‘Jeremy Booth must have known too.’ Perez took another sip from the whisky. Later he would need all this in a statement. Now he just wanted things straight in his own mind.
‘Booth was on the hill when Lawrence went into the Pit,’ Kenny said. ‘He saw what happened.’
‘What did happen that day, Kenny? Did Edith tell you?’
‘It was the middle of summer, a steaming hot night. Airless. The evening of the grand party at the Manse. Lawrence asked Edith to meet him on the hill while the rest of them were dressing up in their fancy clothes and their masks. Edith must have been flattered by him, don’t you think? Is that why she fell for him? Lawrence, the man all the women fancied, wanting her. He said he needed to talk to her. Anyway she left my father minding the children and went out to see him. Lawrence said he’d told Bella that he could never love her, never marry her, never make a family with her. “I’ve said I’m going away on my travels, I’m leaving Shetland.” He asked Edith to go with him. “Just bring the children. We’ll go to Sumburgh tonight and get the first plane south.” That was Lawrence for you. No sense of the practicalities, of where they might stay.’
‘But Edith wouldn’t go with him?’
Kenny looked up at Perez. It was as if he’d forgotten he was there.
‘No, she wouldn’t go. She enjoyed being with him; maybe she even fancied herself in love with him; but she was married to me. By then they’d walked to the top of the hill and were standing right by the Pit. Lawrence tried to take her in his arms. Edith told me she was worried that if he touched her she might be tempted to give in and go with him.’ For the first time Kenny let a trace of bitterness into his voice. ‘He always did have that effect on women.’
‘Tell me what happened, Kenny.’
‘Edith pushed him away and he slipped into the Pit. Hit his head on the rocks at the bottom. She climbed down after and could tell he was dead. She pulled him into the tunnel so nobody could see the body from the top. She always was a strong woman. She could keep up with me in the work on the croft.’ He paused. ‘The rats and the birds and the tide will have done the rest.’
They sat for a moment in silence.
‘Did Jeremy Booth confront Edith that night about Lawrence?’
Kenny shook his head.
‘She saw Booth when she climbed back up after hiding the body. He was at the bottom of the hill looking up at her. She hoped he hadn’t seen the scuffle between her and Lawrence. The next day he disappeared. She must have thought it was all over.’
‘That she’d got away with it?’
‘Aye. But she never did really. Every summer she lay awake. I thought it was the white nights, but it was dreams of Lawrence.’ He set down his glass. ‘She should have talked to me. What did she think? That I’d hate her for it?’
‘When did Booth get in touch with her?’
‘A couple of weeks ago, by email. It went to her address at work, but she picked it up here. She was always working in the evenings on that computer of hers. He’d seen that television documentary about Roddy and Bella and Biddista. It mentioned that Edith worked in the care centre and made us out to be much more wealthy than we really are. He needed money, he said. To give to his daughter. To make up for all the years they’d never had.’ He looked at Perez. ‘What about my daughter? What will I tell her?’
Perez shook his head to show that he had no answer.
‘Then Booth turned up at Edith’s work. Imagine how shocked she was! She’d thought he was in England, but he was standing there, claiming to be an old friend of Willy’s, looking quite different. He was chatting away to the old man when she found him. “You know what happened, don’t you, Willy?” Booth was saying. “You guessed at least.” But Willy wouldn’t talk to him.’
‘Willy said an Englishman had been asking him questions,’ Perez said. ‘At first I thought he meant Wilding. When I realized it was Booth, I wondered why Edith hadn’t mentioned him visiting. What happened next?’
‘Booth said he was going to come out to Biddista for the opening night of the exhibition. He’d put on a bit of a show, have some fun, kill two birds with one stone. Bella had always been a snooty cow. She’d invited him into her home then treated him like dirt. It wouldn’t hurt her to know what rejection felt like. He just enjoyed making mischief, I think. The mask, the dressing up, he’d have loved all that. Edith didn’t ask what he intended to do. She just wanted him to go away without a fuss. He said he’d pick up the money from her at the same time. He’d meet her in the hut on the jetty.’ Kenny got to his feet and poured more whisky into Perez’s glass and then into his own.
‘Why didn’t Edith just pay him?’ Perez asked gently.
Kenny gave a little shrug. ‘She said she didn’t trust him. He might come back for more. And she resented it. We’ve always worked hard for what we have. That’s what she said, but I could tell her nerves were shot. All those sleepless nights. She wasn’t thinking straight.’ He held on to his glass with both hands, but still they were shaking. It was taking an effort to keep his voice even. ‘She told me how she waited for him in the hut in the dark. He’d picked up his bag from the beach and had put that stupid mask over his head. Playing the fool again. Wanting to startle her, maybe. Perhaps she wouldn’t have strangled him if she’d been able to see his face – he didn’t look human with that thing on – but I’m not so sure. Edith was always determined once she’d made up her mind. She surprised him in the dark, strangled him from behind. She made it look like suicide and was back in the garden by the time I came down from the hill.’ He paused and looked sadly at Perez. ‘I didn’t have any idea what had happened. We’d been married all that time and I didn’t guess a thing.’
‘Where did Roddy come into it? He was only a boy when Lawrence died.’
‘He saw Edith walking back from the jetty the night Booth died. He was watching from the Herring House window.’
‘Of course he was. I remember seeing him.’
‘Sounds like Roddy didn’t think anything of it until she put it about that she’d never left Skoles. It must have been troubling him. He came to the care centre to visit Willy and passed a comment that got her scared. “What were you doing out on the shore, Edith? Who did you meet that night?” She told him some story, but she could tell he wasn’t taken in.’
Perhaps, Perez thought, a memory had come back to him, of something he’d seen when he was a boy, like it did to Bella. ‘So she killed him too.’
‘Yes,’ Kenny said. ‘She killed him too. Poor lad. Whatever I thought about him, he didn’t deserve that. Edith always said he reminded him of Lawrence. She persuaded him to meet her up by the Pit and she killed him in just the same way. She told the care centre she was out doing home visits.’
‘I know,’ Perez said. ‘I checked.’
Kenny set down the whisky, put his head in his hands as he had on the hill, and began to weep again.
Chapter Forty-five
This time they talked in Perez’s place, which always felt more like a boat than a house to Taylor, with the water lapping against the outside wall and the gulls on the roof. Perez was making coffee and Taylor was shouting through to him from the living room, where he was lying on the floor. It was his back, he said. He had recurring problems with his back. An old sports injury. Sometimes this was the only way he could get comfortable.