‘Most weekends. And sometimes during the week too. He could twist Bella round his little finger even then. “I’ve got a tummy ache, Auntie. I can’t go to school.” And there was one period when Alec was away in the hospital and he went to the school in Middleton. Aye, he was always in the Manse, getting under my feet when I was trying to get things ready for the people who were staying.’
‘Do you remember any of the visitors, Aggie? Any of the men who came up from the south to stay with Bella?’
‘I never really met them,’ she said. ‘They were so loud and full of opinions I wouldn’t have known what to say to them.’
‘You never met any of them again?’
‘How would I do that?’
‘Two of them came back,’ Perez said. ‘Peter Wilding was one. He lives in the house next door. He uses the post office. He hasn’t changed so much. Did you never recognize him?’
‘No,’ Aggie said very quickly. ‘How would I remember him after all this time?’
‘And he never said anything to you? Not a hint about the old times?’
‘Nothing. He’d certainly not mind me, after all. I’d be pouring the drinks and clearing plates. Would you remember the face of a waitress who served you in a restaurant fifteen years ago?’
‘No,’ Perez admitted. ‘Probably not.’
‘Who was the other man who came back?’ Martin broke into the conversation abruptly. It was hard now to believe that he was a man famous for his jokes, for laughing at his father’s funeral.
‘That was Jeremy Booth, the man who was found hanged in the hut on the jetty. He was here that summer too.’
Chapter Forty-three
Perez left the house and stood in the street. It was very quiet. The wind had dropped with the full tide. A family of eider duck floated on the water near the shore. He walked back past the Herring House. There was a path that led that way up towards the hill and back down to Skoles. It would save him having to pass Wilding’s place; he couldn’t face being a subject of the writer’s voyeurism tonight. But perhaps Wilding wasn’t at home. Perhaps he was in Buness, supervising some work to his new house. Perez thought Fran could be there too, discussing flooring and wallpaper, and the idea gave him a chill of unease. Then he thought she wouldn’t be so foolish. Not until the investigation was over.
He walked out on to the open hill to the sound of skylark and curlew and into a raw orange light. It must already be late in the evening, because the huge ball of the sun was dipping towards the cliff-edge. There too, silhouetted, was the figure of a man, unrecognizable at this distance. A gothic figure against the setting sun.
Although he couldn’t make out the man’s features, had to squint against the light to make him out at all, Perez knew who it was. He wasn’t prepared for the encounter. Things had moved more quickly than he’d expected. He was tempted to turn away, to wait for Taylor, who might have evidence. But the man was right at the edge of the cliff, on the narrow bridge of rock between the Pit o’ Biddista and the sea. Perez thought the hot summer fifteen years before had resulted in enough loss. He’d allowed Jeremy Booth to run away from him to his death after the Herring House party, and was still troubled by a nagging guilt. How much worse would that be if he made no effort to stop this man jumping?
He walked quickly over the grass, swearing under his breath when he twisted his ankle on a clump of heather. As he approached the cliff-edge, the sound of the seabirds got louder and the orange light stronger, so his head seemed filled with the noise and the light and he couldn’t think clearly at all.
Kenny Thomson didn’t hear Perez approaching. Perez thought the man was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that if Perez had been accompanied by the whole Up Helly Aa marching band, he still wouldn’t have noticed. Kenny stood very close to the cliff-edge, with the Pit at his back. Perez called to him.
‘Come away, Kenny. Come here where I can talk to you.’
The man turned slowly.
‘I’m fine where I am. And I’ve nothing to say.’
‘I can’t shout at you across all this space, man. Not about this. Not about Lawrence.’
Kenny turned again, so once more he was facing the sea.
Perez inched closer, felt his stomach tilt and turn. Now he could see the waves breaking on the outlying stacks. The sound of the water seemed to take a long time to reach him. He had an image of Roddy’s body, smashed in the Pit. He stumbled, and although he was still yards from the edge his heart seemed to stop. A pebble, loosened by his foot, rolled and bounced down the rock until it was lost in the spray at the bottom.
‘Kenny, I can’t do this, man. Why won’t you come here where I can talk to you?’
Perhaps Kenny heard the panic in his voice, because for the first time he looked directly at Perez.
‘There’s no need for you to be here.’
Perez struggled to find some connection between them, some way of holding the man back from the cliff with his words. ‘Do you mind that summer when you were working on Fair Isle, Kenny? The harbourworks in the North Haven. I’ve been thinking about that since we met up again.’
‘Have you?’ Kenny frowned, willing to be distracted, for a moment at least, from his own thoughts. Perhaps he was glad to be distracted.
‘You came to stay with us in my parents’ house, then you moved back to the hostel. I wondered why you might do that.’
‘Did your mother ever talk to you about me?’
‘Not since. When you were staying on the Isle, I could tell she liked you. She had nothing but good to say about you.’
‘I thought I loved her,’ Kenny said. ‘A bit of summer madness.’ A pause. ‘I did love her.’
Perez felt his stomach tilt again, only this time it had nothing to do with the height of the cliff. His mother was his mother. She wasn’t a woman for men to fall in love with. He didn’t say anything.
‘Nothing happened,’ Kenny said. ‘We weren’t lovers, though I would have liked us to have been. That was why I moved back to the hostel. It drove me mad being in the same house as her. I couldn’t settle. I couldn’t sleep. Now I know it wasn’t a lasting thing. Edith was the woman for me.’ He gave an odd cry, which was lost in the noise of the seabirds.
‘Did my father ever know how you felt about each other?’
Kenny didn’t answer and seemed drowned again in thoughts of his own.
‘Why don’t you move away from the edge, Kenny? So we can talk properly. Not about Fair Isle, but about Lawrence.’
Perez saw that the man’s face was streaming with tears. Molten copper in the orange light. Watching him standing there sobbing, Perez found he was holding his breath. He felt his heart thumping against his ribcage. A couple of steps and Kenny could be over the cliff.
‘Don’t you see?’ Kenny said. ‘There’s no point in talking. Not any more.’
‘I think I’ve worked out what went on.’ Perez sat on the grass, felt the thrift rough against the palms of his hands, and he started to breathe again. ‘Why don’t you sit down too, Kenny? Sit here with me.’
Kenny remained standing. Perez could see that he wasn’t getting through to him. ‘When did it start?’ he asked urgently, shouting out the words, willing Kenny to listen. ‘Did Lawrence always want what you had, Kenny? Even when you were boys?’
‘He was older than me and brighter than me,’ Kenny said. ‘That was only right.’
‘Come away here,’ Perez said again. Kenny was rocking with grief. He’d always been a controlled man, quiet, understated, repressed even. Now he seemed taken over by emotion, unaware of how close he was to the cliff-edge. If he continued like that it would be only a matter of time before he fell. Perez kept his voice light and easy, speaking just loudly enough to be heard above the kittiwakes. ‘But to take Edith away from you, Kenny. That was never right, was it?’