Ann Cleeves - White Nights

‘You’re clipping today,’ he said. ‘If we get finished here in time I’ll come and help you.’

‘What’s going on here?’

He thought Perez would refuse to answer again. But he said, ‘I want a thorough search. Of the rockface and the tunnel at the bottom. There are some items that are still missing.’

‘How long will this go on?’ Kenny demanded. ‘When will we be left in peace?’

‘When I know what happened,’ Perez said. ‘When I know who killed two men.’

The young people had been ignoring the exchange and preparing for their climb. The woman was already at the edge of the cliff, leaning out, held by the nylon rope. Kenny turned away; if he had his back to them, perhaps he could pretend that none of this was happening.

He ran to catch up with the line of people walking slowly across the hill. The dogs chased between them, filling in the gaps. The men had their arms outstretched and whooped and called to move the sheep ahead of them. The ones at the end seemed a long way off, their voices lost in the thin air. Kenny stood beside Edith, who was waving the stick and yelling like the rest of them.

‘What’s going on up there?’ She had to shout to be heard above the noise of the men, the dogs and the sheep.

‘Some sort of search. I don’t know. I hate it. I hate all this happening so close to home.’

She seemed to be shouting back some words of comfort, but he couldn’t make them out because of the noise.

They had the sheep gathered up in a circle of drystone with a rough wooden gate held across the gap and let them out one at a time for clipping. The old men sat with an animal each, turned on its back, the front legs held firm, and hand-clipped with sure firm bites until the fleece was free. Then the poor bald beast was let loose to run away. The men’s hands were brown and soiled and calloused. Kenny looked at his own and saw that they were going much the same way. Edith’s hands were soft and he thought she’d have a few blisters by the end of the day, but she was just as accurate as the men, and as strong as most of them too. She had a fine deft way with the clippers and she could keep her sheep calm. But she wasn’t as quick as they were. Sometimes they looked over and teased her about how slow she was and she laughed back at them, not minding at all.

At midday she brought out flasks of tea and thick sandwiches made with cheese and a ham which she’d cooked herself. They ate, although their hands were still greasy with lanolin, just rubbing them on the cropped grass to get rid of the worst of the muck. Peter Wilding sat with them, but didn’t join in much. He tried to clip one but held it away from him as if he was scared of it. Edith took it from him and finished it in the end. Kenny thought he was just listening to all the conversation. It was as if he was making notes in his head. Later he lay back in the grass with his eyes shut. He probably wasn’t used to working in such a physical way.

Then the gate was opened and another animal released. When Edith had finished doing a dainty black ewe, she held the fleece up to show Kenny. ‘I might have a go at spinning this,’ she said, ‘knit something for the baby, a soft toy. What do you think?’ She was always thinking of what she could make for the children, things to remind them of home. In the shed at Skoles there was a skin she’d been preparing for the baby’s bedroom. She’d rubbed it with alum to preserve it; later she’d comb out the wool until it was soft. On the floor of their living room they had three rugs she’d made in the same way.

They finished late in the afternoon. From where they’d been working there had been no view of the Pit o’ Biddista and the climbers. Walking back to the house, Kenny expected Perez and the people to be gone. How long could it take? He hadn’t taken seriously Perez’s offer to help with the sheep. But when they rounded the curve in the land so they could see the cliff ahead of them Perez was still there, and there was a police Land-Rover, which had been driven as far as it could possibly go up the track. People standing in a huddle as if they were waiting for something to happen. Kenny recognized the English detective who had flown up from Inverness.

Again he decided to pretend that none of this was happening and continued on his way towards the house. The old men took his lead and though they shot glances at the group by the cliff and whispered among themselves they didn’t talk about it to him.

Wilding, though, was too curious just to walk past. He stared at the group of police officers and finally sauntered up to them, all arrogant as if he had as much right to be there as they did.

The rest of them were halfway down the track, too far away to hear the exchange, but they stopped to watch what was happening. In the end Kenny turned to watch too. He would look foolish, striding on down towards the house on his own.

The English detective moved away from the rest of the group and stopped the writer before he could get anywhere close to the edge of the hole. There was a brief conversation, then Wilding was sent away. With a flea in his ear, Kenny thought with some satisfaction.

‘Well?’ Martin asked. ‘What are they all doing up there? Is it the giant’s lassie they’re after?’

Wilding obviously hadn’t heard the story, because he just looked at Martin as if he were soft in the head. The old men chuckled.

‘They won’t tell me anything,’ Wilding said. ‘It’s a crime scene and everyone should keep out. That’s all the man would say. Actually, he was rather rude.’

Usually after a day on the hill Kenny slept suddenly and deeply, despite the light outside. But tonight he was unsettled. Edith had been restless as she always was, but at last had fallen asleep. Afraid of waking her again with his tossing and turning, in the end he got up. He pulled on his clothes and his boots and went outside. It was as near to dark as it would get, everything grey and shadowy. He walked out on to the hill a little way.

At night at this time of the year storm petrels and Manx shearwaters flew into the cliffs to the nests they made in the old rabbit burrows. When he was a boy, Willy had taken him to show him. Kenny tried to picture the tiny petrels, small and ghost-like like bats in the gloom, and thought he might walk up now to look at them again. But as he approached he was aware of a faint mechanical hum coming from the direction of the Pit. A generator. The police must still be up there. During the evening he’d heard vehicles coming up and down the track. He couldn’t face seeing them and walked back towards his home. The noise of the generator was faint, but Kenny found it menacing. He wouldn’t be able to clear his mind of it even inside the house. He knew it would keep him awake all night.

Perez had watched Kenny Thomson and his team of helpers cross the hill with envy. Bringing in the sheep for clipping reminded him of home. Fair Isle, the furthest south and the most remote island of the Shetland group. Famous for its knitting and for being an area on the shipping forecast. When he’d worked in the city, he’d lie awake at night and listen to the measured voice on the radio. Fair Isle, Faroes, south-east Iceland. Easterly five to six, light rain, good . And he’d picture Dave Wheeler, who farmed at Field. The man had come to the Isle after working in the South Atlantic and since Perez could remember had been the met. officer on the island. Before his retirement he’d looked after the airstrip and been one of the firefighters.

At one time Perez had thought Fair Isle was where his future lay. He’d take a croft there and when his father retired he’d become skipper of the mail boat, The Good Shepherd . His children would grow up on the isle and know it as well as he had done. Then earlier in the year the opportunity had arisen for him to move back. A croft had become available and he’d have had a good chance of getting it. His mother had been desperate to get him back, but he hadn’t put in the application. Lethargy perhaps. A reluctance to leave his little house by the water. But more than that. He wasn’t ready yet to give up his work. Policing was a challenge, even in Shetland, he’d realized. And although he’d only just met her, he’d dreamed even then he might get together with Fran. He didn’t have any regrets.