Death on a Shetland Isle

by Marsali Taylor

  She would be on me at any moment.

  There were sheets of plyboard stacked against the wall opposite the stair, with just enough space for me to wriggle in behind them. Keeping one hand on the boards, I snicked off the too-bright light, flung myself on the floor and squirmed silently into the triangular tunnel. There was grit under my hands, and dust prickled in my nose and dried my mouth. The boards stank of the chemical they’d been treated with; I just hoped it wasn’t as poisonous to humans as it was to beetles. I hauled myself forwards on my elbows until my head was just within the shadow of the far end. I was not going to sneeze – I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to breathe evenly.

  I’d been just in time. There was a rattle from the door handle, then the light broadened on the floor to reach the front of my hiding place. A shadow blotted it out. I closed my eyes and softened my breathing even further. Father in heaven, help me.

  The radio drowned out her steps, but they vibrated through the plywood floor covering. I felt each move she made: a cautious step into the wide hall, a slow turn, looking all around her. The light narrowed and cut out as she pulled the door to behind her, then broadened again as she changed her mind and swung it open. My mind began doing crazy calculations. Eight feet long, and I was five foot two; that gave me just under three foot, a foot and a half over at each end. No, longer than that; the boards were stacked along the wall, overlapping. Say two and a half foot at each end. Was that long enough to hide the tan soles of my shoes? She took two more steps forward. A tiny, metallic click. I knew as clearly as if I could see her that the gun was in her hand, the gun that had killed Laura and Daniel, cocked and ready to use. I was dead if she looked behind my plyboard shield.

  It felt like an hour that she stood there. I desperately needed a proper breath, but I didn’t dare take one. My left calf was threatening a spasm of cramp. I eased my toe upwards, willing it to go away. She had to move soon. At long last, I felt the vibration in the floor again. She was checking out each room as I’d done, but without the builders’ light she couldn’t see properly inside. I could have been behind any item of swathed furniture, or crouched under a fallen roof beam.

  If she was searching every room, she wouldn’t miss the triangular gap behind the plyboard.

  I’d burnt my boats, hiding like this. It told her straight away that I knew, left me no chance of bluffing it out. If she found me here, she’d shoot to kill, and the builders would get a nasty surprise when they moved their plyboard. My only hope was to get out and run if she went upstairs – if I could get out quietly enough. I didn’t think I could, and wriggling out would be too slow. The door was only two steps away. I’d burst out, knocking the sheets flat, knocking them towards her if I could, and run like a deer. Even an expert shot would be lucky to hit a moving target.

  She’d looked in all the rooms now. She was coming back. I felt her pause by the plyboard, but the brightness of the light outside was dazzling her against the darkness inside my tunnel. I lay still as an old roll of carpet shoved against the wall, and felt her pass by.

  Then, glory be, the cavalry came. There was a skidding of wheels on gravel outside, and feet clumping towards us. Cheerful male voices were arguing the merits of Voe mince pies vs. Sandwick macaroni-cheese.

  She was trapped too, but it was easy for her to talk her way out. She’d found the door open, it was such an interesting house, she just wanted a quick look … I lay and listened to her saying exactly that, still with her Italian accent and no doubt a fluttering of expressive hands. In a flurry of apologies, she let them lead her out of the house. I listened to the boots stomping across the flagstones, and considered my options. If I was lucky, they’d have a cup of tea to wash down their pies; in their caravan, if I was extra lucky. That would give me time to get out of here and high-tail it for the ferry – going across the hill, maybe, or along the coastline. I tried to visualise the map of Fetlar. Round the headland would be a couple of miles, compared to the mile of road, but it would be less visible. She’d known I was here; she might be watching.

  My luck had run out for the day. The workmen’s boots came clumping back in, the light was switched on again, and the drill began to buzz. There was nothing to do but brazen it out.

  I wriggled backwards, not worrying about noise now, and got to my knees as soon as my shoulders were clear, then to my feet. My entire front was smeared with grey.

  They’d stopped what they were doing, and were standing in a circle, staring at me, mouths open. They were all younger than me, and I didn’t recognise any of them.

  ‘You’d need to dust under there,’ I said briskly, and was out of the door before they could think of a comeback.

  PART SEVEN

  The King Surrounded

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The brief glimpse I’d had of the back doorway before the birds had flown up at me had shown a passage clear to the folly. I gritted my teeth and prepared to run the gauntlet of those beating wings again, but it seemed I’d startled them all away the first time, for none flew up now. I came into a small courtyard, with an enclosure in one corner that might have held the copper boiler with its fire below. A half-barrel beside it was filled with scummy water.

  Behind me, I heard startled laughter, then the clanks of tools being set to work again. At the other side of the courtyard was a ragged end of the substantial wall which enclosed the green hill rising up to the folly. I dived between the buildings and pressed myself against it, looking to left and right. There was no sign of anyone on what I could see of the road. Anna Reynolds couldn’t be far away. If I was her, I’d wait on the road for me coming out again. The builders might hear a shot, but they wouldn’t see anything through the boarded windows. I needed the real cavalry, five minutes’ drive away in Houbie: Gavin, to read her her rights, and a couple of uniforms to clap the handcuffs on.

  My phone was in my knapsack. I hauled it out and switched it on, but instead of the irritating Nokia tune, I got a ‘no battery’ message. Damn. I’d forgotten, last night, to plug the wretched thing in to recharge. I was on my own.

  Worse still, I was on my own with nobody to raise the alarm if I didn’t appear for a couple of hours. Gavin thought I was on my way to Yell; Inga thought I was still on Fetlar. Neither of them knew about the murderer on my tracks.

  For a moment, I wondered about going back to the builders and asking for a lift to Houbie. But Anna might not have recognised me; there was no sense in panicking. First, I had to find out where she was. The folly would give me a good view, if I could get to it safely. I looked ahead, assessing my chances. The wall I was pressed behind would take me up to it under cover, though the going was thick with nettles. Tough. If she’d had the same idea, but was coming to the folly from the road, she’d have further to go and several walls to climb, though I couldn’t vouch for the state they’d be in. Even allowing for my later escape from the builders, I didn’t think she’d had time to get there before me.

  I hared it along the side of the wall, collecting several stings on the ankles. I grabbed a docken leaf at the end of the high wall, then paused for a cautious recce before scuttling across the last part. I passed the lookout turret, bent low to the cover of a crenellated wall, scrambled over the last piece and tumbled, breathless, into the shelter of the square gatehouse. I leant one shoulder against the wall for balance and began to rub one itching ankle with the docken while I caught my breath.

  It was an odd place, an eighteenth-century notion of a medieval keep outpost. The entrance I was sheltering in was square, with an arched doorway outlined by white keystones. The seaward side of it had fallen away completely, and the sea danced blue in the frame of tumbled stone. Behind me, the oval tower was two storeys high, with a central arched window on the first storey, flanked by arrow-slits, and apparently no door at ground level. Perhaps the gatehouse had had some sort of suspended bridge to the high arch. A portcullis too, no doubt. I glanced back and up, and saw the remains of six-inch masonry nails sticking
out.

  There was a square window in the landward side of the gatehouse. I stood well back from it and took a long, slow look out. Brough Lodge was spread below me like a map: the courtyards I’d come through, the jumble of builder caravans running behind the facade of portcullis arch and chapel, the square tower of the house with its blank windows. There was no sign of movement, no flutter of the gay yellow and blue silk scarf. The lookout turret blocked my view; I leant out further, and saw the road stretching empty towards the north, until it disappeared behind the hill. I turned. It was equally empty eastwards, and she hadn’t had time to reach the rise between here and Houbie.

  I edged slowly into the sunlight.

  Suddenly, startlingly close, there was a snick of stone on stone. Footsteps. She’d neither gone back to Houbie nor forward to the ferry; she’d come straight up here, to watch for me coming out. I felt as if I had an extra sense, quiveringly alive to her every movement. Silent as a shadow, I slipped to the other side of the folly. If she was as close as she sounded, I was too late to run. The swift footsteps rang out her confidence that I hadn’t got there before her. I pressed against the warm brown stone, and listened.

  She came up to the gatehouse, and waited there for so long that I thought I’d missed her moving. I was about to edge away when I heard her at last, clambering over the rummelled stones and moving with soft footsteps to the turret end of the wall. There was no radio chatter here to drown her, nothing but the soft whisper of the wind in the grasses and the occasional beeeeh of a ewe calling her lamb. As she waited there, looking out, I edged further behind the folly, taking care to keep off the crunching remnants of a gravel path round it. There was a door on this side – no, a window, set knee-height above the ground, with a broad sill. Inside, the earth floor was jumbled with fallen stones, pieces of wood and the remnants of someone’s fire. I waited, ready to move either way.

  She kept coming. I slid around the folly, back almost to the gatehouse. I heard her take a step up onto the window sill and drop gently down inside. A pause, then there were several soft footsteps. I froze against the other side of the wall. She’d come round inside, stepping over the fallen timbers; she was right beside me. I could hear her breathing. I was terrified that some kind of sixth sense would make her as aware of me as I was of her; her quarry, just on the other side of this wall. Then she moved away, back towards the doorway, and I tensed my legs, ready to slide round once more. I hoped she’d continue clockwise, and so she did; as I edged round the folly to the seawards side, she came around to landwards, and back to the curtain wall.

  There was a long, long silence. I didn’t dare risk a look around the edge of the tower; I just waited, my side an inch from the stones, legs stiff from standing, the ankle I hadn’t had time to rub stinging like fury, breathing controlled to silence over my racing heart. I turned my wrist to check my watch: ten past two. Two and a half hours to play hide and seek with a murderess.

  Fifty metres away, a sheep grazed, her lamb jumping around her. The land smell of green grass and flowers swirled about me. A lark was twittering high up in the blue sky, and there was chirping from among the stones of the keep, a nest of starlings. I closed my eyes, listened with all my strength, and prayed.

  She moved at last. I heard her rise and stride off downhill. When she’d gone far enough for me not to hear her footsteps any more, I oozed my head around the corner of the folly to watch her go. Already she was halfway to the road. I kept watching. When she reached it, she took a long look both ways, then began to stride back towards Houbie.

  My legs were trembling with reaction. I slid down to the grass and slumped there, my back against the solid wall, feeling like I was made of spaghetti. I fished in my knapsack for a couple of toffees and chewed them slowly, letting my heart rate subside to normal again as I watched her stride along the road and up the incline. Only when she’d disappeared on the other side of it did I rise again.

  I came out around the seaward side of the folly and walked straight into Oliver.

  He’d come up the way I’d planned to go down, on the straight line to the road that came past the back of the folly. I could see his footprints trailing behind him in the long grass.

  He was as surprised as I was. We both jumped back, silent for a moment, then I took a deep breath, and managed, ‘Goodness, you startled me!’

  He gave me that charming smile. ‘You gave me a shock too. Weird place, this.’

  All my misgivings about him rushed back to me. He’d just identified his sister’s body. He was supposed to be talking to the police, not playing tourist. I imagined the text Reynolds might have sent him: Cass recognised me. She’s here at Brough Lodge. The road seemed very far away. I stared at him for what felt like half an hour before inspiration came to me. I gave a start, and glanced down at my pocket, then fished out my mobile. ‘Sorry, I’ll need to take this.’ I turned half away from him but made sure my voice was clear. ‘Gavin, hi … no, not yet – I’m at Brough Lodge, with Oliver, up at the folly … Yes … yes, I’ll phone as soon as I get there. See you later.’

  I switched off and turned to Oliver with a smile. ‘That was Gavin wondering if I’d got to the ferry terminal yet.’

  He pulled out his own smartphone and shook his head. ‘I can’t get a signal here.’ His blue eyes and half-smile said clearly that he didn’t believe my bluff.

  He was standing right in my way, and I wasn’t sure if he’d just ended up there or if it was deliberate. I turned towards the house and made a seawards gesture. ‘Great view, isn’t it?’

  He nodded, but as if he’d hardly heard me. There was a puzzled, intent look to his eyes as he looked outwards, as if he was blind to the view, and trying to calculate something – then he glanced towards the road. ‘I thought I saw someone else up here. Wasn’t it that Italian woman, who was at the dance?’

  But he hadn’t been at the dance. He’d wanted to come searching with us, and the woman with the B & B had drawn him away into the hall kitchen. He could have come out into the hall later, I supposed, and seen the Italian woman dancing with Alain. Reluctantly, I nodded, trying to think what I could convincingly say next.

  He didn’t give me the chance. ‘She seems an odd type to be wandering round old ruins. Did you speak to her?’

  ‘No,’ I said, and saw relief scurry across his face, like a cats-paw of wind on still water. ‘She seemed in a hurry.’

  ‘Too windy for her hairdo,’ Oliver said. The tension had gone out of him. He gave me the benefit of that smile again and relaxed into charmer mode. ‘So, tell me about this building. Is it a temple?’ He gave it a critical look. ‘It doesn’t seem old enough.’

  ‘A folly,’ I said. ‘The hill is the remains of a broch.’

  He went back to questions. ‘How come you’re not with your ship?’

  ‘Captain Sigurd wanted someone to stay with the investigation.’ He gave me a quizzical look at that; I visibly wasn’t doing anything of the sort. I improvised. ‘Only the police didn’t want me staying with it, so I’m heading for the ferry, to meet up with the ship again this evening.’

  His face didn’t change, but I felt him stiffen again. ‘You’re going to the main island?’

  ‘I’ll be meeting the ship at Hillswick, in the north of Mainland.’

  He didn’t like it, I could see that. He looked down, and away. I realised suddenly that Reynolds must be going on the ferry too. I’d be spending twenty-five minutes with her, in a twenty-seater cabin, in daylight, probably with only another couple of people. She’d been in my boatload; I was their only danger. It was time I got out of here.

  I moved quickly past him. ‘I’d better get going, if I’m not to miss that ferry.’

  His mouth half opened, and I could see in his face that he knew when it was, which made it even more likely that she was going to be on it. I’d keep on deck, in full view of the crew, and Inga would get me at Gutcher. I sketched a wave, gave a casual ‘Goodbye’ and headed off down the hill towards the ro
ad at a speed that just stopped short of being a full-scale retreat.

  He was still there, fiddling with his phone, when I reached the road. I set off at a brisk pace, the wind cool on my face, lifting the scent of clover from the verges and blowing the honey smell of heather from the hills.

  It felt like the longest mile and a half I’d ever walked. I didn’t want to keep looking back to check he wasn’t following me. I felt too exposed; I longed for a stretch of open water, where I could tack in any direction I wanted, instead of having to follow this ribbon of tarmac, visible as a neon-pink sail on a still, grey sea.

  I reached the ferry terminal at last. It was one of the newest ones, with a long breakwater stretching out to shelter the stubby arm for the ferry, and a smaller pier with a couple of fishing boats tied up at it. There was a generous car park, with the waiting room at one corner, and a wooden hut with a vending machine and a toilet. The two lanes, booked and unbooked, stretched their white lines towards the jetty. There was nobody in the waiting room. I headed up the hill above the car park and wriggled myself into a dry, heathery hollow. I had the rest of my toffees to eat, and Ellen MacArthur’s Taking on the World to read.

  The time passed slowly, even with Dame Ellen for company. The sea drowsed in the afternoon heat; the sun glinted off the windows of Uyeasound, on Unst, and spotlit the grey bulk of a ruined Haa House. I kept an eye on the ferry and saw its white superstructure pass from Gutcher to Belmont, then back to Gutcher, and finally, from there, to turn its nose towards us and chug steadily closer. A car came to the car park and took up pole position in the ‘booked’ lane. I waited until a couple more arrived, and the ferry bow had swung upwards, then I dodged among them and slipped aboard, heart pounding.

  I hadn’t seen Anna Reynolds come aboard, but I wasn’t going to risk being caught below. I went to the aft end and leant my chin on the metal rail, the complete tourist with my knapsack, in full view of each of the seven cars on board. I kept my back to the foot passengers, but I thought I caught the flutter of a bright scarf descending into the cabin. The ferry motored serenely across the calm sea. I looked out at the green hills, and thought. I’d made sure I hadn’t seen Reynolds get on, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t here. Oliver thought she should be; which threw us back to the original scenario of Oliver and Anna working together to kill Laura. My stomach contracted at the thought of the poor body they’d pulled out of the water. But then, what about Daniel? Had he simply recognised Anna aboard ship and spoiled their elaborate planning?