Cold Earth

Chapter Three

It was 14 February. Sandy had a new girlfriend who filled his mind and dulled his concentration. Louisa was a teacher in Yell, a north isle that was a ferry ride away; he’d known her since they were at school together, but they’d only been going out for a few months and he was still feeling his way. It was midweek, so they hadn’t planned to meet to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but had decided to get together on Saturday night. Sandy had asked Louisa what she’d like to do, but she hadn’t been much help: ‘Why don’t you surprise me, Sandy?’ Which seemed like a sort of challenge. He was anxious and had even begun to hope that the road would still be closed and the dead woman still unidentified, so that he could claim he needed to be at work.

Now he wondered if he should phone her, to show that he’d remembered the date. Or would she think that was soppy? Louisa was the least sentimental woman he’d ever met. He knew she would hate the pink cards he’d seen in the shops, the shiny hearts and the teddy bears, the balloons. He hadn’t bought her anything. In the end he sent her a text: Thinking of you today. Speak later. Surely she couldn’t object to that?

On the way to his car he bumped into Reg Gilbert, who must have been lurking there for most of the day. Reg was the senior reporter on The Shetland Times. He’d previously worked on a big regional daily in the Midlands and had been lured north by a woman who’d immediately dumped him. Now Reg was stranded in the islands, a strange alien creature, a newshound with virtually nothing of interest to the outside world to report.

Except now, when the landslide had become national news. There were dramatic pictures after all, and Jimmy Perez always said the press loved images more than words. Sandy suspected that Reg had been the writer of some of the more lurid headlines, the ones about the primary school being missed by inches and an island economy devastated by the weather.

‘Well, Sandy.’ The journalist had a nasal voice and a thin, rodent face. His incisors protruded over his bottom lip. ‘Any closer to finding out who was killed in the mud?’

In the past an innate politeness would have caused Sandy to answer, but he’d been had by Reg once too often – quoted out of context and made to look foolish. He walked past the journalist in silence.

It was only mid-afternoon, but Sandy needed his headlights for the drive south. He took the dark winter days in his stride but he was looking forward to the spring now. He could understand how the long nights turned some incomers a bit mad. He rounded a bend in the road and suddenly the site of the landslip was ahead of him, all white lights and black silhouettes. The firefighters had rigged up a generator at Tain, so the ruined house was illuminated. From the road, the scene didn’t look like Shetland at all, not the Shetland of hill sheep and peat banks that Sandy had grown up with. This was almost industrial: heavy machinery outlined against the artificial lights. Another generator and more lights showed a team of men starting to clear the debris from the road. The bank would have to be shored up before it could be opened again, but they wouldn’t be able to see what was needed until the road was cleared.

A lay-by normally used by sightseers looking out to the isle of Mousa had been turned into a car park and Sandy pulled in there. He put on the wellingtons and an anorak that he’d stuck in the boot before setting off, and went out to meet the team working on the house. They’d already cleared the track that had led to the croft. Sandy had passed by here on hundreds of occasions – every time he’d gone to pick up a relative from the airport, or gone to show visitors the puffins on the cliffs at Sumburgh – but he struggled to remember the layout of the land before the slide. He thought a short track had curved down the valley from the main road and that it had led only to Tain. There’d been a good new road built for the cemetery, when it had been extended a few years before, but the entrance to that was further north. And it also led to the Hays’ land at Gilsetter, with its bigger house and polytunnels. Where the track ended at Tain there’d been parking for a couple of cars, and a small garden at the front with a fence around it. It had been possible to see that from the main road. Then, at the back, more land separated by a wall from the rest of the hill, and on each side of the house a shelter-belt of wind-blown sycamores, which seemed to have survived the slide.

Sandy shut his eyes for a moment and tried to picture the building. Low, whitewashed and single-storey. A traditional croft house, from the outside at least. There was no sign of that now. The team had cut a track straight down the hill to where the front door had been. They were dressed in high-vis coats and heavy steel-capped boots, so at first they all looked the same. Sandy stood for a moment, knowing that if he went any closer he’d be in the way. He was often in the way.

One of the men caught sight of him and waved him over. ‘Hello, Sandy! You can come on down. Stay in the middle of the path and you’ll be safe enough.’ He had to shout to make himself heard above the background noise of the generator and a small digger.

Tim Barton, a man from the English West Country who’d come to the islands to join the firefighters in Lerwick. Now he was going with a local girl; they’d set up home together at Gulberwick. Sandy thought he’d heard rumours that there was a child on the way. He wondered what that must be like. Since he’d taken up with Louisa, fatherhood had crossed his mind at times. It seemed that he should have been concentrating on where he put his feet, not daydreaming about making a baby with Louisa, because the path was slippery and he slid and fell awkwardly on his back. His coat would be filthy. Barton laughed, but came over and pulled him to his feet.

‘How’s it going?’ Sandy nodded towards the house.

‘No access yet, but it shouldn’t be long.’

‘We need to know if there’s anyone else inside.’

‘That’s what we all want to know. No chance of finding anyone alive, though. We’ve been working on this for nearly twenty-four hours, and from the time we arrived it was clear there couldn’t be any survivors.’ Tim turned and stretched. Sandy saw that his face and his hands were streaked black.

‘You haven’t had a break?’ Sandy thought that must be some kind of nightmare. Working in this mud, with the rain still pouring.

‘A couple of hours to get a shower and thaw out. Some hot food. But we want to get it done. See what we’ll find. If you stay here, I’ll let you know when it’s clear to get in. Or you can wait in your car. At least you’ll be dry there.’

‘Nah, I can’t get any dirtier.’ Sandy thought it wouldn’t be fair to sit in the warm car while these boys were digging their way into the house.

It was only half an hour before Barton came back to where Sandy was standing. ‘We’ve made the roof safe and cleared most of the shite out of the rooms. You can come down if you like, though there’s not much to see.’

‘Anyone there?’

Barton shook his head. ‘Nothing human. There’s the corpse of a cat in what must have been the kitchen.’

Sandy followed Barton towards the house. The cat seemed odd to him. Visitors to Shetland might bring a dog with them, but he’d never heard of anyone bringing their cat. Did that mean the dead woman had been living here more permanently? He shook his head and thought he was making problems where none existed. Cats sought out food and warmth. It probably belonged to Kevin Hay’s farm and had found its way inside.

They stood where the front door had once been. The weight of the landslide had ripped the door from its hinges and smashed it to pieces, so it looked like kindling. Half of the roof had been removed by the firefighters and there was the same persistent drizzle soaking into the body of the building. The floor was still covered in inches of black mud. Not smooth, but littered with rocks as big as a man’s fist, mixed with roots and grit. The smell was of damp and decay – organic. Everything looked strange because of the light on the tower outside throwing odd shadows. Sandy followed Barton inside. The house was very small: a kitchen that had acted as living room too, a bedroom and a shower room made out of what had probably once been a small second bedroom. There were pieces of furniture that had survived the landslide. A sofa, upturned, had been thrown against one wall; and in the bedroom, swimming in the mud, a gilt-framed mirror was miraculously intact.

‘We need something to identify the dead woman.’ Sandy knew that was what Jimmy Perez wanted from him. ‘The boss needs a name for her.’

‘We’ll be finishing here for the day soon,’ Barton said. ‘The boys are dead on their feet. We just had to check that there was nobody inside. I’ll get them to leave the big light until last, so you can see what you’re doing.’

Sandy thanked him and watched him leave. He wished he had another police officer with him. Someone he could share a joke with or a complaint about the conditions. He had never enjoyed being on his own.

He started the search by the front door and quartered the floor, as he’d seen Vicki Hewitt, the CSI from Inverness, do. Some of the kitchen units had been ripped off the wall and there was shattered crockery among the other muck. One cupboard was still standing. He opened it, to find baking trays and pans. Two expensive pans, solid, cast-iron. Fran had bought some just the same and Perez had said they’d cost an arm and a leg. So the owner, or the woman in the red dress, had enjoyed cooking. Minnie Laurenson wouldn’t have used pans like that. The shower cubicle had been smashed into small shards of plastic, and water was running from where the shower head had once been. The toilet bowl was covered in mud, but otherwise seemed undamaged.

Sandy moved through to the bedroom. There was a bed, but no bedhead. The mattress was filthy, as muddy water had soaked into it as if it was a sponge. This must have been a pleasant room, with a window looking down towards the sea and a tiled grate. The roof was still on here, but the glass had been pushed out and the rain came in that way. Outside it was completely dark now and the room was lit by a big arc-light shining through the gap in the outside wall. His shadow looked weird: long and very sharp, like a cutout in black paper. Each side of the fireplace there were fitted cupboards. In one there were clothes still on their hangers and surprisingly clean. A woman’s coat. Sandy wiped the dirt from his fingers before touching it. It was deep blue and very soft. He thought it was expensive, like the pans. Two pairs of trousers, well tailored, and some blouses, crisply ironed. In the other cupboard there were shelves. Jerseys neatly folded. A hardback book, of the sort that showed you how to live your life: Think Yourself to a Better Future. And a wooden box inlaid with mother-of-pearl. His grandmother, Mima, had had a very similar box and had kept her treasures in it. Sandy pulled on blue latex gloves and slid the book into an evidence bag. There might be fingerprints. He took the box from the cupboard, held his breath and opened it.

He’d been hoping for a passport, even a birth certificate. From the box came a faint smell of sandalwood. Inside there were two photos, one of two small children and one of an elderly couple. And a handwritten letter. He thought it might be a love letter because it began: My dearest Alis. Sandy put the letter back in the box without reading on. He’d never been a curious man and he was cold and uncomfortable. The damp had seeped through his clothes. He wanted to be dry and warm, before investigating further, and he thought Jimmy Perez should be the man to read the letter first. But he was already planning the call he’d make to Perez, once he’d dried out and was feeling more human. At least we have a first name for her. Part of a first name.