Sacrifice (6 page)

‘With DNA and dental records, and what we know about her pregnancy, it shouldn’t take long to find out who she is,’ said Tulloch. ‘Fortunately, we have a relatively small population up here to work with.’

‘Of course, she might not be from the islands at all,’ said Inspector Dunn. ‘We might be just a convenient dumping ground for a body. We may never know who she was.’

My stomach twisted and I realized how totally unacceptable that possibility was. There would be no
closure for me until I knew who she was and how the hell she’d got into my field.

‘With respect, sir, I’m sure she was local,’ said Tulloch, surprise clear on her face. ‘Why would anyone travel out here to bury a body when there are miles of ocean between us and the nearest mainland? Why not just dump her at sea?’

It occurred to me that, had I murdered anyone, I’d have done that anyway. The Shetland Islands have an estimated coastline of around 1,450 kilometres, but a land mass of just 1,468 square kilometres: a very uncommon ratio. Nowhere on Shetland is more than about five miles from the coast and nothing could be simpler than accessing a boat. A weighted body flung overboard a mile or so out to sea would stand a much smaller chance of being discovered than one buried in a field.

At that moment, my pager and Gifford’s went off simultaneously. Janet Kennedy’s blood had arrived. The two officers thanked us and left, heading for the airport to meet the mainland team.

An hour later, all had gone well and I was back in my office, trying to summon up enough energy to go home. I was standing at the window, watching the day growing dimmer as banks of cloud rolled in from the sea. I could just about make out my reflection in the glass. Normally I change before going home but I was still dressed in surgical trousers and one of the tight vests I always wear under my coat in theatre. I had a sharp, almost stabbing muscle pain between
my shoulder blades and I reached back with both hands to massage it.

Two hands, warm and large, dropped on to my shoulders. Instead of nearly jumping out of my skin, I relaxed and allowed my hands to slide out from underneath them.

‘Stretch your arms up, high as you can,’ commanded a familiar voice. I did what I was told. Gifford pushed down on my shoulders, rotating backwards and down. It was almost painful. Actually, it was very painful. I felt the urge to protest, as much at the impropriety as at the physical discomfort. I said nothing.

‘Now, out to the sides,’ he said. I reached out, as instructed. Gifford wrapped his hands around my neck and pulled upwards. I wanted to object but found I couldn’t speak. Then he twisted, just once, to the right and released me.

I spun round. The pain was gone, my shoulders were tingling and I felt great; as though I’d slept for twelve hours.

‘How’d you do that?’ I was barefoot and he towered above me. I took a step back, came up sharp against the window ledge.

He grinned. ‘I’m a doctor. Drink?’

I felt myself blush. Suddenly unsure of myself, I looked down at my watch: six forty-five p.m.

‘There are things I need to talk to you about,’ said Gifford, ‘and I’m going to be snowed under for the next few days. Besides, you look as though you need one.’

‘You got that right.’ I found my coat and shoes and
followed him out. As I locked my office I wondered how he’d managed to open the door and cross an uncarpeted room without my hearing him. Come to think of it, how come I hadn’t noticed his reflection in the window? I must have been deep, deep in a daydream.

Twenty minutes later we’d found a window seat in the inn at Weisdale. The view of the voe was grey: grey sea, grey sky, grey hills. I turned my back and looked at the fire instead. At home, in London, the blossom would be out in the parks, tourists starting to crowd the streets, pubs dusting off their outdoor furniture. On Shetland, spring arrives late and sulking, like a teenager forced to attend church.

‘I’d heard you didn’t drink,’ said Gifford, as he put a large glass of red wine down in front of me. He sat and ran his fingers through his hair, sweeping it up and back, away from his face. Allowed to fall, it just brushed his shoulders. It was fringeless and layered, a style you sometimes see on men who’ve never quite got over the rebellion of their youth. On a member of the Royal College it seemed ridiculously out of place and I wondered what he was trying to prove.

‘I didn’t,’ I replied, picking up the glass. ‘That is, I don’t. Not much. Not usually.’ Truth was, I used to drink as much as anyone, more than many, until Duncan and I started trying for a family. Then I’d taken the pledge, and tried to persuade Duncan to do the same. But my resolution had been increasingly weakened of late. It’s just so easy to tell yourself
that one small glass won’t hurt and then, before you know it, one glass becomes half a bottle and another developing follicle is seriously compromised. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know quite so much about how the body works.

‘I think you have a pretty good excuse,’ said Gifford. ‘Have you read Walter Scott’s
Ivanhoe
?’

I shook my head. The classics had never really been my thing. I’d struggled with, and eventually despaired of,
Bleak House
whilst studying for O-level English. After that, I’d concentrated on the sciences.

Gifford picked up his drink, a large malt whisky. At least that’s what it looked like, but for all I knew, it could have been apple juice. Whilst his attention was elsewhere I allowed myself to stare. His face was a strong oval, the dominant feature being his nose, which was long and thick, but perfectly straight and regular. He had a generous mouth, rather well drawn, plump and curved with a perfect Cupid’s bow; one could almost say a woman’s mouth were it not far too wide to suit a woman’s face. That evening it sat in a half smile and deep indentations ran from the corners of his nose to its edges. Gifford was not a good-looking man by any standards. He certainly couldn’t measure up to Duncan, but there was something about him all the same.

He turned back to me. ‘Pretty nasty thing to happen,’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’

He’d lost me. ‘Umm, finding the body, getting dragged into the post-mortem, or being deprived of
Ivanhoe
?’ I queried.

Around us the pub was getting busy; mainly men, mainly young: oil workers, without families, seeking company more than drink.

Gifford laughed. He had large teeth, white but irregular, his incisors particularly prominent. ‘You remind me of one of the characters,’ he said. ‘How are you settling in?’

‘OK, thanks. Everyone’s been very helpful.’ They hadn’t, but this didn’t seem like the time to grouse. ‘I saw the film,’ I said.

‘There’ve been several. That yacht’s in very shallow water.’

He was looking over my shoulder out of the window. I turned round. A thirty-foot Westerly was sailing close to the shore. It was keeled over hard and if the skipper wasn’t careful he’d end up scraping his hull. ‘He has too much main up,’ I said. ‘Do you mean the woman played by Elizabeth Taylor?’

‘You’re thinking of Rebecca. No, I meant the other one, Rowena the Saxon.’

‘Oh,’ I said, waiting for him to elaborate. He didn’t. In the voe the Westerly crash-tacked and sped off at an obtuse angle to its original course. Then someone on board released the halyard and the mainsail collapsed. The jib started flapping and a rush of movement in the water behind the stern told us he’d started his engine. The boat was under control and heading towards a mooring but it had been a close shave.

‘Gets them every time,’ said Gifford, looking
pleased. ‘Wind pushes them too far to the western shore.’ He turned back to me. ‘Quite an experience you’ve had.’

‘Can’t argue with that.’

‘It’s over now.’

‘Tell that to the army digging up my field.’

He smiled, showing his prominent incisors again. He was making me incredibly nervous. It wasn’t just his size; I am tall myself and have always sought the company of big men. There was something about him that was just so
there
. ‘I stand corrected. It’ll be over soon.’ He drank. ‘What made you go into obstetrics?’

When I got to know Kenn Gifford better, I realized that his brain works twice as fast as most people’s. In his head, he flits from one topic to another with absurd speed, like a humming bird dipping into this flower, then that, then back to the first; and his speech follows suit. I got used to it after a while but at this first meeting, especially in my keyed-up state, it was disorientating. Impossible for me to relax. Although, come to think of it, I don’t think I ever relaxed when Kenn was around.

‘I thought the field needed more women,’ I said, sipping my drink again. I was drinking far too quickly.

‘How horribly predictable. You’re not going to give me that tired old cliché about women being gentler and more sympathetic, are you?’

‘No, I was going to use the one about them being less arrogant, less bossy and less likely to jump on
their dictatorial high horse about feelings they will never personally experience.’

‘You’ve never had a baby. What makes you so different?’

I made myself put my drink down. ‘OK, I’ll tell you what did it for me. In my third year I read a book by some chap called Tailor or Tyler – some big obstetrical cheese at one of the Manchester hospitals.’

‘I think I know who you mean. Go on.’

‘There was a whole load of bunkum in it, mainly about how all the problems women experience during pregnancy are due to their own small brains and inability to take care of themselves.’

Gifford was smiling. ‘Yes, I wrote a paper along those lines myself once.’

I ignored that. ‘But the bit that really got me was his dictum that new mothers should wash their breasts before and after each feed.’

Enjoying himself now, Gifford leaned back in his chair. ‘And that is a problem because . . .’

‘Do you have any idea how difficult it is to wash your breasts?’ From the corner of my eye, I saw someone glance in our direction. My voice had risen, as it always does when I’m sounding off. ‘New mothers can feed their babies ten times or more in twenty-four hours. So, twenty times a day, they’re going to strip to the waist, lean over a basin of warm water, give them a good lather, grit their teeth when the soap stings the cracked nipples, dry off and then get dressed again. And all this when the
baby is screaming with hunger. The man is out of his tree!’

‘Clearly.’ Gifford’s eyes flicked round the room. Several people were listening to us now.

‘And I just thought, “I don’t care how technically brilliant this man is, he should not be in contact with stressed and vulnerable women.”’

‘I completely agree. I’ll have breast-washing taken off the post-natal protocols.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, feeling myself starting to smile in response.

‘Everyone I’ve spoken to seems highly impressed with you,’ he said, leaning closer.

‘Thank you,’ I said again. It was news to me, but nice news all the same.

‘Be a shame for you to be thrown off course so early.’

And the smile died. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Finding a body like that would unsettle anyone. Do you need to take a few days off? Go visit your parents, maybe?’

Time off hadn’t even occurred to me. ‘No, why should I?’

‘You’re traumatized. You’re handling it well, but you have to be. You need to get it out of your system.’

‘I know. I will.’

‘If you need to talk about it, it’s better that you do so away from the islands. Actually, much better if you don’t do it at all.’

‘Better for whom?’ I said, understanding, at last,
the real reason for our cosy little chat down the pub.

Gifford leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. For several seconds he didn’t move; I even started to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. As I watched, his mouth, not his nose, became the most prominent feature of his face. It almost became a beautiful mouth. I found myself thinking about stretching out a finger, gently tracing its outline.

He sat up, startling me, and glanced around. Our audience had all returned to their own conversations but he lowered his voice all the same.

‘Tora, think about what we saw in there. This is no ordinary murder. If you just want someone dead, you slit their throat or put a pillow over their face. Maybe you blow their brains out with a shotgun. You don’t do what was done to that poor lass. Now, I’m no policeman but the whole business smacks of some sort of weird ceremonial killing.’

‘Some sort of cult thing?’ I asked, remembering my taunts to Dana Tulloch about witchcraft.

‘Who knows? It’s not my place to speculate. Do you remember the child abuse scandal on the Orkneys some years ago?’

I nodded. ‘Vaguely. Satanism and some stuff.’

‘Satanism codswallop! No evidence of wrongdoing or abuse was ever discovered. Yet we had family homes broken into at dawn and young children dragged screaming out of their parents’ arms. Have you any idea what the impact of all that was on the islands and the island people? Of the impact it’s still
having? I’ve seen what happens on remote islands when rumour and hysteria get out of hand. I don’t want a repeat of that here.’

I stiffened. Put my drink down. ‘Is that really what’s important right now?’

Gifford leaned towards me until I could smell the alcohol on his breath. ‘Too right it’s important,’ he said. ‘The woman in Dr Renney’s tender care is none of our concern. Let the police do their job. Andy Dunn is no fool and DS Tulloch is the brightest button I’ve seen in the local police for a long time. My job, on the other hand, and yours, is to make sure the hospital continues to function calmly and that a ridiculous panic does not get a hold on these islands.’

I could see the first prickles of a beard jutting through his chin. The hairs were mostly fair but some were red, some grey. I made myself look back up into his eyes, but looking directly at him was making me uncomfortable; his stare was just a little too intense. Green, his eyes were, a deep, olive-green.

‘You’ve had a terrible experience, but I need you to put it behind you now. Can you do that?’

‘Of course,’ I said, because I didn’t have a choice. He was my boss, after all, and it was hardly a request. I knew, though, that it wasn’t going to be that easy.