was thinking.
Inside the house, he saw his mother through Perez’s eyes: little, round, short hair that she trimmed herself if she couldn’t get into Lerwick, dressed today in her best hand-knitted sweater because she was expecting guests. Enough energy to power Shetland Hydro. She’d already warmed the pot and made the tea and she was still talking.
There was a newborn lamb in a cardboard box next to the Rayburn. ‘An orphan,’ Evelyn said. ‘We’re hand- rearing her. No one else would bother, but Joseph’s a soft old thing.’
Now that the tea was brewing she turned back into the room. ‘What can I get you to eat? We’ve got some of our own bacon and Mima gave me a dozen eggs yesterday, so I have plenty to spare. Will that do you?’
Sandy found himself remembering the day his father had killed the pig. Because it was for the family’s own use there’d been no need to send it out to the abattoir, but it was a horrible job. The pig always made a dreadful noise before the throat was cut. He’d seemed to sense what was about to happen to him. Sandy had been on the island that day, but he’d not been a lot of use. He’d stood watching along with Anna. His father had been the strong one, finishing off the job with Ronald’s help, and Evelyn had caught the blood in a bowl.
‘It sounds brilliant, Mrs Wilson,’ Perez said. He’d made himself at home already. His shoes were left in the porch and he’d taken the chair by the table where Sandy’s father usually sat. She beamed, took down a heavy frying pan from the wall, opened the Rayburn hotplate.
‘Mrs Wilson, indeed! No one’s called me that in this house since that politician from the SNP came canvassing at the last election.’
It was warm in the kitchen and Sandy felt himself nodding off, heard the conversation between Perez and his mother as though from a long distance.
‘What time did you last see Mima?’ Perez asked.
‘About two o’clock. I called round to have a chat about the dig. The two lasses from the university were there. What nice wee girls they are, though I think that Hattie could do with a bit of feeding up. She’s a skinny little thing. All eyes and bone.’ She paused to take breath.
Sandy knew his mother had hoped he’d take up with one of the ‘nice wee girls’. She thought he should settle down and give her grandchildren. Michael, after all, had obliged by marrying an Edinburgh lawyer and producing a daughter who was already attending private nursery. But that wasn’t like having a grandchild close at hand to meddle with. Jackie scored now on that too. Sandy had liked the students well enough. Not Hattie so much, who was intense and far too clever for him, but Sophie, who was more laid-back. She liked a few beers and a bit of a laugh, she was kind of flirty. Posh, but friendly all the same. The boys teased him because he always had a different woman on the go, but he was starting to think it was time for him to settle down. It was tiring chasing after the lasses and there were more single men in Shetland than there were women. But would he really want to be like Ronald, married to a woman who nagged and bossed? It would be like living at home again.
‘The dig is so exciting!’ Evelyn was distracted from Mima’s death by her passion of the moment. ‘Hattie thinks there’s a merchant’s house there. It was built at the time when the Hanseatic League was starting to collapse and folk were told they couldn’t trade through Bergen any more. I found a skull, you know. Part of a skull. Hattie thinks it might belong to the merchant who built the house. It’s been sent away for carbon dating. They’ve been exploring the same trench and Sophie found more bone. Part of a rib and maybe the pelvis. Imagine what a tourist attraction it would be, if we excavate the site properly. I’d like to build a house, just as it would have been. We could run workshops, family days. We have to look to the future if we’re going to provide work for our young people.’
Sandy stifled a yawn, thought again that Evelyn had a lot in common with Anna. He couldn’t get worked up about the island’s future. He’d left Whalsay for Lerwick as soon as he could escape from his mother and felt more at home in town now. ‘That bacon’s not burning, is it, Mother?’
Evelyn shook the pan, scowled at Sandy for questioning her ability to fry a couple of rashers.
‘When you visited Setter, was Mima in the house, or outside with the women?’ Perez asked.
‘We were all inside. The weather had just turned nasty and Mima had invited the girls in for a hot drink. When I arrived the three of them were in the kitchen, giggling over some silly joke. You’d have thought Mima was the same age as they were. This project seemed to have given her a new lease of life. That’s why this stupid accident is such a tragedy.’
For the first time Sandy thought his mother was genuinely upset. She’d always treated Mima as a bit of a nuisance, a wayward teenager likely to cause the family embarrassment, but now he saw she’d miss her. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t a little bit pleased Ronald had got himself into bother over it.
His mother was still talking, her words running as a background soundtrack to his thoughts. ‘I had some tea with them then the girls went back out. They’d been drenched through and Mima had put their coats and socks near the Rayburn to dry. It was steaming like a laundry in there, condensation running down the windows so you couldn’t see out. Mima already had the eggs ready for me and I couldn’t waste any more time chatting. I was driving and got wet just running from the house to the car. The students went back to their work though. I could see their bright yellow waterproofs from the car.’ Evelyn lifted the bacon from the pan and put it on a plate in the bottom oven to keep warm.
‘So you had a little time with Mima on her own?’
‘Just a few minutes.’ She cracked four eggs into the pan, flipped the bacon fat over them, turned back to the table to slice bread.
‘How did she seem?’
‘Like I said, on fine form. Mischievous. But then she was always that way.’
‘Did she tell you she had any plans for the evening?’
‘No, she never went out much at night. She liked her telly too much.’
‘Did you notice if her washing was out when you left?’ Perez asked.
‘I noticed it was there when I arrived, asked her if she’d like me to fetch it in for her. She said it had been there two days already and one more wouldn’t hurt. That was Mima for you.’
She set the table and put the food in front of them. Sandy roused himself from his stupor long enough to eat, was vaguely aware of Perez complimenting his mother on the food, a discussion about the problems of rearing pigs, the best treatment for pigs’ sunburned nipples.
Sandy watched with admiration as Perez brought the conversation back to Mima’s death. He thought he’d never be such a skilful interrogator even if he worked for the rest of his career as a detective.
‘Later you went to see the Cloustons?’ Perez asked Evelyn, as if it were the most natural conversation in the world.
‘After tea, yes. Sandy was back for the weekend but he was away to the bar to catch up with his pals.’ She looked disapprovingly at her son; Sandy pretended not to notice. He’d heard it all before. ‘He tends to treat this place like a hotel. Joseph had sport on the television. There was nothing to keep me in and I don’t like to bother Anna during the day. With a new baby you catch up on your sleep when you can and I know she’s always busy. Young mothers these days don’t seem to think they need to rest.’
‘How did you find them?’
‘Well enough. Tired, of course, but that’s the way when there’s a new baby in the house. Anna’s always very pleasant, though she seemed kind of tense. I wondered if I’d walked in on a row.’
‘And Ronald?’
‘Ronald’s always been a moody sort of man. He was the same as a boy.’
Now Sandy felt compelled to speak. ‘You can’t say that, Mother. It’s just not true. Maybe he wanted some time to himself.’
‘He was lucky to find that woman and he treats her badly.’ Evelyn piled the plates into the sink and switched on the tap, swished the washing-up water with her hand. ‘I’ll leave these to soak for now, do them later when you’ve gone.’
‘Badly in what way?’ Perez asked.
