Ann Cleeves - White Nights

Perez shook out the chip paper and a couple of herring gulls came squawking at his feet. ‘I need to make a call,’ he said. ‘Meant to do it earlier. Kenny Thomson, the guy who found the body, left a message for me.’

He walked a few feet away from Taylor and stood to his back to him, so he couldn’t hear the conversation. He wasn’t sure he’d have understood it anyway. When Perez lapsed into dialect he could have been talking another bloody language. He remembered how he’d felt when his mother had left them and moved to north Wales. There’d been an access order which his father had kicked off about. The arrangement hadn’t lasted long but for nearly a year Taylor had been sent to spend a weekend with her every month. Walking into a shop, everyone staring, everyone speaking a language he couldn’t understand. He knew they’d been talking about him. And about his mother setting up home with the respectable chapel man. Leading him astray. Hussey . A word stolen from the English.

Perez had switched off the phone and was waiting for Taylor to ask about the call.

‘Well?’ Taylor asked.

‘He wants another look at the body. Imagination going into overdrive if you ask me. He thinks it could be his brother.’ Perez paused, corrected himself. He always liked to get things right. ‘No, he doesn’t think it could be him. Wants to check that it isn’t.’

‘Wouldn’t he know his own brother?’

‘He left to go travelling. Hasn’t been back in years. And Kenny didn’t get a brilliant view. Only side on, and then there was the mask covering the face. Like I said, it’s just a matter of ruling him out. It’s obviously been bothering him.’

‘I thought you said the victim was English.’

Perez shrugged. ‘People’s voices change. They put on an act.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘That he can come and have a look this afternoon, before the body goes south on the ferry for the postmortem.’

Taylor felt a thrill of excitement. This was his first chance to engage with the case. He’d never been a hands-off manager.

‘I’ll be there too,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind?’

Perez didn’t answer. He knew it wasn’t really a question.

Kenny Thomson arrived at the undertakers’ before they were ready to let him see the body. There were two men to greet him: Jimmy Perez, who always reminded him of that summer he’d spent on Fair Isle, and the big Englishman he’d seen get out of the car at the jetty.

They sat in a dark little waiting room. In one corner there was a bowl of silk flowers. There was a heavy, kind of floral smell in the air. It couldn’t come from the silk, of course, and he wondered what was making it.

He was thinking about that when Perez introduced the English detective, so he still wasn’t sure of his name and what his rank was.

‘What’s all this about then, Kenny?’ Perez said. He had a quiet, hesitant way of talking, thoughtful, as if he was weighing every word before he spoke.

‘It’s probably nothing,’ Kenny said. ‘But I thought, Better to check. Better than lying awake at night wondering.’

‘Tell us a bit about Lawrence,’ Perez said. ‘Just while we’re waiting.’

And Kenny found himself talking about Lawrence, the older brother who was bigger and stronger than him, who left Kenny in his shadow. ‘He was the sort of man who’d walk into a room and everyone would start smiling,’ he said. ‘When he went I missed him. Everyone in Biddista missed him.’

‘Why did he go? Was it for work?’

Then Kenny saw that they didn’t want to know that Lawrence lit up the room when he walked in. What they wanted was facts and dates. But he had more than that to tell them.

‘He had work here,’ he said. ‘Plenty of work. He wasn’t so interested in the croft. He didn’t really have the patience for it. He was more one for quick results. He was a fine builder. He started off working for Jerry Stout and learned the trade from him, then when Jerry died he took over the business. He and Jerry put a new roof on the Manse when Bella moved in. Then Lawrence converted the Herring House. Eve Eunson drew up the plans, but he did all the work on it. More of a labour of love. That’s what he called it. He was down there more than twelve hours a day, getting it ready for the opening. I did some labouring for him when I could. Bella didn’t pay him what he was due. Once the gallery was finished he had offers of work from all over Scotland. He didn’t need to live away. He could have stayed in Shetland and just travelled for the work.’

‘Why did he go?’

Kenny wasn’t sure how much to say. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened. He was besotted with Bella. Whatever she asked he did. He always had plans to marry her. That’s what I think. It was always a dream at the back of his head. No one else would live up to her. He saw other women from time to time, but you could tell he wasn’t serious about them. Bella kept him hanging on a string all the time the Herring House was being built, then once it was finished, I think she made it clear he had no chance with her. She was too selfish to settle down. She’d got what she wanted from him.’ Kenny knew he sounded bitter but he didn’t care. Whenever he thought about it, he was angry.

‘When was this, Kenny?’

‘It was that summer I was in Fair Isle working on the harbour. They’d asked Lawrence to do it, but he was tied up with the last finish on the Herring House and he put the work my way. He knew I was looking to expand the croft and the money would be useful. I never had the chance to say goodbye to him.’

‘He didn’t ask your advice about leaving?’

Kenny smiled to himself. When had Lawrence ever asked anyone’s advice? ‘That wasn’t his style,’ he said. ‘He was kind of impulsive. It wasn’t the first time he’d gone off without telling anyone. When he was nineteen he disappeared; he just left a note for my parents. That time it was backpacking round Australia.’

‘What did he intend to do this time?’

‘I think maybe the Merchant Navy. He was always talking about that. The way to travel and get paid for it. He was always easy in a boat. You know the kids in Biddista, they’re out in a dinghy almost as soon as they can walk. It was natural for him.’ Kenny stopped speaking for a moment. He was thinking of one of those still summer evenings. Him and Lawrence out after mackerel. The boat at anchor, moving with the swell. Lawrence on his feet, balanced, and laughing at some joke Kenny had made.

Perez looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

‘Besides,’ Kenny went on. ‘It was a great romantic gesture, wasn’t it, running away to sea? Lawrence would be one for the big romantic gesture.’

‘When did you last hear from him?’

‘I never have. He left a message with Bella to say he was leaving and he was never in touch with us again.’ He turned to Perez. ‘He could have phoned me at the hostel, couldn’t he? To say goodbye. We didn’t have mobiles then, but he could have tracked me down somewhere. Maybe he was frightened I’d persuade him to stay.’

‘Will you recognize him, do you think?’ Perez asked.

‘I’ve been thinking about that. I got out some photos.’ There’d been one of him, Lawrence, Edith and Bella standing on the jetty grinning into the camera. He couldn’t remember who’d taken it. Aggie maybe. Though surely she’d have been married by then. She wouldn’t still be living at home. But she’d come back to Biddista whenever she could. She’d never been able to stay away.

‘All the same, it’s been a long time. And people look different when they’re dead.’

‘He had a birthmark on his right shoulder,’ Kenny said. ‘However he’s changed, I’ll know him by that.’