White Nights

that summer. Besides, there was no need to go back to the past. I had a future through Roddy.’

Fran thought that Bella had put too much on to the boy – the responsibility for all her happiness. ‘Is Jeremy Booth there?’

Bella swung the picture back. ‘It’s difficult to tell, isn’t it? I only saw him briefly at the Herring House the other night. Where is it? I wondered if this could be him.’

‘Where?’

‘Here. I thought the long face, rather narrow nose. He has more hair here, of course. It’s unfashionably long, even for the time. And he has a beard. Very much the bohemian.’

‘And you really don’t remember anything about him? Not even the name?’

‘I don’t think he can have been here for very long. Perhaps not more than a few days. That happened. People came for a while and then moved on. I spent quite a lot of my time in Glasgow, visiting lecturer at the art school. I’d get pissed at parties and invite people to stay.’

She leaned back in her chair with her eyes half closed. Fran thought she was reliving that summer in her mind.

‘I think perhaps he was the magician,’ she said. ‘He put on a magic show for Roddy, who was completely entranced. It seemed such a kind thing to do. I rather fancy he was my actor. He told me he was in love with me.’ As if this was of no consequence at all, a common occurrence. She paused. ‘He was given to practical jokes, I remember, and not always in good taste. The flyers cancelling the party would have been just his style. A way of getting his own back. But why wait all this time? Surely he didn’t come to Shetland just to upset me.’ There was a note of satisfaction in her voice. She liked the idea that she had haunted him for years.

‘Did anything happen that time they were all here at the Manse?’ Fran asked. ‘Something that could have triggered this violence so many years later?’

‘No,’ Bella said. ‘The night that photograph was taken was an anticlimax. We dressed up and ate dinner. The next morning I was left with a hangover and a pile of dirty dishes. No drama. Nothing.’

‘Can I have the photo to show Jimmy?’

‘Why not?’

She sounded very tired, as if nothing really mattered any more.

Chapter Thirty-six

Taylor had been at his desk since eight and was finding it impossible to concentrate. He’d been restless even as a child, could see now that he must have driven his father to distraction with his fidgeting and his demands for attention. His father had been a foreman in the docks and used to a bit of respect. Taylor hadn’t been prepared to make the effort.

Since the trip to the Wirral, he’d been thinking more about his family. He should have been in touch with them, at least let them know he was safe and well. Everyone thought Jeremy Booth had been a selfish bastard, walking out on his wife and baby. Maybe they were saying the same things about Roy Taylor. You’d have thought he could pick up the phone and let his mother know he wasn’t dead. This case had too many resonances with his own life. It seemed Lawrence Thomson had just walked out too. Because he was bored, or being pressured to take on the commitment of a wife and family. Perhaps he just needed the space to make his own decisions and live his own life.

Taylor left the building and went out into the street. He needed exercise and fresh air and a decent cup of coffee. Another huge cruise ship was sliding into the mouth of the harbour, blocking out the view of Bressay, dominating the town. Taylor thought cruising was like his idea of hell. Being shut up on a boat with a load of people whose company you hadn’t chosen, having to be pleasant to them, never being able to escape. Like a family, he thought. And he thought that though he hadn’t spoken to his relatives for years he had never really escaped them either. Resentment against his father bubbled inside him, fuelling his ambition, pushing people away.

He walked down the lane into the Peerie Cafe. He’d come here with Perez when he was last in Shetland. They’d drunk coffee and discussed the case, united against a general assumption that the murderer had already been found. He missed the easy relationship they’d had then. He seemed to remember laughter. They’d been more like friends than rivals. Why did Perez irritate more now than he had on the earlier visit? Was it because he’d taken up with Fran Hunter? Was Taylor jealous because he had a woman? An attractive woman.

There were two middle-aged women in the queue ahead of him – English tourists in walking gear. He tried to curb his impatience as they dithered about whether it would be terribly wicked to have cream with their scones. He was tempted to turn round and walk out, but the smell of the coffee held him.

He’d just put in his order when the phone call came from Perez.

‘I’m in Biddista. You might want to get over here.’ There was never any urgency when the Shetlander spoke, but Taylor could sense in his voice that this was important. ‘The climbers came across something…’ The Englishwomen were back at the counter, hovering at his elbow, fussing with napkins. They were chatting and Taylor found it hard to hear what Perez was saying.

‘I’ll be on my way. You can tell me when I get there.’

He asked for the coffee to be tipped into a cardboard cup so he could take it away and felt as close to joy as he ever did now that he was grown-up. He had a function, an excuse for activity. For a few hours at least he wouldn’t be bored. In the car he played Led Zeppelin so loud that it pushed thought out of his head, and drove one-handed as he drank the coffee, which was still too hot. He reflected that the fear of boredom had driven him the whole of his life.

He went as far as he could up the track then pulled on to the grass and walked the rest of the way. Perez and the climbers were sitting at the top of the Pit o’ Biddista waiting for him. The sight of them, lying back with their faces to the sun, irritated him all over again. Did they have nothing better to do? Did Perez think a murder investigation was just a holiday from the routine and the mundane business of policing this wind-blown, godforsaken place?

‘What is it?’ He felt at a disadvantage, breathless and sweaty after the walk on to the hill. ‘Have you got Booth’s mobile?’

‘No,’ Perez said. ‘We didn’t find that.’

‘What then?’

‘A human bone.’ Perez frowned. ‘Old. Not fresh, at least. I’d need an expert opinion. I wanted to know what you thought we should do next. I didn’t feel we could continue without clearing it with you first.’

Taylor tried to keep his temper. It would be a wonderful indulgence just to let rip, to blast away at Perez for his incompetence. The Shetlander had managed the original crime scene after the body of Roddy Sinclair had been found. Why had no proper search been done immediately? Why had it taken a suggestion by Taylor to get things moving? He felt the warm glow of the self-righteous. The day was turning out well after all.

‘What are you saying has happened here?’ Keeping his voice even, reasonable. Holding the moral high ground. He was competitive even in this.

‘I think another murder,’ Perez said. ‘The cause or trigger maybe for the recent incidents. At first we thought the bone was washed in from the sea. There have been men lost here over the years. It wouldn’t be so unusual. Then we found another. Part of the shin, we think. There will probably be more.’

Taylor looked at the Shetlander. It seemed a mighty big leap in logic to deduce a murder from a couple of fragments of bone. Perez had a theory, believed he knew what had happened here. That didn’t mean he was right.

‘The body couldn’t have been washed in whole and disintegrated in the Pit, without anyone seeing it?’

‘No one would see.’ Perez nodded his agreement. ‘Folk don’t go down there very often, that’s for sure. When there were more children living here and running around the hill, that was a different matter, but not now.’

‘So that’s a possible scenario?’

‘No. The crack into the tunnel is too narrow. A body wouldn’t be washed in there. Not even the body of a child, and this is an adult.’

‘What are you saying, Jimmy? I don’t have all day. Help me out here!’