Ann Cleeves - White Nights

‘And you? Did you know him?’

‘Sorry. Never seen him before in my life.’

Although they were some way from the edge of the cliff they could see the water now, glittering and fizzing against an offshore craig. Perez sat on the grass. A gannet was hovering in the thermals. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not as fit as I should be. It’s all desk work these days.’ He hoped Roddy would sit with him, but the boy walked on. He stood with his back to Perez, looking out, arms slightly away from his body. The late-morning sun was right above him, his own spotlight. From where he was sitting Perez thought he would disappear. One more step and he would tumble into space. It looked as if all Roddy had to do was reach out his hand and then he would touch the tip of the gannet’s wing. An illusion, Perez knew. A trick of the light and the way the land dipped towards the cliff-edge. But it made him feel sick. He could feel sweat on his forehead, hoped it wasn’t showing.

‘You haven’t asked how the Englishman died.’ He hoped that would be enough to catch the boy’s attention and Roddy did turn towards Perez, walk a few steps closer.

‘What was it? An accident?’ And that was the most probable scenario for unexpected death in the islands. Too much to drink. Narrow and precarious roads. Especially for a stranger.

‘Kenny Thomson found him hanging in the hut by the jetty.’

‘Suicide then?’

‘Most likely.’ The official version until the GP from Whiteness got his second opinion.

‘Poor sod,’ Roddy said, and then he did come and flop on the grass beside Perez. But the words came easily, without any thought behind them. He was young and lucky and couldn’t imagine how desperate you would have to be to take your own life.

‘Or murder.’ The words sounded fierce to Perez and he knew he shouldn’t have spoken. Not until it was all official. But he wanted Roddy to take the matter seriously. At the moment it was a game to him. Besides, Perez trusted the young Glaswegian doctor, and by the time the team arrived from Inverness the whole of Shetland would know what was going on.

‘Murder!’ Still the boy’s mouth had a twist at the corner as if this was also a joke, too incredible to be true.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Perez said. ‘You do see why I have to find out who he was.’

‘Really, I’d never met him before.’

‘Did you speak to him at all during the evening?’

‘He was standing in front of a painting by Fran Hunter. That silhouette of the child on the beach. I thought it was bloody brilliant. I mean I love Bella’s work and I don’t want to be disloyal but I thought that painting the best piece in the exhibition. I can’t get it out of my head; if it hasn’t sold yet, I think I’ll buy it. Save it for when I have a home to move into. I was next to him, looking at it too. And he spoke to me. “Good, isn’t it?” That was all he said.’

‘Accent?’ Perez asked. ‘I couldn’t place it, and you’ve travelled more than me.’ How old was Roddy Sinclair? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? And already he’d played his fiddle all over the world. Except Australia, and soon he’d have been there too.

‘North of England,’ Roddy said. ‘Yorkshire? But it was only three words. I can’t be certain.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘Like someone admiring a painting. I mean calm. Ordinary. I walked away and five minutes later he was causing all that fuss, on his knees and bawling. It seemed really bizarre.’

So what had happened in those five minutes? Perez thought. A sudden blankness which had scared the stranger so much that he’d fallen apart? Or had the amnesia been an act, turned on for the audience? To disrupt the event further, like the flyers of cancellation scattered all over the town.

‘What did you do after you’d finished playing?’ Perez asked.

‘I got pissed. It wasn’t much of a party, but I thought I should enter into the spirit of the event.’

‘Who were you drinking with?’

‘Whoever was around, but everyone drifted off very early. In the end it was just me and Martin. He was clearing up. I don’t supposed I helped much, but at least I could keep him company, keep his glass topped up.’

‘You two old friends?’

‘Well, he’s a bit older than me. But in the scale of things in Biddista, we’re both children. If I’m staying with Bella we usually get together for an evening. If Dawn will let him out to play.’

‘What time did you leave the Herring House?’

‘Can’t remember, I’m afraid, and it’s hard to tell, isn’t it, at this time of year? I mean, all night it looks as if it’s just dusk. Martin might know. He was marginally more sober than me.’

‘You left together?’

‘Aye. I remember standing outside waiting for him to lock up. I had a bottle of wine in each hand. I’d invited him back to the Manse to carry on the party. You know how it seems a good idea at the time?’

‘Anyone else about?’

‘No. It was all quiet. I do remember thinking that. Most places in the world there’s something. Traffic noise. Music. A siren in the distance. Here it was just the birds. The water on the shingle. Then I started singing and Martin told me to shut up or I’d wake his daughter.’

‘Martin walked up to the Manse with you?’

‘No, in the end he went all sensible on me. Said Dawn would kill him if he didn’t get back at a decent time and he’d promised to help in the shop in the morning. I walked with him as far as his house, then carried on by myself.’

‘Still no one else about?’

‘I didn’t see anyone.’

‘Was Bella up when you got home?’

‘No. The place was empty. Quiet as the grave.’

Back on the jetty, the GP’s car had gone. Sandy was still sitting by himself. He never seemed troubled by boredom. Perez wondered what he could be thinking about, sitting so still and nothing to occupy him. Some woman, perhaps. Sandy was given to brief and violent infatuations. The relationships never lasted and each time he was left disappointed and confused.

Perez thought his own record was hardly any better. Now he was infatuated too. Perhaps he was making as big a fool of himself as Sandy always did. He felt himself grinning and decided he didn’t care, looked at his watch to cover up the daft smirk. It was nearly one o’clock. Sandy was troubled by hunger and would soon be pressing for a lunch break. When he saw Perez approaching he jumped off the harbour wall.

‘I’ve just tried to phone you.’

‘No signal on the hill,’ Perez said. There were black holes for mobiles all over the islands.

‘The doctors have just gone.’

‘And?’

‘They’re agreed. Murder.’

So now it was official. They couldn’t just call out the paramedics, cut down the stranger in black and hand his body over to the health authority. Perez looked at his watch. The squad from Inverness wouldn’t get to Aberdeen in time for the ferry, but they should just make the last plane of the evening in. He was already dialling to let his team in Lerwick know what was happening, get things moving.

‘Are you OK to stay here, Sandy? Mark it out as a crime scene and keep folks well away. I’ll get them to send someone to relieve you as soon as we can.’

He supposed he should go back to town. There was all the bureaucracy that came with a suspicious death. His first priority should be to identify the dead man. He should speak to the Fiscal, start the legal process of the investigation. But really he wanted to stay in Biddista. There were other people here to talk to and he thought he’d get more out of them than would the incomers.

‘Hey, I’m starving. Let me just go over to the shop to get some chocolate, huh?’ Sandy could whine like a two-year-old. Perez thought sometimes he had the brains of a two-year-old; then he’d surprise them all with his technical competence – he was better at IT than anyone else in the office. Perez couldn’t help liking him.