Authors: Ann Cleeves
‘I was looking out for you,’ Kenny said. ‘Sandy said he’d called you. But I thought I might as well get on with some work. We’re planning on clipping the sheep at the end of the week.’
‘Do you want to carry on? We can talk just the same.’
‘No, I was about ready for a coffee. You’ll join me?’
The kitchen was tidier than most croft houses
Perez had been in. Kenny stood at the door and unlaced his boots before walking inside with stockinged feet. Perez checked that his shoes were clean before following. The room was square with a table in the middle, a couple of easy chairs close to the Rayburn. The fitted cupboards and the fancy appliances all Kenny’s work, Perez thought, but chosen by Edith. A jug of campion stood on the windowsill, its deep pink matching a motif in the wall tiles. Everything planned and ordered. The breakfast things, still unwashed on the draining board, were the only items out of place.
Kenny must have seen Perez looking at them. ‘I’ll have those done before Edith gets in,’ he said. ‘It only seems right when she’s been at work all day. Are you all right with instant? Edith likes the real stuff – Ingirid bought her a fancy machine for Christmas – but I’ve always thought it kind of bitter.’
‘Of course,’ Perez said. ‘Whatever you’re having.’ He could have done with a strong espresso, but knew it wouldn’t be right to ask.
He waited until Kenny joined him at the kitchen table before starting the questions.
‘What time did you find him?’
Kenny considered. Everything he did would be slow and deliberate. Except dancing, thought Perez, remembering the scene in the Fair Isle hall. He was a wild dancer.
‘It would have been about ten-past nine this morning. Edith had left for work around half-past eight and I was thinking about starting on the neeps; there aren’t many days like this, even in the summer.’ He smiled. ‘I was tempted by the fishing. Thought we might have
a bit of a barbecue tonight if I got lucky and brought back some piltock or mackerel.’
Perez nodded. ‘I know you didn’t see his face, but do you have any idea who the dead man might be? We need to identify him.’
Another pause. ‘No. I’d never met him.’
‘But you might have some idea?’
‘Bella had one of her parties last night. The place was full of strangers.’
Not so full.
‘You weren’t there yourself, Kenny. I thought she always asked Biddista folk to her openings. I thought you were the inspiration for her work.’
Kenny’s face was brown and lined. It cracked into a brief mischievous smile. ‘That’s what she tells the media. Did you see that TV documentary about her and Roddy? I’ll never believe anything I see on the TV again. They came to film in Biddista, you know, followed me around one day and you’d think from the programme I was some great landowner, almost a laird.’ The kettle came to a boil. ‘Don’t be taken in by the stories, Jimmy. Bella Sinclair always thought she was better than us. Even when we were at school and she was living in a council house down at the shore. It was true that she could always draw, mind, even as a scrap of a girl. She seemed to see things differently from the rest of us.’
‘Do you know if she had any people staying at the Manse with her last night?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve told you, Jimmy, we don’t mix with Bella these days. We wouldn’t know. I don’t think she has such big parties staying in the house as she did before. The old days, the Manse was
always full of strangers. Even then it was as if Biddista folk weren’t good enough for her. Maybe she’s finally growing up and she doesn’t need people telling her how wonderful she is all the time.’
‘Roddy was at the Herring House.’
‘Then he’ll be staying with her at the Manse. Slumming it until he gets a better offer.’
‘You don’t like the boy?’
Kenny shrugged. ‘He’s been spoiled rotten. Not his fault.’
‘He was at the St Magnus Festival in Kirkwall and Bella persuaded him north to play for her.’
‘He’s a fine musician,’ Kenny said. ‘Just as she’s a fine artist. I’m not sure that excuses the way they treat folk, though. Roddy used to tag along after my children when he came to stay with Bella. He was younger than them but he still used to boss them about. And later he took my Ingirid out a few times. Thendumped her. She cried for a week. I told her she was well out of it.’
‘I just know what I read in the press.’
‘Well,’ Kenny said. ‘That’s only the half of it. Even when he was at school he was a wild one. Drinking. Drugs too, according to my kids.’
Perez found himself eager to hear the stories about Roddy’s exploits. It probably had no relevance to the death of a strange Englishman, but everyone in Shetland was fascinated by Roddy Sinclair. He’d brought glamour to the islands.
‘I did see someone leave the party,’ Kenny said. ‘I was just on the hill there behind the house. Someone dressed in black. I wondered if it might be yon man in the hut.’
‘What time was it?’
The pause again. The deliberation. ‘Nine-thirty? Maybe a little later.’
Perez thought that would fit in with the disappearance of the Englishman.
‘Did he get into a car?’
‘No, he didn’t go towards the car park. He came this way, up towards the Manse. But he was a good way off. I couldn’t swear it was him. He was running. The man I saw. Running as if the devil was after him.’
Not the devil, Perez thought. Me. I’d assumed he’d gone towards the big road south and if I’d spent more time looking I’d have found him. Why would he come this way? If he had run away from the beach towards the Manse and Skoles, how did he find his way back to the jetty with a noose round his neck? Then he thought how frightened the man had been about being left alone. Perhaps someone else was chasing him too.
Perez could tell that Kenny wanted to be away outside, and besides, he could think of nothing else to ask. He knew that there would be other questions, later. He’d wake up to them in the middle of the night. He stood in the garden waiting while Kenny stooped to put on his boots.
‘Would Edith have seen the man?’ It had come to him suddenly that from the house she might have had a better view.
Kenny squinted up from where he was crouching. ‘She didn’t see him at all. I asked her.’
‘Will you both be in this evening, if I need to speak to you again?’
Kenny straightened. ‘We’ll be around here somewhere. But there’ll be nothing more to tell you.’
As Perez walked back towards the shore, the sound of the kittiwakes on the cliffs beyond the beach got louder. He didn’t care much for heights. While the other kids clambered down the geos at home, he’d stayed well away from the edge. But he liked to see the cliffs from the bottom, especially at this time of year when the birds had young, the busyness of them all jostling for a place on the ledges. The tide must be full now. The water had almost reached the boats pulled up on the beach. As he approached Sandy, a Range-Rover drove down the coast road, past the Herring House.
The doctor, Sullivan, was a Glaswegian. Young, bright. He’d fallen for a Shetland woman and loved her so much that he’d followed her north when she was homesick in the city. They said he could have been a great consultant, but had given it up to be a country GP. How romantic was that!
They said
. More stories, Perez thought. We all grow up with them, but how can we tell which of them are true?
Sullivan obviously hadn’t found the shift too great a sacrifice, because he was whistling when he got out of the car and grinned at them.
‘Sorry to keep you, gentlemen. A lady in Whiteness was further into labour than she’d realized and we delivered her baby at home. A very bonny little girl!’
Perez wondered if he’d be so cheerful in the winter. There were incomers from the south who couldn’t face the endless nights and the wind. These light nights would soon give way to the storms of the autumn equinox. Perez loved the dramatic change in the seasons but it didn’t suit everyone.
Sullivan took a quick look at the body from the door, then returned to his car. When he came back he was carrying a heavy torch. He shone it into the corners of the hut, lifted a small wooden stepladder that had been hooked on to nails in the wall.
‘I need a closer look. That’s OK?’
Perez nodded. If this turned out to be a crime scene, they’d be lucky if the CSI from Inverness got there that day. Best he got all the information he could now. ‘Just try not to touch anything else.’
The doctor had set up the stepladder so he was level with the hanging man. He shone the torch at the neck.
‘Problems?’
‘Maybe. Not sure yet. It looks like he died of strangulation, but that’s not unusual with hanging. They don’t often go with a quick break of the neck, especially with such a short drop.’ He came down a couple of steps. ‘If I had to place a bet, I’d say he was strangled and already dead before he was strung up. Look: this rope is very thick, but there’s another mark on the neck here and the angle’s rather different. The mark from the thick rope doesn’t quite hide the thin one.’ Now he was standing back beside them. ‘I’d like a second opinion before I call this in as murder, inspector. I’m new here. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.’
‘But you’re pretty sure he didn’t kill himself.’
‘Like I said, inspector, if I was a betting man, I’d say he was already dead before he was hanged. And if I was on my home territory I’d have no hesitation. But it’s not my place and you’ll not get me to commit
myself until someone with a bit more experience has taken a look.’
Perez looked at his watch. If this was a murder investigation he’d need to get the team from Inverness in on the last plane of the day. There was still time, but not much. ‘How soon can you get your second opinion?’
‘Give me an hour.’
Perez nodded. He knew he wanted it to be murder. Because of the excitement, because this thrill was what he’d joined the service for, and in Shetland there weren’t so many cases to provide it. And because if the man hadn’t killed himself Perez wasn’t responsible, couldn’t have foreseen it.
Lying on her bed, watching the sunlight on the ceiling, Fran tried not to get seduced by the sense of well-being. She had felt equally euphoric after her first night with Duncan and look what had happened there! He’d been sleeping with a woman old enough to be his mother all the time they were married and had made a complete fool of Fran. Thinking about it still made her squirm inside. A breeze from the open window blew the curtain and she had a glimpse of a fat black ewe, chewing, only feet from the house. The curtain fell back into place and Fran pushed images of Perez from her mind.
When she had left Duncan, the temptation had been to run back to live in London, to her gang of friends, the anonymous city streets where nobody knew of her humiliation. But there’d been Cassie to think about. Cassie was nearly six now, had more freedom here than she’d ever have had in London. She had a right to know her father. And Fran had come to love Shetland, despite its bleakness, so she’d moved into a small house in Ravenswick, rented it over the winter to give herself time to make up her mind about where she wanted to be. Three months ago she’d bought it. She’d committed to Shetland. She wasn’t sure, though,
whether she could commit yet to Jimmy Perez. It was all too much to deal with at once.
Safer to concentrate on the failure of the party at the Herring House. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected of the exhibition opening, but she’d certainly hoped it would be more of an event. Even with Roddy Sinclair trying valiantly to bring a sense of occasion, the evening had been an anticlimax. The room half empty. Very few of her friends had been there to share the celebration. She had dreamed of having the chance to show her work for so long that she felt cheated. And what would people remember? Not the art at all, but a strange man having hysterics.
Yet the residual disappointment, the childish ‘It wasn’t fair’ couldn’t prevent her thoughts drifting back to Perez. To the first, slightly clumsy, coffee-tasting kiss. To the line of his back, just as she’d imagined it, the knots of his spine against her fingers.
The phone rang.
She assumed it would be Perez and got quickly out of bed, walked naked into the living room which was also her kitchen, thinking she would tell him she had no clothes on. That would excite him. Wouldn’t it? She had so much to learn about him. The dress she’d worn to the opening was lying in a heap on the floor. On the table the dregs of coffee in a jug, two glasses.
She picked up the phone. ‘Hello.’ Keeping her voice low and inviting.
‘Frances, are you all right? You sound as if you’ve got a cold.’ It was Bella Sinclair.
She’ll blame me, Fran thought, for the disappointing turnout last night. If Bella had been the only
person exhibiting, they’d have come. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘A bit tired.’
‘Look, I need to talk to you. Can you come here? What time is it now? Eleven-thirty. Come for lunch then, as soon as you can.’
What does she want? Fran knew it was ridiculous but she was starting to panic. Bella had the ability to intimidate. Perhaps she wants money from me, she thought. Compensation for the expenses involved with setting up the party and the lack of sales. And she had no money. But of course she would obey Bella’s summons.
‘Shall we meet in the Herring House café at twelve-thirty?’ she suggested tentatively. It would take her at least that long to dress and drive north.
‘No, no.’ Bella was impatient. ‘Not the Herring House. Here, at the Manse. As quick as you can.’
Driving to Biddista, Fran thought she should have put up more of a fight, arranged to come another day. Just because she admired Bella’s work didn’t mean she didn’t have a mind of her own. Once she’d been known as strong-willed, assertive. But that had been in the old days when she had a proper job and a bunch of friends and she lived in London. Now she was struggling as an artist and to find her place in the community. As she drove past the Herring House she was wondering what the girls from the magazine would have made of Perez, so she didn’t register the cars parked at the jetty or the small group of men standing outside the corrugated-iron hut. They were part of the landscape. Men planning to get out fishing. My friends would say he wasn’t my type, she thought.
Not strong enough to take me on. They’d say the relationship would never last.