He’d just put in his order when the phone call came from Perez.
‘I’m in Biddista. You might want to get over here.’ There was never any urgency when the Shetlander spoke, but Taylor could sense in his voice that this was important. ‘The climbers came across something . . .’ The Englishwomen were back at the counter, hovering at his elbow, fussing with napkins. They were chatting and Taylor found it hard to hear what Perez was saying.
‘I’ll be on my way. You can tell me when I get there.’
He asked for the coffee to be tipped into a cardboard cup so he could take it away and felt as close to joy as he ever did now that he was grown-up. He had a function, an excuse for activity. For a few hours at least he wouldn’t be bored. In the car he played Led Zeppelin so loud that it pushed thought out of his head, and drove one-handed as he drank the coffee, which was still too hot. He reflected that the fear of boredom had driven him the whole of his life.
He went as far as he could up the track then pulled on to the grass and walked the rest of the way. Perez and the climbers were sitting at the top of the Pit o’ Biddista waiting for him. The sight of them, lying back with their faces to the sun, irritated him all over again. Did they have nothing better to do? Did Perez think a murder investigation was just a holiday from the routine and the mundane business of policing this wind-blown, godforsaken place?
‘What is it?’ He felt at a disadvantage, breathless and sweaty after the walk on to the hill. ‘Have you got Booth’s mobile?’
‘No,’ Perez said. ‘We didn’t find that.’
‘What then?’
‘A human bone.’ Perez frowned. ‘Old. Not fresh, at least. I’d need an expert opinion. I wanted to know what you thought we should do next. I didn’t feel we could continue without clearing it with you first.’
Taylor tried to keep his temper. It would be a wonderful indulgence just to let rip, to blast away at Perez for his incompetence. The Shetlander had managed the original crime scene after the body of Roddy Sinclair had been found. Why had no proper search been done immediately? Why had it taken a suggestion by Taylor to get things moving? He felt the warm glow of the self-righteous. The day was turning out well after all.
‘What are you saying has happened here?’ Keeping his voice even, reasonable. Holding the moral high ground. He was competitive even in this.
‘I think another murder,’ Perez said. ‘The cause or trigger maybe for the recent incidents. At first we thought the bone was washed in from the sea. There have been men lost here over the years. It wouldn’t be so unusual. Then we found another. Part of the shin, we think. There will probably be more.’
Taylor looked at the Shetlander. It seemed a mighty big leap in logic to deduce a murder from a couple of fragments of bone. Perez had a theory, believed he knew what had happened here. That didn’t mean he was right.
‘The body couldn’t have been washed in whole and disintegrated in the Pit, without anyone seeing it?’
‘No one would see.’ Perez nodded his agreement. ‘Folk don’t go down there very often, that’s for sure. When there were more children living here and running around the hill, that was a different matter, but not now.’
‘So that’s a possible scenario?’
‘No. The crack into the tunnel is too narrow. A body wouldn’t be washed in there. Not even the body of a child, and this is an adult.’
‘What are you saying, Jimmy? I don’t have all day. Help me out here!’
‘I think this is the body of a victim who was killed and then thrown down the Pit. The same means of death and disposal of the body as with Roddy Sinclair.’ He squinted against the sunlight. ‘It suggests, wouldn’t you say, the same murderer?’
‘But Jeremy Booth was killed in quite a different way. Are you saying someone else strangled him? Two separate murderers?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m feeling my way.’
You think you know what happened here, Taylor thought. But you won’t commit yourself.
‘We should have done a thorough search of the crime scene when Sinclair’s body was first found.’ Taylor thought he could allow himself that. The comment was measured and moderate, but Perez would pick up on the criticism.
‘You’re right. We should.’ Perez paused. ‘What should we do now? Wait for a specialist search team from the mainland? There are no high tides forecast. We’re unlikely to lose more than has been lost already.’
Taylor tried to imagine how long that would take. Tracking down the right people and getting them here.
‘What’s the alternative?’
‘Us!’ It was the young woman. The climbers had been sitting slightly apart, obviously listening in but pretending not to. ‘We’re free for the rest of the day. Tell us what to do and we’ll do it. You can get one of your experts to talk us through it if you want.’ She had frizzy fair hair and she’d tipped back her head to appeal to him. She wore a sleeveless vest with a fleece thrown over it, and he found it hard to keep his eyes away from her breasts. ‘You wouldn’t even know that there was anything down there if it hadn’t been for us.’
And he agreed, because he couldn’t stand the thought of more hanging about. And because if there was a team brought in from outside, they’d have their own leader and he wouldn’t be in control any more. To this couple he was the expert. They’d do what he said.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Why not?’
The young woman grinned at him, excited, like a little girl.
When Taylor turned back to Perez, he smiled too, complicit. It was like the time in the winter, when it had been them against the system.
Later he thought the Shetland climbers were as careful and meticulous as any professionals would have been. He and Perez stayed at the top and watched them quarter the base of the cavern in lines, sifting through the shingle and the seaweed with their fingers. They found one new bone very quickly. It was only a fragment. Perez wondered if it could be animal, but Roger seemed to think it was human. Then nothing happened for a long time. Taylor called down to them:
‘Are you OK?’
‘Apart from being starving.’
Taylor was torn. He didn’t want to miss anything but boredom had set in a long time before. ‘I’ll go and see if I can rustle up some coffee and food for them,’ he said to Perez. ‘And for us.’
‘I’ll go.’
‘No. You’re the local. You stay here.’
The Herring House was closed to visitors, but he could hear movement inside and banged on the door. There was no reply but he persisted.
‘For Christ’s sake, man. Can you not read? The gallery’s closed.’ He’d been expecting Martin Williamson, but it was Aggie, his mother. Because he’d never seen her in the Herring House before it took Taylor a moment to place her.
‘I know,’ he said.
She blushed when she saw who it was, seemed to feel some explanation for her presence there was required.
‘I don’t open the post office on a Monday afternoon,’ she said. ‘I’m helping out with a bit of spring cleaning here while the place is closed.’
‘I’m surprised Miss Sinclair is thinking about the business at a time like this.’
‘Bella didn’t ask me,’ she said. ‘Martin did. She leaves the restaurant to him. He’s out today helping Kenny Thomson with the hill sheep. It seemed a good time to get in.’ She seemed to Taylor to be very flustered. Perhaps his banging on the door had scared her. He supposed everyone in Biddista would be scared by loud noises and unexpected visitors until they found the killer.
‘Would you be able to put me together a couple of flasks of coffee?’ he asked. ‘Some sandwiches. Of course I’d pay.’
‘I don’t know. This is Martin’s business.’
‘He wouldn’t begrudge us a couple of rounds of sandwiches.’