White Nights (3 page)
Authors: Ann Cleeves
‘I’ll go and look.’
‘No,’ the man said. ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘Has someone hurt you? What are you frightened of?’
He thought for a moment. Had some trace of memory returned? ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Come with me if you like.’
‘No. I can’t face those people.’
‘You remember seeing them?’
‘I told you. I remember everything after the painting.’
‘Was there something specific about the picture to disturb you?’
‘Perhaps. I’m not sure.’
Perez stood up. Now they faced each other across the table. The chef had left the kitchen and Roddy Sinclair had stopped playing. From the gallery came the quiet murmur of voices. ‘I’m going to find out if you had a bag with you,’ Perez said. ‘And if anyone knows you, saw you arrive. You’ll be safe here.’
‘Yes,’ he said. But his voice was uncertain. He sounded like a child trying to convince himself that he wasn’t afraid of the dark.
In the gallery Fran was deep in conversation with
a large woman wearing a flowered tent. Fran was a little flushed. As he walked past he gathered from the conversation that the woman had bought one of the paintings and they were discussing how to ship it south. A tourist, he thought. It was that time of year. Obviously a wealthy tourist. She was saying how much she admired Fran’s work and asking if perhaps they could discuss a commission. He felt suddenly very proud of Fran.
Bella came up to him, having walked straight past an elderly man who was trying to catch her attention. With her grey hair cropped very short, long silver earrings and a grey silk shirt, Perez thought she looked like a large silvery fish. Something about her mouth, too, the wide pale eyes. But she was attractive still. She’d been known as a beauty when she was younger, a legend, and something about her still demanded attention. ‘Thank you for dealing with that poor man, Jimmy. What was wrong with him?’ She fixed him with her grey, unblinking eyes.
‘I’m not sure.’ Perez never gave away any information unless it was necessary. It was a habit learned from childhood. There was so little privacy in the small community where he’d grown up that he’d cherished every scrap. And now, at work, information was valuable currency, which could be leaked out too easily. In other, more anonymous places, it didn’t matter if a policeman was a little indiscreet. A word to a spouse over dinner, a funny story in a bar. Nobody ever knew. Here, the stories had a way of coming back to haunt the teller. ‘Do you know him, Bella? Is he a dealer? A journalist? He’s English.’
‘No. I thought perhaps Fran had invited him.’
‘He seemed very taken with your self-portrait.’
She shrugged, implying that interest in her work was only natural.
‘Did you see him come in?’
‘He walked in just before Roddy started playing. I’ve seen him perform dozens of times so my attention wasn’t as fixed as everyone else’s.’
‘Was the chap on his own?’
‘I’m sure he was.’
‘You didn’t notice if he had a bag with him when he came in?’
She shut her eyes briefly, trying to visualize the scene. Her memory would be reliable. She was a painter.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No bag. His hands were in his pockets. He seemed quite relaxed at that point. He stood at the back of the crowd, just watching until Roddy stopped playing. Then he walked over to my painting, before moving on to the drawing of Cassie. He seemed very moved by it, didn’t you think?’ She stood waiting for a response.
‘He seems a bit confused,’ Perez said at last. ‘I don’t know. A breakdown perhaps. I might try to get him to a doctor.’
But by then Bella seemed to have stopped listening. She was looking around her, trying to gauge the interest in the art.
‘That’s Peter Wilding talking to Fran,’ she said. ‘I hope she’s being nice to him. He’s a buyer.’
The woman in the flowery dress had left Fran and her place had been taken by an intense middle-aged man in a white shirt, with very dark hair. Fran was
talking and he was bending towards her, head slightly on one side, as if he couldn’t bear to miss a word.
Bella gave a little laugh and walked away. Deliberately Perez walked past the couple on his way into the kitchen. Wilding was talking now. His voice was low and Perez could tell he was gushing about the work, even though the individual words merged into the background noise. Fran didn’t even notice Perez.
At the kitchen door he stopped. Martin Williamson had his back to him; he was rinsing out pans at the sink. The mystery man had gone.
Kenny Thomson looked down at the Herring House. He kept a boat on the beach beyond. It had been pulled up above the tideline, and the weather was so still that it was fine where it was. Later in the year, he’d get it on to a trolley and tow it up on to the grass, covered with a tarpaulin, so the high tides and the storms wouldn’t drag it back into the sea. But for now it was easier to leave it on the beach. He was thinking that it might be a good night to go out and try for some piltock, but knew he probably wouldn’t go. He enjoyed the fishing but not so much as when he’d been a boy and a young man. Willy, one of the old Biddista folk, had taken him and his brother out in his boat when they were children. And when they’d grown up the two of them still liked fishing together. A fine night and he’d be on the phone to Lawrence: ‘Do you fancy a couple of hours on the water?’ But now Lawrence had left Shetland for good and it wasn’t quite the same. There were other men who could make up a party and would be keen enough to be asked. But Kenny knew he would have to make an effort to be pleasant to them. He would have to pretend to be interested in their lives – their work, their wives. With Lawrence there had been no pretence at all.
He was aware of the party going on at the Herring House. He hadn’t been invited, but he knew just the same. At one time Bella had always invited him. She’d drive up the track in that smart four-wheel-drive – although why she needed a car like that when she only went these days to Lerwick or to Sumburgh to get the plane south, he couldn’t say – and come into his house, not waiting to be asked.
‘You will come, Kenny, won’t you? You and Edith. I’d like you to be there. We wouldn’t have the Herring House if it hadn’t been for all the hard work you and Lawrence put in.’
And that was true too. Once she’d taken it into her head to buy the place and do it up, they’d been there most nights after he’d finished with the sheep or in the fields, working on the building. Most of the labouring work had been theirs. A labour of love, Lawrence had called it. And it was true they’d been paid very little. But it had been hard to make any sort of living from crofting then and with the children growing up the extra money had been useful. Bella had probably thought she was doing them a favour. Those days all the men could turn their hands to anything.
After they’d finished working Kenny would go home to Edith, leaving Lawrence to talk to Bella. Sometimes it would be so late when Kenny walked up the track to the house that he’d be sure Edith would already be asleep. But she was always awake, waiting for him. She’d never been one for an early night. In the winter she’d be sitting by the fire knitting. He’d known it was late because the house was tidy – the only time it was ever tidy, with the two children there during the day. This time of year she’d be outside
working in the garden, even in the small hours of the morning. She’d spit out one of her sharp comments about Bella taking advantage of him before going with him into the house. It might even have been before Eric had started school, and that was hard to imagine. Now they were both grown up. Ingirid was about to have a child of her own. She was a midwife close to Aberdeen and Eric was farming in Orkney.
Now Bella didn’t ask any more. She knew Kenny wouldn’t go. Edith might have been glad of a chance to dress up at one time. To go to the fancy party and drink the wine and listen to the talk about art and books. One way of getting their money’s worth out of Bella, at least. But Kenny had always put his foot down. Usually his wife was the one who laid down the law, but when it came to Bella Sinclair he was firm. ‘Lawrence might still be here if it wasn’t for her.’ Once he had almost added,
That woman broke his heart.
But Edith would have mocked him for being so sentimental. She’d always had a wicked tongue in her head, even as a child. She still did. He smiled. More than thirty years married and he was still scared of her.
He looked at his watch. It was nine-thirty, later than he’d thought. At this time of year it was easy to lose track. He came up on to the hill every night unless the weather was so bad that there was no point to it. To check the sheep, he said, though that was an excuse. It was an escape from Edith tapping away on the computer, a time for himself. When Edith was working, he felt that the house was just an extension of her office and he never felt comfortable there. In the winter he’d sometimes drive over the hill with a shotgun and a torch, after rabbits. The rabbits got
caught in the glare of the spotlight and then they were easy enough to take. He had a silencer on the gun so he didn’t make a noise getting the first one; he wouldn’t want to frighten the others away. He didn’t much like the taste of rabbit, the flesh was too sweet and slimy, but hidden in a pie with plenty of onion and chunks of bacon he’d eat it occasionally. Usually though he ended up throwing most of the carcases away.
A waste, Edith said. There had been no spare money when she was a child and she still imagined the return of the bad times, even though she had a good job and he took on a bit of building work beside the croft. She resented money ill spent. But they had savings now. They wouldn’t starve in their old age or be dependent on their children.
He called to Vaila, his dog, and turned back towards his house. He could see it on a slight rise in the land just in from the water, with the Herring House much taller beyond. Further along the shore was the graveyard. In the old days before the roads were built they’d carried the corpses for burial by boat. That was why in Shetland the graveyards were always close to the water. He thought he’d quite like his body to be carried to its grave in his own boat, but he supposed there’d be some reason why it couldn’t happen like that now.
His attention was caught by movement on the road. His eyes weren’t as good as they had been, but he thought he saw someone leaving the gallery. He watched. He pretended not to be interested in Bella’s doings but he couldn’t help being curious. Usually her parties didn’t finish this soon and this guest didn’t get
into a car and drive back down the length of the voe to the big road towards Lerwick. Instead the person turned up the road the other way, past the post office and the three houses on the shore towards the jetty. After that it only led to the old manse where Bella lived, and to Kenny and Edith’s house. Beyond Skoles the track petered away into a footpath across the hill to the next valley. The only people to use that were Kenny, when he was checking on his sheep, and holidaymakers walking.
Kenny stood and watched the figure until it disappeared out of sight where the road fell into a dip. He was running, a strange loping run, leaning forward so it looked as if he was going to tip over. Kenny thought that was typical of the people Bella knocked around with. Artists. They couldn’t even run like other folk. She’d always attracted strange people to her. The summers when they were all younger the Manse had been full of outsiders, drifting in and out with their odd clothes, weird music coming through the open windows, and always the sound of their talking. Yet now she was quite alone, apart from that nephew of hers. She should have stayed with Lawrence.
He carried on up to the hill, making a rough count of the sheep in his head. Later in the week he’d have to round them up and bring them down for clipping. There were a couple of chaps from Unst who were coming to help him, and Martin Williamson had said that he’d give a hand too.
When he got to the house it was gone eleven o’clock, but Edith was still in the garden. She was hoeing between a row of beans, pushing away the weeds with short aggressive jabs. She must have been
stuck on the computer for most of the evening though, because she hadn’t done so much. When she heard him coming she looked up. He thought she looked very tired. She’d had a meeting in Lerwick all day and that always wore her out.
‘Come away inside,’ he said. ‘The mosquitoes will bite us both to death.’
‘Just let me finish this row.’ He stood watching her bending over the work and he thought how stubborn she was and how strong.
‘Did you see that man?’ he asked, when she straightened at last and rested the hoe against the wall of the house.
‘What man?’ She looked up, pushed a stray hair from her face. He thought she was prettier now than she had been when she was young. When she’d been young her face had been a bit pinched and there’d been no flesh at all on her. What he’d felt for her then, it hadn’t been love. Not the sort of love they showed on films, at least. The sort of love Lawrence had felt for Bella. It hadn’t been that way for him or for Edith. But they’d got on and he’d known it would work out. They wouldn’t irritate each other unduly. Now that she’d reached fifty, sometimes he looked at her with wonder. Her face was hardly lined, her eyes so blue. There was a passion between them that they’d never had the energy for when the children had been young.
‘What man?’ she repeated. Not annoyed that she’d had to repeat herself, but half smiling as if she could tell what he was thinking.
‘A man running away from the Herring House. He must have come past here.’
‘I didn’t see,’ she said.
She stood up, linked her arm into his and led him inside.
Edith got up early every morning. Even when they were on holiday or away visiting the children she was usually up before him. He heard her in the kitchen, moving the kettle on to the hot plate, then the door opening. He knew what she would be doing – pulling on her boots over her pyjamas to go outside and let out the hens. She didn’t start work until nine and they’d have breakfast together before she set out. He didn’t find it so easy to leave his bed, but at this time of year Edith had trouble sleeping at all. Often when he woke in the night to go to the bathroom he could tell she was awake, lying very still beside him. She’d put thick curtains at the window, but something about the white nights threw her body clock out. It took some people that way. When he didn’t sleep he became tense and frazzled and the thoughts raced around his head. Edith became pale, though she never complained of being tired and she never missed work. Once, he’d persuaded her to go to the doctor to get some sleeping tablets, but she’d said they made her feel slow and heavy all the next day so she didn’t feel on top of things at the centre. He was glad when the days got shorter and she returned to her old self.
Kenny liked the half-hour they had together over breakfast before she left. By the time he was washed and dressed, she had the tea made and there was the smell of toasted bread. Edith was in the shower; he could hear the water tank refilling.
She was the manager of a care centre for old and
disabled people. He still found that hard to believe – his Edith, in charge of staff and a budget, going to meetings in Lerwick, smartly dressed with her hair tied up. She trained all the care staff in Shetland in manual handling, showing them how to move the people in their care safely. He marvelled at her strength and determination. Taxis and a bus brought old folks from all over this part of Shetland to the centre. Sometimes she talked about her clients by name and it shocked him to realize the men and women he’d known in childhood as strong, rather frightening characters were now frail, confused, incontinent. He thought, Will I come to that? Will I end my days playing bingo in the day centre? Once he had mentioned something of the sort to Edith and she’d answered tartly, ‘You will if you’re lucky! With the oil revenue fallen to nothing and the cutbacks, the centre might not be there when we need it.’ He never mentioned his fears again. His only comfort was that he expected to die before her. Women always lived longer than men. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live alone.
He poured tea and put butter on the toast and she came in, dressed, her hair still wet but tied into a knot.
‘What are your plans for today?’ she asked.
‘Singling neeps,’ he said.
She pulled a face in sympathy, understanding what boring, back-breaking work that was, hoeing out the unwanted seedlings to leave space for the turnips to grow.
‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘It’s a nice day for it.’
But since yesterday evening he’d been thinking that he might get out in the boat today after all. He
didn’t say anything to Edith. She worked so hard and he felt like a boy considering playing truant from school.
She finished the toast on her plate, then she was away into the little bedroom, which had once been Ingirid’s room and which Edith now used as an office, to gather up her papers into her bag. He walked outside with her and kissed her before watching her drive off.
He’d intended to do a couple of hours with the neeps before getting out the boat, but found himself making the short walk down to the beach, to the hut where he kept the outboard and his lines and pots. There was a little breeze. Easterly. He wondered for a moment if he wanted company after all, and started thinking who might be free to go out with him. Martin Williamson was a pleasant young man, but most days he put in an hour in the shop before he started working in the café at the Herring House. He stopped for a moment and in the silence heard the puffins on the headland beyond the pier. There were fewer than there’d been when he was a boy, but still enough for him to hear them chattering as he approached.
He walked across the shingle that separated the sand from the road. It was a bit of a short-cut, but he made sure he watched his feet as he went. Once he’d ricked his ankle here and it had been painful for days. He stopped when the Herring House threw its shadow on to his path, just to see if anyone was about, but it looked empty. The gallery café opened for coffee, but not until later, and there were no cars parked outside.
The hut stood by the side of the road, just where it joined the jetty, a couple of hundred yards further
on. He and Lawrence had put it up and it was solid enough, though some of the corrugated-iron panels on the roof would need replacing in the next year or so. They never bothered locking it – it was used by all the Biddista men who kept a boat – and nobody much else strayed to the jetty. Once everything people needed was delivered here by ship – coal and corn and animal feed. Now a few holidaymakers in yachts put up for the night, but he hadn’t even seen many of them yet this year. There was a heavy bolt on the door, so they could fasten it from the outside to stop it blowing in the wind. Today the bolt was unfastened and the door was a little ajar. Kenny tried to think who might have been in the hut last, who might have been so careless. It would only take a sharp squall to have the door off its hinges. Roddy Sinclair, he thought. It would be just like him. That boy had no consideration. Once he’d held a sort of party in here and Kenny had come in the next day to a pile of red tins, an empty whisky bottle and a strange lad in a sleeping bag. Kenny pulled the door open and took in the familiar smell of engine oil and fish.
Because he’d been thinking about Roddy Sinclair, he assumed at first that the figure swinging from the ceiling was one of the boy’s pranks. Roddy had got drunk at Bella’s party and thought he’d cause mischief. Kenny knew when he got closer it would turn out to be a fertilizer sack filled with straw, dressed up in a black jacket and trousers. The head was smooth, gleamed a little. Realistic, Kenny thought. He pushed the figure. It was surprisingly heavy, not made of straw at all. Its shadow swung backwards and forwards on the back wall of the hut and it twisted on its rope
so for the first time Kenny saw the face. It was made up by a clown’s mask, shiny white plastic reflecting the morning sunshine coming through the gap in the door, with a grinning red mouth and blank staring eyes. Then he saw that the figure had real hands. Skin. Bony knuckles. Fingernails, smooth and round like a woman’s. But this wasn’t a woman. It was a man, with a bald head. A dead man hanging from one of the roof joists, his toes only inches from the ground. Beside him, on its side, was a big plastic bucket. Kenny thought he must have turned it upside-down to use it as a step, then kicked it away. He felt the hysteria rise in his stomach. He wanted to lift away the mask; it looked indecent on a dead person. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he put his hands on the man’s arms to hold him steady. He couldn’t bear the thought of him swinging there, a scarecrow on a gibbet.
His first thought was to call Edith on his mobile phone. But what could she do? So, feeling a little foolish and faint, he went back outside, sat on the shingle and dialled 999.
