White Nights

sea.

‘That’s Kenny Thomson’s boat,’ he said. ‘You’ll not be able to talk to him until later.’

Taylor was impressed by Bella Sinclair’s house. He tried not to let himself be affected by shows of wealth and comfort, told himself he despised them, but deep down he was jealous. He would have loved this space, this view. Sometimes he even caught himself watching those shows about houses on the television. Not the embarrassing ones, the makeovers, all tacky decor and quick fixes, the home-made furniture you could tell would fall apart within days. He liked the programmes about grand building projects, the chateaux in France brought lovingly back to life, the mills and warehouses turned into breathtaking apartments. If ever he went back to Liverpool, he’d like one of those terraced houses near the cathedrals. One time the streets had been the scene of the Toxteth riots, but even then he’d been impressed by their elegance.

Perez rang the bell and they stood for a moment to be let in. Perez had his hands in his pockets, a bit of a slouch. Taylor consciously straightened his back. He wouldn’t have been surprised to be greeted by some kind of servant, but he saw as soon as the door was opened that this must be the house’s owner. She had the style to carry it off.

‘Jimmy,’ she said. ‘What do you want now? I was just about to start work.’ She was wearing jeans and a loose blue smock, which was spattered with paint. She had a thick silver band around her neck and matching earrings.

Perez didn’t answer directly. Taylor sensed that Perez didn’t like her, but couldn’t work out how he could tell the antipathy was there. Certainly Perez was perfectly polite.

‘This is Roy Taylor from Inverness,’ he said. ‘He’s in charge of the investigation.’

She looked at Taylor, held him in her gaze. She stared at him as children stare at very fat people, or at people with a deformity, with a look that was at once frank and curious.

‘Come up to the studio. We can talk while I get on with the prep.’

It was one of the corner bedrooms, not a huge, clear space as Taylor had imagined, but rather cluttered. There were two windows, one looking north on to the hill and the other west over the sea. There was a tall Victorian chest of drawers which reached almost to the ceiling. One of the lower drawers was half open and revealed a pile of white paper. An easel leaned unused against one wall; on another was a stainless-steel sink which looked as if it had been installed recently. Although she made a show of preparing to work, Taylor thought her heart wasn’t in it. She wanted to impress them, to let them know how valuable was her time, but really she was desperate to know what they were there for.

‘Is there any news?’ she asked. ‘Do we know yet who that poor man was?’

The only place to sit in the room was a Shetland chair, made of driftwood, a rough drawer built under the seat. On it was curled a black and white cat. They all remained standing and it made the conversation seem awkward, hurried, as if they’d just met on the street and were about to move on in opposite directions.

‘We think he was involved in spreading the word that your exhibition had been cancelled,’ Taylor said. ‘Seems a weird thing for a stranger to do.’

Bella looked at him with the same curious gaze.

‘I’ve already explained to Jimmy that I didn’t know who he was.’

‘So why would he do it?’ Taylor was persistent. ‘Sounds to me like someone with a grudge.’

‘If he had a grudge, I don’t think it was against me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It wasn’t only my exhibition. It was a shared project. I was working with a new artist – Fran Hunter.’ Taylor noticed that she didn’t look at Perez during this conversation. He was meant to notice.

Bella continued. ‘Fran’s English. It seems the stranger was English. More likely, surely, that she knew him than I did.’

At that point Perez interrupted. ‘Did Fran give any indication that she recognized the man?’

‘I’m not sure she noticed him. She was too busy talking to Peter Wilding.’

There was a silence. Taylor couldn’t understand what might have caused the awkwardness. What was Perez keeping from him?

‘Is Roddy around?’ Perez asked. ‘I think DCI Taylor would like to talk to him too.’

‘Roddy’s leaving today,’ she said. ‘This was only going to be a flying visit. He’s off to Australia next week.’

‘You’ll miss him.’ Taylor couldn’t tell if Perez meant the words. It sounded almost as if he was mocking her. But Bella answered without question.

‘I will. And I’m not sure when he’ll be back. Each time he comes he seems less at home here. Maybe it’s easier for him to be a Shetlander when he’s away from the islands.’

‘Where will we find him?’ Perez asked.

‘He was packing, but I think I heard him go out.’ She paused. ‘You might find him in the graveyard. He goes there sometimes, usually just before he leaves, to say goodbye to his father.’

Chapter Twenty-two

Roddy Sinclair was just where Bella had said he’d be. The graveyard was a bleak sort of place and Taylor thought he wouldn’t want to end his days here, right next to the sea, drowned with salt spray during the gales and picked over by seabirds. Most of the headstones were very old and misshapen, looking, Taylor thought, like a mouthful of crooked teeth. Roddy had moved away from the graves and was standing by the low drystone wall, looking out over the water. He wore a bright yellow sweatshirt with a design on the back which could have come from an album cover. Taylor recognized him immediately; the floppy fair hair and the grin. What must it be like to have people know you wherever you went?

On the beach to the north a young man was playing with a child, holding both her hands and swinging her around. It was a long way off but they could hear her laughter. Perez muttered under his breath that the man was Martin Williamson, the chef at the Herring House, and for a moment Taylor’s attention was distracted. Another suspect. Another life to explore. Roddy didn’t seem to hear anything of the conversation. He was lost in his memories. He only turned to look at them when Taylor spoke.

‘Sorry to disturb you.’ Taylor thought it was best to be conciliatory. He’d first seen Roddy Sinclair on a television chat show. He’d been flicking through the channels, looking for football, and had been about to move on when something about the conversation held his attention. The boy had a confiding way of speaking which made the audience feel he was giving away secrets. A couple of months later he’d been on the TV again. The documentary. Taylor would have liked to be a celebrity. He found the idea of such attention, the small courtesies and luxuries, immensely appealing. And despite himself he was attracted by famous people, a little over-awed by them.

‘This is DCI Taylor,’ Perez said. ‘He’s in charge of the investigation into the man who was killed at the jetty. We shouldn’t take up too much of your time.’

‘No problem.’ The young man smiled. He looked to Taylor like a boy, much younger than his actual age. A schoolboy, too young to drink, too young to drive. Perhaps that was part of his appeal for the people who bought his music. ‘I come here sometimes to talk to my dad. Daft, huh?’

‘Were you very close?’

‘We were. I was an only child. Maybe that had something to do with it. And then he was ill for quite a long time. He couldn’t get out to work so much, so he was in the house more than my mother was. He read to me a lot. We played music together.’

‘What work did he do?’

‘He was an engineer. He worked for one of the oil companies. He’d travelled a bit before he came back to Shetland. Mostly in the Middle East. They think maybe that was where he got the skin cancer. He was very fair- skinned. By the time he was diagnosed it had spread. For a while he seemed well, just as he always was, and it was like one great long holiday. Then he got very weak and thin. But we still managed to play together almost to the end.’

Taylor wished he could think of his own father in those terms, with fondness and the memory of shared activities. He looked again at the couple on the beach. It was low tide and the sand was flat and smooth. The man