‘I’ve missed this,’ she said. ‘These days I don’t feel I can breathe in the city.’
He pointed out a black guillemot displaying on the sea. The sun was milky and occasionally they hit banks of mist and the land disappeared and even the sea. Then the ferry seemed weightless, as if it was floating in space, a strange airship.
In Symbister he took her to the Pier House and booked a room for them.
‘A double this time, is it, Jimmy?’ It was Jean on the desk, not quite winking but grinning like a Cheshire cat. ‘Here we go; this is the honeymoon suite.’ And it was a much bigger room than anything he’d had before there, with a view over the harbour and an enormous enamel bath as well as a shower. The wallpaper was decorated with pink blossoms as big as cauliflower heads and there was a giant mahogany bed.
At the meeting in the hall he kept looking at Fran across the room. She was talking to everyone, to Evelyn and Sandy, to Jackie Clouston and the other women pouring tea. He could tell what she was saying without hearing her words, just by the way her body moved. All the time he kept wishing that he could be on his own with her, that he could run his hands down her spine and feel the curve of her under his fingertips. The case that had been at the centre of his thoughts since Mima had died now seemed like a petty distraction.
He forced himself to focus on it. He had a limited time to work on the women’s deaths. The Fiscal had made that quite clear at their last meeting. Perez’s announcement to the island that Hattie’s death wasn’t suicide was a gamble. If it didn’t work he didn’t think anyone would ever be charged. When the event in the community hall was over he dropped Fran back at the hotel. He walked with her as far as the lobby. ‘Don’t wait up for me. It could be a long night.’
She smiled up at him. ‘This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for my first evening back.’
He kissed her, not caring that they might be seen from the bar.
Fran stood in the doorway of the hotel and watched until he’d driven away. The fog seemed as dense as ever, bouncing back the reflection of his headlights. This is crazy, he thought. What do I expect will happen? He thought of the warm hotel room, the big deep bath.
He parked in an old quarry between the community hall and Setter and waited. There would be no action for a couple of hours at least. He heard a car pass quite close to him but he could see nothing. Time seemed to move very slowly. His mobile phone had been set for silent and suddenly it vibrated in his jacket pocket, startling him. It was Sandy, apologetic.
‘I couldn’t stay in the Pier House. I left them in the bar, set for making a night of it. I had to talk to my mother. You can understand that.’
Perez wanted to ask how Sandy was coping, but the new Sandy seemed to be managing very well without Perez to look out for him.
‘What should I do?’ Sandy said. ‘I thought I should wait at Setter. Everyone thinks I moved home after the fire.’
‘Aye,’ Perez said. ‘Do that. But no lights. ‘Did you see Cedric in the Pier Head?’
‘Aye, he says it’s done.’
‘What was the reaction?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to ask. Mrs James and Berglund were there.’
Perez eased himself out of the car. His joints already felt stiff from sitting still for so long. He walked along the road, missing the path occasionally and feeling the soft grass of the verge beneath his feet, because the darkness was almost liquid, so dense that it seemed to be drowning him.
He’d stopped for breath and in an attempt to get his bearings, when he heard footsteps on the road ahead of him. They were moving away from him and that was what he’d been expecting. It was past midnight now and this wasn’t the weather for an innocent night-time stroll. He stood very still and the sound of the footsteps disappeared into the distance.
He followed slowly, treading carefully to make as little noise as possible. This is ridiculous, he thought. We could be bairns playing hide-and-seek. This isn’t a professional way to carry on. Suddenly, there was a square of light that had come out of nowhere. It was like a beacon on the land above him. It must be an uncurtained front window in Jackie and Andrew’s grand house on the hill. He thought the fog must be lifting a little if he could see that from the road. Now he was sure where the murderer was heading and he felt less lost, with at least one landmark to give him his bearings. He imagined the men going out in the Shetland Bus on nights like this with no radar and no GPS, just a chart and a compass.
Approaching Setter he felt a breeze on his face and he thought again that the mist was clearing. He must be close to the croft now, but Sandy had done as he was told and there were no lights on. Perez wished he could talk to Sandy, to warn him they were on their way, but didn’t want to risk the noise of a conversation or of a phone ringing in the house. The murderer had killed twice before and was unpredictable. He stopped walking and there was total silence except for the regular and occasional moan of the foghorn. In the distance there was a tiny, moving spark: a torch being carried by the walker. It hadn’t been visible when the fog was most dense.
The surface beneath his feet changed. They’d left the road and were on the pot-holed track leading up to the house at Setter. Ahead of him the killer stumbled; the footsteps faltered for a moment and then continued. Perez was closer now. The torchlight ahead of him shone on the wall of the house and swung to light the path around to the site of the dig. Perez caught a brief glimpse of the flotation tank, the shadow of the spoil heap. He stood still. He mustn’t be heard. Not yet. Ahead of him the light continued to move but there were no footsteps. The killer had moved on to the grass. The light stopped, then swung in a wide arc so Perez had to flatten himself against the wall of the house to avoid being seen.
A moment of complete silence.
‘Cedric!’ A man’s voice. Not angry, but almost pleading. ‘Cedric! Are you there? What do you want from me?’
Ronald Clouston was suddenly visible caught in the beam of a powerful spotlight. It looked like a searchlight swinging over no man’s land, and he was trapped in its beam, frozen and horrified. He was standing next to the trench of the dig and in the background there was the spoil heap, still shrouded in mist. Perez thought it would only take a high wall topped with barbed wire to turn this into a scene from a Cold War spy movie. Over his arm Ronald carried a shotgun.
‘Cedric.’ This time the man’s voice was firmer. ‘Stop playing games, man, we can talk about this.’
‘Cedric won’t be here.’ It was Sandy, armed with nothing more than the powerful torch. Ronald squinted his eyes against the light. Perez ran behind the men, keeping in the shadows. He crouched and waited. Even from those first four words Perez could tell Sandy was furious, angrier than he’d ever been in his life.
‘What will you do now, Ronald?’ Sandy yelled. ‘Will you shoot me too? It’s a misty night. You could say you were out after rabbits. Or will you hit me over the head with a rock and slit my wrists? Like you did to the young lass from the south.’ There was a pause and it sounded to Perez as if Sandy was sobbing. ‘How could you do that, Ronald? To a young girl?’
Clouston stood quite still in the fog and said nothing.
‘What was this all about?’ Sandy went on. ‘Family pride? Did two people have to die for the Clouston family pride?’
‘Don’t be a fool, man!’ At last Ronald was provoked to speech. The words came out as a roar. ‘Pride had nothing to do with it. This was all about money.’
He raised the shotgun. Sandy stood, his arms out wide, still holding the torch in one hand. Perez ran out into the light.