I kept watching. Kevin appeared with a red bucket, one of those rectangular ones, with a lid. He was carrying it oddly; it wasn’t particularly heavy, I could see that, but he was treating it with great care, as if it was valuable, or breakable, yet at the same time holding it away from him, as if he wanted nothing to do with it. Geri appeared right after him, and I could see straight away that whatever it was in the bucket, she wasn’t having it in the house. Her face was stony under the ice-blonde hair, and she gestured for it to go back on the boat. Kevin’s reply included a face, and a gesture at the cabin. He wasn’t having it in his boat either. Geri didn’t pause for a moment. It was going in the cockpit, then. Kevin tried to reason with her, glancing across at the main town of Brae then making another gesture at the cockpit. Geri shook her head but didn’t seem totally convinced. Kevin tried again, a bit more persuasively this time, and at last Geri nodded. Kevin picked up the bucket and took it to their car, Geri followed him, and off they went, leaving their music and exhaust fumes for the rest of us to enjoy. Not for long, though; Kevin must just have been putting Geri home, for he was soon back, jolting his state-of-the-art black pick-up (with roll bars and double headlights) down the gravel drive to the marina. He got out and hauled a box out of the boot. It looked heavy, and something about the lettering, even at this distance, said Scandinavia. I waited until he’d got half-way along the pontoon, then walked towards him, buckling my lifejacket back on.
‘Afternoon,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Did you have a good trip to Faroe?’
His sandy head dipped; he pursed his red lips and edged sideways away from me like a crab making for the sea. ‘Oh, no, we’re no’ been to Faroe. Just away on a fishing trip.’ He hefted the box to his other arm, so that his body was between it and me.
‘And heading off on another,’ I said, nodding at the box.
‘Oh, just stocking up on stores,’ he replied, and slid around me, changing hands with the box again, so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to read what was written on it, and swinging himself onto his boat. ‘See you later.’
I had a look into the back of the pick-up as I passed. It was filled with boxes and buckets, all covered over with a tarpaulin. I was just about to reach in and lift it up when Kevin came out of his boat again, and I had to keep walking.
If all that was stores, he had to be planning a round-the-world voyage; or maybe I just wasn’t making enough allowance for men who needed a six-pack each just as a mid-afternoon whistle-wetter. He stowed the rest in record time, then the pick-up roared off.
I was left wondering just what was in the bucket. If they’d been to Faroe it could be whale meat – but surely Geri would want that at home, if they were really going to eat it. Some sort of bait? No, that would be left on the boat as a matter of course. I even wondered if it might be some sort of specimen that Kevin wanted stuffed, an outsize skate or something like that, but the bucket wasn’t big enough for that – an outsize trout, maybe, but as far as I knew Kevin didn’t do loch fishing and besides, that would be something he was proud of, not something he wanted rid of. Ah, well, no doubt all would become clear in time.
Chapter Eight
We had a happy, wet afternoon, playing a sailing version of water-polo, and ending with the inevitable capsize practice inside the marina. The bairns were just hosing down the boats, their splash suits, and everything else within range when a tall, sandy-headed man came over to me. I couldn’t remember his name off-hand, but he was Kevin of the noisy motorboat’s best pal. He was wearing a red boiler suit and yellow rubber boots, in traditional crofter style, but I had a feeling he wasn’t a full-time crofter – he worked in an engineering firm in Lerwick somewhere.
Everything about him was sandy: yellow-brown hair, flattened as if the tide had just smoothed it, a pale tan that matched his freckle. Even his eyes were an indeterminate light brown. His manner was sandy too, a shiftiness that reminded me of slithering down sand-dunes. He didn’t look at me as he spoke.
‘Cass, aye aye.’
‘Now, then,’ I responded. Jimmie, that was it. He’d been in the same class at school as Kevin, just going into primary seven when I’d left, which made him four years younger than me, twenty-five. He didn’t look it, and he definitely didn’t look old enough to be getting married. ‘How are the preparations for the big day going?’
He made a face. ‘Oh, you ken, a lock of fuss. I do my best to keep out of Mam’s way ee now. She and Donna’s mam – Donna an aa come to that – are in a permanent spin o’ housework and phone calls.’
I dredged up the memory of Inga telling me about it. ‘Next Saturday?’
‘A week on Saturday,’ he said. ‘The spree’s this Saturday, Voe Show day.’
Getting married in Shetland seemed to include a day of pub crawl, preferably in fancy dress. Shetland men were lucky; in Orkney, your mates tied you to a chair on the back of a lorry, covered you with the most disgusting things they could think of, like rotting sheep guts, and drove you round the streets. ‘What’s the theme?’
‘Fishing,’ Jimmie said, ‘for our bus, and Donna won’t tell me what the lasses’ bus is. She says we’ve to wait for we meet.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I thought the whole point was to have a last spree without the future wife.’
‘No these days,’ Jimmie said gloomily. ‘Nowadays the weemin make sure they come to the same places as us, or at least cross over and end up at the same place, to make sure we don’t go home wi’ anyone else.’
I wondered if this was feminism or just the AIDS generation.
‘You could likely go on Donna’s bus if you’d like.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think I would like.’ A drunken evening with fellow sailors from a tall ship was one thing, but I’d rather be keelhauled than go in a bus round pubs with drunken lasses in fancy dress. Jimmie sighed and changed tack.
‘I wondered if you’d seen Kevin around. I was trying to get hold of him, but his phone’s switched off.’
‘He was about earlier,’ I said. ‘You’ve tried the boat, yeah?’
‘It’s all locked up.’
Locked up, here in Shetland? I remembered the package Geri wouldn’t have in the house. Something they’d brought from Faroe. I said, casually, ‘You didn’t go over to Faroe with them, that hidmost time?’
He turned his head, a little too quickly. ‘Faroe?’
‘Yeah, wasn’t that where they’ve just come back from?’
‘I didn’t ken they’d been over there,’ Jimmie said, and frowned, as if he didn’t much like the idea. ‘Whereabouts, did he say?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think he said, it was just an impression I got.’
‘Well –’ Jimmie said. He gave me another intent look, with a glint of malice in it. ‘It’s ower early for the whale cull.’
I wasn’t going to rise to his needling. ‘So it is,’ I agreed.
He laughed at that. ‘I didn’t like it ower muckle myself,’ he confessed. ‘The boat reeks o’ it yet. I was noticing it just ee noo, the smell o’ the guts.’ He turned away. ‘I’ll likely catch up with him later. If you see him, you could maybe say I was looking.’
‘I’ll do that,’ I said.
When I went back along the pontoon, I gave a quick glance at Kevin’s boat. The faded brown curtains were drawn, and there was a padlock on the washboards.
I suddenly wondered how heavy a bronze would be, how big. They’ve recovered one of the Epstein bronze heads in Faroe, Madge had said. If it was, say, a portrait head – what did they call it, a bust – then presumably it would be life-size, the sort of thing that would fit neatly in a fisherman’s bucket. Cover it with fish, and nobody’d notice.
I wondered how often Kevin and Geri went over to Faroe.
I’d left Cat and Rat together while I was sailing, and when I looked in after the boats were put away they were both sleeping, glossy black and white and fluffy grey fur curled together on my bunk. The kitten had used the litter tray, but the mo
vements were loose and smelly. Maybe he needed special food. I put the last of the mackerel in a dish on the floor and headed off to consult Inga. We’d been at school together from nursery, but while I’d been off messing around in boats, she’d married a local boy, Charlie Anderson, and now they had three children. She was envious of my adventures, and at times I envied her domesticity, but not so much that I was eager to settle down. I babysat her toddler, Peerie Charlie, on occasion, and was always glad to give him back.
Settle down … I felt the shore world close around me again. College: a whole year in the same place; I could find a boyfriend, have a relationship. My heart contracted in panic. Someone telling me what to do, quarrels and a negotiated life, instead of being as free as the wind could take me –
I walked along the shore rather than by the road, swinging my flip-flops from one hand. The tide was just starting to recede from the black seaweed of high water mark, water sucking around crunching weed, and pebbles rattling as the wave ebbed. A tirrick dived and came up with a twisting fish in its beak. Just off shore, a young guillemot bobbed on the water. A smell of frying drifted down from the chip shop to mingle with the iodine squelch of the seaweed by my feet.
I’d just reached the centre of the beach when my phone rang. It was Gavin. I put a finger over the speaker at the back to baffle the wind noise. ‘Hey.’
‘I have some information for you,’ he said. ‘Are you where you can talk?’
‘Bang in the middle of a lonely beach,’ I said. I went over to a boulder, and sat down. The water swirled towards my feet; I edged my toes towards it, and felt its cold foam curl around them. ‘It may be shared with a young guillemot.’
‘Guillemots can hold their beaks,’ he retorted. ‘Okay. Well, I had no difficulty tracing the Wearmouths. Peter is indeed services – he’s just retired from being a Chief Inspector in the Newcastle CID.’
‘Interesting,’ I said.
‘Wait. I phoned their HQ, and that’s where things did indeed become interesting. Normally, you see, we forces work well together. You explain what you want, and they’ll do their best. Not this time. I got thoroughly stalled by an officer who behaved –’ his soft voice sharpened – ‘as if Inverness was the wilderness. CI Wearmouth was currently on leave, and no information could be given. His cases would now be handled by other officers, and were of course confidential. He didn’t quite tell me to get back to my stray Highland cattle and drunk fishermen, but it was close.’ He laughed. ‘So I investigated further.’
I knew he was a man after my own heart. ‘Good for you.’
‘I did a bit of digging among the police lists, and a phone call or two got me to one of Wearmouth’s working partners. He was reluctant to talk too, and stressed that the operation’s on-going, so he could only give me hints to follow up. I’ll tell you what they told me, but you need to keep it to yourself.’
‘Understood,’ I said. Tall ships had confidentiality too.
‘Wearmouth was working on one case which he thought was an operation that might be centred in Shetland. It involves stolen goods which go missing on mainland Britain, and subsequently turn up abroad – in Faroe, Iceland, Denmark, and Norway, and even in north Germany.’
I didn’t need to look at a map. These were the countries of the medieval Hanseatic League, in the days when Shetland was the crossroads of northern trading. ‘All convenient distances from Shetland, with a fast motorboat.’
‘Yes. Wearmouth wondered if items were being brought to Shetland by sea and stored there before being transported further, again by sea, as their value was required.’
‘I don’t suppose,’ I said, ‘that the ‘stolen goods’ included missing art work?’
‘It does indeed. The houses being stolen from are all minor stately homes, and all conveniently near a harbour – hence the deduction that the goods are being moved by sea. There’s been a bit of spot-checking of vessels by the coastguard, but without any results.’
‘And then once they’re here, it’s easy.’ In my mind’s eye, I saw Kevin and Geri of the noisy motorboat arguing over their red bucket. ‘Stick your contraband in a bucket or a box, and just carry it ashore, to your byre or wherever.’ Your lonely cottage out below the trowie mound, with a nice new mooring bouy, and no other house in sight?
‘Unfortunately, if you haven’t a suspect, then you don’t know where to start searching. To make matters worse, Wearmouth suspected there was information being leaked. Forces hate admitting to a mole, so that explained why the first officer I spoke to gave me the brush off.’
‘Did this partner know what Wearmouth was up to now?’
‘He’s genuinely on holiday, and he knew some sort of sailing trip was planned, but not where. I tried for a photograph of Wearmouth, but his colleague was too worried about jeopardising the operation, if he was following a lead.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘Then I tried him with a description of your other couple, but that rang no bells at all. I’m still working on their boat – it’s a new one, and not that many have been sold, so I’m hoping for a lead there. It’ll take a few days.’
‘In terms of stowing goods, there’s this cottage.’ I described it to him. ‘I can’t think of anything handier placed to hide stuff. You wouldn’t be seen coming or going. It’s supposed to be empty, but I’d swear someone was watching me from inside.’
‘It doesn’t have a reputation for being haunted, by any chance, as a bit of extra cover? Customs people always look in haunted houses first.’
I sighed. ‘Not more ghosts.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s just one of Magnie’s stories, about a selkie wife who abandoned her baby to go back to sea. You’re supposed to hear it crying, and Anders and I did, last night, just after Genniveve set off seawards.’
‘A crying baby?’
‘Wailing. It was a horrid noise, desolate. I’ve still got the shivers from it.’
‘Hmmm …’ There was silence for a moment, as if he was considering something. ‘Did you have a pet, as a child?’
‘Me? Maman wasn’t keen on animals. Inga had a collie.’
‘Yes,’ he said, as if that confirmed some idea in his head, the ‘s’ lingering softly in the air.
‘I have a cat now, though,’ I said. ‘A kitten. I found it.’
‘Black?’ His voice teased. ‘I can see you on a lonely hill, in the wind, with your hair streaming out behind you, and a black cat at your heels.’
‘It’s grey,’ I said firmly. ‘And what has that to do with the price of fish?’
‘Just an idea I’m having. Keep listening for your ghost baby, and tell me if you hear it again.’
‘You’re doing a Sherlock Holmes,’ I said. ‘You just want to surprise the weak-minded Watson.’
‘I wouldn’t dare to call you weak-minded. How’s the college plan doing?’
‘I’ve signed up. I got through the interview, and I start in August.’
‘Cass, you sound like you’re preparing for your own funeral.’
‘It’s just going to be strange,’ I said. ‘Ashore, in the same place, for a whole year, day after day in a classroom. I’m not sure I’ll know myself.’
‘You’ll still live aboard Khalida?’ He had the French trick of turning statements into questions.
‘Yes, but she’s just going to be a houseboat. By the time I’ve finished school then it’ll be too dark to take her out, and there’ll be homework too, likely.’
‘Think of the end result – a skipper’s ticket. Your chance to belong on a tall ship.’
‘Yes.’ He’d told me that my voice gave me away, every time I tried to lie to him. ‘I know, I need to grow up. I can’t stay footloose for ever. It’s just – being settled isn’t me, you know? I’ve never been settled. I can’t imagine a Cass with a mortgage and a steady boyfriend, going to the pub every Friday and the cinema every second Saturday.’
He laughed. ‘I’ll be very surprised if that fate overtakes you.’
He switched back to business. ‘Listen, this cottage –’
‘I could sail round and have a closer look at it, if you like. I suspect it’d be easy to get inside.’
‘No.’ It was a captain’s voice. ‘This is my ship, Cass, and you have to obey orders. There’s an idea that the stolen goods are being exchanged against drugs to be brought into this country, and that means you’re dealing with ruthless people. Don’t ferret around, don’t try to find out anything. You’ve put it in my hands. Trust me. I’ll do what I can.’
‘As far as I can,’ I said slowly, ‘I will. If something else crops up I’ll phone you before doing anything.’
‘Do that. Have you got paper there?’
I looked down at the damp sand at the tideline. ‘As good as.’
‘Okay, here’s my home number.’ He dictated it, and I wrote it with a sharp stone. ‘The mobile doesn’t work there.’ He was smiling again. ‘I live at the back of beyond, with my mother and my brother Kenny. We have a farm at the head of a loch. Don’t worry if he answers in Gaelic.’
I dredged the remnants of Erse out from my voyage with Irishmen on the Sea Stallion. ‘Go raibh míle maith agat.’ A thousand thanks to you.
He answered with a flood of soft syllables and rang off, laughing. I copied the number carefully into my mobile, tucked it away in my back pocket, and stood to watch the waves smooth the number away.
I thought about that all the rest of the way along the beach. I’d known he was brought up a countryman, but I’d assumed he was now a city-dweller, with a neat house in Inverness, near the police station. A farm at the head of a loch … So he was still a countryman, who woke up to hills, and sea, and silence. My picture of him hefting rams and working with a boat had been spot-on. My brother Kenny … there were brothers like that in Shetland too, who’d stayed on at the family home when neither had married, first with their ageing mother, then as a pair, growing more solitary, more dependent on each other. I wondered how old Gavin’s mother was. Unless they’d been very late babies, she’d be only in her sixties.
The Trowie Mound Murders Page 8