‘I was one of the outsiders,’ she said. ‘I was born in North Uist, but we never really belonged.’
Sandy thought she’d stop there. She didn’t seem the sort who would confide about her personal life. But perhaps she needed to fill the silence as much as he did, or perhaps she needed distracting. This was her first case, her big chance, and so far nothing was going to plan. So while he inched north along the smooth road that had been bought by the oil money, she started talking about her early life in the Western Isles, and by the time the giant tanks of Sullom Voe lurked out of the gloom he thought he knew all about her.
‘My parents were hippies,’ she said. ‘After the good life. And they were good people. With some friends they bought a house in North Uist. A place big enough for a couple of families and outbuildings that could house more.’
‘You grew up in a commune?’ He sounded shocked, but he couldn’t help himself. Communes were for dropouts and druggies, not kids who grew up to be cops.
‘Do you find the idea amusing, Sergeant?’ But she was joking too and not really angry. He liked that about her. You felt she wouldn’t take herself too seriously, even now, when worry about the case was eating into her.
‘I don’t think many detective inspectors grew up in that sort of family,’ he said. ‘Didn’t hippies believe they were outside the law?’
‘Oh, we had our own rules,’ she said. ‘Everything discussed at length at interminable community meetings. No meat. No TV. All our income pooled, for the good of the commune. Children were to be cared for in common. And strangers were to be made welcome.’ The last phrase came out in a hard and bitter voice.
‘What happened?’
‘One of the strangers betrayed us,’ she said. ‘Stole all our money.’ Sandy waited for her to go on, but she stared out of the window into the grey rain and said nothing.
At last she turned back into the car. ‘So you can imagine what it was like growing up there,’ she said. ‘We went to the local school and got teased for being the hippy kids. We wore weird home-made clothes. No leather shoes, naturally. We had no Gaelic of course, no real island culture. The adults tried to learn, but the islanders didn’t make it easy for them to join in. In the end we were isolated and it felt like it was us against the world. I left for university, wanting to be like everyone else, but some of the old commune values stuck.’ She laughed. ‘I’m a veggie to this day. Do yoga. Meditate.’
‘Are your folks still there?’ Sandy asked.
‘Oh yes, they’ll be there forever now, milking their goats and saving the planet. How can they admit to themselves that they made a mistake? It would be as if they’ve wasted the last thirty years.’
He would have liked to ask how often she went to visit, but by now they were nearly at Sullom Voe, and anyway he sensed that she regretted having brought up her family for discussion.
The cloud was even lower. They passed the stuffed figures of the couple in their wedding outfits, and Sandy was driving so slowly that he could see that the photos covering the faces were those of John Henderson and Evie Watt. It seemed a strangely frivolous thing for Henderson to agree to. Even if Evie’s mates had created the figures in the run-up to her hen night, he could have made her take them away now. Perhaps he had a sense of humour after all.
‘What do you want to do?’ He found that his attitude to Willow had changed since he’d found out that she’d grown up in a commune and that he regarded her with something like suspicion. Then he heard Jimmy Perez’s voice in his head. That’s ridiculous, Sandy Wilson, and you know it. He tried to make his voice warmer. ‘Should I turn round and drive back more slowly? You can shout if you want me to stop.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Do just that.’ Then, with a smile: ‘I suppose you think I’m daft.’
In the end he was the one to find it. Willow was craning her neck and looking to the verges on either side, while he kept his eyes on the road. There was a junction with a small track leading off to the left. It would go to Swinning and branch again for Lunna. Near the junction the council had built a lay-by so that folk wanting to car-share could leave their vehicles and catch a lift up to the terminal or into town with someone driving from Brae. There were black skid marks on the main road swerving towards the lay-by. Sandy pulled to a stop, but avoided the tracks. They both got out to look.
‘What do you think?’ Willow was crouching, her nose almost on the tarmac. ‘Was he forced into the lay-by? If it was him?’
‘It looks that way. Or a car pulled out of the track in front of him. With the fog that thick, it could have been an accident. Could have been anyone.’
‘Sure,’ she said.
‘Maybe we should wait. Tape it off and stick a bobby to keep watch until we can get Miss Hewitt back in.’
‘How long will that take?’ She was bouncing up and down on the spot, partly to keep warm because the low cloud was cold, but partly because she was so impatient that she was finding it hard to keep still.
Sandy looked around. None of the hills were visible. ‘Could be a couple of days. The forecast says it’s unlikely to clear until Wednesday. If we hurry, we could get her on this afternoon’s ferry from Aberdeen.’
‘We’re the first people at the scene,’ she said. ‘Our decision.’
‘Aye.’ But he knew the decision had already been taken.
She took it slowly and didn’t rush into it. Plastic overshoes. Gloves on her hands. She didn’t have a full scene-suit, so she found a scarf in the car and wrapped it round her hair. Then she walked backwards and forwards across the empty lay-by.
‘There might have been other vehicles parked there since Friday.’ Usually Perez was the person to council caution while Sandy rushed in with daft ideas. He felt suddenly very grown-up.
‘Over a weekend?’ She looked up and waited for his opinion as if it mattered.
‘Maybe not.’
‘So they could have come from Markham’s car.’ She grinned. ‘He’d have unusual tyres. We’ll be able to check.’
Where the lay-by joined the hill there was a row of whitewashed stones, to stop vehicles running down the bank on foggy days like this. A couple of cars went north along the main road in the opposite direction. Too fast for the weather conditions, Sandy thought. The drivers didn’t even see them because the fog was so thick.
Willow was bent double, looking at the crack between the stones. He thought she was more supple than anyone he’d known. Suddenly she straightened. ‘There’s a smear of blood on the underside of this rock. Washed down by rain maybe?’ She grinned again at Sandy. ‘The killer pulled Markham out of the car and hit him here. He fell and caught his forehead on the rock. You remember the wound. Not random. Planned. An ambush.’
‘The blood could be anything!’ Sandy being sensible again. ‘A rabbit. A sheep hit by a car.’
‘It could.’ She nodded. ‘But I’d bet my career that it wasn’t. Let’s get the whole lay-by taped and bring someone to keep an eye on it. And let’s get Vicki Hewitt onto that ferry.’
Chapter Seventeen
Perez walked Cassie to school. There was a neighbour who had offered to take her as soon as they’d settled back in the Ravenswick house after Fran’s death: ‘Just drop her in, Jimmy, on your way to work and I’ll take her down with my bairns. It would be no trouble.’ But Perez had thanked her gravely and said he was working flexible hours at the moment. Later, maybe, he’d be very grateful for the help. He still took Cassie to school every day and couldn’t imagine entrusting her to someone else.
Today she had a music lesson, so he carried her tiny fiddle in its case and her schoolbag.
‘Are you going to work today, Jimmy?’