Red Bones Read online

  ‘You have a choice,’ Perez said mildly. ‘You were at university. You could have finished your degree.’

  ‘My father had a stroke. It’s a family business. There was nobody else.’

  ‘Your family could have found someone.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be the same. Besides . . .’

  Perez said nothing, waited for him to find the words to continue.

  ‘Besides, the money’s addictive. I’m not sure how I’d take to being poor. I earn more in a month than some of my old schoolfriends do in a year. I grew up living comfortably and I want that for my children.’ His mood suddenly lightened. ‘So I’ll have to hope that Anna’s business becomes a roaring success, won’t I? Then she can support the family and I can go back and take my degree.’

  ‘I’m still not quite sure how the accident happened,’ Perez said. ‘Now you’ve had some time to think about it, perhaps it’ll be clearer in your mind.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve been running it over and over again in my head to work out what must have happened and I still don’t understand it.’ His relief at finding out that he wouldn’t be charged had already evaporated. He seemed pleased for Anna, but still haunted by what he’d done.

  ‘All the same, I would like you to take me through it again.’

  ‘Is there any point now?’ Ronald looked up at him. ‘Mima’s dead. I killed her. I accept that.’

  ‘I still have to make a report, tie up the loose ends.’

  ‘I went out to shoot rabbits. I’d had a row with Anna so I wasn’t in the best of moods. It was dark and murky. I shot a couple from the car then went out with the flashlight into the field. I didn’t think I was anywhere near Mima’s place, but I was thinking about Anna and what I should have said to her. About how I shouldn’t have been so scratchy. She was still tired after giving birth. Moody. Hormonal. It wasn’t easy for her. I never thought giving birth would be . . .’ he paused to search for the right word, ‘. . . as violent as that. You know how it is when you’ve had an argument, you rerun everything in your mind.’

  Perez reflected that he and Fran didn’t argue much. He’d never liked rows, didn’t see the point of them. Sometimes that frustrated her. ‘Don’t just agree with me! Stand your ground and fight!’ But usually he did agree with her. He could see her point of view and was happy to concede that she was right.

  ‘You’re sure you didn’t see anyone else out?’

  ‘No one else was shooting.’ Ronald looked out of the window. Following his gaze, Perez had a view of the bungalow where he and Anna lived. Anna came outside and hung a basket of washing on the line, just as Mima had done the day before she was shot.

  ‘But there were people about?’ Perez persisted. He could understand why Ronald just wanted the nightmare of Mima’s death to be over but he couldn’t let it go. And it wasn’t something Ronald would wake up from.

  ‘A car went down the road while I was shooting over the field.’

  ‘You have no idea who it belonged to?’

  ‘It was dark, man, and I had other things on my mind.’ The tension was starting to tell again. ‘I saw headlights and heard an engine. Nothing more.’

  ‘Which direction was it going?’

  ‘I don’t know! Does it really matter?’

  ‘Was it coming from the Pier House, or away from Lindby?’

  ‘Not from the Pier House. The other way.’

  So, Perez thought, not drinkers on their way home from the bar.

  ‘Who else shoots regularly in Whalsay?’ he asked. He tried to keep his voice relaxed and easy.

  ‘Most of the men do. We’re all trying to keep down the rabbits. What is this about?’

  ‘It’s the sort of thing I need to say in my report. Better me asking the questions than a lawyer in the court.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Ronald looked straight at Perez again. ‘I know you’re only doing your job. I should be grateful. Ask whatever you like.’

  ‘Nah, I’ve done for today. Go and tell Anna the news.’

  Ronald grinned. ‘Thanks, I will. I’m going out tonight, fishing with one of my friends. Not on the big boat, but one of the inshore ones. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave her alone with this hanging over us. At least now she’ll be able to focus on the baby and her work. She’s setting up a website for her business. And she still has knitting orders to complete.’

  Perez thought that sounded like a phrase Anna would use. I need to focus on my work.

  Ronald stood up and left the office. He didn’t wait for Perez to follow, but ran straight out of the front door of the house. Then he began to bound down the hill to the bungalow, like a boy running just for the pleasure of it.

  ‘Ronald, is that you?’ Jackie emerged from the kitchen, saw Perez alone in the office and frowned. ‘What have you done with Ronald?’

  ‘I’ve done nothing with him. The Fiscal has decided not to press charges. He’s gone to celebrate with his wife.’ It wasn’t his place to tell the woman, but she’d find out soon enough. He was surprised Ronald hadn’t called in to tell her. Even more surprised that Sandy had managed to keep his mouth shut.

  She stood very still. Suddenly Perez realized that the gaudy clothes, the silly hairdo, the talking had been her way of fending off the possibility of her son’s disgrace, to keep up appearances in front of her husband. It would have hurt her just as much as Anna to see Ronald in court, his picture in the Shetland Times in a suit and tie waiting for the case to be heard. ‘Thank God,’ she said, her voice so low that he could hardly make out the words. Then, quietly triumphant, ‘This will stop the talk on the island. Evelyn Wilson will have to watch what she says about us now. There’ll be no more spreading of stories and lies.’

  Sandy had walked into the hall to see what was going on. He heard the words and blushed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  They went for lunch at the Pier House Hotel. Fish and chips served in the bar, blessedly free of smoke since the ban. Perez had been surprised at how law-abiding Shetlanders had been when the smoking ban came in. Especially on the outer islands where there was little danger of being caught by the police. On the smaller isles few people even bothered with MoTs or vehicle licences. He remembered as a boy the police flying in to Fair Isle after a birdwatcher had fallen to his death from the cliff. As the plane came in to land all the cars on the place were driven into barns or hidden by tarpaulin. By contrast this law was generally observed.

  ‘Will my grandmother’s body be released for the funeral now?’ Sandy was halfway through his second pint. His resolution to give up strong drink hadn’t lasted long. Perez had ordered coffee and was surprised at how good it was.

  ‘Aye, I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Only my mother wants to start making the arrangements. My brother will need to come up from the south. He doesn’t like dragging himself up here but he can hardly get out of visiting at a time like this.’

  ‘Do the two of you not get on?’

  Sandy shrugged. ‘I was always closer to Ronald when we were bairns. Michael was my mother’s favourite. Maybe I was jealous.’

  Perez wasn’t sure what response to make to this. Sandy didn’t usually show so much insight.

  ‘It is all over?’ Sandy went on. ‘I mean the case.’

  Again Perez thought Sandy was being uncharacteristically perceptive. ‘The Fiscal doesn’t see any case to answer.’

  ‘It’s just you were a long time with Ronald this morning. I mean, it doesn’t take half an hour to tell a man he won’t be prosecuted.’

  ‘I want to be sure in my own mind that it was an accident,’ Perez said.

  ‘You’re saying Ronald meant to shoot her?’ The words had come out as an outraged shriek. Sandy looked around him and was relieved to see that the bar was empty. Even Jean from Glasgow had disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m saying there are problems with his version of events.’

  ‘He’s not a liar,’ Sandy said. ‘Never has been.’


  ‘Have you seen much of him since you left home?’

  ‘Not so much. It’s not like when you’re at school, is it? We each have our own lives to lead. But he wouldn’t have shot Mima. Not on purpose. She was as much a grandmother to him as she was to me.’

  Perez hesitated, reluctant to put into words the idea that had taken root in his mind and had been growing since the conversation with the Fiscal. He looked around to check that the bar was still empty and kept his voice low: ‘Someone else could have shot Mima. Put the blame on Ronald.’

  ‘That’s what Rhona Laing thinks?’ Sandy seemed astonished.

  ‘She’s not prepared to dismiss the idea out of hand. It’s one explanation for the facts, for Mima being outside on a night like that, for Ronald’s certainty that he wasn’t shooting over the Setter land. But she doesn’t want any sort of fuss made.’

  ‘In case she upsets her friends in high places.’ Everyone in Shetland knew about Rhona Laing’s political ambitions.

  ‘Aye. Something like that.’ Perez paused. ‘You said Mima asked you to call in the next time you were in Whalsay. Did she give you any idea what she wanted to discuss?’

  ‘No.’ Sandy looked up at him. ‘You think she realized she was in danger?’

  ‘I’m just considering possibilities.’

  ‘What will you do about it?’

  For a moment Perez thought. What in fact could he do? He could only afford a limited time in Whalsay and from his office in Lerwick he had no chance of getting any sort of sense of what was going on here. It might only be a short ferry ride from Shetland mainland but this was an enclosed community and it took an insider to understand what was going on.

  ‘Do you have any leave to take?’ Perez knew Sandy always had leave. He was famous for it. He managed to carve out time for himself from his official working day and always complained at the end of his leave year that he still had holiday to take.

  ‘Aye, a few days.’ Sandy was suspicious. They’d had arguments about this before. Perez on the warpath. ‘If you’ve been out on the piss and wake up with such a hangover that you can’t face work, take it as holiday. Don’t invent imaginary dental appointments.’

  ‘Maybe now would be a good time to use them up. Stay here. Help your mother sort out the funeral. Ask a few questions . . .’ Perez looked at Sandy, just checking that he understood what Perez was asking.

  ‘But I’m involved,’ Sandy said. ‘They’re all family. You said yourself I should have got out as soon as the investigation started.’

  ‘This isn’t an investigation,’ Perez said. ‘You’re making informal enquiries. Mima was your grandmother. It’s hardly surprising that you’re interested in how she died. But be discreet. The Fiscal was absolutely clear about that.’

  ‘The Fiscal asked me to follow this up?’ Sandy stared back. The Fiscal had never been particularly complimentary about his abilities as a detective.

  Perez was saved the necessity of lying, because they were interrupted by the arrival of two young women. He recognized one as the archaeologist who’d turned up, distressed, at the Wilson house. The other was taller, stronger, with long corn-coloured hair, a wide mouth, freckles. She was talking, almost dragging Hattie behind her into the bar.

  ‘Come on. A find like that, we can take a bit of time off to celebrate.’

  ‘After what happened to Mima, I don’t feel much like celebrating.’ Hattie seemed even thinner. ‘Anyway we should keep this quiet. We don’t want treasure hunters turning up at the site hoping to make their fortune.’

  ‘This is Shetland. Do you really think you’re going to keep this a secret? And Mima would have been so excited. It was always what she wanted, wasn’t it? For us to find something really spectacular on her land. Besides, we have to eat, don’t we? I feel as if I’ve been living off sandwiches for months. You can’t work a dig on an empty stomach.’

  ‘I thought Paul bought you a meal in Lerwick yesterday.’

  ‘Only a bowl of soup in the museum coffee bar before his meeting with Val at the Amenity Trust. I fancy a huge steak. So rare it’s almost breathing.’ Sophie saw Sandy, waved at him, grinned. ‘And a mountain of chips.’ She pulled her sweater over her head. Her T-shirt rode up at the back, revealing a firm brown torso. The legend on the shirt read: Archaeologists Do It In Holes. ‘Hi, Sandy. Is it OK if we come and sit with you?’

  Sandy had been staring at Sophie with a stunned fascination, now he looked at Perez.

  ‘Why not?’ Perez said. The curiosity was kicking in again, though he found Hattie more interesting than her friend. ‘Can I get you both a drink?’

  ‘Oh please.’ Sophie gave a shiver of anticipation. Perez thought he’d never met anyone quite so physical. Like a small child she communicated her thoughts through her body. ‘A large red wine.’ Then, sensing her friend’s disapproval, ‘Don’t look at me like that, Hat. It’s not as if we can get much done this afternoon. Really we need to wait for guidance from Paul and he won’t be here until tomorrow. And you must feel like celebrating. It’s what you’ve been dreaming of since the project started.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Perez thought he’d have to continue the conversation. No good leaving it to Sandy, who was still staring, his mouth half open. Sophie was wearing a sleeveless vest with a scoop neck showing a lot of cleavage. Soon he’d be drooling.

  ‘Go on, Hat, you tell him. It’s your find.’

  ‘Let me get you a drink first.’ Perez stood up.

  He thought Hattie would refuse. He sensed a real tension between her and her colleague. He couldn’t understand why Hattie had come. But at last she gave a quick smile. ‘All right then. Beer. A half. Sophie’s right: we are celebrating and Mima would have been excited.’ She sat on the bench seat and unlaced her boots, slipped them off so she was sitting in her stockinged feet. She pulled her feet underneath her and looked, Perez thought, like a trow, one of the mythical small men he’d heard stories about since he was a child.

  When he returned with the drinks and Sophie had ordered food, Perez repeated his question. ‘So, what’s happened?’

  Hattie took a deep breath. ‘I can hardly believe it. We ’ve been hoping that the dwelling on Mima’s land would turn out to be something grander than a croft and maybe we’ve found the proof. Look, let me put it in context . . .’ She leaned forward. ‘In the fifteenth century Shetland was a strong member of the Hanseatic League, a trading partnership, but there was a problem. The merchants in the islands were mostly German incomers. As the trading policy became more isolationist, the Germans left and there was nobody to take on that role. My thesis is that some of the more important Shetlanders became traders in their own right. There’s evidence that happened in Shetland mainland, but nothing so far here in Whalsay.’

  She paused and looked at Perez to check that he was following. He nodded. Her voice was very precise, almost as if she was presenting to an academic audience. Perhaps she didn’t know how to speak to anyone else.

  ‘The remains of the building at Setter are bigger than you’d expect for a croft, but there could be reasons for that. Perhaps there were extensive outbuildings, a workshop. The foundation stone we’ve found is even, dressed, it’s not the rough boulders you’d expect to make up the wall of a croft, but that hasn’t provided the proof I was looking for. Today though we made a find that would suggest the inhabitants were much wealthier than they’d have been as crofters. This is a big deal. For me at least. I mean it kind of proves my theory. It makes the whole project worthwhile.’ She gave a sudden wide smile that lit up her whole face. ‘It means I can get funding to extend the project. We should be able to do a full-scale dig over a number of years.’

  ‘So what did you find?’ Sandy managed to drag his attention from Sophie’s body.

  ‘Silver coins. Half a dozen of them. Beautiful and quite intact. I came across one by chance and the others soon after. It’s likely that the floor would have been made of wood, rather than beaten soil, though of course there’s no t
race of that now. We can’t tell how the coins got left there. Maybe they slipped through the cracks in the floor and into the hole in the foundation. Maybe they were hidden there. We might find more.’ Hattie took another breath. ‘Two silver coins of the same age were found during a dig at Wilsness, Dunrossness, in Shetland mainland. In the dunes close to the airport. Those coins confirmed the interpretation of that building as a merchant’s house. I’m hoping that this find will do the same for me.’

  ‘Where are the coins now?’

  ‘We’ve taken them to Evelyn. She’s locked them up in a drawer in her desk. Val Turner, the Shetland archaeologist, will come in later and Paul Berglund will be in too.’

  The little Glaswegian came out with food for Hattie and Sophie. Perez watched Sophie slice her steak with complete focus. He thought she was like a man. She didn’t like to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. But now she’d started Hattie was happy to continue talking. ‘We’ll get an expert to look at them of course. I mean they could be more modern, but they look like right to me and Sophie thought so too as soon as she saw them. We ’re both familiar with the Wilsness coins. But we do need Paul’s advice about what we should do next.’ She stopped abruptly and forked a tiny piece of lasagne into her mouth, frowned as she chewed.

  ‘When’s Mr Berglund coming in?’

  ‘Professor Bergland,’ Hattie corrected him. ‘Tomorrow or perhaps the next day. He’d hardly got home when he got our call. He needs a bit of time to sort things out at home. He’s got a young family.’ Perez thought she seemed subdued. Did she resent her supervisor coming in and taking over her project? Or the fact that he hadn’t left immediately to return to Whalsay?

  ‘Are these coins worth anything?’ Sandy asked.

  ‘They’re invaluable.’

  ‘But if I was to try and sell them on the open market?’

  ‘You mean money?’ Hattie seemed startled by the question.

  ‘Aye, money.’ Sandy looked at her as if he was tempted to add, What else would I mean?