White Nights (36 page)

He walked out on to the open hill to the sound of skylark and curlew and into a raw orange light. It must already be late in the evening, because the huge ball of the sun was dipping towards the cliff-edge. There too, silhouetted, was the figure of a man, unrecognizable at this distance. A gothic figure against the setting sun.

Although he couldn’t make out the man’s features, had to squint against the light to make him out at all, Perez knew who it was. He wasn’t prepared for the
encounter. Things had moved more quickly than he’d expected. He was tempted to turn away, to wait for Taylor, who might have evidence. But the man was right at the edge of the cliff, on the narrow bridge of rock between the Pit o’ Biddista and the sea. Perez thought the hot summer fifteen years before had resulted in enough loss. He’d allowed Jeremy Booth to run away from him to his death after the Herring House party, and was still troubled by a nagging guilt. How much worse would that be if he made no effort to stop this man jumping?

He walked quickly over the grass, swearing under his breath when he twisted his ankle on a clump of heather. As he approached the cliff-edge, the sound of the seabirds got louder and the orange light stronger, so his head seemed filled with the noise and the light and he couldn’t think clearly at all.

Kenny Thomson didn’t hear Perez approaching. Perez thought the man was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that if Perez had been accompanied by the whole Up Helly Aa marching band, he still wouldn’t have noticed. Kenny stood very close to the cliff-edge, with the Pit at his back. Perez called to him.

‘Come away, Kenny. Come here where I can talk to you.’

The man turned slowly.

‘I’m fine where I am. And I’ve nothing to say.’

‘I can’t shout at you across all this space, man. Not about this. Not about Lawrence.’

Kenny turned again, so once more he was facing the sea.

Perez inched closer, felt his stomach tilt and turn. Now he could see the waves breaking on the outlying
stacks. The sound of the water seemed to take a long time to reach him. He had an image of Roddy’s body, smashed in the Pit. He stumbled, and although he was still yards from the edge his heart seemed to stop. A pebble, loosened by his foot, rolled and bounced down the rock until it was lost in the spray at the bottom.

‘Kenny, I can’t do this, man. Why won’t you come here where I can talk to you?’

Perhaps Kenny heard the panic in his voice, because for the first time he looked directly at Perez.

‘There’s no need for you to be here.’

Perez struggled to find some connection between them, some way of holding the man back from the cliff with his words. ‘Do you mind that summer when you were working on Fair Isle, Kenny? The harbourworks in the North Haven. I’ve been thinking about that since we met up again.’

‘Have you?’ Kenny frowned, willing to be distracted, for a moment at least, from his own thoughts. Perhaps he was glad to be distracted.

‘You came to stay with us in my parents’ house, then you moved back to the hostel. I wondered why you might do that.’

‘Did your mother ever talk to you about me?’

‘Not since. When you were staying on the Isle, I could tell she liked you. She had nothing but good to say about you.’

‘I thought I loved her,’ Kenny said. ‘A bit of summer madness.’ A pause. ‘I did love her.’

Perez felt his stomach tilt again, only this time it had nothing to do with the height of the cliff. His mother was his mother. She wasn’t a woman for men to fall in love with. He didn’t say anything.

‘Nothing happened,’ Kenny said. ‘We weren’t lovers, though I would have liked us to have been. That was why I moved back to the hostel. It drove me mad being in the same house as her. I couldn’t settle. I couldn’t sleep. Now I know it wasn’t a lasting thing. Edith was the woman for me.’ He gave an odd cry, which was lost in the noise of the seabirds.

‘Did my father ever know how you felt about each other?’

Kenny didn’t answer and seemed drowned again in thoughts of his own.

‘Why don’t you move away from the edge, Kenny? So we can talk properly. Not about Fair Isle, but about Lawrence.’

Perez saw that the man’s face was streaming with tears. Molten copper in the orange light. Watching him standing there sobbing, Perez found he was holding his breath. He felt his heart thumping against his ribcage. A couple of steps and Kenny could be over the cliff.

‘Don’t you see?’ Kenny said. ‘There’s no point in talking. Not any more.’

‘I think I’ve worked out what went on.’ Perez sat on the grass, felt the thrift rough against the palms of his hands, and he started to breathe again. ‘Why don’t you sit down too, Kenny? Sit here with me.’

Kenny remained standing. Perez could see that he wasn’t getting through to him. ‘When did it start?’ he asked urgently, shouting out the words, willing Kenny to listen. ‘Did Lawrence always want what you had, Kenny? Even when you were boys?’

‘He was older than me and brighter than me,’ Kenny said. ‘That was only right.’

‘Come away here,’ Perez said again. Kenny was rocking with grief. He’d always been a controlled man, quiet, understated, repressed even. Now he seemed taken over by emotion, unaware of how close he was to the cliff-edge. If he continued like that it would be only a matter of time before he fell. Perez kept his voice light and easy, speaking just loudly enough to be heard above the kittiwakes. ‘But to take Edith away from you, Kenny. That was never right, was it?’

Kenny threw back his head and screamed. ‘What does any of that matter now? Can’t you see, man? It’s all over.’

Something made Perez lean forward and look down to the beach made of rock and shingle at the bottom of the cliff. A small, white figure lay there. Edith. Kenny’s wife. His love.

Kenny crouched and put his head in his hands. Perez got slowly to his feet and inched towards him across the bridge of rock, keeping his eyes firmly on the man and not looking down, feeling the rush of air on all sides. At last he was standing right behind him. He put his hands around Kenny’s shoulders and pulled him upright, led him to safety away from the cliff-edge. Then they walked together in silence back to Skoles.

In the house Kenny took him through to the sitting room, seeming to think that something more formal than the kitchen was called for, though with its big window looking out over the bay, the sheepskin rugs and the comfortable chairs, this was hardly a standard interview room. On the mantelpiece stood pictures of the Thomson children, smiling, gap-toothed. A wedding photograph. Still Kenny didn’t speak. Perez knew he should telephone Roy Taylor to let him know what had happened, and arrange for Edith’s body to be collected, but all that could wait.

‘You’ll take a dram, Jimmy.’ Kenny was quite composed now, though very white and strained. The outburst on the cliff might never have taken place.

Perez nodded. Kenny took a bottle of Highland
Park from a cupboard built next to the chimney and poured out two glasses. They sat looking at each other.

‘I tried to stop Edith jumping,’ Kenny said. ‘In the end she just slipped away from my grasp.’ He shut his eyes. Perez thought the picture of Edith, stepping over the cliff-edge into space, would never leave him.

‘When did you find out that Edith and Lawrence were having an affair? Did you know at the time?’

‘No,’ Kenny said. ‘It never crossed my mind. Not while I was on Fair Isle. I was too wrapped up in my own business there. How did you know? Did Edith tell you?’

‘You know Edith would never do that, Kenny. It’s been her secret. She had too much to lose.’

‘I never thought she would be the sort of woman Lawrence would go for,’ Kenny said. ‘She was quiet, homely then. Not a beauty. Not pretty in the way that made her stand out. But maybe that was what he took a fancy to. The quietness. The determination. He could have had showy Bella, but he decided in the end that wasn’t what he wanted.’

‘He didn’t want Edith just because she belonged to you, Kenny? I wondered if it was about that? A jealousy thing between brothers. Rivalry.’

‘No,’ Kenny said. ‘I don’t think it was that. Lawrence didn’t want to hurt me. He couldn’t help himself.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I don’t know it. Not for sure. It’s what I think – what I want to think, I suppose.’ Outside the sun had dropped further, was chopped in half by the horizon, the outline broken by some twisted threads of purple cloud. The light was softer, less lurid. ‘How did you find out about the pair of them if Edith didn’t tell you?’

‘I worked it out from what people said.’ Perez took a sip of the whisky. ‘Edith mentioned something herself. She told me that Lawrence was like Roddy, had to have a woman in his life. I knew he was spending all his spare time in Biddista that summer. He wasn’t seeing Aggie or Bella, so it must have been Edith. Then Aggie said something similar tonight. “I always felt sorry for Kenny, having to play second fiddle.”’

‘Did the whole valley know?’ Kenny was angry.

‘Not the details,’ Perez said. ‘But that Lawrence liked Edith, most of them would know that. It was just you and Bella in the dark, and I think Bella suspected something. It was just her pride stopped her seeing it.’ He paused. ‘And how about you, Kenny? How did you find out?’

‘I worked it out in the end, a bit like you. I went to see the writer, Wilding. He remembered something of what went on. All those parties. Lawrence must have talked to him. He always did get sentimental when he was drunk. You’re right: Wilding tried to tell Bella at the time that Lawrence had no interest in her, but she didn’t want to hear it.’

‘Jeremy Booth must have known too.’ Perez took another sip from the whisky. Later he would need all this in a statement. Now he just wanted things straight in his own mind.

‘Booth was on the hill when Lawrence went into the Pit,’ Kenny said. ‘He saw what happened.’

‘What did happen that day, Kenny? Did Edith tell you?’

‘It was the middle of summer, a steaming hot night. Airless. The evening of the grand party at the Manse. Lawrence asked Edith to meet him on the hill
while the rest of them were dressing up in their fancy clothes and their masks. Edith must have been flattered by him, don’t you think? Is that why she fell for him? Lawrence, the man all the women fancied, wanting her. He said he needed to talk to her. Anyway she left my father minding the children and went out to see him. Lawrence said he’d told Bella that he could never love her, never marry her, never make a family with her. “I’ve said I’m going away on my travels, I’m leaving Shetland.” He asked Edith to go with him. “Just bring the children. We’ll go to Sumburgh tonight and get the first plane south.” That was Lawrence for you. No sense of the practicalities, of where they might stay.’

‘But Edith wouldn’t go with him?’

Kenny looked up at Perez. It was as if he’d forgotten he was there.

‘No, she wouldn’t go. She enjoyed being with him; maybe she even fancied herself in love with him; but she was married to me. By then they’d walked to the top of the hill and were standing right by the Pit. Lawrence tried to take her in his arms. Edith told me she was worried that if he touched her she might be tempted to give in and go with him.’ For the first time Kenny let a trace of bitterness into his voice. ‘He always did have that effect on women.’

‘Tell me what happened, Kenny.’

‘Edith pushed him away and he slipped into the Pit. Hit his head on the rocks at the bottom. She climbed down after and could tell he was dead. She pulled him into the tunnel so nobody could see the body from the top. She always was a strong woman. She could keep up with me in the work on the croft.’ He paused. ‘The rats and the birds and the tide will have done the rest.’

They sat for a moment in silence.

‘Did Jeremy Booth confront Edith that night about Lawrence?’

Kenny shook his head.

‘She saw Booth when she climbed back up after hiding the body. He was at the bottom of the hill looking up at her. She hoped he hadn’t seen the scuffle between her and Lawrence. The next day he disappeared. She must have thought it was all over.’

‘That she’d got away with it?’

‘Aye. But she never did really. Every summer she lay awake. I thought it was the white nights, but it was dreams of Lawrence.’ He set down his glass. ‘She should have talked to me. What did she think? That I’d hate her for it?’

‘When did Booth get in touch with her?’

‘A couple of weeks ago, by email. It went to her address at work, but she picked it up here. She was always working in the evenings on that computer of hers. He’d seen that television documentary about Roddy and Bella and Biddista. It mentioned that Edith worked in the care centre and made us out to be much more wealthy than we really are. He needed money, he said. To give to his daughter. To make up for all the years they’d never had.’ He looked at Perez. ‘What about
my
daughter? What will I tell her?’

Perez shook his head to show that he had no answer.

‘Then Booth turned up at Edith’s work. Imagine how shocked she was! She’d thought he was in England, but he was standing there, claiming to be an old friend of Willy’s, looking quite different. He was chatting away to the old man when she found him. “You know what
happened, don’t you, Willy?” Booth was saying. “You guessed at least.” But Willy wouldn’t talk to him.’

‘Willy said an Englishman had been asking him questions,’ Perez said. ‘At first I thought he meant Wilding. When I realized it was Booth, I wondered why Edith hadn’t mentioned him visiting. What happened next?’

‘Booth said he was going to come out to Biddista for the opening night of the exhibition. He’d put on a bit of a show, have some fun, kill two birds with one stone. Bella had always been a snooty cow. She’d invited him into her home then treated him like dirt. It wouldn’t hurt her to know what rejection felt like. He just enjoyed making mischief, I think. The mask, the dressing up, he’d have loved all that. Edith didn’t ask what he intended to do. She just wanted him to go away without a fuss. He said he’d pick up the money from her at the same time. He’d meet her in the hut on the jetty.’ Kenny got to his feet and poured more whisky into Perez’s glass and then into his own.