White Nights

Chapter Six

Perez walked up the track to Kenny Thomson’s house. He was very tired now and his brain felt sluggish. He thought the exercise might make him more alert. Skoles, the Thomson place, was more like a farm than a croft. Since he’d bought up the land all around him Kenny had more sheep than he needed for his own use and there were cows in one of the low parks near the house. But everything was still done in the old way. Perez liked that. A field of tatties just coming up, the lines straight and true, and a field of neeps. In lots of places crofters were selling sites for new housing, but it seemed Kenny hadn’t been tempted to go down that route.

Perez tried to remember when he’d talked to Kenny last, but couldn’t think. He might have nodded to him in town, bumped into him at Sumburgh or in the bar on the ferry. But Kenny was more than a casual acquaintance. The year of Perez’s sixteenth birthday, Kenny had spent the whole of one summer in Fair Isle and they’d worked together. It was the time they did the major work on the harbour in the North Haven. Kenny had been brought in to oversee the building work and Perez had been one of the labourers, his first proper job over the school holidays. He still remembered the blisters, the aching back and the ease with which Kenny, twenty years his senior, slender and dark then, could lift a Calor cylinder under each arm when he helped the islanders unload the boat, the way he could work all day at the same pace without seeming to get tired.

Kenny had started off lodging in the hostel at the Observatory, but after a couple of weeks had moved down the island to stay at Springfield with the Perez family. It was further away from the site, but he felt awkward in front of all the birdwatchers, he said, and it would be a bit more money for them if they took him on as a lodger. In the evening he would shower and then join the family for dinner. ‘Kenny’s no bother at all.’ That was what Perez’s mother had said, and it had been true. He had been unobtrusive, considerate, setting the table and helping her with the washing-up afterwards. A perfect guest.

Now, Perez tried to remember what the two of them had talked about as they were digging out drains and mixing cement. Kenny hadn’t given very much of himself away. He’d listened to Perez talking about his plans for college and how much he hated life at school, but he had hardly talked about himself at all. Occasionally he’d let something slip about his life in Biddista and the other folks who lived there, but very rarely. And would I have been interested anyway? Perez thought. Kenny just seemed middle-aged and boring. A stickler for doing things right. He was already married to Edith, who had been left behind. She’d been staying at Skoles, taking care of Kenny’s father, who was still alive. Kenny had mentioned Edith, but not with great affection. It couldn’t have been easy for her, Perez thought, looking after an old man who wasn’t even a relative. Kenny should have been more grateful.

Then suddenly he remembered a party that had taken place in the Fair Isle hall. A return wedding: an island boy who’d gone away to marry a southerner in her own town, then brought her back to celebrate properly on the Isle, the lass wearing the long white wedding dress and carrying flowers just as she would have done in the English church. There’d been a meal in the hall, all the island invited, and afterwards a dance. Perez remembered Kenny dancing an eight-some reel with his mother, swinging and lifting her until she laughed out loud. His father, watching from the side, had seemed slightly put out. Perhaps Kenny had been a little drunk that night. Perez himself had been drinking too, so perhaps his memory was at fault. Soon after the party Kenny had returned to the Observatory to stay. When Perez had asked why, he’d been as unforthcoming as ever: ‘It suits me better just now.’

When he came to the house, Perez knocked at the kitchen door. He stood for a moment. There was no answer and he was wondering if he should let himself in when Kenny came up behind him, a scruffy dog completely silent beside him.

‘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.