‘Did Mima ever mention meeting a Norwegian man during the war?’
‘No, and it’s just the sort of story she’d have enjoyed telling. Kind of saucy and dramatic.’ Sandy wasn’t sure he believed any of it. Andrew’s memory was unreliable and some days the words weren’t very clear.
‘According to Andrew she never knew the man had been killed,’ Perez said. ‘But she must have been aware of the rumours that were going round. Cedric told me one version and there were probably others. Maybe she didn’t want to make herself the subject of gossip. No more than she already was.’
‘You can’t think that something that happened all that time ago has anything to do with an old woman being shot on Whalsay today?’ Sandy thought Perez was mad to be distracted so much by the past.
‘Probably not.’
‘I was wondering…’ Sandy paused. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself.
‘Yes?’
‘Berglund. Is that a Norwegian name?’
‘Scandinavian, certainly.’
‘Another coincidence, do you think?’
‘You’re thinking he could be a relative, a grandson maybe, who’s come in after revenge?’ Perez was amused but not altogether dismissive.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps not revenge, but information. He could have been asking questions and stirred things up.’
‘It’s worth checking,’ Perez said. ‘I’ll do that when I’m back in the office. I’m going home this afternoon. I can’t really justify staying another day and the Fiscal needs to know what’s going on. You know what she’s like.’
‘Will you tell her everything? About my grandmother and the Norwegian?’
‘Of course. She’s very discreet, you know, whatever we think of her. She has to be.’
Sandy shot a quick look at Perez to see if he was mocking him, but he seemed quite serious. ‘I just don’t like the idea of it,’ he said. ‘Folk talking about my family in that way.’ He turned and began to walk back to the house. He was wondering what Joseph would make of it. Or had he always known what had happened sixty years before? Perhaps he should talk to his father before word got out.
As they approached the house, a car drew up and Ronald Clouston climbed out. He hadn’t noticed them and when he did he seemed startled. Like a great awkward schoolboy caught out in mischief. Sandy thought perhaps Ronald had hoped to speak to him alone.
‘Aye, aye,’ Sandy said. His father’s greeting. ‘Are you coming in? I have to get to Utra in a while to see Michael off, but not just now.’
‘No.’ Ronald stood with his hand on the car door as if he was ready to make a get away. ‘I can see you’re busy.’
‘I’m just going,’ Perez said.
‘No,’ Ronald said again. ‘I’ll get off. I’ve got things to do.’ He got into the car and drove away.
‘What was all that about?’ Perez asked.
‘Folk get kind of shy when the police are about.’ Sandy wished Perez hadn’t been there. Maybe he’d give Ronald a call later and find out what he’d come for. He could tell that Ronald had wanted to talk to him and had lost his nerve at the last minute. He turned to his boss. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Can you bear to stay in Whalsay for a little while?’
‘Aye, I suppose so. I’d like to get home soon though.’
‘I’m hoping we’ll have it all cleared up in the next few days.’
Sandy wondered if Perez had any real reason for saying that or if it was wishful thinking. He repeated his question. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Do you think you could get Sophie to talk to you? She spent all that time with Hattie. She might know something that doesn’t seem at all important to her. You’re more her age and she knows you socially.’
‘I can try.’ Sandy had a sudden vision of how it would be if he got Sophie to talk, if he discovered a fact that moved the case forward. How pleased and proud Perez would be! ‘I’ll go to the Bod this evening, maybe take her to the Pier House for a drink.’
‘I wondered if she has a relationship with Berglund. She says not, though, and I don’t know why she should lie, unless she’s worried about getting him into trouble.’
Sandy was tempted then to talk to Perez about his anxiety about his parents, but he decided that was his problem. If he discussed it with Perez it would become official and until he was sure what he was dealing with there was no question of that.
At Utra they were all just about ready to leave for the airport. Michael’s big hire car was packed with luggage and Amelia was standing in the yard, obviously impatient to be off. She was wearing very tight jeans, a jersey with a scooped neck, a little jacket. Michael was fixing the baby into her seat in the back.
Evelyn came hurrying out of the house. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Amelia was just thinking we should leave without saying goodbye to you. I told her there was plenty of time. Sumburgh’s not like those big airports in the south where it takes an hour to check in.’
Sandy couldn’t tell whether Evelyn was more irritated by him or by her daughter-in-law.
‘Well, I’m here now.’
Michael turned round. He took Sandy in his arms, gave him a great bear-hug. ‘Now you’re the great traveller and you can find your way to London on your own, there’s no excuse for not visiting.’
‘I will,’ Sandy said.
Amelia was already in the passenger seat. As the cars drove off she waved to Sandy. A little flutter of the hand, as if she were a film star, or the Queen. Sandy waited until both cars were well on their way to Symbister before he went into the house.
Inside there were signs of the hurry there’d been in getting Michael’s family ready to leave. The washing-up had been done, of course – Evelyn would never leave the house with dirty pans in the sink, but they were still piled on the draining board and not dried. There were crumbs on the floor and the waste bin was full.
Now he was here, Sandy wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He sat down at the table and forced himself to think clearly. He needed reassurance, that was all. He couldn’t understand how his parents had managed to renovate the house on their limited income. He wanted to check that they weren’t in debt. That had been his nightmare: that they’d borrowed foolishly to allow his mother to compete with the pelagic fishing families. He knew the stress that came from owing money. He was crap about finance and in the end he’d cut up his credit card because he couldn’t face the monthly bills; he still remembered the tightness in the pit of his stomach when he’d realized how much he owed.
The tension between his parents could be caused by anxieties about money. He preferred to think it was about that. Any other cause – sex: that one of them had fallen for someone else – was simply horrible. They were old and they were his parents; he couldn’t contemplate it. He wondered if he was overreacting. Perhaps the two deaths so close to home had made him jittery and caused him to blow trivial arguments out of proportion. Then he remembered his father yelling at his mother after Mima’s funeral. Joseph had never raised his voice to Evelyn throughout their marriage, even when he was exhausted after working all day for Duncan Hunter. Sandy wasn’t overreacting. Something was wrong between them.
Then came the difficult part. He forced himself to order his ideas and take the next logical step. If his parents had problems with money, was it possible that one of them had shot Mima for her house and her land? Not Joseph. He could tell how upset his father was. Besides, he’d been made a good offer for the house already and he’d turned it down. Evelyn then? Sandy had known all along that this was where the thinking would end up. Evelyn had never particularly got on with Mima. She could shoot well enough and there was a shotgun in Utra. But if the couple had no money problems, then there would be no real motive. That was why Sandy was lurking in Utra like a thief or a spy.
He knew where his mother kept the bank statements: in the drawer in the sideboard in the living room, where the lasses had put the silver coins before the man from the university had taken them away. It was locked, but the spare key was hanging from a hook in the larder along with all the others. Evelyn had always been the one to look after the family finances. Even when his father had worked for Hunter she’d sorted out the bills and the invoices and filled in Joseph’s tax returns. Sandy could remember her sitting at the table every month, going through the bank statements, frowning when she saw how little they had to live on until the next paycheque.
He found the key and unlocked the drawer. The statements were neatly clipped together in the blue file he
