Ann Cleeves - Red Bones

‘Your mother will be pleased to have you around.’

‘Yeah, right!’

‘Really,’ Joseph said seriously. ‘She misses you.’

‘She misses Michael right enough.’ But he couldn’t help feeling pleased and hoped it was true. ‘What’s all this about a big do in the hall to show off the project at Setter?’

Joseph didn’t answer immediately. Sandy thought he was choosing his words carefully. For a moment his father reminded him of Jimmy Perez.

‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ Joseph said. ‘Your mother made up a flask for me.’ He pulled a Thermos from his pocket, then took off his coat and laid it on the grass. They sat together, both looking north-east up the island.

‘Couldn’t you talk her out of it?’ Sandy took a swig from the cup they were sharing. The coffee was strong and very sweet.

‘I didn’t try too hard,’ his father said. ‘You know how she is once her mind is made up.’

‘She always listens to you.’

‘Not this time.’

‘I don’t want to her to make a fool of herself.’ Sandy’s voice came out louder than he’d expected. The wind flicked the words away and he could hear the panic in them, the underlying thought: I don’t want her to make a fool out of me.

‘Oh, between us I think between us we can keep her under control.’ There was an attempt at humour, but it didn’t quite work. Joseph’s words were serious and matter-of-fact.

‘Is anything wrong, Dad? Anything I can help with?’

For a second Sandy thought his father would confide in him. A curlew called and in the distance he could hear the barking sound of a raven. Then Joseph screwed the cap back on the flask and stood up.

‘What could be wrong? We ’re all upset because of the accidents. Two deaths. Terrible bad luck. There’s nothing wrong between your mother and me.’

Sandy remembered his last conversation with his father at Setter. Then Joseph had spoken of the deaths as more than ‘terrible bad luck’. He knew his father was lying, but he was grateful for the lie. If his parents were having problems, Sandy didn’t really want to know.

They were on their way back to Utra, walking at a stiff pace down the hill, so Sandy could feel his breath coming in tight little bursts, when Joseph spoke again.

‘I was thinking maybe your mother has been right about Setter. Perhaps we should consider selling it.’

Sandy stopped in his tracks and bent over. It was as if someone had thumped him in the stomach, winding him.

His father didn’t seem to notice. Now he’d started talking it seemed he couldn’t stop.

‘We’re neither of us getting any younger. We need to think about our future. What do I need with another house? Neither you nor Michael will ever live there. I’ve taken most of the Setter land into Utra anyway. It’s only a building.’ He realized that Sandy wasn’t with him and stopped for him to catch up. ‘But I’ll not sell it to Robert,’ he went on. His voice was defiant. He shouted his words into the wind. ‘I’ll not sell it to that rich bastard so he can put his fancy daughter in there. We’ll do as your mother says. We’ll offer it to the Amenity Trust. They can make a museum out of it. Something to the memory of Mima Wilson. A house in her honour.’

Sandy had straightened his back. He walked down the hill towards his father. His legs felt weak and he had to concentrate so he didn’t trip.

‘What made you change your mind? You said you didn’t want strangers walking all over it.’

‘It’s my house,’ Joseph said. ‘I can do what I like with it.’

‘I ken that fine. But something’s made you change your mind. What’s happened?’ Then came the same question and this time he hoped his father would give him the truth: ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

As he spoke, Sandy was still further up the hill than his father and looking down at him. Joseph wasn’t an old man; he was wiry and strong. But from this perspective suddenly he seemed small.

‘No,’ Joseph said at last. ‘There’s nothing you can do to help.’

Perez spent most of the day in the office, glad of the routine, the familiar paperwork. He spoke to a local historian who’d written a book on the Shetland Bus, and put in a call to the Norwegian Embassy. Later he had a meeting with the Fiscal. They drank tea in her office, discussed depression and date rape as they sipped Earl Grey and nibbled shortbread biscuits. The horrors of her work never seemed to affect her.

‘Well, I think we can put the girl’s death down to suicide now,’ the Fiscal said. ‘She must have been under considerable stress, working with a man who had once assaulted her. She even used his knife to kill herself. That works for me as a final communication, to him and to us. She held him responsible for her misery. And now you say she discussed the rape with her colleague just before she disappeared; that confirms our original decision.’

Perez could see it would make life easier for Rhona Laing if they could tidy away Hattie’s death like that. Two tragedies on Whalsay, one accident, one suicide, only connected in that Mima’s death had made Hattie feel lonelier and even more depressed.

He sat for a moment in silence. The Fiscal waited. She hadn’t been in Shetland long, but she was used to his ways and she was a patient woman when she had to be. Eventually though she’d had enough.

‘Well? Don’t you agree?’

‘I think there was more to it than that. I don’t understand why she should phone me if she intended to kill herself. There was something she wanted to tell me, something about Mima’s killing.’

‘You believe she was murdered?’ There was something close to ridicule in the Fiscal’s question.

‘Almost certainly.’

‘Are you sure emotion isn’t getting in the way here, Jimmy? Guilt, perhaps, because you didn’t do a proper search of Setter when you had the chance?’

‘I believe both women were killed,’ he said. ‘I just can’t prove it yet.’

‘I can’t dither over a decision for much longer,’ she said.

‘No.’

‘How long do you need?’ Dithering was bad for a politician’s reputation, but so was making the wrong call on a suspicious death. She set her cup carefully on its saucer. ‘How long do you need, Jimmy? I can’t keep the case open indefinitely.’

‘Somebody knows what’s been going on there,’ he said. ‘Not just the murderer. In one of the houses in Whalsay a friend or a relative is keeping a secret. It’s that sort of place.’

‘So, how long, Jimmy? I really can’t give you more than a few days.’

‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that’s all I need.’

‘You have a suspect in mind?’

He nodded but he didn’t speak. She looked at him with curiosity but didn’t press the point. At this stage she didn’t want to know.

‘If I don’t have something by the end of next week, we call Hattie’s death as suicide. I can’t turn it into an accident, however kind that would be for her mother. Then we can get through the inquest and release the girl’s body back to her family.’

He nodded again, but he was already preoccupied. He needed proof. He didn’t have time for long conversations, for allowing the truth to emerge over time. He worked well that way, was much more patient than the Fiscal. But now he’d have to make things happen. He had to precipitate a crisis. He wasn’t sure how he could do that without putting other Whalsay folk at risk.

On his way home he stopped at the Co-op for food, but walking down the aisles he was still thinking of the case. The case and Fran, who was always with him.

The problem with the Whalsay investigation was that so much was going on there. It was hard to unpick the actual causes and connections. Like Fair Isle knitting, he thought. Four different coloured threads, tangled together in the working to make a pattern. It was difficult to follow the line of each yarn, to decide how much impact each colour had on the overall effect.