‘It still seems preposterous to me.’ Perez drank some wine. ‘Like a kids’ game. Or Up Helly Aa after the parade. The guisers all wearing masks and running from one hall to another. I’m never part of the squad, so I bump into people and can’t quite recognize them, though I know they’re familiar. That’s how I feel now; I’m losing track about what’s real and what’s pretend.’
‘I know,’ she said again.
‘Am I talking rubbish?’
‘I think I know what you mean.’ She paused. ‘There’s a photograph. That might help pin things down. And masks figure there too.’ She laid a faded colour photograph on the table and turned the lamp so it was fully lit.
‘They’re dressed up for a dinner party,’ she said. ‘Fancy dress too, in a way. The masks must be significant, mustn’t they?’
Certainly that, Perez thought, but I’m not quite sure how. He’d thought he was inching towards a solution. Had he been wrong?
‘That’s Wilding,’ Perez said, pointing to the dark man. ‘He’s hardly changed. How can she not have recognized him?’
‘It was a long time ago, in a different context. But he must have remembered being here. Why didn’t he say something to Bella when he asked to rent the house from her? That seems most odd to me.’
‘And there’s Bella. She always wore red in those days. It was her sort of trademark.’
‘You knew her then?’
‘Knew of her, certainly. She was a local celebrity even in those days.’
‘Bella thinks that’s Booth.’ Fran pointed to a figure on the back row. With his long hair and beard, his rather thin face, he looked like a Renaissance representation of Jesus. The Last Supper, Perez thought.
‘Who are the others?’
‘I don’t know. She didn’t say and I didn’t ask. Lawrence isn’t there, though. She expected him to come. She thought he would propose to her that night, but he didn’t turn up. Isn’t it sad?’
‘It is if it’s true.’
‘You don’t believe her?’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know who or what to believe.’ He drank more wine, a good mouthful, not a sip. ‘I should tell Taylor.’
‘Won’t he be asleep?’
‘I don’t think he ever sleeps.’ He took another drink. ‘Could I ask him over? We won’t disturb you.’
She didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course.’
And Taylor did pick up his mobile after the second ring, and his voice was as strong as it always was, the accent deepened somehow over the phone. Perez explained as best he could, realizing that he was stuttering slightly. ‘There’s a photo,’ he said. ‘It’s interesting. It would wait until the morning but you’d be welcome to come over if you like. You know where Fran lives.’
A moment of hesitation. Perez was preparing himself for a rebuff. Then Taylor’s voice came again, stronger than ever. ‘I’ll be there. Half an hour.’ Another pause. ‘Thanks.’
Fran took herself to bed before Taylor arrived. She set out a plate of food for them – cheese and oatcakes and a tin with home-made biscuits.
‘There’s no need for that.’ Perez reached out and touched her hand.
‘I think I’ve been in Shetland long enough to know how to behave with visitors.’
He heard her move around the bedroom, pictured her taking off clothes, pulling out the long earrings, reaching behind her head to unclip her bead necklace. Then she stood at the door in a long white cotton nightdress he’d never seen before.
‘I’ll be asleep before you come in,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘My fault. I shouldn’t have asked Taylor.’
He thought this was a crazy way to begin a relationship. They floated into each other’s lives when they were too exhausted to make sense. Ghosts passing in the white nights. Sarah would never have put up with it. She’d wanted more of his attention and his energy. Fran, surely, would tire of his preoccupation with work in the end. But then, as she’d explained, she had her own obsession too, with her art.
He most have dozed off because he didn’t hear Taylor’s car, only a tap at the door. Outside, the darkest of the night had passed. The grey light in the east showed the black silhouette of Raven’s Head. He filled a kettle and made coffee. They started talking in whispers. Perez set Bella’s photograph on the table.
‘See the masks,’ he said.
Taylor frowned. ‘So that was significant. A message?’
‘Perhaps. But who from? Booth, who wore it to hand out his flyers? Or the murderer?’
They considered this for a moment in silence, reached no conclusion.
‘Is that Jeremy Booth, do you think?’ Perez asked. ‘It looks like him to me and Bella seemed sure. I’d already checked dates with the management of the theatre ship and that was the summer he was here. I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to prove how they met unless she tells us. Perhaps she went to the show. They cater for a family audience. Roddy wasn’t staying with her then but she spent a lot of time with him. It’s the sort of thing a doting aunt would do, take her nephew to the theatre for a treat. And I can imagine her sweeping all the cast back with her to Biddista. For dinner or a few days at the end of the run.’ He thought of Lucy, the young actress. He could see that they would want to celebrate the end of a show. All those nerves. All that excitement. ‘And she told Fran that she hired the masks from the theatre company. Another connection.’
‘We can show the photo to the theatre management,’ Taylor said. ‘Perhaps they can identify the other people there. We can chase that up, confirm Booth’s presence.’
‘That’s definitely Wilding.’ Perez pointed to the dark-haired man. ‘He hasn’t changed as much as Booth.’
‘So Bella Sinclair’s been lying?’
Perez shrugged. ‘Or she’d genuinely forgotten. She didn’t have to tell Fran about that summer. Why would she if she has things to hide?’
‘He would remember though,’ Taylor said. ‘I can go along with Bella forgetting a house guest who turned up briefly with a load of other people. But to travel to Shetland and spend days in the company of an artist you admire… No way did that just slip out of Wilding’s mind.’
His voice rose. Perez imagined Cassie stumbling into the room, woken by the noise.
They continued the conversation outside, the food on the white bench between them, fresh mugs of coffee at their feet. It was still chill and they sat huddled in their coats.
‘So what happened that summer?’ Taylor demanded. ‘Why have two people died?’
‘There was a murder.’ Perez was quite certain about that. ‘The bones at the bottom of the Pit. It would be good if we could date them. Any chance, do you think?’
‘Not sure. We should get an ID eventually. A DNA match from a relative maybe. And the teeth will help.’
‘Oh I think I know who it was,’ Perez said. ‘Lawrence Thomson disappeared that summer. He told Bella he was leaving the islands, but he’s never been heard of since. If you listen to Kenny you’d think his big brother was a saint, but he had a record of fighting.’ He’d checked that too.
‘What are you thinking? Too much drink and a brawl that got out of hand and they tipped the body down the Pit? Then they all agreed to keep quiet about it?’
‘Perhaps.’ Perez could see that might have happened. It would be a heady mix. An unusually warm summer. The excitement of new and exotic strangers in the community. All the men showing off for Bella. The tribal hostility between incomer and outsider. Then a pact of silence.
‘So what’s changed? They’d got away with it. Even if those bones had been found now, people would have thought they’d been washed in from the sea. Some old dead sailor. Without the other deaths we wouldn’t have given them a thought.’