‘Where’s my father?’ he asked.
‘I’ve sent him to bed. He’s not been sleeping well.’
‘I’ve been worried about him.’
‘You shouldn’t be,’ she said. ‘Not any more. We’ve been through a lot in the last few weeks. We ’ll survive this too.’
‘How did it start?’ She didn’t answer immediately. ‘The stealing, Mother. That’s what I’m talking about.’ For the first time in his life Sandy felt he was talking to her as one adult to another.
‘Stealing?’ She seemed shocked. ‘I never saw it as that.’
‘It’s how my boss sees it,’ he said simply. ‘It’s how the courts would see it.’
‘Oh, Sandy,’ she said, and he could tell she was glad of the chance to talk about it at last. ‘It was all too easy.’
‘Tell me about it.’ He’d come to the house angry, prepared to demand answers from her. Now he just wanted to hear what she had to say.
‘Money was always tight,’ she said. ‘You can’t understand what it was like here. The fishing families with their cars and their fancy clothes and their holidays in the sun. And only seeming to work a couple of months a year. And us, struggling to manage on what Joseph could bring in from Duncan Hunter. Jackie Clouston looking at me as if I was a piece of muck on her shoe. I believed I deserved the little bit extra I could make. That was how it started. I was working for this community and earning nothing. They kept everything they made for themselves. It just didn’t seem fair .’
Is that how corruption begins everywhere? Sandy thought. Politicians and businessmen persuade themselves that the extra, the kickbacks, are owed to them for the risks they take and the contribution they make. And he was no better than the rest of them. He’d once let Duncan Hunter off for drink-driving because he thought the man could make trouble for his father.
‘How did you work it?’
‘I just boosted my expenses a little. I applied for Amenity Trust grants for a couple of projects – the community theatre was the first. I set up a bank account in the name of the Island Forum, submitted receipts for expenses and had the cheques made out to the new account. Maybe some of the expenses weren’t entirely project-related, but nobody checked. Nobody realized. It grew from there. I took more chances.’
‘You took more money.’ Sandy felt a pit open in his stomach. His mother had brought him up to be honest. He’d once stolen sweeties from the shop in Symbister and she’d sent him back to own up and apologize.
‘I was working for nothing,’ she cried. Her face was red with the effort of trying to convince herself. ‘I saw it as a wage.’
‘The Trust gave you a small grant to pass on to Anna Clouston to develop her workshops,’ Sandy said. ‘She never saw it.’
‘A loan,’ she said. ‘I planned to pay it back. Besides, she owed me. She took my ideas and my patterns and she wouldn’t even have me as a partner.’
‘How were you going to pay it back, Mother? Why did you never ask me for help? Or Michael? We would have sorted it out for you. You know we’d have worked together to do that.’
She put her face in her hands and didn’t reply.
‘Is that why Dad changed his mind about selling Setter? He saw it as a way for you to clear what you owed?’
‘I had to tell him,’ she said. ‘He knew something was wrong the evening of Mima’s funeral.’
‘But then he couldn’t face it, could he? He couldn’t face anyone else living in Mima’s house. Do you know he tried to set fire to it to claim the insurance? It wasn’t me being thoughtless again.’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘There are no secrets between us now.’
‘Mima was a countersignatory to the bank account,’ Sandy said. ‘I saw the chequebook in the drawer. She knew you’d been taking the money. You thought she wasn’t interested enough to check.’
‘She had no proof.’
‘But she guessed,’ Sandy said. He thought this was the most difficult interview he’d ever taken part in, but also the easiest. He knew all the people involved so well and he knew how they thought. ‘Did she ask you about it? Is that what you were discussing the afternoon before she died?’
‘She was worried for herself,’ Evelyn said. ‘What folks would say if it came out. “I know what it is to be the subject of gossip. Trust me, Evelyn, you’d not want that. I’d not wish that on anyone.”’
‘And she’d be worried about Dad,’ Sandy said sharply. ‘About what effect this would have on him.’
‘Aye,’ Evelyn said. ‘You’re right, of course. Mima always doted on your father.’
‘Did you go back later and kill her?’ The question that had been tormenting him since he’d first realized things weren’t right between his parents.
She stared at him, horrified. He saw it hadn’t crossed her mind that he might suspect her of the murder. She still thought of herself as a good woman.
‘Did you see Ronald out with his gun and think that would be a good way to stop her talking? An accident in poor weather. If he shot her by mistake, nobody would ever know you’d been stealing. And then did you think you could make it happen like that?’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘No! Sandy, do you really think me capable of that?’
He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t thought her capable of cheating and theft.
Now, it seemed, she felt the need to explain. ‘I could have married into one of the fishing families,’ she said. ‘Even then they had more money than the crofters. They hadn’t invested in the huge trawlers, but they were well off by island standards.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘You’d not think it now but I was quite a catch in those days. Everyone said what a bonny little thing I was. Andrew Clouston fancied me rotten, but Joseph was always the one for me. From when we were bairns at school, he was the one for me. I didn’t care about his mad witch of a mother or his lack of money.’
‘Should I go up and see my father?’ Sandy asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t disturb him. I’ve given him a pill and he’s already asleep.’
Suddenly Sandy felt very tired. He got to his feet. He would go to find Perez. It would be a very long night.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Work,’ he said.
Usually she would have been full of questions. Or she would have tried to persuade him that he shouldn’t go out on such a bad night. But she just got up to see him out. They stood for a moment at the door. Awkwardly she reached up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I should have asked you boys for help.’
It was the first time in his life she’d ever admitted she was wrong.
Chapter Forty-three
Fran’s decision to come to Whalsay had thrown Perez. She’d insisted on coming with him as soon as Duncan, her ex-husband, had turned up at Ravenswick to take Cassie back to Brae for the night and she’d realized she’d be free. ‘Oh come on, Jimmy. Let me come with you. I’ve not seen you for weeks. I promise I’ll behave. I won’t get in the way and I’ll do as I’m told.’ How could he resist her? How could he turn her down?
On the drive north to Laxo he’d been distracted by the scent of her, the pressure of her hand on his knee, desultory conversation about London and Cassie and her city friends. She didn’t ask about the Whalsay inquiry. Perez knew she tried not to put him in a position where he had to refuse to discuss a case. On the ferry she insisted on getting out of the car and standing outside, leaning against the raised metal ramp, so she could smell the salt, feel the air on her skin.