White Nights (7 page)

Perez took Roddy outside. ‘Shall we just take a bit of a walk? I could do with the fresh air.’ He didn’t want a conversation in front of the two women. Roddy revelled in an audience. He would make things up to provide a decent story, feel an obligation to entertain them. Roddy pulled a face, as if fresh air was the last thing he needed, but followed Perez out anyway. It was in his nature to please, even if there was no immediate payback. He made a good living because he was charming.

As they left the house, Perez heard Fran tell Bella that she would leave too. He supposed she had to pick Cassie up from school, imagined her waiting at the school gate and swinging Cassie into her arms as the girl ran to her out of the yard. He loved watching the two of them together.

Roddy walked ahead of him out of the garden between the big stone gateposts. He had a long, bouncing stride and Perez had to step out to keep up. ‘What were you doing in the Herring House last night?’ he said. ‘I thought you only played fancy gigs these days.’

‘Bella asked. I was in Orkney anyway for the St Magnus Festival. It didn’t seem such a big deal to come
on up.’ He paused. ‘My aunt doesn’t really take no for an answer.’

‘How long are you planning to stay?’

‘A few days. Then there’s a tour of Australia. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never done Oz before.’

‘Do you always stay with Bella while you’re in Shetland?’

‘Usually. She’s the only family I have here now.’ He didn’t need to explain. This was another myth and he would assume that Perez would know. How his dad had died when he was a boy and his mother had fallen for an American oilman, gone back to Houston with him. How Roddy had refused to leave. Aged thirteen he’d stood up to them all, said he couldn’t leave the islands. He was a Shetlander. It was the story that had appeared on CD covers and had been told to chat-show hosts. ‘I’m a Shetlander.’ And didn’t the islands love him for it! Bella had provided a home for him. Spoiled him rotten, according to Kenny Thomson. Turned him into a performer. Encouraged his ambition. Funded the first CD. Designed the cover and sent it off to all her arty friends in the south. That story didn’t appear so much in the papers. The official version had it that he was discovered by a producer who happened to be in Lerwick on holiday and heard Roddy play at the Lounge, the bar in town. In that version Roddy was an overnight success.

‘You don’t mind her wheeling you out to support her openings?’

‘Why should I? I owe her. Besides, her events are always a bit of a laugh.’ He was walking beside Perez along a path which led over Skoles land. It climbed steeply. Eventually they would end up at the top of the
cliff, next to the great hole that was known as the Pit o’ Biddista. Perez planned to have the conversation finished by then. The boy stopped abruptly and turned to Perez. ‘What’s this about? They were looking so serious in there. Is it my mother? Is she ill?’

‘No,’ Perez said. ‘Nothing like that.’

There was a moment’s silence and Perez wondered if Roddy was going over in his mind other possible explanations for the police to be calling. The cannabis or cocaine which Perez was pretty sure they’d find in his room if they looked. A hotel prepared to press charges after a particularly rowdy party.

‘Did you think there were fewer people at the opening last night than Bella was expecting?’

‘Yeah, I was surprised. She usually gets a good turnout.’

‘Someone was spreading these all over Lerwick and Scalloway yesterday.’

Perez had slipped the flyer into a transparent plastic bag and he gave it to Roddy to read. Roddy stopped, leaning against an outcrop of rock in the hill.

‘You don’t think I had anything to do with this?’

‘It might have been someone’s idea of a joke.’

‘But not mine. I told you. Bella took me in when I wanted to carry on living here. If it wasn’t for her I’d be speaking with a Texas accent and playing country and western. I owe her.’

‘Any idea who might have thought it funny?’

‘No. There doesn’t seem much to laugh about. That bit about a death in the family, it’s just sick.’

‘There has been a death,’ Perez said. ‘That’s what I’m doing here.’

‘Who?’

‘There was a stranger at the party last night. He made a scene just after you finished playing. Got on to his knees and starting crying.’

‘Guy in black. Shaved head?’

‘Yes.’

They’d started walking again and Perez could smell the bird shit and the salt in the air. The grass was cropped short here. There were patches of thrift and tiny blue dots of spring squill. They’d almost reached the top of the cliff. He slowed his pace.

‘Had you ever seen him before?’ Perez asked. ‘Before he lost it the man seemed really interested in the paintings. I don’t know, not just idle curiosity. As if he knew something about art. You don’t remember coming across him at one of Bella’s other events?’

‘What does Bella say?’

‘She was reluctant to commit herself either way. He could have been an acquaintance, but she couldn’t be sure. Her memory’s not as good as it was.’

‘Bollocks.’ Roddy still had breath to give a choking laugh. Perez was starting to pant. ‘Bella’s as sharp as she always was. Sharper, if it comes to business. If your guy was a dealer or critic she’d have recognized him the minute he came into the room.’

‘And you? Did you know him?’

‘Sorry. Never seen him before in my life.’

Although they were some way from the edge of the cliff they could see the water now, glittering and fizzing against an offshore craig. Perez sat on the grass. A gannet was hovering in the thermals. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not as fit as I should be. It’s all desk work these days.’ He hoped Roddy would sit with him, but the boy walked on. He stood with his back to Perez, looking
out, arms slightly away from his body. The late-morning sun was right above him, his own spotlight. From where he was sitting Perez thought he would disappear. One more step and he would tumble into space. It looked as if all Roddy had to do was reach out his hand and then he would touch the tip of the gannet’s wing. An illusion, Perez knew. A trick of the light and the way the land dipped towards the cliff-edge. But it made him feel sick. He could feel sweat on his forehead, hoped it wasn’t showing.

‘You haven’t asked how the Englishman died.’ He hoped that would be enough to catch the boy’s attention and Roddy did turn towards Perez, walk a few steps closer.

‘What was it? An accident?’ And that was the most probable scenario for unexpected death in the islands. Too much to drink. Narrow and precarious roads. Especially for a stranger.

‘Kenny Thomson found him hanging in the hut by the jetty.’

‘Suicide then?’

‘Most likely.’ The official version until the GP from Whiteness got his second opinion.

‘Poor sod,’ Roddy said, and then he did come and flop on the grass beside Perez. But the words came easily, without any thought behind them. He was young and lucky and couldn’t imagine how desperate you would have to be to take your own life.

‘Or murder.’ The words sounded fierce to Perez and he knew he shouldn’t have spoken. Not until it was all official. But he wanted Roddy to take the matter seriously. At the moment it was a game to him. Besides, Perez trusted the young Glaswegian doctor, and by the
time the team arrived from Inverness the whole of Shetland would know what was going on.

‘Murder!’ Still the boy’s mouth had a twist at the corner as if this was also a joke, too incredible to be true.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Perez said. ‘You do see why I have to find out who he was.’

‘Really, I’d never met him before.’

‘Did you speak to him at all during the evening?’

‘He was standing in front of a painting by Fran Hunter. That silhouette of the child on the beach. I thought it was bloody brilliant. I mean I love Bella’s work and I don’t want to be disloyal but I thought that painting the best piece in the exhibition. I can’t get it out of my head; if it hasn’t sold yet, I think I’ll buy it. Save it for when I have a home to move into. I was next to him, looking at it too. And he spoke to me. “Good, isn’t it?” That was all he said.’

‘Accent?’ Perez asked. ‘I couldn’t place it, and you’ve travelled more than me.’ How old was Roddy Sinclair? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? And already he’d played his fiddle all over the world. Except Australia, and soon he’d have been there too.

‘North of England,’ Roddy said. ‘Yorkshire? But it was only three words. I can’t be certain.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘Like someone admiring a painting. I mean calm. Ordinary. I walked away and five minutes later he was causing all that fuss, on his knees and bawling. It seemed really bizarre.’

So what had happened in those five minutes? Perez thought. A sudden blankness which had scared the stranger so much that he’d fallen apart? Or had the
amnesia been an act, turned on for the audience? To disrupt the event further, like the flyers of cancellation scattered all over the town.

‘What did you do after you’d finished playing?’ Perez asked.

‘I got pissed. It wasn’t much of a party, but I thought I should enter into the spirit of the event.’

‘Who were you drinking with?’

‘Whoever was around, but everyone drifted off very early. In the end it was just me and Martin. He was clearing up. I don’t supposed I helped much, but at least I could keep him company, keep his glass topped up.’

‘You two old friends?’

‘Well, he’s a bit older than me. But in the scale of things in Biddista, we’re both children. If I’m staying with Bella we usually get together for an evening. If Dawn will let him out to play.’

‘What time did you leave the Herring House?’

‘Can’t remember, I’m afraid, and it’s hard to tell, isn’t it, at this time of year? I mean, all night it looks as if it’s just dusk. Martin might know. He was marginally more sober than me.’

‘You left together?’

‘Aye. I remember standing outside waiting for him to lock up. I had a bottle of wine in each hand. I’d invited him back to the Manse to carry on the party. You know how it seems a good idea at the time?’

‘Anyone else about?’

‘No. It was all quiet. I do remember thinking that. Most places in the world there’s something. Traffic noise. Music. A siren in the distance. Here it was just
the birds. The water on the shingle. Then I started singing and Martin told me to shut up or I’d wake his daughter.’

‘Martin walked up to the Manse with you?’

‘No, in the end he went all sensible on me. Said Dawn would kill him if he didn’t get back at a decent time and he’d promised to help in the shop in the morning. I walked with him as far as his house, then carried on by myself.’

‘Still no one else about?’

‘I didn’t see anyone.’

‘Was Bella up when you got home?’

‘No. The place was empty. Quiet as the grave.’

So now it was official. They couldn’t just call out the paramedics, cut down the stranger in black and hand his body over to the health authority. Perez looked at his watch. The squad from Inverness wouldn’t get to Aberdeen in time for the ferry, but they should just make the last plane of the evening in. He was already dialling to let his team in Lerwick know what was happening, get things moving.

‘Are you OK to stay here, Sandy? Mark it out as a crime scene and keep folks well away. I’ll get them to send someone to relieve you as soon as we can.’

He supposed he should go back to town. There was all the bureaucracy that came with a suspicious death. His first priority should be to identify the dead man. He should speak to the Fiscal, start the legal process of the investigation. But really he wanted to stay in Biddista. There were other people here to talk to and he thought he’d get more out of them than would the incomers.

‘Hey, I’m starving. Let me just go over to the shop to get some chocolate, huh?’ Sandy could whine like a two-year-old. Perez thought sometimes he had the brains of a two-year-old; then he’d surprise them all with his technical competence – he was better at IT
than anyone else in the office. Perez couldn’t help liking him.

‘You stay here. I’ll get you something.’ Before Sandy could object he was halfway across the road. He could hear the Whalsay man shouting after him. ‘A Mars Bar then. And crisps. Salt and vinegar. And a can of Coke. Not the bloody Diet shite.’

The shop had been built on to the last house in the terrace and was hardly bigger than an English suburban garage. There were shelves all round the walls for self-service and a refrigerated counter with a lump of Orkney cheddar and a couple of pounds of vacuum-packed streaky bacon. In one corner, the post office: a rack of official forms and some scales for weighing parcels. A young man stood behind the food counter. Perez recognized Martin Williamson, the chef who’d prepared the food for the exhibition the night before. Williamson’s father had run a hotel in Scalloway until he’d drunk all the profits and the family had sold up and moved into Lerwick. The father had died soon after. He’d fallen into the water at the ferry terminal, full of drink. Rumour had it that he’d jumped, but nobody had seen him fall, so how could they know?