None but the Dead (28 page)

The question was, by whom?

McNab had voiced his opinion at this point that Sam was the chief suspect.

‘He could have met the girl, something could have happened between them, then he went to her home looking for her,’ he’d said. ‘We both know it’s often the one who
declares a child missing who made it happen in the first place.’

Rhona hadn’t argued, because McNab was right. It looked as though the girl had been in Sam’s vehicle. The anorak and wellington boots were definitely Inga’s. She recognized
them herself from her encounter with Inga at the schoolhouse. There could of course be a different explanation for their presence in the vehicle. They may have been planted there to make it look
like Sam had abducted the girl.

And now Sam Flett was dead and couldn’t defend himself, which to Rhona, at least, seemed a little too convenient.

‘Maybe he couldn’t live with what he’d done?’ McNab had responded to this.

‘There was evidence of blunt-force trauma to the back of the head,’ she reminded him.

‘He could have hit his head
after
he drowned,’ McNab said.

And there they were, back round again to the post-mortem results.

‘The most important thing is to locate Inga. And the soil deposit may be our way of doing that.’

They’d retrieved the jeep and it now stood behind the heritage centre. In normal circumstances, a SOCO team well versed in forensically examining vehicles would have taken over.
She’d discussed with Erling transporting the jeep to Kirkwall for examination and they’d decided it would be swifter for her to process it here, and have the evidence lifted off the
island and down to Chrissy as quickly as possible.

Rhona would have given anything to be back in her lab, or any lab, but if she left the island, there would be no one on hand to process what they might find next.

And everyone involved, including Erling, thought it was likely to be a child’s body.

McNab was glad to be alone for the short journey from the museum to the community centre. He had to concede that PC Tulloch had conducted himself well up to now, but his
presence in the car would have been a distraction. He needed time on his own to think.

In most of the cases he’d worked on, there had been a sudden moment of insight, when experience, intuition or a mixture of both drew aside the intricate layers and showed you what lay
beneath.

Not here. Not in this place.

Whatever he’d learned on the job in Glasgow, plainly didn’t work on Sanday. He’d played it all wrong. Been too accommodating. Far too polite, even when he suspected folk were
lying. And who was afraid of being interviewed in a community centre? If he’d been able to conduct the interviews in a police station. Put the fear of death in them. He would have got the
truth then.

Maybe even prevented some of this from happening.

McNab drew into a passing place as a car approached, and was rewarded with a wave of a hand.

Fuck, he was even driving like them.

He put his foot hard on the accelerator, kicking up sand as he rejoined the road. Things would be different from now on, he vowed.

Hege Aaker denied the accusation. Again.

‘It came from your phone.’

‘That doesn’t mean I sent it.’ She met McNab square in the eye.

‘Who has access to your mobile?’

‘When I’m here, anyone and everyone.’

‘How’s that?’

‘I leave it by the coffee machine while I’m working.’

They both glanced at the said machine where at least five people were gathered.

‘See,’ she said, ‘anyone might have used it.’

‘What about your access code? Who knows that?’

‘I don’t use one. It irritates me to have to keep putting it in every time I want to use the phone.’

‘The text arrived on Saturday,’ McNab said.

‘I did come in that morning.’ She looked thoughtful.

‘Who else was here?’

‘I’d need to check the diary. The place is used for different meetings, family gatherings. Plus we get individuals coming to check emails and to use the internet.’

‘Get the diary,’ he told her.

It seemed there had been a meeting of the directors of the Sanday Development Trust. The group who worked on Sanday archaeological sites had also been there. And a Golden Wedding tea party.

‘Is there a list of names available?’

‘For the first two groups probably, but I’m not sure about the tea party.’

‘Anyone apart from that?’

‘There were a few folk popping in and out. There always are.’

‘I take it my number is on your mobile?’

‘You asked everyone to take it down, remember?’ she reminded him. ‘In case we thought of anything else to tell you.’ In that moment her face clouded over. ‘Everyone
liked Sam Flett. Who would want to harm him, or Inga?’

McNab wanted to say,
That’s what I fucking need to know
. In different circumstances, he would have said exactly that. But he wasn’t in Glasgow. He was on Sanday. Hege had
given an explanation for the text from her mobile. Looking at those around him in the centre now, plus the diary, he recognized it was probably true. Plus, he didn’t think she was lying, and
he didn’t believe she’d try to point the finger at Sam.

But then maybe he was going soft?

The next interviewee was Don Cutts. McNab had offered to visit him at home, but the old man had declined. ‘I don’t get out much. This is exciting for me.’

He wheeled himself in, like an actor coming on stage. His expression suggested he had something to say and was looking forward to it. When McNab asked if he wanted coffee or tea, he dismissed
this with a wave of his hand.

‘Mr Cutts—’ McNab began.

Before he could get any further, the old man interrupted him. ‘I heard about the sweetheart brooch you found with Sam.’

McNab wanted to ask,
How could you know about that?

Before he was able to, Mr Cutts came back in. ‘I had to think back. I couldn’t be sure.’

‘About what?’

‘Eric Flett. Beth Haddow was seeing Eric Flett, Sam’s half-brother. And, maybe, the guy that was staying at the Flett’s house at the time.’

‘Jamie Drever? Tall, skinny, with ginger hair?’

The old man nodded, a glint in his eye. ‘Aye, Jamie. But there was another one. A veritable triangle of them. It’s a long time ago. But the memory of that time seems stronger every
day. The other guy was older. Eric and Jamie had no chance really. Like me.’ He shook his head, recalling, it seemed, the adolescent trauma of it all.

‘Who?’ McNab urged him.

‘Tall, dark-haired, local, although he worked away a lot on the fishing. He liked a drink, I remember that much, and he had a way with the women. I wanted to learn what it was. But I
don’t think I ever did.’

‘Who was he?’ McNab tried again.

He shook his head. ‘I’m damned if I know. And he’ll be dead now anyway.’ A mix of pain and sadness swept his face. ‘There were only a few local surnames back then.
No incomers, you see, except for the military personnel. Get Sam Flett to tell you the family names in the north of the island.’ He looked pleased by his solution, then his face crumpled.
‘But Sam’s gone now too.’

‘Did Sam talk to you about this?’

His rheumy eyes focussed on McNab. ‘His mother had dementia. Sam said she was spilling the family secrets.’

‘And they were?’

‘What are they always?’ he said.

The chopper would be returning from Sanday bearing Sam’s body and the evidence that Dr MacLeod had collected on the island. But it wouldn’t land here in
Kirkwall.

The thought of Sam heading south to be dissected in a Glasgow post-mortem disturbed Erling more than he’d thought possible. He could have insisted it go to Inverness, but for what purpose?
So that it might stay above the Highland line? His ‘adopted’ uncle had never regarded himself as a Highlander, nor even Scottish. Sam Flett had been a Sanday man, an Orcadian, through
and through. So what did it matter where they cut him open, if it wasn’t here on the island?

He was aware too that Sam had to feature as a suspect in the child’s disappearance, particularly now that his jeep with her jacket and boots had been found. But why would he harm the
child?

The fact that it had become a distinct possibility meant he could no longer be directly involved, and the ongoing investigation would have to be managed by DS McNab with local support. His
thoughts on McNab he’d kept mostly to himself, not even divulging them to Magnus. He’d heard tales of the detective, particularly during the Stonewarrior case, in which Orkney had
featured, but had never met the man in person until now.

McNab, if he was honest, had really got under his skin. He didn’t like the detective’s dismissive attitude to Sanday, its way of life and its people, but he was used to townies
thinking themselves superior, whatever their profession.

Irritation wasn’t the only emotion he felt. There was another. Envy.

Envy because McNab didn’t care about his position, his future, even his own well-being. He didn’t care what people thought or said about him. In that he was like Rory. In fact, there
was a lot about the two men’s characters that was similar. Apart from the fact that McNab was so demonstrably straight. He seemed at times to play the gung-ho tough guy just to make that more
obvious.

Is that why he pisses me off?

Even as he asked himself that, he knew the real reason for his dislike of the Glasgow detective. McNab was rooting about in his family, opening up the past. A past that Erling had his own
preferred version of. A version he didn’t want to see destroyed.

Their latest phone call, in which McNab had brought him up to date regarding their search of Sam’s cottage, and the discovery of the jeep and its contents, had left Erling with a profound
feeling of unease. Sam’s declared affection for Inga had been transformed in his mind into an obsession. Added to which, his preoccupation with the second sight, his belief in the
significance of the flowers in the schoolhouse attic and his declared fear for Inga’s safety, all pointed to the likelihood that Sam had been losing his mind.

Had Sam been fearful that he might harm the girl himself? Was that what he’d been trying to prevent?

Sam’s possible involvement in Inga’s disappearance hadn’t been the only bombshell McNab had dropped. Old Don Cutt’s recollections of a triumvirate of possible lovers for
the missing Beth Haddow had included both Eric Flett and Jamie Drever. Old Mr Cutts could of course be telling lies, revisiting adolescent grievances or just stirring the pot. Although if Dr
MacLeod had seen the missing skull in Maesry Mound, then someone currently on Sanday was trying to prevent them discovering the identity of the remains at the schoolhouse.

No one wants to discover a murderer in the family. Including me.

Rhona had set up the Skype call in the research room, where Sam Flett had installed her when she’d first arrived on the island. Back then the mystery had centred on a
cold case. Not any more.

Chrissy peered into the screen as though she was looking through a window at her. Rhona felt a surge of affection and relief at seeing Chrissy again and realized just how much she’d missed
her forensic assistant’s straightforward evaluation of everything.

‘So, you’re still there?’ Chrissy said.

‘I’m still here,’ Rhona agreed.

‘But no more Sam Flett.’ Chrissy looked over Rhona’s shoulder as if searching for the museum curator. ‘What the fuck’s going on up there in Sanday land?’

‘We found his body on the causeway.’

‘A man who knew all about the tides died on a causeway? I don’t buy it.’

‘His body’s on its way to Glasgow. Will you attend the post-mortem?’

‘You bet I will.’

‘There’s other stuff.’ Rhona proceeded to talk about the samples she’d sent from Inga’s boots, plus the shell sand.

‘I need you here at the lab,’ Chrissy said. ‘But I know why you’re not coming back.’

‘I don’t think she’s dead,’ Rhona found herself saying.

There was a moment’s silence as Chrissy absorbed this.

‘For a scientist, that’s a pretty big statement.’ She waited for Rhona to respond.

Eventually she did, trying to put into words what had occurred to her as a possibility.

‘Sam Flett was freaked by the muslin flowers found in the attic,’ she stated. ‘He found an old school photograph that featured a girl that looked like Inga. His fear for Inga
wasn’t rational but it was very real, and growing. What would he do?’

There was a long pause as Chrissy thought about this. ‘If it was me, I would hide her, until I worked out what the threat was.’

‘I wondered about that too.’

‘What about her coat and boots in his jeep?’ Chrissy said.

‘It’s too convenient. As was the jeep’s placing on the sands. Whoever did that, I don’t think it was Sam, although I’ll need the post-mortem to confirm the
timing.’

They talked then of the missing skull.

‘Someone’s screwing with you and you know now it’s not kids.’

Rhona agreed. ‘If that someone knows or thinks they know who killed that woman seventy odd years ago, they don’t want it broadcast.’

‘Which suggests it’s someone living there,’ Chrissy said. ‘Otherwise why would they care what their ancestors had done?’

‘Maybe the killer isn’t dead,’ Rhona countered.

‘Someone that old can’t sneak about, removing a skull and hiding it on Start Island in a cave.’

‘Not a cave, a Neolithic tomb,’ Rhona corrected her.

‘If the killer was from Sanday, isn’t it likely they would have come from a family local to the area around the radar station?’

Chrissy was right. Back then, family names had been local to parishes. Fletts, Drevers, Sinclairs, Weirs.

‘Sam Flett was the authority on all of that,’ Rhona reminded her. ‘And he’s dead.’

They talked then of what the grave had produced.

‘There’s a lot of soil to sift,’ Chrissy said. She didn’t add, ‘On my own,’ but Rhona caught the silent words anyway.

‘And the pilot’s knife?’

‘The staining on the blade was blood, and I retrieved a DNA sample from the handle. I’m trying to trace the serial number via the MOD, in the remote chance it may provide us with the
name of the person it was issued to.’ She paused. ‘I sent your photo of the skull to IT as requested. They managed to get a much better image, which I forwarded to the Human
Identification Centre in Dundee.’