White Nights

position when the television in the next room woke them. Cassie was singing along to a Saturday-morning children’s programme.

‘You do realize,’ Fran said, ‘that this will be all round Ravenswick School on Monday morning?’

‘I’m sorry, I should have thought.’ He wasn’t sure now what he should have thought. She’d invited him, after all. Did she not want it known that they were seeing each other?

‘Don’t worry. They think I’m a scarlet woman anyway.’ And she pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and went to make tea.

Later they had pancakes for breakfast, with syrup and chocolate sauce. Cassie, still in her pyjamas, was getting silly and excited because of the novelty of the treat. But all the time he was wishing that he knew exactly what Fran was thinking and that he had some rules to follow. This relationship was so important to him and he didn’t want to get things wrong. Maybe I should ask her to marry me, he thought suddenly. Then at least I’d know where I was. The idea was at once tantalizing and ludicrous, so he found himself grinning. Fran asked him what he was laughing about.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m happy. That’s all.’

When Taylor walked into the terminal he seemed surprisingly alive and energetic. He said he’d had a few hours’ sleep in the hotel at Dyce and now what he really wanted was caffeine and carbs and he’d be fit for anything. Perez took him into the Sumburgh Hotel. The bar was quiet; the barman, a gaunt Englishman who’d lived in Shetland for so long that he spoke like a native, was chatting in a low voice to an old man sitting on a tall stool. Taylor ordered a burger and a Coke and when that was finished he couldn’t stop talking. Perez was reminded of Cassie, bouncing around the kitchen in Ravenswick, full of sugar and E numbers.

‘I found Booth’s wife and daughter. Nice lass. She hadn’t seen him since he left, but recently they’d got in touch. The mother didn’t know.’

‘Are we sure the mother hadn’t found out the girl had tracked him down?’ Perez was hesitant. ‘It would be a dramatic way to stop the father having contact with the girl, but I suppose we should consider it.’

Taylor paused for a moment. Thoughts chased each other across his face like the cloud shadows outside.

‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘I hadn’t seen that as a possibility. If the mother was involved she’s a better actor than Booth ever was. She couldn’t have done it personally. She was at home looking after her family.’

‘What else did you learn from the daughter?’

‘That Booth definitely had friends in Shetland. That was what he told the girl. He was mixing business with pleasure, taking the chance to catch up on old friends.’

‘Someone he met when he was here working on the theatre boat, maybe,’ Perez said. ‘I’ve contacted the management of the boat, The Motley Crew. He did a couple of tours of the northern isles in the early nineties. Must have been soon after he ran away from his wife. The company have no record of him working here after that. But he kept in touch with them.’

‘Could he have had a fling with Bella Sinclair?’ Taylor said. It had been on his mind. Perez imagined him in the plane working over the scenario. Now his voice was eager. ‘You could see it. They’re around the same age. Two arty types together. The relationship obviously didn’t work out for some reason, but that could be our link.’

‘And that’s why he tried to sabotage her exhibition?’ Perez kept his voice even. Taylor took offence easily and didn’t like to be contradicted. ‘He’d kept a grudge after all this time?’

‘People do,’ Taylor said. ‘But you’re right, of course. Something must have happened to bring him back. But what?’

‘Had he had any contact from Shetland? Phone calls? Email?’

‘No phone calls to his landline, we know that. I haven’t heard about the emails. We need to get that sorted.’ Taylor leaned back in his chair and punched a number into his phone. Perez watched from the other side of the table, felt mildly embarrassed as he harangued some poor DC in West Yorkshire to fast-track the information. Which would probably mean, Perez thought, that it would go right to the bottom of the pile. Just out of spite. People wouldn’t take to being spoken to like that.

‘So where does Roddy Sinclair fit in?’ Perez asked. Taylor had subsided in his seat, suddenly quiet after the ranting. ‘He’d only have been a child when Booth was last here.’

‘We are sure he was murdered?’

‘I’m sure,’ Perez said, realizing as he spoke how arrogant that might sound. ‘Impossible forensically to tell the difference between murder, suicide and accident. He fell and he smashed his skull. But he knew the cliffs very well. He grew up there. And he was all set to get the plane south. You were with me when he talked about it. His car was loaded up. Something must have taken him out on to the hill.’

‘The murderer arranged to meet him there?’

‘That’s how I read it.’

‘Nobody saw him that afternoon?’

‘They say not. Sandy’s been in Biddista this morning talking to people.’

‘I’d like to give it another go. I still don’t feel I’ve got a handle on the place.’ Taylor leaned forward, his old intense self. ‘Come with me, Jimmy. You’ll get more out of them than I will on my own.’

So Perez found himself back in Biddista, parked again by the Herring House, all his attention focused on three ordinary families and Peter Wilding, to whom he’d taken an irrational dislike.

Saturday was the Herring House’s busiest day. There was a coach outside and a party of elderly Americans was climbing out and trooping into the gallery. Perez supposed there was another cruise ship in Lerwick. Upstairs the cafe was full. They took one look in and decided it would be impossible to get Martin Williamson’s attention now. Perez had expected the place to be closed as a mark of respect, but he suspected Bella hadn’t given the gallery a thought and Martin had decided there were so many people booked in that it would be easier to stay open.

The post office had just shut and they found Aggie at home. She was in the garden taking washing from the line. Perez held out his arms to help her fold the sheets and they stood for a moment in silence, the sheet stretched between them, while Taylor watched as if they were performing a ritual dance. Inside she moved the kettle on to the hotplate.

‘You’ll have heard about Roddy,’ Perez said. He thought she looked very tired, more timid and mouse-like than ever.

‘That he’s dead. No details. The Whalsay lad that came to talk to me this morning was all questions and no answers.’

‘Roddy was found at the bottom of the Pit o’ Biddista. You’ll have heard that. We don’t know how he got there. We need to find out. You do see, Aggie?’

‘I do,’ she said. ‘Poor Bella. I know what it’s like to live with uncertainty. But there are some things you can never know.’

‘You didn’t see him yesterday?’

‘Not on the hill. He came into the post office in the morning.’

‘What did he want?’

‘To buy some sweeties to take on the plane with him,’ she said. ‘He had a very sweet tooth, you ken, Jimmy. Just like a peerie boy.’

‘Did you have any sort of conversation?’

‘I asked him when he’d be back. I know he offended people. Dawn didn’t like the way he kept dragging Martin into Lerwick to parties; all the young girls threw themselves at Roddy and maybe she thought Martin would get caught up with the same sort of thing. I told her she didn’t need to worry. Martin has more sense and he loves her to bits. It’s good for him to have a pal. He doesn’t get so much company out here. Roddy said he was doing a show in the Town Hall in Lerwick in six weeks’ time and he’d be back for that. He was quiet, thoughtful, but he didn’t seem depressed. I thought maybe he was starting to grow up.’ She paused. ‘Have you seen Bella?’

‘Only last night.’

‘I don’t know how she’ll cope with this,’ Aggie said. ‘That boy was her life.’

They left her sitting in the rocking chair in the kitchen, reading a novel, its cover showing a young woman with a shawl thrown over her head, staring into the distance.

In the adjoining house Dawn was sitting with a pile of marking while Alice played with a doll’s house on the