The band flared out into the Pride of Erin. My feet felt the music, long step, long, short, short, short, but around us there was still that silence. Alain’s fingers were tight on my wrist. He gave a yank towards the door, and I followed him into the car park without protesting. There would have to be an explanation, and easier here, now, than on board ship. He glanced at the too-close open door, then towed me to the far edge of the car park.
There was another long pause. The night air was chill on my cheek, the sea still clouded with mist. Venus hung in the east. The music throbbed from the hall.
He pulled me round to face him. His grey eyes were coal-black with fury in the summer dimness. ‘You knew. All these days.’ He made a gesture with one hand. He was so angry he could hardly speak. ‘You knew me. And you didn’t say anything.’
Suddenly, with his eyes blazing at me, time dropped away. The guilt I’d felt over his death was swept away by the anger I hadn’t known I’d suppressed all these years. He was alive now, and I could let it out. I flared back at him in French. ‘What the devil did you want me to say?’ My hand went up to my cheek. ‘Hey, Alain, remember this? Trying to kill me in the middle of the Atlantic?’
He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, and I shoved him away from me. ‘Don’t you touch me!’
He caught me up again, and this time he kissed me. The familiarity of it swept over me, the old spark of passion flared up again, and for a moment I responded. I’d never thought I would kiss him again, and our mouths clung together as they always had, our bodies … Then I remembered Gavin, those eleven years with all the changes they’d made, and pulled myself free, holding my hand against his chest to keep him back. ‘No, Alain. No.’
‘Alain.’ He tasted the name, and replied in French. ‘I’m French?’
I nodded. There was a low wall surrounding the car park. I sat down on it, the rough stones reassuringly solid. ‘Alain Mouettier. Your mother was from Yell, and your father was French. He taught at the Mid Yell school.’ I nodded across at the south end of Yell, dissolving into the darkness. ‘You grew up in West Sandwick, over there.’
‘French.’ He shook his head. ‘I never thought of being French. I knew I could speak it, of course, but they spoke to me in Spanish, and I was fluent.’
‘You did Spanish at university. Edinburgh. You did your language year in a school near Seville and came back speaking like a native.’
‘I looked in Spain. They said my accent was southern Spain, so I spent a year travelling round, trying to find somewhere familiar. And all the time—’ He looked across at the dim hills. ‘Are my parents still here?’
I shook my head. ‘They moved, after …’
‘After that.’ He sat down beside me, leaving a hand’s width between us. The anger had drained out of him. His hand came up, very gently, to touch my cheek. ‘I tried to kill you?’ His voice was incredulous.
My anger had spilt away. I gave a long sigh. ‘It was me who left you there, in the middle of the Atlantic.’ At first, when I couldn’t believe that he was gone, I’d explained to him in my head, over and over again. Now, with him alive beside me, it was hard to find the words. ‘You weren’t trying to kill me. You got hit on the head with the boom. You were concussed, seeing double. You thought I was pirates, and ordered me off. When I wouldn’t go, you shot at me. I tacked her, and the jib knocked you overboard.’ My voice was steady, but I could feel tears running warm down my cheeks. ‘I searched, and searched, but there was a good sea running. I couldn’t find you. I thought you’d gone straight down. In the end I just had to keep going.’ It had taken two weeks to reach Scotland, with his ghost haunting me every mile of the way.
‘The trawler that picked me up, they said there was no name on the lifebuoy.’
‘We lost one on the way over. That was our replacement. We bought it in Boston, in a little chandlery in a back street. We never got round to putting her name on it.’
‘What was she called?’ His voice was very soft. ‘Our ship.’
‘Marielle.’ My throat was husky. I paused and swallowed. ‘She was a Liz 30.’ Now I was crying in earnest. ‘She was sold, after.’
His arm came up around me, and this time I didn’t shrug him away. ‘How long were we lovers?’
‘A year.’ I leant my head on his shoulder. ‘Do you really not remember, not even now I’ve told you?’
‘Nothing.’ I heard the smile in his voice. ‘Oh, I know, that’s not how it works in the movies. I’m supposed to have a blinding flash of enlightenment when it all comes back. No. It won’t work like that. I was lucky that skipper saved my life, but that part of my memory is gone. The doctors said I’ll never recover it.’ Now he was teasing me. ‘You’ll just have to tell me all about it.’
‘We were young,’ I said. ‘Mad teenagers. Well, I was nineteen, and you were twenty-one. We were going to take Marielle round the world after you’d done your final year. Crossing the Atlantic was our shake-down cruise.’
He was silent for a moment, shaking his head. ‘Suddenly, I have a past again. All these years, it’s been so strange. I’d given up hoping that I’d ever find out. Now I have so many questions I don’t know where to begin.’
He paused, and I let the silence lie between us. Below, in the bay, the round head of an otter drew a V of ripples behind it; a curlew gave its bubbling call on the hill behind us. He gave a long sigh. ‘I grew up here, with this. This honey smell in the air, and that bird calling. Wouldn’t you think I’d remember?’
‘The honey’s the heather,’ I said, ‘and the bird’s a whaup.’
‘When did we meet? You and I?’
‘At the regattas. Sailing. We were both in Mirrors at first, then you moved up to crewing in an Albacore for one of the Yell men.’
‘Childhood sweethearts?’
‘No. I was still only fourteen when you were seventeen, and ready to go to university. You went to Edinburgh.’ It was so hard to sum up a life in a few sentences. ‘Arts. You did Spanish, philosophy and politics in your first two years, then specialised in Spanish. You had a flat off Dalry Road, and we met again when I was waitressing in a cafe there. I was eighteen, and you’d just done your year in Spain. I stayed at your flat for a bit, then you bought Marielle. We lived on board, so that we could afford to do the Ocean Yachtmaster course at college in the evenings.’ I was smiling now. ‘It was cheaper than the flat, but a lot colder, and absolute chaos. Rewiring, pulling the joinery apart, fitting a second-hand engine. Half the time we barely managed to find space for our mattress. But she was beautiful once we’d finished. We were so proud of her.’
‘But you sold her.’
I slid my hand into his and felt his fingers close warm around mine. I knew he understood the wrench it had been. ‘I thought I’d killed you. I couldn’t keep your boat. Your parents sold her.’
‘But you kept her sextant.’
I pulled away from him, suddenly suspicious again. ‘How did you know?’
‘Your face as I took a sighting with it. I didn’t understand what had upset you.’
Dammit, I was going to start crying again. I gave my eyes a savage rub with the back of one hand. ‘I’m sorry. It was such a shock to see you, and a worse one that you didn’t know me, and such a relief now that you know.’
‘When were you going to tell me?’
‘I didn’t know you’d lost your memory, did I? I didn’t know what you were up to. Then, when you told me, I couldn’t think of how to say it. I wondered about getting the minister to tell your parents …’ I turned to face him. ‘Besides, I didn’t quite believe the lost memory stuff.’
He smiled at that. ‘Convinced now?’
I nodded.
He sat for a moment longer, eyes on the horizon, then rose. ‘Well, my little one, you’d better give your eyes some cold water before you come and dance the last dance with me. Did we dance together at the regattas too?’
‘Sometimes.’ I added, waspishly, ‘When there weren’t enough pr
etty older girls to go round.’
That had given away far too much. His head turned quickly towards me. ‘You make it sound as if I led you a merry dance.’
I remembered his tall, beautiful fellow students, golden girls like Laura. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’m a reformed character now, and we’re both eleven years wiser.’ He held out both hands to pull me down from the wall. ‘And now we know who we are.’
I shook my head, and jumped down by myself. ‘No. That’s who we were. Eleven years ago.’
‘Oho. So you’ve turned respectable, and are sticking with your policeman.’
‘Yes.’
He didn’t reply for a moment, but I heard him whistle softly under his breath. I started to walk towards the hall. I felt drained. I just wanted to go back to the ship and curl up in my berth, with Cat in the crook of my neck and the water rippling at my ear.
Alain hadn’t followed me. I nipped into the ladies’ and splashed my face with cold water then stood for a moment, looking at myself in the mirror. There was no sign of the last half hour in my face; I just looked dog-tired, with a frown between my brows, and my mouth drawn down. The band had launched into ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ – the start of the last dance. I just needed to help herd the trainees down to the pier and ferry them over. Then I could sleep.
I went through to the main hall and stood quietly, leaning against a door-jamb. The tune changed to ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, the dancing speeded up and ended with a flourish. A pause, a chord, and the band struck up in ‘Auld Lang Syne’. I forced my heavy feet forward into the circle, smiled at the trainees on each side of me and joined hands. Alain was opposite me, his eyes on mine. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind, should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne. As we sung the chorus the circle stampeded forward, and Alain and I came chest to chest in the crowd, then pulled back from each other as the wave receded. Then here’s a hand, my trusty friend … I swapped hands around so that my arms were crossed in front of me, and when the chorus came, we rushed forward like that, and ended back on the circumference, laughing, as the song finished.
‘Goodnight, everyone,’ the band leader said. ‘Safe journey back to your ship tonight, and enjoy the rest of your time in Shetland.’
Gradually we filed through the doors, greeting and thanking the locals as we went. Alain found his pretty Italian again and ushered her out. I searched as far down in my heart as I could, and found I didn’t care. That he was alive was enough.
The dance had kept them from thinking. Now, as we came out, we saw searchlights moving on the hill, and dark figures crossing the static pool of light that marked the Haltadans. I saw the heads around me turning and heard a buzz of speculation: ‘They’ve found her.’ The Danish wife turned to me. ‘Is it true? Have they found Laura?’
I shook my head. ‘Not yet. They’ll keep searching.’
The eight loads that it took to get everyone back aboard seemed to take for ever. I was just embarking the last one when Gavin came walking down the road. He slid his arm round my waist, and I leant against him.
‘There’s nothing more we can do now. I’ll come and get some sleep.’
I nodded into his shoulder. We got aboard and headed for the safety of my cabin. The porthole framed the searchlights on the hill; the water glinted coal-black in the moonless sky. Gavin’s cheek was cold against my forehead, smelling of fresh heathery air. We curled up to each other, and slept.
PART SIX
The King on the Move
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Monday 2nd August
Low water, Lerwick 05.11 (0.4m)
High water 11.35 (2.0m)
Low water 17.27 (0.6m)
High water 23.47 (2.2m)
Moonrise 04.28; sunrise 04.49; moonset 20.55; sunset 21.32
New moon
I slept like a log, and only woke when Nils touched my toe at 03.40. Breakfast had been put back an hour to allow everyone to recover from the evening, but the ship still needed watched. I rose without waking Gavin and went up on deck. The morning was glass-still, with the green of field and white of house mirrored below the doubled shore, and the sun shining through hazy wisps of cloud on the horizon. The last white rags of mist clung to the hills.
After I’d done all the usual checks, I leant over the aft rail, listening to the soft movement of the water against the ship’s hull, and trying to make sense of yesterday.
Topmost in my thoughts was Alain. Now we knew. He knew who I was, and I knew what had happened to him, and that was that. He’d have a lot of adjusting to do, but I wasn’t going to be part of it. Those eleven years had passed, and changed us both. I thought of Gavin’s arms warm around me last night, and chose this life with all my strength. I didn’t know where it would end up, but I wanted the potential it held for stability, for children, for the end of a wandering life. I wasn’t going to succumb to glamourie, like the Earl of Cassilis’s lady, who ended up alone on a moor.
I shoved the thought of Alain away, and focused on our situation here. We had two missing women, one dead man, and one living one, with no clear idea of the links between them. What did we actually know, for sure?
Anna Reynolds had been on board, as part of an elaborate plan that had involved her coming up to Shetland and stowing away from Lerwick to Fetlar. Why?
OK. Let’s suppose that Oliver was the brains of the pair, and Anna the gun-woman. Oliver had established himself an alibi on board, but he could have done that as easily in Edinburgh. So what stopped Anna just shooting Laura in Edinburgh?
I tried to imagine how you might go about it. Walking up to her and shooting point-blank was out; too many people and windows. Assuming Laura didn’t know Anna – and I thought that was a safe assumption, because she’d have reacted to suddenly finding Oliver’s girlfriend on board – then it would have been hard for Anna to strike up an acquaintance and lure Laura to a lonely place in Edinburgh. Could she have started chatting in a pub, two women together, offered to share a taxi or walk home together for safety? I just couldn’t visualise it, and every scenario I tried left a trail of witnesses as well as CCTV footage from every shop and pub on the way.
There were no CCTV cameras on Fetlar, and on board ship, trainees expected to talk to each other. It would be easy enough to detach her from the others if they’d walked along the road together: ‘Fancy going to see what’s over that headland?’, ‘Where do you suppose this path leads?’, ‘I’ve got a flask. How about a cup of coffee looking out to sea?’ Then, once they were safely out of sight, a shot, Laura’s body flung over the banks, and Anna would proceed with the escape plan: a night in the camping böd, off on the ferry to the mainland the next day, and back to Edinburgh the day after.
She could have got away with being a stowaway on Sørlandet for a day. It had been Oliver who’d asked about the system – Oliver who’d handed Jonas that fistful of tickets from the family – except it was Daniel who’d been up and about early in Lerwick, as if he was meeting the ferry, Daniel who’d been looking for her at the böd.
Someone had helped her stay on board. She’d been there to get off in Fetlar the next morning, which meant she’d been in Lerwick on Saturday morning. That was something Gavin could chase up, if he or Sergeant Peterson hadn’t already: her travel to Shetland. If she’d had a pistol, she couldn’t have come up by plane; the X-ray machine would have spotted it in her luggage. She must have come by ferry from Aberdeen, and for that you had to book a passage. She’d have left a trail, and since she’d booked the camping böd in her own name, there was no reason why she shouldn’t have booked the ferry as Anna Reynolds too. The police would find out how long this conspiracy had been planned for.
I frowned. If you were plotting murder, then surely you should be covering your tracks a bit. A fake ID, fake bank account and credit card … but where on earth would you begin to get these? You’d have to know someone, pay someone, and that would lay you open to blackmail on
ce Laura’s death was announced. But then, Anna Reynolds wasn’t supposed to appear in this at all. If we hadn’t seen Daniel like a cat on hot bricks at the camping böd, we’d never have known her name, so just booking as herself was likely safest.
Daniel and Anna … but then where did Oliver fit in? I don’t like that idea of a threesome, when it comes to murder, Gavin had said. If Oliver was the person planning the murder, and Anna was carrying it out for him, then I didn’t see how Daniel came into that. Or was Oliver really innocent, a concerned brother, who genuinely hadn’t felt well yesterday morning? It occurred to me at last to wonder where he’d spent the evening. The motherly woman had taken him into the hall, but naturally he hadn’t been at the dance. I’d assumed he’d have been waiting for news in the kitchen, or down at the coastguard pick-up which was the command centre … but if the people in each of those places thought he was at the other, then he could have been on the hill, with a pistol, meeting Daniel. Except that that gave us two murderers, for if there was one thing certain, it was that Oliver couldn’t have fired that pistol we’d heard in the morning.
There were soft footsteps behind me. Gavin’s arm tightened around me; he kissed the nape of my neck. ‘I can hear your brain ticking over. Anything useful?’
‘No. I’m just trying to sort the facts out, and making no sense of them. If it was Oliver and Daniel, we don’t need Anna; if it was Daniel and Anna, then Oliver is extra, yet he’s the one with the motive.’
‘There was information coming through all evening. We’ll sort it out this morning. When do you leave for Fetlar?’
I turned to face him, my heart sinking in dismay. ‘You?’
He nodded. ‘Finding Daniel’s changed everything. I’m going to have to stay on Fetlar … but listen, I’ll get someone to drive me to Hillswick, and meet you there this evening.’
Death on a Shetland Isle Page 20