in the lounge. We’re having one of the bedrooms decorated and I’ve asked him to clear out some junk. He’s found some photos and thought you might be interested. Go on through.’
Andrew was sitting in one of the big armchairs with his back to the view. There was a pile of photograph albums on the coffee table in front of him. He looked up when he heard Sandy come into the room and smiled. He didn’t speak. Sandy found it hard to imagine him as a boy, scrapping with Joseph in the school playground. He had fought with words too, Sandy thought. Like the women battling in the kitchen over a baby barely a month old.
‘You remember Jerry,’ Sandy said. ‘My grandfather, Jerry Wilson.’
Andrew screwed up his face in concentration. ‘I don’t remember so much these days.’ The words came out as a series of stutters.
Sandy looked at him. He thought the lack of memory could be kind of convenient. ‘But you told me the story about him. About him killing the Norwegian man during the war.’
Andrew frowned and nodded.
‘How did he die?’ He’d asked Joseph the same question but had no real answer.
‘He was killed in an accident at sea. He was out fishing with my father. There was a storm. A freak wave that turned the boat over. He was drowned.’
‘But your father was saved.’
‘He was a stronger swimmer and he got hold of the upturned boat. He tried to hold on to Jerry Wilson, but he lost his grip.’
‘Are you sure that’s true? It wasn’t just another of the island stories? You know how that happens. People make things up. Like the stories you told about my grandfather being a murderer.’
There was a moment while they stared at each other. Sandy could hear the gulls on the roof and the sheep on the grass by the shore.
‘This isn’t a made-up story,’ Andrew said. ‘I was there when your grandfather died.’
‘You would have been a child!’
‘I was ten years old. Old enough to go fishing with my father. We just had the small boat then.’
‘How did you survive when my grandfather didn’t?’
‘Don’t you see?’ Andrew fixed him with his blue, staring eyes. ‘My father couldn’t save the both of us. He chose to save me. You can’t blame him for that.’
And Sandy supposed that was true. A man was always going to save his son ahead of his friend.
‘Was Jerry’s body ever washed up?’
‘Not here. Not that I heard.’
‘I wondered if his remains had been buried at Setter.’ Sandy had been thinking about that in the night. It was one explanation for his father’s reluctance to let the place go.
Andrew looked up at him. ‘No, I never heard anything like that.’
‘Shall we look at these photos then?’
‘Aye, why not?’
But Sandy was still haunted by thoughts of the past, of buried secrets. ‘Did you ever hear what they did with the dead Norwegian?’
Andrew didn’t respond.
‘The Norwegian who came over with the Bus,’ Sandy said. He found himself becoming frustrated again by Andrew’s slowness. He wondered how Jackie and Ronald managed to keep so patient. ‘Mima’s lover. What happened to him?’
Andrew said nothing. Sandy remembered the sort of man he’d once been, big and loud, easy to rouse to anger. Mima had once said; ‘Andrew Clouston has a tempestuous nature. Like a storm at sea.’ Sometimes she came out with things like that. There was no sign of Andrew’s tempestuousness now. Sandy thought he was more like a boat with a bust engine, becalmed and useless.
‘Let’s look at the photos,’ Sandy said, giving up the struggle to force an answer.
He opened the album and recognized the first picture straight away. It was the one from the wall in Mima’s bedroom with the women who were carrying peat and knitting at the same time.
‘Do you know them, Andrew? Who are they?’
For the first time since he’d come into the room, Andrew seemed aware of what was happening. He pointed to the woman on the left. ‘I know her. That’s your grandmother.’
‘Not Mima! She was never a knitter!’
‘No, no, no.’ Andrew was frustrated by his lack of fluency. ‘Evie. They called her Evie. She was Evelyn’s mother.’
And now Sandy could see the likeness. He’d only known his maternal grandmother as an old woman. But the family resemblance was there. He could see Evelyn in the woman’s sturdy build, the determined look on her face.
This is where I come from
, he thought.
Andrew had lost interest in the picture and turned the page of the album. He stared at the next photograph, seemed completely lost in his memories.
‘Who’s that then, Andrew? Is it someone you recognize?’ Sandy moved closer to the man so he could get a better look at the book.
The picture was of two men, standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning out at the camera. They wore elaborate hand-knitted jerseys, baggy trousers and caps. The sun must have been in their eyes because they were squinting. Sandy thought it had been taken on the shore at Lindby, because he recognized the bit of drystone wall in the background.
‘Who is it, Andrew?’ he said again when there was no immediate reply. ‘Is one of them your father?’
‘That’s my father.’ The older man stuck a finger on to one of the figures. ‘That must have been taken when I was very young. That’s Jerry Wilson.’
Sandy could see now that the man on the right was his grandfather. There was the same quirky smile as in the photo that had stood in Mima’s kitchen. He thought now it looked a bit cruel. This was a man who might make fun of you, so it sounded like teasing but was hurtful all the same.
A picture of two friends who had gone fishing, and only one came back. With his ten-year-old son.
‘I should get home,’ Sandy said. ‘My mother will be sending out search parties. Thank you for showing me the pictures.’
Is that all he wanted me to see?
Sandy thought.
Is this why he dragged me up here? Or was it all Jackie’s idea? Maybe she wanted to do her baking in peace.
Sandy took his arm and helped Andrew out of the chair.
If I ever get like this, I hope they shoot me. Or I have the courage to throw myself over a cliff.
But he never thought he would get like that. He was young and the idea was unthinkable. The old man moved slowly to the corner window. From there they could see Setter, and beyond the house the trenches of the dig.
‘They never buried that Norwegian man there,’ Andrew said. ‘They took his body out to sea in Jerry Wilson’s boat and they threw him overboard. That’s what my father told me.’
Thursday morning. Perez shaved carefully. The bathroom was cold and he wiped condensation from the mirror to check it was properly done. This was a special day: Fran would be home. He would meet her and Cassie from the airport and take them back to Ravenswick. He felt nervous and excited, as if there was something illicit in this meeting, as if he already had a wife and Fran was his mistress. He couldn’t understand it, especially as he knew he wouldn’t spend the evening with her. Later, after dropping them home, he’d have to go to Whalsay.
The Whalsay trip was work and unavoidable. Fran would understand that; work was important to her too. She wouldn’t have a tantrum and make a scene, but she wouldn’t put herself out for him either. She wouldn’t wait up for him with a bottle of champagne and sexy underwear. There was no guarantee he’d be back that evening. She’d learned that when he was working there were nights when he didn’t get home. She’d take herself off to bed and when he joined her, if she was asleep, he wasn’t sure he’d wake her. He wasn’t sure he had that right.
Perez thought today would mark the end of the investigation, one way or another. He’d woken to fog, so he couldn’t see beyond the Victoria Pier from his living-room window and his first thought was that the planes would be cancelled and there would be no way in for Fran or Gwen James. The star of Evelyn’s show would be absent and Perez would have another day to wait for the woman he adored. Then in a matter of minutes, in the time it took to make a pot of tea, the sun had burned the cloud away and now the weather was perfect – clear and sunny and warm as most days in midsummer. Eating his breakfast he saw a puffin flying low over the water. The first of the season. He thought he should see it as a good omen but he still felt jittery.
In his office he took a phone call from Val Turner.
‘Jimmy, just to let you know that I’m going into Whalsay this morning. I’ll see you in the community hall this evening. It’s all set.’
He tried to make an appointment to talk to the Fiscal but she’d taken a couple of days’ leave at short notice. There was no explanation and he realized again how little people knew about her. She managed her privacy in a way that nobody else of note in Shetland could. Although he didn’t like her much, Perez felt isolated; he missed Sandy’s blundering presence too. In previous cases he’d had Roy Taylor from Inverness to share responsibility and anxiety with. It hadn’t always been an easy relationship but Perez had valued Taylor’s bluntness, his common sense.
I take my work too seriously
, he thought.
I make everything complicated. I need someone else to set me straight and keep things real.
Later he phoned Sandy’s mobile and heard Evelyn’s voice giving orders in the background before Sandy even spoke.
‘How’re things?’
‘It’s a madhouse here. You’d think my mother was hosting the bloody Oscars, not a history lecture in the Lindby Community Hall.’
Perez was just about to say that he’d see Sandy that evening, but the Whalsay man continued talking.
‘I went to see Andrew yesterday. According to him that Norwegian wasn’t buried at Setter at all. After he was killed they took him out in a boat and dropped him over the side.’
‘You said “they” took him out in the boat,’ Perez said. ‘Who are “they”?’
And if that’s true, what is the fragment of more recent bone Val Turner says they found at Setter?
‘I’m not sure. I think it was Jerry Wilson and Andrew’s father. They were friends. Close friends.’ Sandy paused. ‘Andrew’s father was out with Jerry when he drowned.’ There was a silence. Perez waited for Sandy to continue, could almost hear the strain over the phone as his colleague struggled to find the right words. ‘Andrew was there too,’ Sandy went on. ‘He was ten years old. It sounds as if that was why Jerry didn’t make it. Andrew’s father couldn’t get them both back and chose to save his son.’
Perez had planned to have a late lunch in the bar of the Sumburgh House Hotel. He would rather wait there than in the airport. It always looked desperate, being in the airport too early, desperate or neurotic. But driving past the runway he took a detour to Grutness, the jetty where the
Good Shepherd
, the Fair Isle mailboat, put in. To day was boat day and if he were quick he’d have time for a word with his father and some of the other boys in the crew before they set off back to the Isle. The Perez family had run the mailboat for as long as anyone could remember. When Jimmy had been growing up his grandfather had been skipper; now it was his father’s turn. Perez wondered who would take it over when his father came to retire.
He arrived at the pier just as the men were loading the boat. There was a car to go on. It was being winched into position as Perez drove down the road. The boxes of supplies for the shop were already in the hold. A couple of passengers stood waiting to be allowed on board: an elderly birdwatcher with binoculars round his neck and a young woman whom Perez recognized. He thought she worked at the observatory. Although he couldn’t make out her words he could tell she was joking with the crew. She had long black hair, curly and unruly. She threw back her head and laughed.
When he got out of his car his father jumped ashore. His hair was still dark and he was fit and strong, but his face looked older, as if it didn’t belong to his body.
‘Well, Jimmy, are you coming home with us?’ He could never tell what his father was thinking. There always seemed to be an element of recrimination or challenge in his words. Now Perez wondered if he was implying that he didn’t get home often enough. Or that he had an easy sort of job if he could decide on the spur of the moment to spend a few days with the family. He told himself he was being ridiculous and his father had meant neither of those things. He was just asking a question. Perez was always too sensitive where his father was concerned.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m picking someone up from the airport and I’m early.’
‘You should get home more often,’ his father said. ‘Bring your new woman to see us.’
Perez had avoided taking Fran to Fair Isle. His parents had met her, but only when they came to Lerwick on their way south. Perez was worried that she’d be frightened off by their expectations, their desire that he should have a son to carry on the family name. Without a boy, he would be the last Perez in Shetland.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Maybe I will. Not over the summer. Fran will be busy with an exhibition. We’ll come in the autumn.’ It wasn’t something he could put off much longer than that. Looking at the men he’d grown up with, laughing together as they passed the boxes and the mail sacks from the pier to the boat, he had a pang of regret. That could have been him. He’d had the opportunity to take up a life on the island but he’d turned it down. Now it seemed a simple and tempting alternative to the evening ahead of him.
He stood and watched the boat until it was out of sight. The water was calm but there was a bank of cloud on the horizon and soon that swallowed up the vessel. It became blurred like a ghost ship and then it disappeared. It would take the
Shepherd
more than three hours to get home. Fair Isle wasn’t like Whalsay. There was no roll-on-roll-off ferry every half hour. It was the most isolated inhabited island in the UK. They’d been taught that at school. He still thought of the place as home.
When he got to the airport Sandy was already there. Early too. scared of messing up the task of collecting Hattie’s mother. He looked grey and tired, sitting at one of the tables outside the shop clutching a mug of coffee. Perez bought a coffee and a sandwich and joined him.
‘I can’t make sense of it all,’ Sandy said. ‘You ken there’s that saying about skeletons in cupboards. A family’s past coming back to haunt it. That’s what it means, right?’
Perez nodded.
‘This is about bones in the land. Old, red bones. But I don’t understand how they matter after all these years.’
‘Red?’ Perez had a fanciful picture of bones steeped in blood.
‘My mother says that’s the colour they go when they’ve been in the earth for a long time.’
‘They’re like the stories you heard as a child and which stay at the back of your mind,’ Perez said. ‘Hard to forget.’
They went to the big glass window near Arrivals and watched the plane come in, the people walking down the ladder and on to the Tarmac. Fran and Cassie were among the last off and Perez felt the quiver of anxiety in his stomach. Perhaps she wasn’t there. Perhaps at the last minute she’d changed her mind and decided the city suited her better.
‘That’s Gwen James,’ Sandy said. And although he couldn’t remember ever seeing her on the television, Perez thought he would have picked her out from the rest of the passengers. She wore a long black coat almost to her ankles, black boots. She carried a leather holdall and it seemed she had no other luggage, because she walked straight past the carousel to Sandy and held out her hand.
Perez had spoken to her the evening before and wanted to introduce himself, but at that point he was distracted by the sight of Fran and Cassie getting off the plane. Fran was grinning and waving like crazy. He waved back, tried not to beam like a madman. There was something about her not quite as he remembered. A different haircut, a new pair of baseball boots, pink and covered with sequins. He wondered if she’d wear them when he took her to Fair Isle and what his father would make of them.
‘This is my boss,’ Sandy was saying. ‘Jimmy Perez.’
‘We’ve talked on the phone.’ Gwen James had the same jazz singer’s voice that Perez remembered.
‘Are you sure you’re happy with everything we have planned?’ Perez couldn’t understand how she could be so poised, so calm.
‘I need to know what happened,’ she said.
‘The car’s outside,’ Sandy said awkwardly. ‘I’ll get you back to Whalsay.’
‘And I’ll see you again this evening, Inspector Perez?’
‘Oh yes, you’ll see me then.’
Sandy picked up her bag and started walking quickly to the exit. Suddenly Perez realized he was hoping to get the woman out of the terminal before Cassie bounded up to them with her chat and hugs. He didn’t want to distress Gwen James with memories of Hattie as a young girl.
Oh Sandy
, Perez thought,
how you’ve grown up
.
Cassie couldn’t wait for her bag to arrive. She climbed through the barrier and threw her arms around Perez’s waist. As he picked her up and lifted her into the air he saw Gwen and Sandy disappearing through the revolving door and into the car park.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Have you missed me?’
Then Fran came up to them too, dragging a huge suitcase, laden with carrier bags, and it was she who answered.
‘We haven’t, have we, Cass? Hardly at all.’
‘Yes we have. Mum told everyone how much she missed you. She was really boring. She kept saying she wanted to come home.’
‘Well, we’d better get you back then, to the old house in Ravenswick.’ He set Cassie on the floor and took the handle of Fran’s suitcase. At that moment he thought he’d do anything to look after this family and keep it together. He’d kill for it. ‘Didn’t you have to pay excess baggage on this?’
‘Nah, I chatted up that pretty boy on checkin at Dyce.’
It was then, as they walked together towards the exit, that Perez realized that another person connected with Whalsay had been on the Aberdeen plane. Standing at the car rental counter, filling in a form, frowning slightly, was Paul Berglund.
Anna Clouston walked up the hill towards the hall. She felt oddly liberated without the baby. Lighter and lightheaded. A pool of mist had gathered in the low ground by the loch, so it looked as if the hall was stranded on its own island. Even the landscape seemed different.
When she opened the door she was surprised that Evelyn was the only person there. The trestle tables had been pushed together to run along the long side of the hall and Evelyn was covering them with white cloths, shaking the material out so they flapped like sails. Smaller tables had been set, cafe-style, in the middle of the hall. The speakers would have the best chairs at one end, with a table for their notes, and there was a screen and data projector. The urn was already hissing for tea. Everything was organized and efficient.
Evelyn was wearing an apron, but Anna could tell she’d dressed up for the occasion. She had green dangly earrings, little court shoes with heels.
‘What would you like me to do?’
‘You can fetch me the cups and saucers from the cupboard,’ Evelyn said. Then: ‘Sandy’s picked Gwen James up from Sumburgh. He gave her a tour of the island – showed her the Bod and the dig at Setter, the place where Hattie died. It seems kind of ghoulish but she wanted to see it. She’s in the Pier House now getting ready. He’ll give her a lift up just before we start.’
‘Right.’ Anna couldn’t understand how Gwen James could bear to be here. If anything had happened to her son, if he had been found in a hole in the ground like that, Anna wouldn’t want to be paraded in the hall in front of staring people, all of them strangers. She wouldn’t want to eat meringues and drink weak tea. What sort of mother could this woman be?
She set the cups and saucers out close to the urn, wiping each one with a clean tea towel as she brought it out of the cupboard, just as the island women always did.
‘I’m surprised you’ve not got more helpers,’ she said.
‘Oh, I told Jackie I’d manage. Joseph came along earlier to help shift the furniture.’ Evelyn had moved from the tables and was pinning photos of the dig site up on the walls. One showed Hattie and Sophie both crouched at work. Hattie had looked up at the camera and smiled; Anna couldn’t remember ever having seen her appear so happy. It was a good photo. She wondered who’d taken it. Ronald, maybe. He’d spent a lot of time on the dig the summer before. Evelyn went on: ‘Jackie says Andrew’s agitated again today. She’ll be in as soon as she’s settled him. He won’t be coming. Just as well. We don’t want a scene.’
Anna thought Evelyn preferred it this way: completely in control and in charge. She could understand that.
The door of the hall opened and Anna saw a silhouette framed by the filtered light of the low sun behind him. Another bank of mist had come in from the sea. The figure moved further into the room and she recognized Jimmy Perez. He seemed surprised to see Anna there. She guessed he’d hoped to catch Evelyn on her own and now he was weighing his options and wondering how best to play the situation. Evelyn had her back to the door and hadn’t seen him.
‘Evelyn.’
The woman turned sharply. ‘Oh, Jimmy. You’re early. We’re not starting until seven.’
‘I was hoping to catch you for a word on your own. Perhaps we could go back to Utra for a few minutes.’
Evelyn paused for a beat, seemed to straighten her back. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible, Jimmy. There’s far too much to do before the other folk turn up.’
‘Really, I think we might be better talking now.’ He paused. ‘We don’t want a scene later.’
That word again
, Anna thought.
Scene
.
What is it that they’re scared of?
She would have offered to go out so they could talk on their own, but knew that was the last thing Evelyn wanted.
Evelyn seemed to consider. She looked quite calm. ‘Oh, I don’t think we need worry about that, do you, Jimmy? You know I’m the last one to cause a fuss. There’s no hurry. You know I’m not going anywhere.’
Anna had the sense that the conversation had a meaning she didn’t understand. Perez stood for a moment then nodded, he turned and left. Once he’d gone, Evelyn lifted the hem of her apron and wiped her face with it. Her only gesture of weakness. Then she bent and lifted a pile of dinner plates from the cupboard. ‘The cakes can go on here,’ she said. ‘There should be napkins somewhere. We’ll wrap them with clingfilm until the speeches are over.’ She made no reference to the conversation between her and Perez.
In the end, Anna had to admit, the event was a triumph. It struck just the right note. Once Evelyn took off her apron she became a different person – confident, knowledgeable, charming. Even the islanders were impressed. She welcomed the guests into the hall and brought the locals and the incomers together. She walked Gwen James round all the photos and talked about what a delight Hattie had been to have on the island. Such an enthusiast: ‘She made the history seem so real for me. I could see Whalsay through the eyes of the Setter merchant. These were our ancestors but it took an outsider to bring them to life.’ When she introduced the speakers, she spoke fluently and without notes. ‘The untimely deaths of two of our project’s greatest supporters is a tragedy. But we owe it to them to continue the work at Setter and to make it a success.’
Anna thought if Evelyn had lived somewhere else she could have been a great businesswoman. You could see her at the head of a board table, motivating her team.
Jimmy Perez had come back. He had brought a woman with him; she was chic in an arty, bohemian sort of way, small and lively. They made an unusual couple. He was very dark and impassive and she seemed to be moving all the time, interested in everything. After a while of thinking she looked familiar, Anna recognized the woman as Fran Hunter, the artist from Ravenswick. There’d been an article about her in the most recent
Shetland Life
, and in the arts section of a Sunday broadsheet.
That could be me in a few years’ time
, Anna thought, and her brain began fizzing with plans for the future.
There’ll be features about my spinning and knitting; I’ll call it the Whalsay Collection and take my influences from the Setter Merchant’s House, the design of the coins. I’ll ask Ronald to help me research the costumes and jewellery of the time. Maybe we’ll make enough money that he’ll be able to give up the fishing. We ’ll run it as a family business.
Suddenly anything seemed possible.
Perez stood at the back of the hall, furthest from the speakers. All the chairs had been taken but Anna thought that was where he had chosen to be. He wanted to see everything going on in the hall. Sandy Wilson sat with Hattie’s mother near the front. There was no sign of Joseph and that surprised Anna. She’d have thought Evelyn would have dragged him along. Sandy was wearing a suit, the one he’d worn to their wedding, his face was red and he looked uncomfortable. Anna knew Ronald would have hated all this.
How grateful he’ll be to me that I’ve given him the excuse to stay at home!
She looked forward to describing the evening to him. History was his passion, after all. She knew he’d be interested.
Jackie rushed in right at the last minute, just as Evelyn was about to start speaking. Although the weather was unusually calm, Jackie had a windswept, thrown together look that was quite unlike her. One of her nieces was a hairdresser and always came to do her hair before an evening out, but now it seemed she’d hardly had time to pull a brush through it.
Anna looked at Jackie across the hall and decided there must have been another crisis with Andrew. She reflected that she should be more considerate about her parents-in-law. She shouldn’t make such a fuss when Ronald went up to the big house to help out. She’d been rather a bitch about them.
All these thoughts were running at the back of her head while she was listening to the presentations. She sat with a fixed look of concentration on her face and nobody would have realized her mind was elsewhere.
Though perhaps everyone is the same
, she thought, and she sneaked a look at the audience and tried to picture the ideas and preoccupations of the individuals who sat in respectful silence. They clapped when each speaker sat down, but perhaps there were other images running like a film in their heads too.
We think we know each other so well, but we all have our secrets.
Paul Berglund went first. Anna had never met him. She’d been out giving birth when the skull had been found and Evelyn had never introduced them. He gave a very short speech. Perhaps it was his accent but the words seemed ungracious, almost dismissive.
‘The university has always been delighted to support the Whalsay project, and of course it will continue to do so despite the tragic death of Hattie James.’
Anna had the impression that Evelyn had been expecting more, a promise of definite funding and more PhD students, an altogether grander project. She thought the most likely thing was that the dig would be forgotten, by the university at least.
Val Turner’s lecture was obviously more to Evelyn’s liking. There had been proper preparation, a PowerPoint presentation giving the background to the merchant’s house and an explanation of the importance of the Hanseatic League. The audience seemed to become more engaged when she described the discovery of the skull, the evidence of the shattered ribs, and when she showed off the small, dull coins in their plastic box, supported now by special polyurethane foam. ‘I have no doubt that this will be a major site in Shetland archaeology.’
Anna looked at her watch. She wondered if James had taken the bottle of expressed milk. She’d tried him with some a little earlier in the day and he’d seemed all right with it. More words running alongside all the others in her head:
I shouldn’t have left him. He’s so small
. . .
Guilt
, she thought.
Mothers must live with it all the time. I should just get used to it.
Then Jimmy Perez walked to the front of the room. Val Turner introduced him. ‘Now Inspector Perez would like to speak to us about the tragic death of Hattie James.’
There was an excitement in the hall. Even the showing of the skull and the coins hadn’t generated this much interest. Looking at Gwen James’s sculpted, motionless face, Anna thought the woman had known this announcement was coming. She had been expecting it, waiting for it throughout the evening. The police must have warned her. Anna felt her pulse race. She too wanted to know what the police had to say.
Perez stood in front of the table, leaning against it. He pushed himself forward so he was standing upright, almost to attention, and started speaking: ‘I’m in a position now to inform you that we are treating Hattie James’s death as suspicious. She didn’t commit suicide. We believe there was a witness to the murder and we’re close to making an arrest. In the meantime we’d be grateful for continuing support and information from everyone in Whalsay.’ There was a moment of complete silence, then a muted hum of conversation. Anna couldn’t think what Perez’s words might mean. She thought the islanders were wishing Gwen James had stayed away despite her celebrity status. They would have preferred the freedom to gossip.
The evening was coming to an end. When the speeches were over the island women had moved behind the tables to pour tea from large metal pots. The clingfilm had been removed from the plates and now they were almost empty. Perez circulated around the room, talking to the locals. Or rather he was listening to the locals, Anna thought. Whenever she caught a glimpse of him he was silent, his gaze fixed on the speaker’s face.
Now Anna just wanted to get home. Gwen James looked suddenly lost and Sandy, more attentive than Anna had realized he could be, offered to drive her back to the Pier House. Just as he was finding her coat, a couple of men who’d been outside for a smoke came back in.
‘Just take care out there. The fog’s so thick you can hardly see your hand in front of your face. We don’t want you coming off the road.’ And when Sandy opened the door to show Gwen James out, Anna saw they were right. She could see nothing. No lights in the other houses, never mind Shetland mainland in the distance.
Sandy drove at walking pace down the island towards the Pier House Hotel. He was pleased that the evening in the hall had passed without mishap; everyone had said how well Evelyn had done to arrange it and she’d seemed calmer than he could remember for ages. He hoped she’d be able to stay that way. Now he just had to deliver Gwen James back to her room and perhaps he could relax. He sat bent forward, just concentrating on keeping the grass verge on each side of him and the car on the road. Gwen James was smoking. He’d been watching her throughout the evening, admiring her style, the way she held things together. He supposed she’d had the practice. A politician had to be some sort of actor. Even his mother, who was only a politician in a small way, could put on the act when it was needed. Over the years he’d seen Evelyn put on the smile, use those easy phrases that had no meaning, when she was talking about her Whalsay projects to the important folk from Lerwick. Even when she was tired or depressed, she didn’t lose the smile.
As soon as they’d left the hall, he saw how hard it had been for Gwen. She pulled a cigarette out of the packet with trembling hands and she’d been chain smoking ever since. They hit Symbister suddenly, almost before he realized. An orange streetlight above him and a wall on one side of the road and a pavement on the other. Then they were at the Pier House Hotel and he found himself shaking too. A release of tension after the drive.
He had expected Gwen James to go straight to her room. She’d already eaten and he thought she’d want to be on her own. But it seemed not: ‘God, I need a drink. You will join me, won’t you, Sandy?’
The weather had kept folk in their houses and the lounge was empty of customers. Cedric Irvine sat on a bar stool on the public side of the bar and Jean was standing behind it. Cedric winked at Sandy.
‘Well?’ Sandy asked.
‘All done,’ Cedric said.
Sandy wanted to ask for more details but Gwen James was standing right beside him and Jean had already come up to serve them.
‘A large vodka and tonic,’ the politician said. ‘Sandy?’
He asked for a beer, began to get his wallet out of his pocket.
‘Put it on my room bill, please.’ She took a seat and waited for him to bring the drinks. He wondered if she’d treated Hattie in this bossy kind of way: generous but used to getting what she wanted.
They were on to their second drink when Berglund arrived. He must have walked at least part of the way back from the hall, because there were fine drops of moisture in his hair and on his coat. Sandy thought Berglund would have preferred not to join them, but Gwen was on her feet as soon as she saw the professor walk into the hotel, shouting across to him, offering him a drink. He couldn’t refuse without appearing churlish.
There was an awkward silence after Jean had brought over his whisky.
Three people with nothing in common
, Sandy thought, e
xcept a dead girl. One gave birth to her, one had sex with her and I just thought she was weird.
‘I hoped Sophie might be here,’ Gwen said suddenly. ‘I’d have liked to talk to her. They were friends, weren’t they? I thought she’d come as a mark of respect. I thought she’d want to be here.’
‘We couldn’t trace her,’ Berglund said. ‘Not in time. I’m sorry.’
Gwen got to her feet and said she was desperate for a smoke. She stumbled slightly as she made her way outside. Sandy thought if she carried on like this she’d have a hangover in the morning. They saw her standing in the doorway of the hotel, struggling to light her cigarette.
At the table, another silence, broken by Berglund. Sandy guessed he’d been drinking earlier in the day. Perhaps that was why he’d kept his speech so short in the hall.
‘I did care for her, you know. Hattie. But it’s different for men, isn’t it?’
Sandy thought at one time he’d have agreed with that. But he’d seen how screwed up Hattie had become. He’d read her letters. Now he wasn’t sure it was much of an excuse. He dipped into his beer and tried to come up with a reply.
Berglund continued. ‘I was married and I love my wife and kids, but she was there and so eager. Any man would have done the same, wouldn’t they? It was an ego thing, I guess. She made me feel free again. Attractive.’
Is that why you had to force yourself on her?
But the question remained unspoken because Gwen James was back in the room, standing at the bar, ordering more drinks although their glasses were still full. Sandy knew he’d never have had the courage to ask it anyway. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t sit and watch while two educated English people made fools of themselves and each other. Gwen would thank Berglund for looking after her daughter and supervising the project and Berglund would say what a bright student Hattie was, what a future she’d had ahead of her. How much everyone had liked her. Sandy thought listening to that would make him want to vomit.
Perez had told him to stay in the Pier House with Berglund and Gwen James until they went to bed. ‘I don’t want them wandering around on the island tonight. You can understand that.’ And when Sandy had started to object: ‘This is important, Sandy. You know Mrs James and she trusts you. There’s no one else I can ask.’
But now Sandy had to get away. He had something closer to home to sort out and then he wanted to be in on the action. Besides, if he sat here any longer he’d have more to drink because he couldn’t face Berglund sober. Then he’d end up hitting Berglund or saying something rude to him. These people wouldn’t go out again. Not on a night like this. They wouldn’t find their way to the road. He made his excuses and left. On his way out he bumped into Fran Hunter. Jimmy must have booked a room for her. She gave him a little wave and made her way upstairs.
He found his mother alone in the Utra kitchen. She’d changed out of her smart clothes and was wearing the tatty dressing gown she’d had for as long as he could remember. She was drinking a mug of warm milk. She looked up at him and smiled.
‘Where’s my father?’ he asked.
‘I’ve sent him to bed. He’s not been sleeping well.’
‘I’ve been worried about him.’
‘You shouldn’t be,’ she said. ‘Not any more. We’ve been through a lot in the last few weeks. We ’ll survive this too.’
‘How did it start?’ She didn’t answer immediately. ‘The stealing, Mother. That’s what I’m talking about.’ For the first time in his life Sandy felt he was talking to her as one adult to another.
‘Stealing?’ She seemed shocked. ‘I never saw it as that.’
‘It’s how my boss sees it,’ he said simply. ‘It’s how the courts would see it.’
‘Oh, Sandy,’ she said, and he could tell she was glad of the chance to talk about it at last. ‘It was all too easy.’
‘Tell me about it.’ He’d come to the house angry, prepared to demand answers from her. Now he just wanted to hear what she had to say.
‘Money was always tight,’ she said. ‘You can’t understand what it was like here. The fishing families with their cars and their fancy clothes and their holidays in the sun. And only seeming to work a couple of months a year. And us, struggling to manage on what Joseph could bring in from Duncan Hunter. Jackie Clouston looking at me as if I was a piece of muck on her shoe. I believed I deserved the little bit extra I could make. That was how it started. I was working for this community and earning nothing. They kept everything they made for themselves. It just didn’t seem fair .’
Is that how corruption begins everywhere?
Sandy thought.
Politicians and businessmen persuade themselves that the extra, the kickbacks, are owed to them for the risks they take and the contribution they make.
And he was no better than the rest of them. He’d once let Duncan Hunter off for drink-driving because he thought the man could make trouble for his father.
‘How did you work it?’
‘I just boosted my expenses a little. I applied for Amenity Trust grants for a couple of projects – the community theatre was the first. I set up a bank account in the name of the Island Forum, submitted receipts for expenses and had the cheques made out to the new account. Maybe some of the expenses weren’t entirely project-related, but nobody checked. Nobody realized. It grew from there. I took more chances.’
‘You took more money.’ Sandy felt a pit open in his stomach. His mother had brought him up to be honest. He’d once stolen sweeties from the shop in Symbister and she’d sent him back to own up and apologize.
‘I was working for nothing,’ she cried. Her face was red with the effort of trying to convince herself. ‘I saw it as a wage.’
‘The Trust gave you a small grant to pass on to Anna Clouston to develop her workshops,’ Sandy said. ‘She never saw it.’
‘A loan,’ she said. ‘I planned to pay it back. Besides, she owed me. She took my ideas and my patterns and she wouldn’t even have me as a partner.’
‘How were you going to pay it back, Mother? Why did you never ask me for help? Or Michael? We would have sorted it out for you. You know we’d have worked together to do that.’
She put her face in her hands and didn’t reply.
‘Is that why Dad changed his mind about selling Setter? He saw it as a way for you to clear what you owed?’
‘I had to tell him,’ she said. ‘He knew something was wrong the evening of Mima’s funeral.’
‘But then he couldn’t face it, could he? He couldn’t face anyone else living in Mima’s house. Do you know he tried to set fire to it to claim the insurance? It wasn’t me being thoughtless again.’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘There are no secrets between us now.’
‘Mima was a countersignatory to the bank account,’ Sandy said. ‘I saw the chequebook in the drawer. She knew you’d been taking the money. You thought she wasn’t interested enough to check.’
‘She had no proof.’
‘But she guessed,’ Sandy said. He thought this was the most difficult interview he’d ever taken part in, but also the easiest. He knew all the people involved so well and he knew how they thought. ‘Did she ask you about it? Is that what you were discussing the afternoon before she died?’
‘She was worried for herself,’ Evelyn said. ‘What folks would say if it came out. “I know what it is to be the subject of gossip. Trust me, Evelyn, you’d not want that. I’d not wish that on anyone.”’
‘And she’d be worried about Dad,’ Sandy said sharply. ‘About what effect this would have on him.’
‘Aye,’ Evelyn said. ‘You’re right, of course. Mima always doted on your father.’
‘Did you go back later and kill her?’ The question that had been tormenting him since he’d first realized things weren’t right between his parents.
She stared at him, horrified. He saw it hadn’t crossed her mind that he might suspect her of the murder. She still thought of herself as a good woman.
‘Did you see Ronald out with his gun and think that would be a good way to stop her talking? An accident in poor weather. If he shot her by mistake, nobody would ever know you’d been stealing. And then did you think you could make it happen like that?’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘No! Sandy, do you really think me capable of that?’
He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t thought her capable of cheating and theft.
Now, it seemed, she felt the need to explain. ‘I could have married into one of the fishing families,’ she said. ‘Even then they had more money than the crofters. They hadn’t invested in the huge trawlers, but they were well off by island standards.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘You’d not think it now but I was quite a catch in those days. Everyone said what a bonny little thing I was. Andrew Clouston fancied me rotten, but Joseph was always the one for me. From when we were bairns at school, he was the one for me. I didn’t care about his mad witch of a mother or his lack of money.’
‘Should I go up and see my father?’ Sandy asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t disturb him. I’ve given him a pill and he’s already asleep.’
Suddenly Sandy felt very tired. He got to his feet. He would go to find Perez. It would be a very long night.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Work,’ he said.
Usually she would have been full of questions. Or she would have tried to persuade him that he shouldn’t go out on such a bad night. But she just got up to see him out. They stood for a moment at the door. Awkwardly she reached up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I should have asked you boys for help.’
It was the first time in his life she’d ever admitted she was wrong.