‘A prank then.’ Bella’s voice was quiet. ‘A joke that got out of hand.’
The doorbell rang. There was an old-fashioned pull which rang a bell in the hall. Perhaps the bell was cracked because the sound was tinny, grating. Bella seemed relieved by the interruption, jumped to her feet and hurried away. She returned followed by Perez. He nodded to Fran, gave an embarrassed little smile.
‘I saw your car in the drive.’
‘Were you looking for me?’ Fran felt confused, as if the day was spinning out of control. It’s the lack of sleep, she thought. She longed suddenly for dark nights, thunderclouds, rain.
‘No. I need to talk to Bella. It’s work.’
‘I should go then.’ She was relieved to have an excuse to leave. She didn’t want an inquest into the fiasco of the launch. The flyers were obviously part of some stupid game played by Roddy and his friends. It was the sort of imbecility he was famous for. Bella had been the target and she, Fran, had been caught in the crossfire. Later she’d be angry. Now she just felt embarrassed. It was like being caught eavesdropping on a very personal row between a married couple.
‘No,’ Perez said. ‘I need to talk to you too.’
She had a sudden panic. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Not Cassie,’ he said. ‘Nothing like that.’
Bella went to the fridge and absent-mindedly poured more wine. ‘If it’s about the flyers cancelling the party last night,’ she said, ‘we know about them. Hardly a police matter, I’d have thought, even here. We don’t want to press charges.’
I might, Fran thought. Don’t speak for me.
‘This is why you’re here, Jimmy?’ Bella picked up the paper between her thumb and index finger as if she could hardly bear to touch it, then dropped it on the table in front of him.
Perez frowned as he read it. Fran decided the information was new to him. ‘That’s why so few people turned up last night,’ she said. ‘These were all over Lerwick, apparently, and because of the final line, nobody liked to phone.’ She wanted him to know she did have friends, and that they would all have been there to support her if it hadn’t been for this.
‘I’ll have to take the flyer with me.’
‘I’ve told you,’ Bella said sharply, ‘I don’t want to press charges.’
‘Do you think that little scene last night could be related to this?’ he asked. ‘The hysterical Englishman who claimed to have no memory?’
‘Another attempt to disrupt the party? I suppose it could. Certainly after that drama people started to leave. He made them uncomfortable.’ Bella looked at him over her wineglass.
‘There’s a body in the hut on the jetty,’ Perez said. ‘We’re pretty sure it was the man who caused the scene last night.’
‘Really!’ For a moment Bella seemed to take an unsophisticated pleasure in the news. It was a story, gossip to pass on. ‘How did he die?’
‘We’re not sure yet. The circumstances seem a little unclear.’
What are you hiding? Fran thought.
‘My God,’ Bella said. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit spooky? The flyer, I mean. “A death in the family”. Do you think he was predicting his own death?’
‘But he wasn’t family, was he?’
‘Don’t be silly, Jimmy. Of course not. I don’t have any immediate family left. Only Roddy and he’s still alive, thank God.’
‘We want to inform the man’s relatives and he has no ID. Are you sure you didn’t recognize him, either of you?’
‘Quite sure,’ Fran said.
‘I didn’t know him last night.’ Bella was twisting the stem of her glass. ‘But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t an acquaintance. Someone from my past. I’ve met so many people and my memory isn’t what it was. I’m an old woman now, Jimmy.’
She smiled, waiting to be contradicted.
It seemed to take him a moment to understand the rules of the game. Fran found that she was holding her breath. This was such a blatant cue for a compliment. Would he really have the nerve to ignore it?
At last he smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll never seem old, Bella.’
In the silence that followed, Fran saw the scene as a painting. A gloomy Dutch interior, all dark wood and shadow. Bella’s face in profile had an anxious, almost haunted look, and the lines of stress round her eyes made Perez’s words seem cruel, mocking.
‘I wonder if I might talk to Roddy.’ He leaned forward. Fran could smell the soap, her soap, on his skin.
Bella seemed about to refuse, but there were footsteps on the wooden floor outside and the kitchen door opened. Roddy Sinclair stood, backlit by the sunshine flooding through the long window in the hall. He yawned and stretched, aware that they were all looking at him.
‘A party,’ he said. ‘Oh good. I do love a party.’
Fran pulled up by the side of the road opposite the Herring House. She didn’t want to park too close to the jetty, to be thought the sort of rubberneck who’s excited by road accidents and blood. But the beach was so beautiful here and she needed to clear her head. She sat on the wall, looking out over the water.
She saw a figure walking towards her along the road, followed his progress. It was the dark-haired man who’d talked to her about her painting the night before. He’d spoken with such passion about her work that she’d been flattered and hoped that he would buy a piece. She’d thought he was a dealer because he’d talked with knowledge and authority and was surprised to see him still in Biddista. She struggled to remember his name. He’d introduced himself the night before. Peter Wilding. It had seemed familiar to her then and again she thought it should have some meaning to her.
‘Ms Hunter. I hope you don’t mind . . .’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not.’
He sat beside her. ‘I wanted to tell you again how much I enjoyed your work.’ There was an element of self-mockery in his voice. I know this is unsophisticated. To be so obvious in one’s admiration.
‘You’re very kind, Mr Wilding.’
‘Peter, please.’
Then she remembered how she knew the name. She’d read an article about him in the Observer. Something about contemporary genre fiction. ‘A writer of fantasy for intellectuals’, hadn’t that been how Wilding had been described? ‘You’re a writer.’
‘Yes.’ He was clearly delighted that she’d recognized him at last.
‘Are you staying in Biddista?’
‘Yes, I’m renting a house here. Just temporary. But I love Shetland. I’m hoping to make a more permanent arrangement. I’ve vague ideas of writing a fantasy series based around Viking mythology. It might work, don’t you think? And it would be wonderful to have the landscape to set it in.’
She was pleased that he seemed to value her opinion. He waited for her to answer, as if it really mattered to him.
‘It would be fascinating,’ she said. There were times when she missed the old London life. The talk of books and theatre and film. She thought he would be an interesting person to have around, entertaining, full of new ideas.
‘I wonder if you’d agree to have a meal with me sometime,’ he said. ‘I don’t have much scope for cooking where I am, but perhaps we could go out.’
The invitation shocked her. After Perez’s diffidence, there was something daring about the way Wilding simply asked for what he wanted. And she couldn’t help being flattered. It sounded like an invitation to a date, but she could hardly say she was unavailable for romance. Perhaps he just wanted to discuss her art, to commission a work from her.
‘Yes,’ she found herself saying. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’