The Trowie Mound Murders (3 page)

‘You took your exams there?'

‘No. My last bit of schooling was in France.' I was beginning to share Magnie's suspicions. Any Shetland person would ask these questions, of course, to ‘place' me, and the conversation would end, ‘Ye, ye, I ken wha du is noo.' But Madge wasn't Shetland, so the names wouldn't mean anything to her. Maybe she was just nosy, and too new to boating to understand the unwritten rules about privacy – yet she'd made the bow rope fast like a pro. I decided to make it their turn. ‘How about you, did you say you're from Orkney?'

Neither of the voices suggested Orkney, that lovely lilting accent, like Scots spoken by a Welsh singer, but they could be retired there. Orkney had a much higher incomer population than Shetland.

David shook his head. ‘Central belt, us, but Orkney was where we'd just come from. Beautiful place, and we found a little hotel that gave us the best steaks I've ever tasted. We had a couple of days in Kirkwall, then came up via Fair Isle.' He looked at his watch. ‘Ten o'clock already! I'm not used to the light here yet. It's barely dimming. Excuse me, I must check on the news.'

He snicked on the radio, and we had five minutes of headlines: crisis in the euro, a charity worried about falling donations, the chancellor announcing another austerity measure. I was rich at the moment, as the film job had paid well, but I was keeping that for going to college, so Anders and I were living on our day-to-day wages: his job as an engineer for cash, mine teaching sailing for the club in exchange for free mooring. Belts were being worn tight this summer.

At the end of the headlines, David switched the radio off, shaking his head. ‘I'd got all interested in the latest of these robberies, but there's obviously nothing new.'

Robberies didn't ring any bells, but I wasn't a great news watcher. I set my jaw to suppress a yawn. ‘Excuse me – I've been out on the water all day.'

 Magnie came to my rescue. ‘The ones with paintings and things from Scottish houses? No grand houses particularly, no' the big ones like Glamis. Lairds' houses.'

‘There's been a bit of coverage about it,' David said. ‘Anders, come and admire our engines.'

Anders didn't need asking twice. He put Rat back on his shoulder, and they disappeared down the ladder.

‘They've recovered one of the Epstein bronze heads, in Faroe,' Madge said.

‘That's good,' I said. This yawn wouldn't be suppressed. ‘I'm sorry!' I rose. ‘Thank you very much for the coffee, and I hope you have a pleasant stay in Shetland. Do you plan to be here long?'

‘Oh, a week or so, touring around,' she said. ‘Probably not in Brae, though; we'll just stock up on fresh supplies and fuel, then move on.'

‘Well, good journey,' I said. Magnie put his mug down and stood up.

‘Just post the key in the boating club letterbox,' he said. ‘Have a good stay in Shetland.'

‘I'm sure we will,' Madge said, smiling.

‘They're up to something,' Magnie stated, when Anders had returned, with the dreamy air of a man who'd seen a vision, and we were all safely ensconced in
Khalida
's much smaller cabin, with the candle in the lantern sending flickering shadows round the varnished wooden walls. She had a traditional layout, my little home, with a blue-cushioned seat along the starboard side, running from the wooden bulkhead forrard to the quarterberth aft, and the cooker, sink, and chart table on port. Past the bulkhead was the heads, which we didn't use in the marina, with a hatch amidships, and a hanging locker opposite it, to starboard, and past that again, with a curtain for privacy, was the v-shaped forepeak berth where Anders and Rat slept. The settee was interrupted by a prop-legged table. Anders sat behind it, his fair head tilted against the bulkhead, with Rat balanced beside him on the wooden fiddle that kept our books in place at sea. Magnie sat opposite and I was on my usual place on the steps that doubled as the engine cover.

‘You over-did the country bumpkin act a touch,' I said. ‘No fisherman would be surprised by AIS, they've had it for years.'

‘They didna ken I was a fisherman,' Magnie said. ‘And,' he repeated stubbornly, ‘they're up to something. I doot they're police.'

‘Police?' I echoed.

Anders looked alarmed. ‘Why would the police be here?'

‘Service. Something like that,' Magnie insisted. I looked at him doubtfully. ‘That boat was just too fancy,' he said, ‘and they just didna fit it. I dinna ken for south folk, of course, but there was something no' right. She was over young to be old riggit.'

I considered that one. ‘The apron?'

‘What age would you say she was, now? Forty-five?'

‘Around there,' I agreed.

‘Well, now, I'm no' seen a pinny like that on a body under sixty, no' for years, nor face-powder like that either. She was pretty spry too.'

‘Forty-five's not exactly rheumatism age,' I said.

‘She still moved like a younger body,' Magnie insisted. ‘If you went by the way she pranced up and down that ladder wi' a tray in her hands, well, you'd have guessed she was thirty.'

‘Maybe she goes to the gym,' I said.

‘If she went to the gym she'd no' have all that ply on her.'

‘Yes,' I agreed. ‘She was plump. They both were.'

‘It was the robberies,' Anders said suddenly. ‘Before that, they were just asking questions, the way people do, on boats. Below, too, the man kept talking about them.'

‘Too many questions,' I said.

‘Not too many for passing in harbour,' Anders said. ‘That is different. As crew on a ship, yes, it would be far too many, for people you will be living with for a month.'

I nodded. Privacy was jealously guarded with seven of you in a forty-foot yacht.

‘I thought that too,' Magnie said. ‘Finding out whaur you grew up, Cass.'

‘They were odd about Norway,' I said, ‘as if they were checking up on you too.'

‘But when David came to the robbery, he was watching you. He was suspicious, especially when you yawned.'

‘I've been on the water all day,' I protested. ‘Fresh air and all that.'

‘If one of these head things has turned up in Faroe,' Magnie said, ‘well, maybe they're suspicious of private yachts that could go between Scotland and there.'

I looked across at Anders, leaning back in his corner, with Rat drowsing under his chin, and the lantern casting amber shadows on his hair, then down at my own paint-stained jeans. ‘Do we look like people who'd know a Leonardo from a lighthouse?'

‘We'd know the lighthouse,' Anders said.

‘It was odd, too, their name,' I said. ‘I know people's names do often suit them, but I thought he looked a bit like a walrus, he had that blubbery look, you know, with power under the fat, and then I suddenly remembered this book I loved as a child, about ‘Captain Morse', and he looked just like the pictures.

‘Where are they from?' Magnie asked suddenly. ‘I never looked at the stern o' her.'

‘There was nothing on her bows,' I said.

Anders put Rat on the table, took one step forrard, raised the hatch, and stuck his head up. ‘This is very odd.' He reached up, put one foot on his bunk and swung himself out, fluid as water. Magnie and I looked at each other, brows raised, then came out through the companionway into the cockpit. The moon had intensified to a silver penny, bright in the pale blue sky; the water had fallen halfway down the slip and swirled out of the marina towards its gathering in the deep of the ocean.

‘She does not have a name,' Anders murmured. ‘And I think there was not a call sign by the instruments.'

‘No,' I said, remembering, ‘there wasn't.'

Magnie shook his head. ‘That's aye by the wireless, standard practice.'

We looked across
Khalida
's bows at the gleaming transom making a broad figure 8 with its reflection. Above it the cabin lights shone orange, darkening the clear night. The white sweep of fibreglass was unmarked. There was no name, no port, just the red ensign, hanging in folds in the still air.

We stood for a moment, looking at her. I tried to think if I'd ever seen a nameless boat before, and decided that I hadn't.

‘No SSR number either,' Anders murmured.

‘Illegal,' I agreed.

Dublin, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Portsmouth. Norway, Faroe, Germany, Poland. The Viking road was open to her here. David and Madge were Scottish, but they could have arrived from anywhere.

Chapter Three

‘I'm telling you,' Magnie said, ‘she's police, or undercover services.' He stumped forrard and took a long, slow look down the voe. ‘Well, if this other boat doesna come soon I'm away to my bed.'

‘Other boat?' Anders shook his head and lapsed into Shetland. ‘Boys a boys, this place is coming like Waterloo station in the rush hour.'

‘Two at once is good going,' I agreed. ‘They must have heard about the boating club hot showers.'

‘The Mid-Brae Inn's stock of Shetland real ale.'

‘Frankie's fish and chip shop.'

‘Britain's most northerly Indian takeaway.'

 ‘A yacht,' Magnie said. ‘She phoned around dinner-time. She's making her way under sail down from Hillswick, the man said, and they hoped to be in Brae before it got dark. I told her to knock you pair up if I wasn't there.'

‘No problem,' Anders said. He came back along to the cockpit. ‘I will still be awake, even if Cass is out cold. Much good knocking her up would do, I can tell you.'

‘I can sleep on a clothes rail,' I agreed.

‘It's fine,' Magnie said. ‘This'll be her comin' now. Listen.'

We listened to the soft lap of water on the pebble shore, and the chittering of the tirricks, settling their chicks for the night; a car driving around the curve towards the boating club; a sheep, calling its lamb; the houb-boub-boub of a snipe on the hill. Once our ears had filtered those noises out, there was the soft throb of an engine in the distance.

‘Unless it's the party boat, the yellow one,' I said. ‘Kevin and Geri's.'

Anders shook his head. ‘It's a yacht engine.'

Magnie looked into the distance. ‘That's her lights now, coming round the headland.' He swung over
Khalida'
s side onto the pontoon. ‘Thirty-six foot. I'll put her in nose-on to the other one.'

I slipped below to put out the lantern, then joined Magnie on the pontoon. ‘I'll help take her lines.'

We watched as the light approached, until it was close enough to see the slender mast above a dark green hull, sloped gracefully in at each end. ‘Why,' I said, eyeing her up greedily, ‘she's a Rustler. They're amazing boats, real ocean crossers. If ever I'm rich –'

‘A well-kept engine,' Anders said, as she curved into the marina.

‘Look at her lines,' I breathed. ‘That lovely stern.'

‘A long-keeler, though,' Anders said. ‘I bet you'd need a bow-thruster to reverse.'

‘Is she staying long, Magnie?'

‘Twar-tree days. Are you pair helping with these lines or just pier-head skippering?'

We grabbed a warp each, ready to throw. There was a couple aboard, moving with the ease of long practice, the man in the bows and the woman steering. She cut the engine and reversed to stop the boat an exact metre from the Bénéteau's stern; the man stepped unhurriedly on to the pontoon as she came in, rope in one hand, and steadied her before taking a turn around the pontoon loop. Then he turned to us and smiled. ‘Thanks.' He tossed the two aft warps to his companion and went forrard himself to secure the Rustler's bow. ‘Well, that was a good sail round. Hope you haven't been kept waiting for us –' He considered Anders, moved his gaze to Magnie. ‘Mr Williamson, is it?'

‘Magnie.' They shook hands.

‘Come aboard – can I tempt you to a nightcap?'

‘I'm no' wanting to keep you up,' Magnie said.

‘Night's young yet,' the man said cheerily. ‘A dram's always fine after a long sail. Come in.'

‘Yes, do,' the woman echoed from the cockpit. ‘We want to pick your brains about the neighbourhood, so you'll be doing us a favour.'

We tramped aboard.

I hadn't been inside a Rustler before, and I wasn't disappointed. There was a fibreglass canopy over the companionway, protecting the nav. instruments and the helmsman; you could go through a gale in this boat without getting your hair wet. I ducked below it and came down into the cabin. The layout was the same as on
Khalida
, with forepeak berth, saloon, chart table, and two quarter-berths running under the cockpit (very old-fashioned these days, where you'd expect at least one aft cabin on a thirty-six footer), but the depth of her keel meant there were four steps down, so it was like coming into the cabin of a tall ship. She was lined with pale wood whose varnish gleamed in the light of the oil lamps, and where Anders' curtain was on
Khalida
there was a substantial bulkhead door, open to show a jazzy blue and green downie spread on the triangular bed. The saloon had the table offset to give a clear gangway, and the green-cushioned couches each side were backed by closed lockers and a well-fiddled bookshelf. Just by the steps, the chart table had a row of screens and a laptop, and there was a neat galley opposite, with a cooker, sink, and workspace. She was immaculately clean, and tidied for sea, with all loose items stowed or secured.

‘Peter and Sandra Wearmouth,' the man said. ‘Have a seat. Whisky?'

‘We've earned a dram,' Sandra said. ‘We've just come round Muckle Flugga.' It was Britain's most northerly point, a lighthouse perched on jagged, slanted rock and surrounded by large breakers and cross-currents.

‘No' for me,' Magnie said. Anders and I stared. Magnie reddened. ‘I'm drivin',' he added. Given that I'd seen him drive when he was barely able to stand, I didn't buy that one.

‘A cup of tea then?' Sandra asked.

‘That'd be most splendid,' Magnie said, and slid behind the table.

‘I'd prefer that too,' I said, and joined him. Peter raised one eyebrow at Anders.

‘Whisky, please,' he said. ‘Thank you.'

Once we were all installed round the table I got a proper look at them. Peter was in his early fifties, with a smooth cap of gleamingly silver hair and shrewd eyes under level brows. His skin was that plump pink you often see in office workers, overlaid now with a seaman's tan, and he wore a Mike Aston striped jumper in eye-hurting colours. My impression was of someone who'd been in the services; he had that air of command. Sandra was a little younger, late forties or just fifty, with ash blonde hair cut in a fringed bob, and grey-green eyes that reminded me of someone else, though I couldn't quite place the memory. She was dressed with corporate neatness under her sailing oilskins, in a dark green jumper with matching slacks and a contrasting orange scarf that somehow combined smartness with motherliness. They were from Newcastle; Peter spoke London English with the occasional flattened Geordie A or heightened U, Sandra was still pretty broad.

We'd just sat down when there was a cracked squawk from the forepeak, and the oddest-looking cat I'd ever seen jumped down from the berth, shimmied across the bathroom floor, and leapt, light as a gull's breast-feather in the wind, to Peter's shoulder. It was starvation-skinny, with long chocolate-brown legs, a whiplash black tail, and ears borrowed from something twice its size. Most surprising of all, it had eyes as blue as my own. It gave that strange call again, turned around in Peter's lap, then sat bolt upright, those astonishing eyes fixed on us. I'd never seen anything like it.

Magnie laughed at me. ‘It's a Siamese, Cass.'

‘A cross between a cat and a monkey,' Peter agreed. ‘She's our mascot.'

‘Yours,' Sandra said. ‘She doesn't talk to me.'

It was just as well Anders had left Rat aboard
Khalida.

‘So,' I asked, ‘what brought you to Shetland?'

‘The archaeology,' Peter said. He handed Anders a whisky in a cut-crystal glass.

‘Peter got hooked on the past through watching
Time Team,'
Sandra said, shaking her head at his jumper. ‘I put my foot down about the Phil hat, though, didn't I, pet?'

‘I've got one on order from eBay,' he retorted. ‘Seriously though, it got me interested in what's all around us, the heritage that we don't even notice. Shetland's an amazing place. Those, for example.'

He waved a hand across at Magnie's cottage, tucked in its own bay. ‘The cottage?' I asked.

‘Built on a Norse site with stones from a Pictish broch,' Magnie said.

‘The big stones running up the hill behind it.'

‘Trowie stones,' I said. ‘Bad luck to go shifting those.'

‘Neolithic field boundaries, five thousand years old.'

‘Really?' I said, amazed. ‘Five thousand?'

‘Perhaps not those actual stones, though the big ones probably are. But the boundary would have stayed, once it was first marked. And you can't see it from here, but I'm sure there's a chambered cairn on the back of the hill there.' He waved a hand north towards the Nibon skyline.

We gave him a blank look. ‘I do not know what this is,' Anders said. ‘Do you mean where you put a stone, to show you have climbed the hill?'

‘Bigger than that,' Peter said. ‘It looks like a grassy hillock now, but there are built walls under the grass. It's not quite up at the top of the hill, on a flat platform looking out over the bay. Look, here.' He spread the chart between us, and indicated the Atlantic coast they'd come round, a mile across the north-sheltering hill, drawing his finger up from the opening under Muckle Roe brig to the long voe of Mangaster, a real Norwegian fjord with steep, green hills rising straight from the sea. The finger stopped on the hill.

‘Oh,' I said, ‘you mean the trowie mound.'

‘Trowie mound?' Sandra echoed.

‘Trows are the Shetland fairies,' I said. ‘No, not fairies, elves. Puck and all that, plaiting the ponies' manes in the night. Trolls, that's the English.'

‘Norwegian,' Anders interjected.

 I ignored him. ‘They're little hairy people who live in green mounds like that one.'

Peter's eyes lit up. ‘You see, that's folk memories of the Picts. They lived in wheelhouses that looked just like a green mound from outside.'

‘They like music, particularly fiddle music,' I continued, ‘and Magnie's got a story about a fiddler – go on, Magnie, you tell it.'

‘This folk are no' wanting to hear me yarning all night,' Magnie protested.

‘Yes we are,' Sandra said. ‘I want to enjoy your accent. Go on.'

‘Well,' said Magnie, with a nicely judged air of reluctance, ‘this is one of me grandmidder's stories, and I can vouch for the truth of it, for she met the man himself when she was joost a young lass –'

It was Magnie's best story and he told it well, from the midsummer-eve opening by that green hillock, when a local fiddler was asked by a small, brightly clad man if he'd come and play at a wedding, through the description of the trowie celebrations to the man awakening by the knowe again, to find the landscape changed around him, old houses gone and new ones grown. ‘And he went back, that man, to his ain hoose, and the folk there stared at him, until the auld man by the fire minded tales o' his own grandfather, who'd disappeared one night and never been seen again, and that was this very man.'

‘And what happened to him then?' Sandra asked.

Magnie's rare smile wrinkled up his weathered face. ‘You're thinking he mebbe withered up in front of their eyes? Na, na. Well, they asked him to bide, he was their own kin, but he never settled. There was naebody he kent, you see. In the end he spent day after day ida kirkyard, joost lookin' at the graves. Then, when midsummer came round again, he said he'd had enough. The trows would be glad o' a good fiddler, he said, and midsummer eve they'd be out and about, if ever they were. He'd go up to the knowe and ask to be taken in. So that night up he went and that was the last they ever saw o' him. But sometimes you'll hear – and I'm heard it myself – you'll hear a strain o' fiddle music coming out of that very mound, or see lights moving around it, and I'm seen that too.'

He left a nicely judged pause, then turned to Peter. ‘O' course you're fairly right, it's a cairn, as you say, mid-Neothlithic, maybe three and a half thousand years old.' I didn't bother being surprised at his knowledge; what a Shetlander didn't know about his home turf wasn't worth knowing.

‘But what is it?' Anders persisted.

‘It's a Neolithic burial chamber,' Peter said, ‘not very big, because they did sky burials first, you know, exposing the bodies for the birds to pick, then once or twice a year there would be a big ceremony to take the bones into the house of the ancestors. What d'y say, Sand, shall we take a walk up there tomorrow? A nice stroll, to take the fidgets out of our legs.'

‘It's further than it looks,' I warned them. ‘You can't go straight from here; you'd need to walk along the road, here, five miles or so –' I turned the chart towards them. ‘Here, you'd go north from Brae, then strike out into the hills, towards the coast. If I remember right, there's a house here –' I indicated just below the trowie mound hill ‘– and it'll have a track to it, from the head of the voe, here. Then you'd go straight up the hill to the trowie mound.'

‘A good way,' Peter agreed. ‘A ten-mile walk. What d'y say, Sand, shall we take the tent? Camp up beside this cairn and give it a good explore. Can you get inside, d'y know, Cass?'

‘I have a vague memory,' I admitted, ‘that you can. The boy from that house, just below it, well, he was at school with me, here in Brae, three, four years older, and I seem to remember him bringing in a carrier bag with a skull, and trying to scare us with it.'

‘A skull?' Peter almost shouted.

‘He said it was full of bones,' I said. ‘The other boys thought it sounded cool, but I don't know if any of them could ever be bothered walking all that way out there to look.'

‘You mean,' Peter said, his voice quivering, ‘that it hadn't been excavated? That the bones of the people buried in it were still there?'