The Trowie Mound Murders (9 page)

I dredged the remnants of Erse out from my voyage with Irishmen on the
Sea Stallion.
‘Go raibh míle maith agat.' A thousand thanks to you.

He answered with a flood of soft syllables and rang off, laughing. I copied the number carefully into my mobile, tucked it away in my back pocket, and stood to watch the waves smooth the number away.

I thought about that all the rest of the way along the beach. I'd known he was brought up a countryman, but I'd assumed he was now a city-dweller, with a neat house in Inverness, near the police station.
A farm at the head of a loch
 … So he was still a countryman, who woke up to hills, and sea, and silence. My picture of him hefting rams and working with a boat had been spot-on.
My brother Kenny
 … there were brothers like that in Shetland too, who'd stayed on at the family home when neither had married, first with their ageing mother, then as a pair, growing more solitary, more dependent on each other. I wondered how old Gavin's mother was. Unless they'd been very late babies, she'd be only in her sixties.

That was old enough to object to her policeman son taking up with a footloose sailor woman.

Besides, folk wisdom had plenty of warnings against taking up with a man who'd never left home. I switched my attention to Kevin and Geri. Kevin had been out last night too; but then, Anders had said the motorboat we'd heard was the Bénéteau, and he wouldn't have mistaken its engine for Kevin's, not even at low revs. All the same, they went over to Faroe pretty regularly, more often than most. It was odd, too, that they'd locked the boat up so thoroughly, with the packages he'd off-loaded from his pick-up inside. I'd maybe try and look more closely later … I stamped that thought down.
This is my ship, Cass …

4

A holl ida sheek and a dimple i da chin,
Der little grace i da face at der baith in.

Chapter Nine

Inga's house was at the far end of the beach, and had been built in the late seventies by her husband's father. One of the things the council had done with the oil disturbance money was to offer 90% grants to any crofter whose house was so dilapidated that a new one would be a good idea, and old Charlie was one of many who suddenly found his roof was unsound. He'd built a large, square house, grey-harled and red-roofed, with a grandstand view of the voe from its picture windows. He'd been a keen Maid sailor in his day, and when he wasn't able to sail at the Brae regatta any longer, then he parked himself in a chair on his lawn, spyglasses in hand. Martin and I used to make sure our gybes at the bouy just below his house were impeccable; any rocked boat or untidy spinnaker work, we heard about it the next time we met him at the club. ‘
Now, bairns, you would need to make sure you took your sheet in more before gybing that pole …'
There was a rugosa hedge around the garden, the last magenta flowers opening to show their yellow-crowned hearts, and the first green hips forming. I clicked through the gate and up the flagged path. One side of the garden held a circular blue trampoline; the other had a plastic slide and playhouse. There were no signs of life outside. I pushed the door open and called ‘Is anyone home?'

There was a utility room to the left of the lino-clad passage. Inga must have been working in the peats, for there was a row of muddy rubber boots along the hall: big yellow ones with reinforced toes for Charlie, neat green ones for Inga, two pairs in neon-pink for the girls, and Peerie Charlie's Spiderman pair, lying on their sides, just as he'd kicked them off. I called again and went into the kitchen.

I had to push my way in through the smell of hot fat. Inga was presiding over the cooker, dark hair ruffled and cheeks red; the older two lasses were spraying ketchup over fish fingers and arguing over whose turn it was to have the front seat going in to swimming in Lerwick, and Peerie Charlie was sitting up in his high chair. He had a scarlet trail of sauce on his chin. He waved his spoon at me and tried to stand up. ‘Dass!'

‘C-c-c-cass,' I corrected.

He gave that shrug and blank look that would become a teenage ‘whatever.' ‘Dass, I got fish fingers.'

‘So you have,' I agreed.

‘I eating them.'

‘Keep going,' Inga said. ‘He doesn't actually like them,' she added, ‘but the girls do, so he has to have them too.'

I sat down at the table beside Charlie, and picked up one of his chips. ‘How about one of these?'

‘I not,' Charlie said. He pushed his golden curls back with both hands, leaving a smear of Ruskoline down one cheek, and went back to playing engines with the head of his fish finger.

I ate the chip myself and looked around the kitchen. It was a strange environment to me, with the shelves of china dishes marching up the walls, and the wide windows framing the voe. It was spacious and tall, and yet so cluttered too: Charlie's plastic tractor parked in a jumble of badminton racquets and roller-blades, a litter of blocks spread in front of the pale wood units. Tilt this five degrees and the bowls and mugs would cascade from their shelves to smash on the floor, the copper-edged pans on their rack would become missiles. I was used to a world that was permanently tied down for action.

‘So,' Inga said, ‘what's doing with you? Where were you off to yesterday afternoon? I wondered what you were up to when I saw the chopper going over, but as it was sweeping the hill I knew it couldn't be you they'd lost.'

‘No,' I said, ‘it was folk from the marina.'

‘I know,' Inga said. ‘It was on Radio Shetland.'

It would have been.

‘They turned up, though?' Inga added. She jerked her chin at the rocky walls of the marina, with the masts rising above them. ‘The mast's gone.'

‘The boat went out last night,' I said. You can't fool someone you went to school with. She gave me a quick look. ‘I suppose it was them,' I said, ‘but it was all a bit odd. Never mind that, though. I wanted to consult you about a kitten.'

‘A kitten,' Inga repeated.

‘You know, a really little one,' I said. I glanced across at her cat, a football of black and ginger fur that was curled up by the radiator, ignoring the chaos around it. ‘Well, hand-sized. It can eat by itself, but it's got a touch of diarrhoea, and I wondered if it was too wee for fish and mince. Should I be feeding it milk, from a bottle?'

‘Are its eyes open?'

‘Yes.'

‘Colour?'

‘Still that opaque blue colour.'

Inga gave me that ‘what are you
doing'
look. ‘Under six weeks, and you're feeding it mackerel? At least I assume it's mackerel.'

‘It was,' I admitted.

‘A little white fish,' she said, ‘and mince should be okay, but not oily stuff. You can get special kitten food, but don't give it milk, that would be really bad for it, unless the Co-op has suddenly started taking in goat's milk, or soya, that might be fine.'

‘Kitten food,' I repeated. ‘I'll try for that, and hope Rat doesn't eat it all.'

Charlie suddenly included us under his radar. ‘I want to see ditten.'

‘It's too little,' I told him. I'd seen the way he handled his teddy.

‘You'd have to be very gentle,' Inga warned him. ‘You'd have to stroke it with one finger. Like you do with Rat.'

Charlie stuck an orange finger in the air. ‘One.'

‘What's Rat saying to it?' Inga asked.

‘Adopted it, thank goodness. I left the pair of them curled up asleep together, all peaceful and domestic.'

‘You and Anders are getting more and more settled.' Inga gave me a sideways look. ‘You'll be a couple yet.'

Settled … 
‘Heaven forbid.'

Inga laughed, swapped Charlie's plate for a yoghurt tube, and took the plate to the sink, then turned. ‘Oh, I knew there was something I was wanting to speak to you about. How are you off for cash? Would you want a part-time job?'

‘Yes,' I said.

Inga gave me a dubious look. ‘It's cleaning work.'

‘I can clean,' I said. ‘You haven't seen the brasswork on a tall ship.'

‘Cleaning
houses,
' Inga emphasised. ‘Well, one house, Barbara Nicolson's, Barbara o' the Trowie Mound. Do you mind Brian Nicolson, who was at the school the same time as us, lived way out the back of beyond, off the Mangaster road? She's his mother. She's wanting a bit of a hand around the house, and I thought of you.'

‘I mind Brian fine,' I said. I remembered the empty cottage that hadn't been empty after all. ‘He was the one that said he'd found skulls in the trowie mound.'

Inga began to laugh. ‘Oh, yes, I mind that! Him and Olaf, trying to scare us with their talk. I bet it was a sheep's skull all along. They never took it out of the carrier bag to let us look properly.'

‘What happened to Brian?' I asked. ‘Is he living at the back of beyond house – what was its name?'

‘Staneygarth. Brian trained as an electrician, then went off south, working for some security firm, you know, guarding houses, stately homes, that kind of thing. His wife goes to your kirk, you likely ken her. What's her name again? She doesn't mix much with us Magnies, when they're here. Blonde, with a permatan, like a football WAG.'

It didn't ring any bells. I cast a mental eye back over the pews around me of a Sunday, but couldn't envisage anyone of that description.

‘Cerys,' Inga said suddenly. ‘That's her name. She was pals with Kirsten that's married to Olaf, she's one of yours too, and they used to go on double dates. You must ken Kirsten, she's a regular. Dark hair and green eyes, and she wears dresses.'

‘Oh,' I said. ‘Yes, I know who she is –' and with the image came memory, the two women coming up for communion together, the smooth dark head and the sleek fair. They'd been just ahead of me. The fair woman had taken communion on her tongue, and shaken her head at the chalice, and the dark woman had her arms crossed in front of her, for a blessing only.

‘You don't see Brian down at the marina?' Inga asked. ‘He's got a motorboat, used to be his father's.'

‘Oh, which boat?' I asked.

Inga rolled her eyes. ‘I have a vague impression it's an old dark-blue one, on the middle pontoon.'

I thought through the pontoon and ID'd it without difficulty. ‘Old, but it's not a bad boat, sea-going. He's had it out several times in the last couple of weeks. I didn't particularly notice him, though. Does he still live at the back of beyond place?'

‘He lives south, I told you that. He only comes home for the holidays, and to help his mum out with the sheep.'

‘Well, does she live at the back of beyond?'

‘She lives,' Inga said, with emphasis, as if I was Peerie Charlie, ‘up in Toytown, one of the council houses. She's the last one after the garage, looking up at Voxter voe there. I can't remember the number. I don't ken whether Brian and his wife stay with her when they're up, or if they go out to Staneygarth. I wouldn't think it. The wife, Cerys, doesn't look the three miles to the road end type.'

Someone had been in the house, though. I remembered that furtive flash from a pair of binoculars. ‘I'm not sure I'd know him now,' I said.

‘Naa, Brian's no' changed,' Inga said. ‘Tell you, go to the rifle range at the Voe show. That's his yearly task while he's up here, he's in charge o' that.'

The rifle range. Shots up at the trowie mound – I felt as though I was doing a jigsaw, finding pieces that were starting to fit together. I'd need to phone Gavin again – no, a text would do for this. I didn't want to look as if I was chasing him.

‘Anyway –' Inga finished, tacking abruptly, ‘it's his mother that's looking for a cleaner, four hours a week, in two hour blocks. Are you interested?'

‘Yes,' I said.

Inga crossed to the phone and picked up the Shetland directory. ‘I just hope she bothered to fill in the postcard – yes, here she is. Toytown.' She dialled and leaned back against the wall. ‘Barbara? This is Inga o' Cruister here. Are you found someen to give you a hand about the house yet?'

There was a prolonged squawking from the phone. Inga made a face at me over it and cut in smoothly. ‘I hae someen here, my pal Cass, you ken her, Cass o' Finister, Dermot Lynch's lass. She was wanting a part-time job – yea, her that lives on the boat in the marina.' There was more squawking, and Inga mouthed at me, ‘Wi' the young Norwegian wi' the rat.' She returned to normal volume. ‘No, she'll no' bring the rat with her. Why not give her a try this week, and if you're no' suited she'll no' take offence.' She steamrolled the next bit of squawking with the ease of practice; her mother-in-law was easily the fastest talker in Brae, against stiff competition. ‘Tell you what, I'll send her along now, and you can see when would suit for her to come. She'll be with you in ten minutes. Bye.'

She put the phone back and rolled her dark eyes. ‘It's the last house on the second road. Good luck.'

‘Thanks,' I said, and headed off.

Chapter Ten

Inga hadn't added the ominous words, ‘You can't miss it –' but the house was easy to find. I headed left along the main road, past the Co-op, forked left at the Citroen garage, and found the little houses of Toytown spread along my right, grey harled and uniform. They'd been built for oil workers, then turned to local housing when the construction phase was over. Now, walking among them, I could see how each had been individualised: a hanging basket of neon-pink petunias in the pokey grey entrance, a front door gleaming aqua, a child's sandpit in the centre of a postage-stamp lawn.

Barbara's was, as Inga had said, the last of them, facing out towards the toe-end of Sullom Voe on my right. You couldn't see the terminal from here, the hill behind Voxter House was in the way, but there were the first indications of its presence in the two boom ends that would be used to protect the seaweed-fringed shore in the event of a spill. The sea between them glinted dull blue.

This house remained just as it had been built: plain grey walls and a white concrete overhang jutting out from the L of wall, with the front door underneath and the shed door opposite. The shed door was battleship grey; the house door was half glass, half dark-brown wood, with a bell-push in the centre. All the windows I could see were shrouded with net curtain, the heavier sort, with a knobbled pattern in the centre, and a lacy fringe. This one was of a little girl holding a watering can; the kitchen had a sunflower, and the bathroom a design of sailing boats that would have turned turtle instantly if anyone had been unwise enough to put them anywhere near water. Myself, I'd have torn the lot down and let the sea-clear sunshine in.

I was just lifting my hand to the bell when the door was pounced open from the inside, and Barbara stood there, looking at me. She was a little, thin woman with beady eyes like a shore wading bird, darting at me, a glance at my bare feet in flip-flops, away to the voe, another glance at my plaited hair, a look up at the sky, a glance at my red cotton-knit shore-going jersey. Each glance took less than a second, but I was left with the impression that not much escaped her. By the end of the ten seconds I'd stood on the doorstep, I reckoned she could have given an exact description of me to anyone who cared to ask for it.

My first impressions weren't encouraging. I remembered her as being an older mother than my glamorous Maman; she would be in her sixties now. Her hair was its natural iron-grey, clipped short; her mouth was a thin, disapproving line below those gimlet eyes. She wore a traditional yoke jumper and one of those square tweed skirts, not quite long enough to hide the elasticated tops of her tights-look socks, and grey plastic court shoes.

‘Come in then,' she said at last. ‘Come in through.'

The porch was a metre square, with a ledge for the post, although the postie'd have to wedge any letters in between pots of flourishing busy lizzies. I wiped my flip-flops on the ‘Welcome' mat, and followed her into the house. The hall was a space at the stair-foot. One wall was solid with coats, including a batik creation in black and white which I presumed was the WAG wife's. The door on my right was the kitchen, a quarter of the size of Inga's, and if tilting Inga's would have created a mess, tilting this one would be a catastrophe. Every inch of every surface had stuff on it. The table was piled high at one end with letters and magazines, the work-surfaces had disappeared under bowls of fruit and jars of pasta, and the walls were covered entirely with pictures, or little shelves of dinky china ornaments. I realised, gloomily, why she needed help with keeping it clean.

She showed me into the sitting room opposite. ‘Would you take a cup of tea?'

‘Yes, please,' I said, and she bustled off to clank kettles around. I sat back against the sandpaper-harsh velour and contemplated my doom. A square, black stove squatted on the hearth, radiating dust on all the plethora of knick-knacks around it: a big china carthorse pulling a wicker dray, an ornate vase with a small forest of artificial flowers in toilet-paper peach, a tabletop's worth of photos in curlicued frames. This window too had net curtains, with a natty border of dahlias, and their curved-up centre was filled with more pot plants, African violets this time, interspersed with little ceramic bowls of dead-looking cactus, the sort with spindly spider arms. It was the sort of house that reminded me why I kept living afloat. Just keeping this place free of dust would take a couple of hours a day, let alone cleaning – and it was clear from the gleam on the brass fire-irons and the glass of the innumerable pictures that a high standard of cleaning was expected.

Above all, I noticed the smell of enclosed air, thick with that pot-pourri made of over-flavoured, over-coloured bark slices. The window opened inwards, against the African violets and cactus, and it didn't need the classic spider web, if any spider had dared to be so presumptuous, to tell me it hadn't been opened in a decade.

I was just about to rise and look at the pictures when there was a step at the door, and the WAG strode into the room on spindly heeled sandals. She was the woman I'd remembered from Mass: a good foot taller than me, with what seemed yards of smoothly tanned legs below a short, flower-patterned dress – or perhaps it was a long top. I hadn't quite made sense of this summer's fashions. Sunglasses hitched her sleek, blonde hair back. Her arms, legs, and face were a uniform sapele-wood brown. There was a bloom of powder and blusher overlaying the tan on her cheek. She looked so artificial that I couldn't tell what age she might be, but guessed early thirties. She moved with a suppressed irritation that didn't surprise me at all; I could see this mother-in-law and daughter-in-law not getting on.

‘Oh,' she said, looking me over, and dismissing any pretensions I had to looks or fashion sense, ‘not more interruptions.'

‘This,' said Barbara, coming in behind her and banging her tea-tray down smartly on top of the latest
Shetland Life
and
iiShetland
on the coffee table, ‘is the lass who's coming to give me a hand with the house. Cass Lynch o' Finister – you ken, the house very nearly at the end of the Muckle Roe road.' She busied herself with pouring the tea, her every movement so brisk and determined that I wondered why she needed a hand; perhaps she was having bother with her heart, or just wanted more time to go to swimming classes, or arrange flowers, or do charity work.

She took the thought out of my head. ‘No' that I'm needing help in the house, you understand, but I'm that busy with organising the charity shop rota and the work I'm doing in Lerwick just now that I don't have the time, so Brian said, “Well, Mam, why don't you see if you can get a girl in to give you a hand?” He's a very good son to me.'

The WAG – what had Inga called her, Cerys? – let out an irritated breath. ‘Do you take milk, Cass?' She had a flat, bored-sounding voice, with a Liverpool accent.

‘No, thank you,' I said. It was only since I'd been living at Brae that there'd been in-date milk aboard
Khalida.
She made a grimace, presumably at the strength of the tea, as she passed it over.

‘Now then,' Barbara said, sitting down in one of the two armchairs set square on to the TV, ‘what experience have you of cleaning?'

‘Only on ships,' I said, ‘but I'm a quick learner, and I know how to follow instructions.'

She gave a dry cackle of laughter. ‘Well, that's something these days. Those girls in the Co-op, well, I don't think some of them have anything in their heads beyond painting their faces –' a sideways glance at Cerys – ‘and as for following instructions, well, I don't think any of them could remember an instruction long enough to obey it.' She had one of those thin, aggrieved voices like a saw working through wire. ‘I don't ken what the world's coming to. Too busy talking to their pals on the phone to serve you, half the time. I'm telling you, if I get one like that I just put the goods on the counter and walk out of the shop.'

‘And the police officers are getting younger,' Cerys said, with a malicious sideways glint of her eyes under the thick mascara.

Barbara rose straight to that one. ‘Policeman! I'm telling you, if that blonde Peterson lass so much as puts a foot back on my path I'll be straight on the phone to Lerwick.'

I'd met Sergeant Peterson over the film murder. She'd made me think of a mermaid, with long pale hair tied in a pony-tail, and ice-green eyes that looked detachedly at the follies of humankind. I wondered what she'd been doing that had annoyed Barbara so much.

Cerys shrugged and added fuel to the flames. ‘She was just doing her duty.'

Barbara snorted. ‘Duty! I'll duty her. I remember her in her pram, and if her late mother could have seen her coming in here and asking about what my Brian was doing, well, she'd have got the makkin belt out faster than my lady could run, I'll tell you that.'

The Shetland makkin belt was a leather belt with a padded section, for sticking the ends of the knitting needles in, and it was the motherly weapon of choice in the days when you were allowed to hit children. Every Shetland housewife wore one, for idle moments when she might take up her knitting, and the faster shots could get it off the waist and across the back of a recalcitrant child's legs in under five seconds. It'd gone out of fashion with mothers by the time I was growing up, of course, but everyone else's granny was still a dead shot with it in a case of suspected misbehaviour. My schoolmates envied me my French and Irish grannies.

And why, I wondered, was Sergeant Peterson chasing up Brian? I couldn't ask, and Barbara was back on track again. ‘Seven pounds an hour, if we're suited, and two hours twice a week.'

Twenty-eight pounds, for just four hours' work. I could live on thirty pounds, just, although I could see it was going to be hard-earned. I agreed to that one, and we settled hours: Tuesday and Friday evenings, seven till nine, which left my days free for sailing.

‘And that rat doesn't come in the house,' Barbara stated. Cerys jerked her blonde-streaked head up.

‘What rat?'

‘It's my shipmate's rat,' I said. ‘Don't worry, I won't bring him here.' I didn't add that Rat was very particular about where he went, and wouldn't have been impressed by this house with neither air nor crumbs.

Cerys was still staring at me. ‘You're the girl who lives with Anders, at the marina?'

‘We share my boat,' I said clearly.

She didn't like that. I couldn't tell why; I was surprised she'd ever come across Anders, unless she was an undercover intergalactic warrior queen. She rose, twisting the strap of her clumsy leather bag between her fingers. ‘How come you're cleaning houses, if you live on a boat?'

There was no point in making up an impassioned spiel about my mission to keep china horses shining. ‘Money,' I said simply. ‘Do you know Anders, then?'

‘No,' she retorted. ‘No, how should I? I'd just heard about the rat, that's all.' She turned her back on me, and Barbara rose.

‘We'll see you on Friday, then. And if either of us is not suited, well, we'll just say so, and that'll be that, with no hard feelings.'

We shook hands on it, and I edged into the postage-stamp hall. She went before me to open the door. As she was showing me out I asked, very casually, ‘Do you ever use the old house, Staneygarth is it?'

I was looking her straight in the face. She took a step back. Her thin-lipped mouth snapped, ‘Never! I told that policeman, I've not been there in years!' then set like a trap. Behind her, Cerys made a startled movement, then was still, staring at me, eyes blazing with fury.

‘I just wondered,' I said mildly, and made my way to the door. Just before the porch, I stumbled forwards on one of the dozens of rugs scattered round and had to catch at the doorjamb to steady myself, which brought my nose up almost against the line of paintings hanging down the fifteen-centimetre strip of wall between the inner porch door and the bathroom door.

The top two were hideous daubs: a little girl with an oversized grin holding a watering can, and a boy, equally toothy, hiding a bunch of flowers behind his back. The third was different. It had a thick frame of dark wood, with an inner border of what looked like gold leaf, and in the centre was a painting of an old man with a long beard. St Nicholas, I'd have said, but I'd have needed longer to look at it to be sure. His robes were a rich purple-pink, his raised hand ivory-pale. The writing below it was in Cyrillic script.

Now what, I wondered, among this jumble-sale of bric-a-brac, was Barbara Nicolson doing with what looked like a centuries-old Russian icon?

She didn't mind me looking at it, but Cerys had raised a hand to her mouth. I pretended not to see, and walked jauntily down the path, turning at the gate to wave. Barbara waited to make sure I'd closed it properly, then went back inside, clicking the door shut behind her. I vaulted back over the gate and slipped to the door, easing it open to listen.

 ‘How did you ken his name, then?' Barbara asked, tack-sharp. ‘Anders, you said his name before she did.'

 ‘Someone spoke about him having a rat.' There was a clicking as she fiddled with the clasp of her bag. ‘I can't remember who.'

‘Someone at the old cottage, maybe.'

There was a long pause, then Cerys' voice came again, clear and cold. ‘If you were to spread lies about me, you'd be forcing Brian to choose between his mother and his wife. Are you sure enough of yourself to do that?'

There was a long silence, then a slammed door. I scarpered, just in time, for I was barely out of the gate when a red pick-up slammed to a halt in front of the house, and Brian jumped out.

If I hadn't been at his mother's house, I'd never have recognised him. He'd been a slim primary bairn who'd grown upwards like a weed through secondary; he'd certainly not had the muscled shoulders and chest of the man confronting me, nor the bandit's moustache. He was a ‘black' Shetlander, with the colouring of seamen from the Armada ships known to have been wrecked here: blue-black hair curling crisply around his ears and neck, and a swarthy complexion that took a tan with the first blink of spring sunshine. There was something piratical about him, even in his crofter clothes of boiler suit and yellow wellies, an independent tilt to the head, a sharp look to the brown eyes. I wasn't sure I'd want him as a hand aboard any ship of mine. He'd be brewing trouble.