Dead Water

Chapter Four

Sandy Wilson was still in the office when the call came through. He recognized the Fiscal’s voice and his first thought was that he was in trouble: some procedure not properly followed. He knew she thought very little of him and wasn’t surprised. He thought very little of himself. His boss, Jimmy Perez, was still on sick leave, inching his way back into work a couple of days a week, and it gave Sandy nightmares to think that in reality there were times when he was in charge.

‘Sergeant Wilson.’ Everyone in Shetland was on first-name terms. Except the Fiscal. Sandy knew he should listen carefully to what she was saying, but found his attention wandering. This was a nervous reaction to stress, which had got him into trouble since he was a peerie boy in the school in Whalsay. From his office window he looked down towards the harbour. The Bressay ferry had just left for the island across the Sound. The gulls were fighting over a scrap of rubbish on the pier.

‘So I need you here. Immediately. You do understand?’ Rhona Laing’s voice was sharp. Obviously she had expected a swifter response from the detective. Rhona had never thought very much of Sandy, as a man or as a police officer.

‘Of course.’

‘But before you leave you must tell Inverness. They’ll need to send a team. The Serious Crime Squad and the CSIs.’

‘They won’t get here until the morning now,’ Sandy said. He was on firmer ground here and could understand the practicalities. ‘The last plane from Inverness will already have left.’

‘But we need their advice, Sergeant. I’ve tied the yoal to my mooring in Aith. I assume I leave the body where it is. The forecast is good tomorrow, so it should be safe enough there, if it’s properly covered. We should mark off the marina as a crime scene and keep people out. But we’ll need screens too. You know how people gawk. And tomorrow’s Saturday, so there’ll be a lot of people about.’

‘You’ll not be popular keeping folk away from their boats on a weekend.’ Sandy scratched his arm and thought there was nothing better than a bit of fishing at this time of the year. At last you could feel that the long, dark winter days were over.

‘I don’t aim to be popular!’ the retort came, sharp as gunfire.

‘Did you recognize him?’ Sandy asked. ‘The dead man, I mean.’

There was a pause at the other end of the line and he understood that she was considering the matter. He thought people always looked different when they were dead, and if you didn’t know them well, it wasn’t always easy to identify a body. But when the answer came it was unequivocal. ‘I didn’t, Sergeant. And that’s another reason why I need you here. If he’s a Shetlander, I assume you’ll be able to tell us who he is.’

There was a pause. Sandy could hear the sound of water in the background. The Fiscal must still be at the marina, using her mobile. She was lucky to get any reception. That part of the island was a black hole when it came to phones. ‘I’ll send some people over to secure the site,’ he said, ‘and contact Inverness. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘Good.’

He knew she was about to end the conversation and almost shouted, to hold her attention: ‘Miss Laing!’

‘Yes, Sergeant.’

‘Should I tell Jimmy? Inspector Perez?’ This had been troubling him since he first realized the implication of her call. Jimmy Perez wasn’t himself, hadn’t been since the death of his fiancée. He was given to black moods and bouts of rage that came from nowhere. His colleagues were sympathetic and had given him time. He’d come back to work too early, they said. He was depressed. But after six months their patience was wearing thin. Sandy had picked up mutterings in the canteen: maybe Perez should resign and devote himself to looking after Duncan Hunter’s child. Promotion in the Shetland police service was about filling dead men’s shoes. Perhaps Perez should do the decent thing: move on and give somebody else a chance to do the job properly.

At first there was no answer from Rhona Laing. Sandy wondered if her phone had cut out. Then she spoke. ‘I don’t know, Sandy. That’s a judgement for you to make. You know Jimmy better than I do.’ And her voice was almost human.

He put off the decision until he’d spoken to Inverness. There was a new man in charge there. He was English, and Sandy had to concentrate hard to understand the accent. ‘I’ll send up an inspector and a team,’ the man said. ‘You know Roy Taylor went back to Liverpool?’

‘I’d heard.’ Sandy thought it was all change now. Jimmy Perez was a quite different man, and Roy Taylor had moved south. Sandy had never enjoyed change. He’d grown up on the small island of Whalsay and it had been a huge adventure to go south to train for the police service.

‘Taylor’s replacement is a woman.’ The superintendent came from London and his voice made Sandy think of gangster movies. ‘Grew up in North Uist. Almost one of you.’

No, Sandy wanted to say. The people of the Uists are quite different. They speak Gaelic, and the crofts are all sand and seaweed. A different landscape and a different culture. In the Hebrides you can’t get a drink on a Sunday. Only an Englishman could think a Hebridean would have anything in common with a Shetlander. He’d spent two days in Benbecula on a training course with the Highlands and Islands Police and thought he knew all about the place. But he said nothing. He wouldn’t mind having a boss who was a woman.

‘She’s called Reeves,’ the superintendent went on. ‘Willow Reeves. You’ll meet her and her team from the plane?’ Sandy was thinking that didn’t sound much like a Hebridean name. Weren’t they all MacDonalds in the Western Isles? The superintendent had to repeat the question. ‘You will meet them from the morning plane? Find them accommodation and show them the ropes? I take it Jimmy Perez is still out of action?’

‘He’s back part-time,’ Sandy said. ‘Still under the doctor.’

‘Will he be up for this?’ The superintendent’s voice was uncertain.

‘I think he’d want to know,’ Sandy said. ‘I think he’d hate something like this going on in his patch and not knowing.’ This had only just come to him, but now he was sure it was true.

‘So you’ll do that, will you, Sandy? You’ll tell him. I don’t want Perez finding out on the grapevine and thinking we’ve excluded him on purpose. These days he can be a prickly sod.’

Sandy replaced the phone and felt overwhelmed by the choices he had to make. The Fiscal expected him in Aith, which was a good half-hour’s drive to the north, and the superintendent wanted him to talk to Jimmy Perez, who lived in Ravenswick to the south of Lerwick. Sandy was happier when he was told what to do. More than anything in the world he longed for Jimmy Perez to be back and normal, clever and sharp. And telling him what to do.

He got back on the phone and organized a couple of uniformed officers to get to Aith and screen off the crime scene. ‘We’ll need someone on duty there until the team from Inverness gets in.’ When he told his colleagues that the Fiscal had found the body, he sensed their hostility. She wasn’t a popular woman. He couldn’t think of anyone in the islands who liked her or who would consider her a friend. When he went outside to pick up his car, the light was starting to fade. Perez would be at home because it would nearly be Cassie’s bedtime. Cassie, the child of his lover, left to him in her unofficial will. The only reason, Sandy thought, that Perez hadn’t run away from the islands and the memories of Fran’s death.

The house was a converted chapel, very low and small, with a view over Raven’s Head and down to the houses by the pier. Perez’s car was parked outside. The door opened before Sandy reached it, and Jimmy Perez stood there, a mug of coffee in his hand. He looked as if he hadn’t slept since Fran had died and was skinny and unshaven. Though he’d never been a tidy man, Sandy thought. He’d never much been one for caring about his appearance.

‘Is Cassie in bed?’ Sandy didn’t want to start talking about bodies and murder if the girl was listening in.

‘She’s staying with her father,’ Perez said.

Duncan Hunter, who’d been the wild boy of the islands, living in his huge inherited house on the voe at Brae. Duncan Hunter, ex-husband of Fran. Ex-best friend of Jimmy Perez.

Perez went on. ‘It’s the last weekend of the school holidays. She’ll not have much chance to spend time with him for a few months. And you know what Duncan’s like. He’s always away south on some money-making scheme. I thought it best to catch him while he’s here. Cassie should know her father.’

‘And it’ll give you a bit of time to yourself.’ Sandy wondered if Perez would invite him in and offer him a dram or a beer. Jimmy had never been much of a drinker, but when Fran had been alive there’d always been beer in the fridge.

‘I miss her,’ Perez said. ‘Desperately.’ And Sandy wasn’t sure if he was talking about Cassie or Fran now. He shuffled his feet and looked out at the sea. ‘What do you want?’ Perez said. ‘I’m not really up for entertaining. I’m not the best sort of company these days.’

Sandy thought there was a hint of self-pity in his voice and perhaps work was the best thing for him at the moment. ‘This isn’t a social call,’ he said and was surprised at how sharply the words came out.

Perez stared at him. Sandy had always been his most sympathetic colleague. Perez had always stood up for Sandy, and now it was Sandy’s turn to defend him. ‘You’d best come in then.’

The house was much as it had been in Fran’s day. There were her paintings on the wall alongside Cassie’s. A big photo of the three of them hung over the fire. The woman was laughing in it, her head thrown back, and Sandy felt tears come to his eyes. Fran Hunter had always been kind to him.

‘Tea?’ Perez asked. ‘I don’t keep alcohol in the house. I don’t trust myself with it.’

‘Tea’s fine.’ Sandy watched Perez reach for the mug and fetch milk from the fridge. ‘There’s been a murder,’ he said. ‘The Fiscal found a body in one of the racing yoals in Aith Marina. You know she rows with the older women.’ He waited for a response. The old Jimmy would have raised his eyebrows at that and made a crack about the Fiscal and the time she spent on the water.

But today Perez set the mug of tea carefully on the table and turned to face Sandy.

‘I’m on the sick,’ he said. ‘Not fit for that kind of work.’

‘No point wasting your time then.’ Sandy got out of his seat and made for the door. ‘The Iron Maiden wants me in Aith, in the hope I can make an identification. You know what she’s like if you make her wait. I thought you should know, that’s all. I thought it would be…’ he struggled to find the right word ‘… courteous to tell you.’

Again Perez seemed surprised, though not angry or annoyed. Sandy didn’t usually stand up to him. Sandy didn’t usually stand up to anyone. And these days anger seemed to be Jimmy’s default emotion.

‘I’m sorry.’ Perez shook his head. An attempt to think more clearly? Or an expression of a kind of despair? Then, after a moment, ‘It was good of you to come and let me know.’

Sandy hovered for a moment on the doorstep. The lighthouse at Raven’s Head had been lit and the beam swung across his head. He wondered if at the last moment Perez would change his mind and be tempted to drive with him up to Aith. He’d be curious, surely. Curiosity had always driven Jimmy forward to see cases through. And for a moment Perez did seem tempted.

‘Who are they sending from Inverness?’ he asked.

‘A woman.’ Sandy felt lighter, more eager. ‘Some woman with a strange name. But we’ve got the night to sort it out before she gets here.’

‘Good luck with that then.’ And Perez backed into the house and shut the door. He turned on the light inside, and through the window Sandy saw his shoulders hunched over the kitchen table, his head low over his mug of tea, so that he looked like an old man. It was as if Perez had briefly felt himself coming to life again and didn’t like the feeling. It hurt him too much.