Simon Beckett - Written in Bone

Trails of smoke flowed sinuously across the peat slab in the hearth. Its dark surface glowed with traceries of fire, giving off a spiced, earthy fragrance. The heat made me drowsy. I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus my thoughts. But as I was about to open the first file, a shadow fell across the table.

I looked up to find the hulking figure of Guthrie looming over me. His gut hung over the low-slung trousers like a water-filled sack, but he was still a powerful man. The rolled sleeves of his sweater revealed hairless, beefy forearms, and the almost empty pint glass looked tiny in his wind-chapped hand.

‘’S that you got there?’ he slurred. His face was slackened by alcohol, suffused with a beer and whisky blush. He gave off an odour of solder, oil and old sweat.

I closed the laptop. ‘Just work.’

He blinked slowly, processing that. I remembered Brody telling me it was best to avoid him when he was drunk. Too late.

‘Work?’ he spat, flecking the table with spittle. He glared disdainfully at the laptop. ‘That’s not work. Work’s what you do with these.’

He held up a balled fist in front of my face. It was the size of a baby’s head, the fingers thickened with scar tissue.

‘Work’s getting your hands dirty. You ever get your hands dirty?’

I thought about sifting through the ashes of an incinerated body, or trying to exhume a corpse from frozen moorland. ‘Sometimes.’

His lip curled. ‘Bollocks. You don’t know what work means. Like those bastards who took my boat. Sat behind their desks in their fucking banks, laying down the law! Never done a fucking day’s work in their lives!’

‘Why don’t you sit down, Sean?’ one of the old domino players said gently. It didn’t do any good.

‘I’m just talking. Get back to your game,’ Guthrie muttered sullenly. He glared down at me, swaying slightly. ‘You’re here with the police. For that body.’ He made it sound like an accusation.

‘That’s right.’ I was expecting him to ask who it was or how they’d died. Instead he surprised me.

‘So what’s on this, then?’ he said, reaching for my laptop.

I put my own hand on top of it. My pulse had started to pound, but I kept my voice level.

‘Sorry, it’s private.’

I kept hold of the laptop, resisting the exploratory pressure he was exerting. Guthrie was easily strong enough to take it from me. But he hadn’t quite got to that point, but I could see his drink-addled mind turning over the possibility.

‘I just want to take a look,’ he said, and now the threat was heavy in his voice.

Even if I’d been fully fit I wouldn’t have been any match for him. He was a good head taller than me, with the look of a brawler about him. But I was past caring. I’d had a bad enough twenty-four hours as it was.

And this was my work.

I pulled the laptop from his hand. ‘I said no.’

My voice was unsteady, but it was from anger more than anything else. Guthrie’s mouth had fallen open in surprise, but now it clamped shut. He balled his fists, and I felt my stomach tighten, knowing there was nothing I could do or say that would head off what was about to happen.

‘Hey, you big lump, you causing trouble again?’

Maggie Cassidy had appeared in the doorway. She was heading straight for Guthrie, and I felt a moment of alarm as I saw how small she looked against his bulk. Then his face split in a huge grin.

‘Maggie! Heard you were back!’

He enveloped her in a bear hug. She looked smaller than ever clutched in Guthrie’s embrace.

‘Aye, well, I thought I’d better look in and see how you were doing. Come on, put me down, you great oaf.’

They were both grinning now. Guthrie had forgotten about me already, the threat of barroom violence replaced with a childlike enthusiasm. Maggie prodded his bulging stomach, shaking her head in mock-regret.

‘You been on a diet, Sean? You’re practically wasting away.’

He roared with laughter. ‘Pining for you, Mags. Will you have a drink with me?’

‘Thought you’d never ask.’

Maggie gave me a quick wink as she led him to the bar, smiling a greeting at the domino players. My hand was trembling slightly as I raised the whisky glass, the adrenalin rush slowly beginning to fade. Just what I needed to round the day off.

The place was beginning to fill up now. Kinross and his eighteen-year-old son came in, joining Maggie and Guthrie at the bar. There were more friendly jibes and laughter. I watched how the cruel bumps of acne flared red on Kevin Kinross’s face whenever Maggie spoke to him. He hardly took his eyes off her as she chatted to his father, but quickly dropped his gaze when she glanced his way.

Bruce Cameron wasn’t the only one who was infatuated, I reflected.

Watching them all, warmly at ease with each other, I was suddenly acutely aware that I didn’t belong. These were people who had been born and raised here, who would probably die within this same closed community. They shared an identity and kinship that overrode other ties. Even Maggie, who had left the island years before, was still a part of it in a way an outsider like me-or even ‘incomers’ like Brody and the Strachans-could never be.

And one of them was a killer. Perhaps even someone in this room. Looking at the faces in front of me, I recalled what Fraser had said about finding the dead woman’s murderer. Place this size, how hard can it be? Someone’s got to know something. But knowing and revealing were different things.

Whatever secrets Runa held, I didn’t think it would give them up easily.

I didn’t feel like staying downstairs any longer. But as I was about to go back to my room, Maggie caught my eye and excused herself from the group at the bar. I saw Kevin Kinross watching her furtively as she came over to my table. Then he realized I had seen him and hurriedly looked away.

Maggie plonked herself down and gave me a grin. ‘You and Sean getting acquainted earlier, were you?’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘He’s harmless enough. You must have rubbed him up the wrong way.’

I stared at her. ‘How exactly did I do that?’

Maggie counted off on her fingers. ‘You’re a stranger, you’re English, and you’re sitting in the bar with a hi-tech laptop. If you wanted to blend into the woodwork you’re going the wrong way about it, if you don’t mind my saying.’

I gave a laugh. It was close enough to my own thoughts to strike home. ‘And here’s me thinking I was minding my own business.’

She smiled. ‘Aye, well, Sean has been known to get a little tetchy when he’s in his cups. But you can’t altogether blame him. He used to be a good fisherman until the bank claimed back the loan on his boat. Now he’s reduced to odd jobs and trying to fix up some old hulk he salvaged.’ She sighed. ‘Don’t think too badly of him, that’s all I’m saying.’

I could have pointed out that I hadn’t been the one picking the argument, but I let it go. Maggie glanced at her watch.

‘I’d best be off. My gran’ll be wondering where I am. I only called in to show my face, and it’s probably best if I make myself scarce before Sergeant Fraser shows up.’

She obviously wanted me to ask. And I’d been curious anyway, ever since their exchange on the ferry.

‘So what is it between you two? Not an ex-boyfriend, I take it?’

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ she said, grimacing. ‘Let’s say there’s a bit of a history between us. A couple of years ago the good sergeant was suspended for assaulting a woman suspect when he was drunk. The charges were dropped, but he was lucky not to be demoted. The Gazette found out and ran the story.’

She shrugged, but not as casually as she tried to make out.