a path which led over Skoles land. It climbed steeply. Eventually they would end up at the top of the cliff, next to the great hole that was known as the Pit o’ Biddista. Perez planned to have the conversation finished by then. The boy stopped abruptly and turned to Perez. ‘What’s this about? They were looking so serious in there. Is it my mother? Is she ill?’
‘No,’ Perez said. ‘Nothing like that.’
There was a moment’s silence and Perez wondered if Roddy was going over in his mind other possible explanations for the police to be calling. The cannabis or cocaine which Perez was pretty sure they’d find in his room if they looked. A hotel prepared to press charges after a particularly rowdy party.
‘Did you think there were fewer people at the opening last night than Bella was expecting?’
‘Yeah, I was surprised. She usually gets a good turnout.’
‘Someone was spreading these all over Lerwick and Scalloway yesterday.’
Perez had slipped the flyer into a transparent plastic bag and he gave it to Roddy to read. Roddy stopped, leaning against an outcrop of rock in the hill.
‘You don’t think I had anything to do with this?’
‘It might have been someone’s idea of a joke.’
‘But not mine. I told you. Bella took me in when I wanted to carry on living here. If it wasn’t for her I’d be speaking with a Texas accent and playing country and western. I owe her.’
‘Any idea who might have thought it funny?’
‘No. There doesn’t seem much to laugh about. That bit about a death in the family, it’s just sick.’
‘There has been a death,’ Perez said. ‘That’s what I’m doing here.’
‘Who?’
‘There was a stranger at the party last night. He made a scene just after you finished playing. Got on to his knees and starting crying.’
‘Guy in black. Shaved head?’
‘Yes.’
They’d started walking again and Perez could smell the bird shit and the salt in the air. The grass was cropped short here. There were patches of thrift and tiny blue dots of spring squill. They’d almost reached the top of the cliff. He slowed his pace.
‘Had you ever seen him before?’ Perez asked. ‘Before he lost it the man seemed really interested in the paintings. I don’t know, not just idle curiosity. As if he knew something about art. You don’t remember coming across him at one of Bella’s other events?’
‘What does Bella say?’
‘She was reluctant to commit herself either way. He could have been an acquaintance, but she couldn’t be sure. Her memory’s not as good as it was.’
‘Bollocks.’ Roddy still had breath to give a choking laugh. Perez was starting to pant. ‘Bella’s as sharp as she always was. Sharper, if it comes to business. If your guy was a dealer or critic she’d have recognized him the minute he came into the room.’
‘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
