Ann Cleeves - Red Bones

Ronald looked away.

Perez took a breath. ‘So, you refuse a discussion. Let me tell you a story then. Let me explain what’s been going on here.’ In his head Perez still had the image of Hattie’s body lying in the trench in the blood, and he wondered how he could sit here having a reasoned conversation with her killer, how he could have felt that moment of pity. Because it’s what I do , he thought. And it’s the only thing I do really well.

He started to speak, directing his words at Ronald as if they were the only people in the room, talking only just loudly enough for the tape machine to pick up his voice. ‘It’s the war. We have three brave Whalsay men working with the Shetland Bus: Jerry Wilson, Cedric Irvine, whose son now runs the Pier House, and your grandfather Andy Clouston. Saving lives. Then along comes a young Norwegian man. Per. He was brave too and deserves the dignity of a name. He’d come to Britain for a special purpose, more an accountant than a soldier, to collect money to finance the work of the resistance.’

Ronald’s eyes widened.

‘How do I know that?’ Perez went on. ‘Because a detective digs into the past. I’m an archaeologist too. I’ve spoken to the Norwegian Embassy and to historians here in Shetland. When Per disappeared he was carrying a fortune in Norwegian currency, sealed up in half a dozen tobacco tins.’ He looked up. ‘It sounds like a child’s tale, doesn’t it? An adventure story or one of the trowie myths. Buried treasure. Unreal. But it was real enough at the time. Until the fortune disappeared and everyone assumed that Per had turned traitor and taken the money with him.

‘But Per was a brave and honest man. Mima was a wild woman even then, and she’d been flirting with the good-looking stranger, who was kind to her, kinder than her husband would ever be. Jerry Wilson found them in bed together, lost his temper and killed the man. And disposed of the body with the help of his friend, who just happened to be a Clouston. Old Andy Clouston, your grandfather. News of the man’s disappearance got out, as it always will in a place like Whalsay, so they put around stories of their own: one of the tales, passed down to Cedric, was that Per had been a traitor.’ Perez paused. He wished he’d thought to bring a bottle of water into the interview room. His throat was dry and he felt light-headed through lack of sleep. He looked up at Ronald, who must have been exhausted too. He could have had no real rest since he started killing.

Perez continued. ‘They’d buried the Norwegian at Setter, in that bit of land where nothing much grew and had only ever been seen as rough grazing. Mima never knew that. She wasn’t even sure the Norwegian was dead. Neither did she know about the money, though I think Jerry held out the promise of wealth in the future. ‘One day we’ll all be rich. Then you’ll have a fine house and fine clothes and you’ll travel the world.’ The plan must have been that when the war was over and the Norwegian was forgotten they’d begin to spend it. But Jerry never got to see his share. He was drowned.’ Perez looked up, forced Ronald to meet his eye. ‘Did Andrew describe how that happened? He was only ten but he was there and he saw it all.’

At last Ronald spoke. ‘They were out in a small boat. There was a freak storm and Jerry was washed overboard. My grandfather had to choose between saving his friend or his son.’ The words came out like a lesson learned at school.

Perez leaned across the table, so his face was close to Ronald’s. ‘But really,’ he said. ‘What really happened?’

Ronald could no longer pretend not to care. ‘They were fighting over the money. Jerry Wilson started it. My grandfather pushed out at him and he fell. My father saw Jerry drown. He was ten years old. He watched him sinking under the waves. But when he started to cry, my grandfather told him not to be a baby. “It was him or us, Andrew. Do you understand that? You’re not to tell a soul. Do you want to see me locked up for murder?”’

‘And suddenly the Cloustons were wealthy,’ Perez said. ‘What was it? A trip to Bergen to buy a new boat? Then another that was a bit bigger. But your grandfather was clever. Everything invested, nothing too sudden or too showy. There were rumours about where the money had come from, but the island put it down to luck and thrift. And the great work he’d done during the war for the navy with the Bus. Then Andrew inherited and perhaps he managed to persuade himself that the family good fortune all came about through hard work. He was better than Joseph Wilson, who went off labouring for Duncan Hunter and spent his weekends scratching a living on the croft. He bought Cassandra and you were set up for life. Until two young women started digging in the ground…’

‘Mima thought it was her Norwegian lover that they’d dug up,’ Ronald said. ‘She thought it was his skull that they’d found.’

And perhaps one of the bones did belong to him , Perez thought. The fourth fragment that didn’t match the others. He rested his head on his hand. ‘Then she remembered the stories Jerry had told her about his hoard of foreign cash and perhaps she went back over the years and thought of the big new boat, one of Cassandra ’s predecessors, that the Cloustons had bought in the fifties. Norwegian built. Perhaps she just had questions. And she wanted money too, not for herself, but for Joseph. Evelyn had got into debt and Mima wanted to help the family out. She thought the Wilsons finally deserved their share. Is that how it happened?’

Ronald nodded.

‘For the tape machine please!’ Sharp and brusque, because for an instant Perez had again caught himself feeling some sympathy for the man and had to remind himself how Hattie had looked in that trench.

‘Yes, that was what happened.’

‘But it wasn’t your idea to kill her?’

‘It was the last thing on my mind! I’d just had a son. Do you understand how that feels, to hold your child in your arms, to see your wife giving birth? Nothing mattered more than that…’

‘Are you telling me you killed Mima for the sake of your child?’ Perez’s voice was so cold and hard that Morag, who had known him since they were at school together, stared at him, frightened too. Later in the canteen she would say it was like a stranger speaking.

‘No! Not that!’

‘Then explain, please. Tell me why you killed a defenceless old woman.’

‘She’d gone to the big house to talk to my father…’

‘Was your mother there?’ The interruption came sharp like a slap.

‘She was in the house, but Father sent her out of the kitchen. She didn’t know what the conversation was about. My father told Mima he couldn’t give her money. His capital was all tied up in the Cassandra . And even if he wanted to sell her it wouldn’t be his decision; there were the other share-holders. Mima said that in that case she’d have a word with her grandson.’

‘Meaning Sandy, because he worked for the police?’

Ronald nodded again. This time Perez didn’t ask him to speak for the machine. He had more pressing questions. ‘And Andrew asked you to deal with the matter? To make sure that Mima didn’t cause you any more problems? For the sake of the family.’

Ronald shut his mouth tight and refused to speak.

‘Tell me what happened the night Mima died,’ Perez said. ‘Take me through the events of that evening, please.’

‘The baby had been awake for most of the night,’ Ronald said. His face suddenly seemed very flushed and although it wasn’t hot in the room he’d started to sweat. ‘He had colic and made a sort of high-pitched squeal, like some kind of animal, a piglet maybe. You couldn’t sleep through it even if you tried. Anna was tense. Patient enough with the baby, but shouting at me every chance she had. I decided to go into Lerwick to the library and the supermarket. I thought I’d be better with a break from the bungalow. I got an earlier ferry back than I was expecting and called in to the big house on my way home. My father had had a phone call from Mima. Sandy had come to the island and she’d asked him to visit. Andrew was in a terrible state.’