by Lin Anderson
23
‘You’re sure about this?’
‘Quite sure,’ Rhona said.
‘I could stay, help you finish more quickly.’
‘It’s important you get back to the lab and start processing the material. I’ll be back in a couple of days.’
‘If the weather holds.’
‘It will, according to Derek,’ Rhona said. ‘I’ll work on the grave today, visit the island for a sample of the shell sand tomorrow. Then I’ll be home,’ she promised.
A pair of arms was waving at them from the helicopter, indicating it was time to depart.
‘Right, that’s me off, then.’
Rhona watched as Chrissy ran towards the chopper, its blades already turning. She was pulled inside and, with a brief wave, the helicopter rose and headed off in a southeasterly direction.
Rhona waited as Derek’s jeep approached and pulled up alongside.
‘Where to now, Dr MacLeod?’
‘Back to the excavation.’
The contrast to her earlier work was marked. Then she had been checking the advancing sky and constantly thinking about the rising strength of the wind. Today, erecting a forensic tent was a distinct possibility. One which Rhona decided to take.
She found herself pleased to be in the blue confines once more, free from observation. Not that Mike Jones had bothered them much, being unnerved by the presence of a grave in his back garden, but the solitude of the tent was something she enjoyed.
As she’d intimated to Mike, the soil from beneath the remains was as important as the soil above. In different circumstances and weather, they would have sifted the material as it was extracted, to discover anything buried in it. Worm action distributed items throughout soil, which meant that because something was near the surface didn’t mean that it had started off there.
Rhona worked steadily, using the camera as before, a replacement stand having been delivered via the helicopter this morning. Up to now, her most interesting find was a handful of broken shells. This time they weren’t attached to anything, suggesting that they might have been in a pocket of an item of clothing, long since disintegrated, or perhaps dropped into the grave at the time of the burial.
The morning passed into early afternoon undisturbed. She took a break then, writing up her notes, the sun still free in a cloudless sky, dancing light on the tent roof. Despite their early rise, Chrissy had made up sandwiches and filled a thermos for her.
Rhona emerged now from the tent, determined to seek out a sheltered spot to enjoy her lunch with a view to the island and the distant lighthouse. She could hear hammering and guessed that Mike was working on the section of the building still under renovation.
He hadn’t approached her all morning, in fact she suspected he was intent on avoiding her completely. However, there had been a note on the back door inviting her to use the toilet whenever necessary. Rhona decided to take up his offer before she set off for lunch.
She hadn’t been alone in the schoolhouse before, and now took a moment to admire what Mike had done to the place. The rural primary school she’d attended on Skye had resembled this one – the main classroom with its open rafters, and tall windows to make the most of the natural light. As a little girl, she’d often looked out of windows like these towards a deserted beach that she longed to play on.
Making her way to the bathroom, Rhona noticed what she thought might be an intervening door and decided to go and warn Mike she was in his house.
As the door swung open, she realized her mistake. Rhona hesitated, a little embarrassed at being in Mike’s bedroom, yet not immediately withdrawing. Invading someone’s private space wasn’t something she usually did, but she was curious about Mike Jones, particularly since the previous evening, when he’d been loath to admit the existence of his child visitor.
Now she was perhaps looking at the reason why.
The drawing stood on an easel, a sheet pulled up to expose a girl’s face, wide-eyed and innocent. Dark hair cut just below the chin, eyes intensely blue. There was an old-fashioned feeling about the sketch, as though it was of a pupil of the schoolroom next door.
Rhona edged forward, drawn by the image, then realized another smaller canvas sat next to it, hidden by the sheet. She eased the cloth back.
The second was a painting of a flower head, apparently made of a strip of muslin, intricately woven.
A magic flower.
The hammering had stopped and footsteps now approached. Rhona ducked out of the bedroom and made for the back door, just as Mike appeared. They faced one another for a moment, before Rhona said, ‘I saw the note about the toilet. Thank you.’
‘No problem.’
His eyes darted from her to the bedroom door and back again.
‘I’m just off to have lunch on the beach,’ Rhona said to cover the moment. ‘How’s the renovation going?’
‘Okay.’
She opened the back door, keen now to make her exit.
‘I won’t be long. I plan to make the most of the light.’
She didn’t wait for a response. Once outside, she retrieved her sandwiches and flask and immediately set off to find a place with a decent view of the island.
Eventually she chose a sheltered spot and began her lunch, while contemplating what had just happened at the schoolhouse. She hadn’t seen Mike’s young visitor properly, but it now occurred to her that the girl may in fact have been his model for the drawing. If that were the case, could it explain his reticence in mentioning her visit?
Two sandwiches and a cup of coffee later, Rhona was none the wiser. She could of course ask Mike, but that would expose the fact that she’d been in his bedroom, not something she wanted to admit.
She abandoned her seat on the sand dune and walked a little further, training her binoculars on the causeway. Derek had indicated that it was easier to cross on the western flank where it was sandy underfoot, and true enough the seaweed-covered rocks that jutted out of the water to her right looked tricky to negotiate.
The shell beach apparently lay on the eastern side of Start Island, although it wasn’t visible from here. Provided all went well today, she would wade across at low tide tomorrow. She’d said as much to Derek on their way back from the airfield.
‘Just make sure you pay attention to the time,’ had been his response.
Glancing at her watch, Rhona estimated she had an hour before the light was too poor to continue. Enough time, she hoped, to finish. She’d excavated more than two-thirds of the grave floor when she unearthed the object.
Twenty-five centimetres in length, with a cork handle, the blade was rounded, with a row of seven small holes lining the blunt side, finishing with a larger hole at the top. It was definitely a knife, a specialized model. But for what?
She fetched her forensic case. The discoloration on the blade could simply be rust, but a presumptive test would indicate whether that was the case or not. Rhona folded a piece of absorbent paper in half, then half again to make a point, and scraped it across the stain.
As she did so, a fly entered the tent, made for the knife and immediately settled on the blade, suggesting her belief that it was dried blood was correct, even before she tested.
A brief examination of the bones as she’d bagged them hadn’t found any surface damage. The hyoid bone had been intact, which suggested that the victim hadn’t been strangled. The knife, buried with the victim, might well have been the murder weapon.
Rhona switched on the arc light and settled down to write up her notes. The satisfaction at completing the excavation was tinged with sadness at what had been unearthed here. Discovering a Neolithic or Viking grave would have proved fascinating and illuminating. The death, even if violent, would have been far enough removed in time not to affect the community.
This grave was something different.
‘It looks like a pilot’s knife,’ Derek said, holding up the bag to the light. ‘Carried in the boots of aircrew to cut their parachute lines.’ H
e peered more closely through the plastic. ‘It should have an RAF Stores serial number on it somewhere.’
‘So we might be able to trace who it belonged to?’ Rhona said.
‘Maybe, but it’s a remote possibility. The knives were also issued with the larger multi-man survival dinghies. The rounded end was to prevent puncturing the dinghy. The handle was buoyant and –’ he pointed at the larger hole – ‘a lanyard attached here made sure it wouldn’t be lost overboard.’ Derek looked at her. ‘I take it this was in the grave?’
She nodded.
‘I suggest you check what I’ve said with Sam. He might even have a photograph to compare it to. I expect there were a few of these at the Lopness camp.’
Rhona had suspected as much.
‘You think that was the murder weapon?’ Derek said.
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘So what happens now?’ he asked.
‘I head back to the forensic lab and process all the material.’
‘And DS McNab?’
‘That’s up to him, and of course DI Flett.’
24
The police launch had brought him over at midday, dropping him at Loth terminal. From there he’d caught the community bus to Heilsa Fjold, rather than have PC Tulloch come and collect him. The bus was a good way to catch up with what was happening on the island and, in this instance, what folk thought of the discovery up at Lopness.
The driver, a relative of Hugh Clouston, was bang up to date with developments. He knew that Dr MacLeod’s assistant, ‘the lassie with the pink hair’, had gone off in the police helicopter this morning, ‘along with a lot of stuff, delivered there by the Ranger’.
‘And Dr MacLeod got her replacement tripod,’ he assured Erling.
Erling said he was very pleased to hear that.
‘So do you think it was that Beth Haddow, the lassie that old Don Cutts was speaking about?’
At that point, Erling realized either the driver was ahead of him in the game or the story was growing legs. When he didn’t respond, Dave Clouston tapped the side of his nose knowingly. ‘I know you cannae divulge details of the investigation, Inspector.’
Erling didn’t think there was anything else left to divulge.
When he reached Heilsa Fjold, he found DS McNab holding court in the room directly behind the open area, which was busy with folk either checking emails and accessing the internet or waiting to be interviewed.
His own arrival caused a stir of interest. Erling spoke to those he knew, and asked after families and life in general. Through the glass partition he could see that DS McNab was deep in conversation with a woman in her thirties, whom he didn’t recognize.
PC Tulloch arrived at this point and, spotting his superior officer, looked horrified and examined his watch. ‘Sir, I—’
‘I came over on the launch instead of waiting for the afternoon ferry. The bus brought me here.’
Relief flooded his constable’s face.
Erling drew him to one side. ‘How are things going?’
‘They all ask to speak to the Glasgow detective.’ He looked dismayed by this.
‘Who’s in with the sergeant now?’
‘Inga Sinclair’s mother, sir. One of the children we thought might have taken the skull.’
In the following silence, McNab observed the woman who sat before him. His gut feeling was she was telling him the truth about her daughter and what she was up to. Then again, who the hell really knew what their children got up to or what they were thinking? He was pretty certain his own mother never had. If he was honest, that was one of the reasons he didn’t fancy settling down and having a family. He would be on their backs all the time, interrogating them, worried about them, not like a father, but like a policeman.
People lied. Big lies, small lies, evil lies, innocent porky pies. Looking the other way when answering could be a lie, because the truth was often written in the eyes. Then there were shy folk who just couldn’t meet your gaze, yet were telling the absolute truth. In the end you just had to trust your instinct.
‘Maybe she’ll grow up to be a detective,’ McNab said.
The mother’s face flushed, and she dipped her head to avoid his gaze. ‘There’s something I haven’t mentioned. It’s not relevant to this case, but …’
McNab waited.
‘We left Carlisle to get away … from Inga’s father.’ She hesitated. ‘This was where my mother’s family came from. I thought we’d be safe here.’
The eyes that met his were fearful.
‘Have you any reason to think you’re not safe?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s just … if the children didn’t take the skull or damage the evidence, then who did, and why?’
‘If I asked you that question, Miss Sinclair, what would your answer be?’
‘My name’s Claire,’ she told him.
‘Well, Claire. What do you think?’
She’d obviously thought about it, but was unsure whether to give her opinion.
‘Someone who wants to hide the identity of the body you found. Or …’ She hesitated.
‘Or what?’
She shifted in her seat. ‘Maybe someone who wants to cause trouble for Mr Jones.’
‘Why would they want to do that?’
‘Most people here welcome incomers, but not everyone does.’
‘Did you have someone particular in mind?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
McNab made a decision and, pulling out the letter, pushed it across the desk at her.
The seconds it took to register the contents heightened the flush on her face.
‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘Why would someone do that?’
‘Have you any idea who that someone might be?’
‘No.’
‘If you do have an idea, will you come back and tell me?’
‘I will.’
As she rose to go, McNab caught sight of DI Flett through the intervening glass.
That man is my way off this island.
McNab swallowed his espresso. His hopes of being served by the Norwegian girl had been dashed. It seemed the task of keeping them fed and watered had passed to the elderly Mrs Skea, whose rich Sanday accent had proved problematic to someone more versed in Glasgow patois. They’d eventually succeeded in establishing understanding by pointing and nodding. Mrs Skea’s age suggested that she might be a good interviewee on the subject of wartime Sanday, so McNab had willingly passed her on to PC Tulloch. A few seconds listening to their unintelligible conversation had convinced McNab that Orcadians were probably closer to Norwegian than they were to him.
Now seated in a small private room with DI Flett, plus an espresso refill, McNab was intent on finding an escape route from this ‘jolly’. It seemed DI Flett had picked up on his intention.
‘You want to leave us, Detective Sergeant?’
‘Once we’ve completed the interviews and established whether Jamie Drever is our man in Glasgow.’
DI Flett eased himself back in the chair. ‘I’ve been talking to DI Wilson about that.’
‘You have?’ McNab had been using the ‘no signal’ excuse and had thus barely had a conversation with the boss since his arrival.
‘He said your Jock Drever died in suspicious circumstances?’
There was only one answer to that and McNab gave it. ‘Yes.’
‘He’d been tied up, perhaps interrogated?’
‘I don’t know about interrogated,’ McNab said.
‘He hadn’t been gagged?’
‘Not to our knowledge.’
‘Then he wasn’t secured to keep him quiet or, you’ve established, to rob him.’
McNab had no idea where this was going, but the fact that he hadn’t thought along these lines irritated the hell out of him.
‘There are few people left alive who might shine a light on what happened in Lopness when the woman was murdered,’ DI Flett said. ‘What if James Drever was one of them?’
The journey to Lady Village and the heritage centre was the first occasion McNab had had a proper view of the Sanday landscape, and it only served to convince him that, much as he disliked trees, they were less threatening than all this open space.
PC Tulloch having been abandoned at the community centre, DI Flett had taken the wheel.
‘Not much road congestion here, Sergeant?’
McNab smiled politely in acknowledgement of the fact they hadn’t met a car since exiting the car park at the community centre.
‘I take it country life isn’t for you?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Yet you volunteered to come, according to DI Wilson.’
‘Things were quiet at home.’
‘Quieter than this?’
As they entered an area where the mobile signal picked up, McNab heard a series of pings as the outside world intruded. Not to appear uninterested, he checked the screen, skimming past all but one, from Rhona, which he opened.
‘Dr MacLeod’s headed for the heritage centre.’ Even he could hear the pleasure in his voice.
DI Flett gave him a swift look. ‘Then we can have a strategy meeting.’
25
The two photographs lay side by side on the table. A young Jamie Drever standing with Sam’s family, then the man known as Jock Drever as a newly married man. The likeness between the two was unmistakable.
McNab watched as a riot of emotions crossed Sam Flett’s face. He had seen such turmoil before, but it was usually on the faces of those people who’d been forced to identify a body in the police mortuary.
‘How did he die?’ Sam said finally.
McNab glanced at DI Flett before answering.
‘Dehydration.’
‘He was ill?’
‘He was restrained in a chair next to a fire.’
Sam looked horrified. ‘Restrained? You mean tied up? Was it a robbery?’
‘We wondered about that, but in fact nothing was taken, not even the money in his wallet.’ McNab changed tack a little. ‘His neighbour said Jock used to talk about someone called Ella?’
The two Fletts looked at one another.
‘That would make sense, Sergeant,’ Sam said. ‘Ella was my mother’s name.’