‘How did she keep track of everything that was happening in the island?’ Sandy had wondered about this before. His grandmother knew about his friends’ escapades and love affairs before he did. No wonder Evelyn had talked about her as a witch. ‘She didn’t go out so much towards the end.’
‘She made it to the Lindby shop every couple of days,’ Joseph said. ‘People were always coming to visit her. Cedric called in every Thursday to chat, but it wasn’t only her own generation who liked her company. Besides, she could smell a scandal like other folk smell rotten eggs.’ He looked around the room, seemed to be scoring the details on to his memory. The postcard from Michael and Amelia’s last foreign holiday propped on the dresser, the religious sampler which perhaps she’d stitched as a child, that seemed out of place in any room where Mima had lived, the enormous television, the dirty glasses by the sink. The photograph of Joseph’s father that had been taken during the war, looking young in his Norwegian jersey. They both knew Evelyn wouldn’t rest until everything had been dusted and scrubbed and tidied away.
‘Do you still think of this house as your home?’ As soon as he’d spoken Sandy thought that was a daft sort of question. Joseph had lived in Utra since he’d married. Utra had been in Evelyn’s family and had been a tumbledown wreck when they’d moved in. Joseph had made a home almost from nothing.
But his father considered before speaking and then it wasn’t a direct answer. ‘It wasn’t easy growing up here,’ he said. ‘My father died while I was still a baby and Mima was never the sort of island wife to have a meal on the table when I got in from school and clean clothes for me to put on each morning. I learned to look after myself pretty quickly. But it was a happy time. She was full of stories. She said it was us against the world.’ He laughed. ‘She always did have a dramatic turn of phrase. I grew up with tales of my father, about how well off we’d have been if only he’d lived. “He promised me the earth. Fine clothes and a fine house.” She loved telling stories; it was a mix of real island characters, make-believe and myth. I could have listened to her for hours, though sometimes I’d have preferred to do it with a full belly.’
For the first time Sandy could see what had attracted his father to Evelyn. She’d make sure there was dinner ready for him when he got in from work and the house was always clean, the clothes washed and ironed.
‘Why do you think she went out that night?’
‘Why did Mother do anything?’ Joseph laughed. ‘I’d known her all my life and she was still a mystery to me.’
Sandy thought that was too easy and was just about to push it, when there was a tap on the open door. He saw the two lasses from the dig standing outside. Sophie was wearing a shirt that was open at the neck and one size too tight around the chest. She had on shorts with walking boots and thick socks; that should have made her look like a geek, but her legs were long and brown and shapely. He tried not to stare. He didn’t want to get attracted to a girl with a brain. It was Hattie who spoke.
‘We wondered if it’d be all right to get on with our work. The police don’t mind, but we’ll understand if you’d prefer it if we left it for a while. I mean I suppose you might rather we stopped the project all together.’
Sandy could tell that was the last thing she wanted. He’d chatted to her a couple of times in the Pier House Hotel, when he was there visiting the boys. She was always on the edge of the crowd and her work was all she could talk about, all he could imagine her being passionate about. He remembered her leaning over the table towards Ronald Clouston, giving him a lecture about Iron Age tools. Sandy thought it was good to have the lasses in Lindby. They brought a bit of life to the place. ‘What do you think, Dad?’
His father frowned.
Sandy wasn’t sure if he’d even heard the question. ‘Dad?’
‘I don’t know,’ his father said. ‘Things are different now. We don’t know what’ll happen to the croft.’
Sandy wondered then if Joseph dreamed of selling Utra and moving back here, to the house where he’d been so happy as a child. He couldn’t see his mother going along with that! It would mean leaving behind her new kitchen and bathroom and starting all over from scratch.
‘But they can carry on with their work?’ he said. ‘At least until you decide? You know how Mima liked having them around the place.’
His father hesitated again and Sandy thought he would refuse. But at last he smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course. Why don’t you show us what you’ve been doing out there?’
Perhaps Joseph just didn’t like having the strangers standing in his mother’s kitchen. Certainly outside he seemed more friendly and helpful to the young women. It was Sandy who found it weird to walk right past the spot where he’d found Mima lying in the rain. The memory of her stick-thin body distracted him and he missed most of the conversation. When he tuned in again Hattie was describing what they were doing.
‘It’s just a couple of exploratory trenches. At this stage there won’t be any more disruption than this. If we find anything really interesting we’d apply for funding to extend the dig, but of course we’d need your permission to do that. Mima had already given it in principle. The initial results have been fascinating. And Evelyn thinks it would be a great boost for the island.’
She looked at Joseph anxiously. Sandy could tell she was hoping for reassuring words from him. Of course you must go ahead with your dig. Mima’s death won’t change anything. I can see how important it is.
But the man frowned again as he had in the kitchen.
‘Is this where you found the skull?’
‘Yes, in this practice trench here. Outside the wall of the main house. It’s gone off to a lab in Glasgow for dating. I hope we can date it at fifteenth-century. That would fit in with my theory about the place. Of course it could be older. We know there’s been a settlement in Lindby since the Iron Age. But it was quite near the surface so we don’t think it’s that old.’
‘Could it be younger?’
‘I suppose so, but it seems unlikely. There’s no record of a more modern building here.’
Joseph was quiet for a moment.
‘I think it’s too early to be making any decision about the future of the dig just yet. There’s no rush, is there? We can talk about all that later.’
Sandy wondered why his father, usually so easygoing, especially if a pretty lass was around, should be so discouraging about this. There were no crops in that part of the croft and it wasn’t needed for grazing. What would it matter if a dozen people came to make holes all over it? Joseph was sociable, he loved a party, a few new folk to chat to. Again he wondered if the man had his own plans for Setter and what they might be.
Sandy’s phone rang. It was Perez calling from his mobile. Sandy walked away from the group so he could talk without being overheard.
‘I’m at Laxo,’ Perez said. ‘I’ve just missed a ferry. I wondered if it was worth bringing my car or if you’d be able to meet me in Symbister.’
‘I’ll meet you.’ Sandy felt his mood lift. He had an excuse to run away from the family for a while, even if it was just to the end of the island. It was only as he was driving down towards the pier that he thought Perez’s arrival on the island might be a bad sign and that he could be here to arrest Ronald Clouston.
Chapter Fifteen
Hattie’s feelings were spiralling out of control. She loved being in the islands but whenever she imagined Mima lying in the rain, shot by Ronald Clouston, she started to cry and she couldn’t stop. Her imagination was a curse.
Perhaps she was ill again. Depression had first appeared when she was at school, but then it had been insidious, almost gentle, so for some time the people around her hadn’t recognized what had been going on. When her mother had finally bullied her into seeing her GP, he’d prescribed medication, talked about stress, said it was unlikely to happen again. But at university there’d been a major breakdown and there’d been a couple of short episodes since.