The Trowie Mound Murders (16 page)

‘Ms Stanley.' He gave me a quick, comprehensive look. ‘Superficial grazes but no real damage?'

‘Nothing a shower won't cure,' I agreed. ‘If you can give me a lift back to the RIB, I'll take it home.'

‘The lifeboat had it in tow.'

‘Then if the winchman can put us down to the lifeboat, I'll save them the journey to Brae.'

‘They're halfway there already,' the pilot said. ‘They set off as soon as we recognised you, and knew we didn't have to look for a corpse.' He grinned. ‘We might have known you'd turn up safe and sound.'

‘I have,' I said, ‘but I'm afraid you do have a corpse to deal with – well, two.' I gestured over the cliff. ‘Someone shot two people and rolled them over, about an hour ago. Dark jackets, but they were still floating.' I grimaced at Gavin. ‘I've had an interesting evening. Let me tell you about it on the way home.'

Chapter Seventeen

The chopper landed on the football pitch in Brae. Gavin stayed with it, to get back to the police HQ in Lerwick, and I had only to walk along the road to the boating club. This being Shetland, the second car that passed was Magnie. He stopped to pick me up.

‘Lass, you look as if you've been digging.'

‘I have,' I agreed wearily. ‘I got stuck inside your trowie mound – Magnie, I'm knackered. I'll tell you the whole story once I've had a shower.' My belly was reminding me I hadn't eaten either. ‘Are you busy this evening? I couldn't get you to drop me off at the club, and then go and get me a fish supper from Frankie's? I've just realised I haven't had any tea.'

‘No problem, lass.'

The shower was magnificent. I lathered the earth out of my hair, soaped all over, wincing a bit, then just stood in the hot water for five repeat presses of the ‘on' button. When I came out, I was pink all over. I dried myself, slathered my cuts with Savlon cream, anointed the rest of me with strawberry-smelling cream from Shetland Soap and headed back to the boat. In passing, I had a quick look in the RIB, and was pleased to find my mobile stashed in the under-seat locker. A nice touch.

Magnie was there before me, and Anders with him, both tucking into fish suppers. Mine was still in its blue and white box, with a cup of tea steaming beside it. Rat whiffled disapprovingly at my strawberry and Savlon smell, but Cat swarmed straight up my clean jeans and jumper to curl around my neck, purring like a steam engine. Magnie and Anders each glanced up, then returned to eating. All the same, I knew what they'd seen; a network of scrapes and grazes across my face and hands, with the occasional bit of earth still ingrained.

‘Aaahh,' I said appreciatively, sitting down on the engine box and leaning back against the cabin doorway. My box contained a slab of haddock that wasn't far off the size of
Khalida
's doorstep, and perfectly cooked chips. The fish was sea-fresh, with moist white flesh in crunchy batter. I put a piece down for Cat, then polished off every last crumb, including the inevitable final hard chip in a pool of vinegar.

‘I got some ice-cream too,' Magnie said. He produced three white chocolate Magnums from a swathing of newspaper. ‘You looked as if you could do with it.'

People who live on small boats don't have a freezer to keep ice-cream in. An unexpected Magnum was bliss. I ate it very slowly, giving Rat a piece of white chocolate. He nibbled it from his front paws, sitting up like a squirrel, whiskers twitching appreciatively. Cat finished his fish, then sat in my lap to wash his face.

‘So,' Anders said, ‘what have you been doing?'

I launched into the story. I added what Gavin had yelled at me in the chopper, that Alex's death was being treated as murder, because of suspicious circumstances in how he was found. He hadn't given further details, and I hadn't asked for them. I kept seeing his face, the lavender blue eyes, the straggle of fair hair … He hadn't suffered, Gavin had said. A blow on the head had killed him outright.

‘And it was yon David and Madge that shut you into the mound, you think?' Magnie said.

‘It must have been,' I agreed. ‘They knew I'd escaped – ergo, they put me in there. But then who shot them?'

‘And where do the other pair fit in?' Anders said. ‘Peter and Sandra, who owned the yacht?'

‘And how did my visitor come to be left apo Linga?' Magnie added.

‘Gavin seems to think he swam there,' I said. ‘He thinks the boat was scuttled in Cole Deep, that night we saw it leaving.'

‘There's serious money in an operation that can afford to sink a boat like yon,' Magnie said. ‘What'd she be worth, would you say? Seventy thousand?'

‘Nearer a hundred,' I said.

‘Peter loved his cat,' Anders said. ‘You could see that. He would not have left it to drown, any more than I would leave Rat. So if the boat is in Cole Deep, it was not Sandra who took her out, that night.'

‘But someone shot David and Madge,' I said. ‘They were waiting for a
he
. Someone they weren't afraid of.'

‘Someone from here who is involved in what's going on,' Anders said. ‘You said it was a pick-up.'

‘It sounded like one,' I agreed, ‘and you couldn't take a normal car up there.'

‘Well, then,' Anders said, ‘you wouldn't hire a pick-up from a garage. They have small run-abouts, or comfort cars, or vans. A pick-up means it was someone local.'

‘Yes,' I said slowly, ‘I suppose it does.' Kevin of the noisy motorboat had a pick-up. Brian of the cottage did too … but then, so did ninety per cent of the Shetland rural population. It wasn't much of a clue.

There was another thought knocking at the back of my head. I jerked upright. ‘Oh, murder! It's Friday. I was supposed to be cleaning for Barbara o' Staneygarth. Looking for Alex drove it clean out of my head.' I looked at my watch. ‘Eleven o'clock. I can't phone now.' Realising how late it was made me give an enormous yawn that cracked all the starting-to-heal scratches on my face, and Magnie rose.

‘Lass, I'll leave you to have an early night.'

An early night sounded a good idea. Even after the shower, I was aching all over. Sleep wasn't so easy. When I'd wriggled myself into my berth I couldn't switch off, even with Cat purring in the crook of my neck. My eyelids were shut, but the eyes under them were wide open, gazing at ordered stone walling lit by green light. When I did sleep, I was plunged into a nightmare about being buried alive:
Khalida
had turned sideways, and earth was pouring into her like water. I could feel the weight of it on my legs, and smell it in my mouth – 

I was woken by Anders shaking my shoulder. ‘Komme ut, Cass, you are having a bad dream.'

I was too shaken to argue, filled with that sense of foreboding that you get from a nightmare. I crawled out and immediately he wrapped a fleece blanket around me. He sat on my side of the table, and pulled me up against him, one arm warm around my back, my head pillowed comfortingly on his shoulder. I tucked my bare feet up into the fleece and let myself relax into being held. It had been a bad day, and although this was only Anders, the Warhammer nerd, for a moment it was good to believe in his Norse god looks. He felt strong, and safe.

‘See,' he continued in Norwegian, ‘you are home now.' I could feel the warmth of his breath on my hair. His other arm came up to curve me to him. ‘You do not need to be SuperCass, who can dare anything. You are in your own
Khalida,
and you are allowed to admit that you were frightened, shut in that tomb.'

‘It was so dark,' I said. I wasn't going to wail; I kept my voice low and drowsy. ‘It was like there would never be any light ever again, as if the sun and moon had been snuffed out at the end of the world. And it smelled of earth, and cold, and forgotten things. The walls were of thin stones, laid together, perfect. It was built to last till the end of time. I could see myself lying there always with their dead. I couldn't shift the entrance stone from inside. After that I was afraid I would never get out, even though I knew that Brian had once got in. I had to believe I could, but deep down I knew he could have filled up the hole once and for all, concreted it in. And then I'd only just got out when they were hunting me again.'

His arm shifted and tightened. ‘I could not have let myself drop down onto the cliff edge like that.'

‘You would have,' I said, with conviction. ‘There wasn't an alternative.'

‘I would have taken my chance on running.'

‘I knew they had a gun.' My eyes were starting to close properly. I let his shoulder take the weight of my head. ‘They'd shot Cat's mother. If they hadn't done that I wouldn't have known where to get out. If they hadn't sunk the Rustler and left the Siamese to swim ashore, Gavin wouldn't be dragging Cole Deep tomorrow. Bast's revenge.'

‘Sleep, Cass.' I could hear the smile in his voice.

‘The motorboat must be moored up by the cottage.'

‘The Inspector will find it, or the Coastguard, or the lifeboat.'

The cottage … My brain had had a chance, now, to sort out what was going on there, with the bed and tripod.
What are the laws about films of sex in this country?
Not bringing in pornography, but making it. Cerys must have approached Anders, asked if he'd be in a movie. I couldn't see many normal, healthy young men turning that one down, but once he'd done it, it must have lain on his Lutheran conscience. No wonder he'd had that air of combined bounce and misery. The prohibition on the cottage made sense too. He didn't want me being tricked into her games.

‘I looked inside the cottage,' I said. ‘I saw the set-up. It doesn't bother me.' It did, a little. I didn't want to visualise Anders making love to Cerys.

The warm arms tensed. ‘I went only once,' Anders said. I could hear in his voice that he was blushing. ‘She asked me, and I thought it would be a laugh, you know, and then when he offered to pay me, I thought, well, why not, although I was nervous, because I had never done such a thing before. But I did not like it. It was not right, and I knew that. That was why I did not want you to go working – I thought that at least the money would buy us food for two weeks.' Confession over, his arms relaxed. ‘But I would not do it again. I felt ashamed. It was not nice.'

‘Did Olaf work the camera?' I asked.

He nodded. ‘That is why I did not want you to have anything to do with him. He is not a nice man.'

‘I did something as bad,' I confessed. ‘I heard Alain was thinking to set off across the Atlantic, so I chatted him up, became his girlfriend so I could go too.' Was that why it had ended as it did, because I'd begun with the wrong motives? Yet we'd become good friends as well as lovers. The loss of his death swept over me again. We could have had such fun exploring the world's oceans together –

‘Think about something else,' Anders said. ‘Why do you not dress up and come dancing tomorrow night?'

It was warm against his chest. ‘I look silly dressed up.'

‘I don't know how you know. You have not dressed up for years, only once, for that press interview. The pretty dress your mother brought you for it is hanging in the locker.'

‘Maman.
Joue avec tes poupées, chérie, sois sage.
Be a little girl.'

‘I would like to dance,' Anders said. ‘I have not tried your Shetland dances yet. I would like to see if they are descended from the Norwegian ones.'

I considered this for a moment. He was being so comforting that it seemed churlish to refuse. ‘Do you mean going in to one of the Islesburgh tourist evening things?'

‘I meant the Show dance, tomorrow night.'

The sleepy mood was broken. I sat upright. ‘Oh my mercy, Voe Show tomorrow! I said I'd go round and help out with the lifeboat stall. That is, I suppose it's still happening – after Alex. Maybe they've cancelled it.'

‘It would be too late,' Anders said. ‘We only heard about the boy here after eight o'clock, from the owner of
Renegade
. He had joined Olaf looking, until they found the boy, and the police took over.'

‘But it was Kirsten, his mother, who was doing the stall.'

The arms around me jerked. ‘His mother is called Kirsten?'

‘You wouldn't have met her,' I said. ‘She doesn't often come after the sailing.'

‘I did not know –' Anders said. ‘The poor lady.'

‘Do you know her?'

‘Be a good girl,' Anders said, ‘and stop asking questions. I think you are half-mongoose, like the old English stories by the grandfather of the man who makes the cakes.'

I didn't bother to disentangle that. ‘She wouldn't take communion,' I said. ‘And now this. Poor Alex. He would have made a good sailor, and it would have kept him out of mischief too. He was so young –'

The spell was broken. I pulled back against Anders' arm, and he left it fall. I clutched the fleece blanket around my nightshirt, not looking at him, and sat back on my engine box. ‘Do you want to come to the show too? I'd likely need to set off straight after breakfast.'

‘Are you sailing around?'

‘I was thinking to.'

‘Then set out as soon as you like, and I will wake to help moor up in Voe.'

‘Okay,' I said. I wriggled my way back into my bunk and curled into my sleeping position. ‘Goodnight –' and then I added, self-consciously, ‘Anders, thank you.'

He sat for a moment longer, then sighed, and rose.
Khalida
rocked as he moved forward and undressed; I heard the nylon rustle of him wriggling into his sleeping bag, then there was silence.

7

‘Hit's a fine day in Voe.'

(Shetland saying from the times of prohibition: Voe was one of the few places where alcohol could be bought.)

Chapter Eighteen

Friday 3 August

Tide times for Brae:

Low Water 04.22           0.2m

High Water 10.49          2.1m

Low Water 16.32           0.5m

High Water 22.53          2.3m

Moon full

I woke just after half past six, and lay for a moment, feeling the events of the last days rushing back at me. Gavin's arrival, and he and Magnie winding me up about trowie lights. Finding the Siamese cat. Alex winning the race – Alex's death. Jimmie looking for Kevin, and the boat still locked up. The dark cottage, with the tripod broken over the charred remains of the bed. The earth smell of the mound, and the raw stone of the cliff. Anders, comforting in the night.

That memory sent me wriggling out of bed. I felt stiff all over, and the cuts hurt each time I used my hands. Once I'd got dressed and pulled my boots on, I found the tube of Norwegian hand cream and rubbed it in thoroughly.

The wind was soft, in keeping with Voe Show tradition. Those in the know took their oilskins to Walls Show, for the morning at least, but their suntan cream to Voe. The first Saturday of August had been glorious summer for every childhood year I remembered, and judging by the fret of cloud around the horizon and the burnished blue above, today was going to be the same again. I left my oilskins hanging in the locker, and hoisted the mainsail while we were still in the berth. No need to wake Anders by putting the engine on; I cast the ropes off, flinging them to lie neatly on the pontoon, then pushed the boom out to edge
Khalida
backwards. Once we had the wind on the quarter, I unfurled the jib, and we slid silently out of the marina and set our noses to the south. Naturally, that was the direction the wind was coming from; I sheeted in, and we tacked across to the old Manse, back to Busta House, across to short of the underwater Cuillin and back to the Burgastoo, that odd volcanic plug at the mouth of the canal separating Muckle Roe from the mainland. That should make sure we'd clear the cluster of rocks just off Weathersta Point.

I wasn't the first out on the water. I'd heard Inga's Charlie's boat going out just as I'd woken, and now I saw her red hull out in Cole Deep, with a varnished fishing boat that was usually kept in Voe sidling out past Linga to join her. Both were all-purpose boats, thirty-five foot long, with a white superstructure jutting up behind the wheelhouse – the winches they used for hauling up a line of creels. As I sailed down Busta Voe, the varnished boat came out into Cole Deep, and the two began steaming steadily across the stretch of water, in line. When they neared Muckle Roe, they turned, as a pair, and went back again. Dragging, I thought at first, but searching the bottom with their echo sounders seemed more likely. These days, even the smallest fishing boat had instruments that could spot a bucket on the bottom, let alone a substantial boat with a mast that would make a distinctive shape on their screens.

I'd just come to that conclusion, off Burgastoo, when my mobile rang. It was Gavin.

‘Good morning. I see you're none the worse for your adventure yesterday.'

What had Anders called me? ‘SuperCass, that's me.'

‘And where are you going, this bonny morning?'

‘Round to Voe. Where are you?'

‘On the varnished fishing boat.'

‘Are you dragging, or echo-sounding?'

‘Echo-sounding. If we find her, it will take more than these two boats to lift her.'

‘Good luck,' I said. ‘I'll hear how you get on.'

‘I'm sure you will,' he agreed. ‘Would you like the news from last night?'

‘If you're allowed to tell it.'

‘The local force is in charge of the death of that poor boy, but they're happy to have me liase with Newcastle over the other two. We found one of your bodies, the woman. The helicopter will have another look for the other one today, but it may have sunk faster, or have been more in the current. They won't find him alive, after a night.'

‘It won't make any difference,' I said. ‘They were both dead when they went over. Hang on, I need to tack here.' I laid the phone down, swung
Khalida
round, changed sides with the jib, and lifted the phone again. ‘I'm back.'

‘Newcastle is sending somone up to identify the body we found. I would have thought fingerprints and a photograph would do, but they seem determined.'

‘Was their motorboat moored at the cottage?'

‘It was indeed, but we can't do anything with it until we've identified it as theirs. You could do that for us, then we can get a preliminary warrant. We've not had a chance to talk to the owner of the cottage yet.'

I remembered Inga's talk. ‘He's busy setting up a rifle range.'

‘Voe Show. I'm a countryman myself, remember. I could only get these fishing boats for an hour, this early. After that, Keith here will be busy frying mackerel and monks' tails on the barbecue, and Tam, on the other boat, has to go and judge cattle.'

‘I'm helping with lifeboat souvenirs.'

‘The Newcastle officer wants to see all the set-up here, which will mean opening up your mound.'

‘Will you be allowed?'

‘I'll try to make the case that others have been in there recently. No doubt the county archeologist will want to be present, and probably someone from Historic Scotland too. I don't know how long it will take to get permission from them.'

‘I'm not volunteering to go back in and take photos.'

‘I've already suggested one of those robot cameras. Chief Inspector Talley, the Newcastle man, insisted on leaving a guard up there too. You can imagine how popular that made me.'

‘Especially with the guard.'

I heard a shout behind him, both through the mobile and echoed across the water. The varnished boat stopped, backed a little. ‘I must go,' Gavin said. ‘I'll see you later.'

I put the mobile back on the chart table, and set
Khalida
on course to slip into Olna Firth, between Weathersta and Linga. I linked the autopilot chain over her tiller, and left her to sail herself while I watched what was going on five hundred yards away. Both boats had stopped now, right in the middle of Cole Deep. I could hear an excited buzz of conversation from one to the other.

They had found the yacht.

I'd been conscious, as we came closer to Voe, of more traffic than usual going along the main road that skirted the voe here, all in the Voe-wards direction, and now as we came between the narrows into inner Olna Firth, it was very clear it was show day. The road was clogged with cars indicating the left turn-off. The marquees were up behind the hall, and the green fields stretching down to the school were covered with busy people, just as they had been when I'd been a child, and the Voe Show was the highlight of the summer holidays.

Voe was a divided village, set around the end of long, thin Olna Firth. On each side of the voe the hills were steeper than usual in Shetland, and on our starboard side was a trail of croft ruins, spaced out along the green hill. The grey stone rectangles had once been ten minutes by boat from the pier, but now that everything had to be accessible using wheels, they were an unthinkable mile's walk. The first still-inhabited houses were by the road that ran over the Camel's Back to Aith, substantial two-storey croft houses with porches and dormer windows, looking chunkily workmanlike below the pale-yellow Georgian elegance of Voe House, restored by BP for its executives to hold receptions. The stone-built Pierhead Restaurant was owned by Keith, who was echo-sounding for Gavin, but about to go and take over the barbecue, then the road curved up to meet the main road north. The houses continued along the shore, a mixture of traditional and new-builds. A west Highlands-style burn tumbled down the hill, wooded by spiky-branched electricity pylons.

The north side was a different world, big business come to Shetland. Down by the shore were the remains of an old kirk and graveyard, with the newer kirk a hundred yards further, solidly whitewashed, but the houses above were single-storey bungalows, painted blue, white, rose, and yellow – Mulla, this estate was called, and it had been built by the oil companies to house its officials and their families. On this side too was the shop, Tagon Stores, with a petrol pump, and behind that was the school, with three wooden extensions around the old school building, and the hall, extensively refurbished in the eighties.

I stuck some bacon under the grill once the narrows were passed, and buttered two rolls. Rat came out to check for crispy rind, whiskers twitching hopefully. I sent him out to the cockpit with it, but kept Cat below with his. He'd not been loose at sea yet, and he was too small for a pet lifejacket. The Siamese cat would have had one, and I betted he'd have worn it; another reason to be sure it hadn't been Peter and Sandra who'd sunk the Rustler. Besides, it was their home. I remembered the interior, posher by far than
Khalida
's, but with that same air of being lived in, books open, cushions set ready, mugs to hand. It wasn't some hired boat to be jettisoned. No, they wouldn't have sunk
Genniveve
any more than they'd have drowned their cat.

The sun hadn't quite broken through the mist yet, but the grey was thinning, and you could see it would soon be a glorious morning. The show was laid out as it always had been. Immediately behind the hall there was a mesh of wooden-built pens, filled with black and white Shetland cattle. I could hear them bellowing from here. There was always one bull who spent his day objecting to being penned in a space four metres square. Next to that, there was a green agricultural shed like a giant tin can sliced longways, which housed the plants, and a rectangular shed joining it. Above that, fluttering multi-coloured bunting, was the small white ‘admin' caravan where you bought the programme. There was a slot-together stage flanked by huge speakers on this side of the shed, then the battery of small pens with hens, geese, and ducks. The marquee next to that would be pets and fleeces, with the dogs on tethers beside it, and the one after that'd be the beer tent. I'd never been in there, as the bar staff had always included one secondary teacher from Brae High School, who knew to a day when every child in the area became legal drinking age. I'd not quite been sixteen when Dad had gone to the Gulf, and I'd been packed off to Maman in France, old enough to have a couple of tins at a disco, but the show would have been pushing my luck.

After the beer tent came the two trade-stall marquees gable end on to me, with a straggled row of pick-ups, trucks, and horse-boxes parked behind them. The lifeboat stall would be in one of those. The barbecue was in the middle of the field, and already doing good business; I could see the blue reek standing above it, and there was a snake of people waiting for their first bacon roll. My 6.30 rising had been a long lie compared to the people who'd been giving horses, sheep, and cattle a last brush at 4 a.m. before loading them onto trucks. Even from here, I could smell the first waft of fried mackerel, drifting on the air along with the bull bellowing, a dog barking, and the country classics CD that had said ‘show day' as long as I could remember.

The pens in the lowest field were sheep and horses. The sheep were just wooly backs within their squares, white, grey, black, brown, like a chessboard. The horses were judged in the ring, and a circle of black, chestnut and piebald was making its way around the field set aside for them, enclosed by a square of spectators. Below that, at the back of the school playground, the green grass was checkered by the first two lines of parked cars, chrome and mirrors glinting as gleams of sun broke through.

I rolled the jib and slipped the mainsail down just below the old kirk, two hundred yards from the pier. Anders appeared at the first turn of the engine, and made the mooring ropes and fenders ready. We motored alongside the pier that once shipped Shetland knitwear all over the world. The long, low building just on the other side of the road, which was now the Pierhead, had once been Adie's Knitwear – as in Kate Adie, intrepid BBC war correspondent – and the jumpers Tenzing and Hillary had worn as they stood on the summit of Everest had come from this factory.

Of course, here in Shetland, Voe had been a fishing village too. We'd come along the long, sheltered voe that had made it a safe haven for the herring boats casting their nets out to the west. They'd rowed and sailed their sixareens fifty miles towards America, until the western island of Foula was just below the horizon, and dropped their long lines for haddock, cod, turbot. There would have been a haaf station on the beach, for slitting, salting, and drying the fish, and the building just above the pier was the B
ö
d, once the net-shed and sail loft for Voe's fishing fleet. It was turned now into camping-style accomodation, but there were still commercial fishing boats at the pier, along with a beautifully restored fishing smack, and a cluster of little boats moored side-by-side and nose-to-nose in the small marina.

We moored on the outside of the last berth, and sat in the cockpit to eat our bacon rolls. Keith's varnished boat came in just as we were finishing, turned on itself with a roar of bow-thrusters, backed into its berth, and cut the engines. Keith looped his mooring warps over his cleats, then raised a hand to us.

‘Your policeman's still out there,' he called. ‘Charlie brought his diving gear, and he's going down to take a look.'

‘You found it then,' I said.

He nodded. ‘No doubt about it. The mast showed up on the echo-sounder, plain as plain.'

I grimaced at Anders.

‘I think the idea was to put a rope on any bodies, and bring them up, even if lifting the boat has to wait,' Keith finished. He stepped ashore. ‘I'll wedge the gate. There'll be a few coming to the show by boat.'

I hadn't thought of bodies being aboard the boat, but I supposed it was logical. If Peter and Sandra had been killed at the trowie mound or the cottage, then it would have been easy to transfer bodies from the motorboat using the boom as a crane. If she was to be found, in two, three, twenty years time, then the bodies might as well be found inside her, instead of surfacing somewhere else and starting off an enquiry. The brightening day was dimmed by the reminder.