Charlie smiled. ‘She got her education after all. She took over as a teacher when the men were called up, and qualified properly after the war. She taught English in the Anderson Institute all her days. Hang on.’ He delved into the folder and came out with a photograph of what looked like a group of teachers in front of a stone wall. The men had suits and bowler hats, the women were smart in white blouses. The older ones had their heads overshadowed by those cartwheel hats with feathers; the younger ones wore straw boaters. ‘This was her on a staff outing to Mousa.’ He indicated a young woman at the side of the photo. ‘That’s Janey.’
Caleb shook his head. His eyes were moist. ‘I reckon Great-grandfather would surely have been proud.’ He put the bag back on the table. I could hardly believe that little leather purse held more money than I could imagine ever needing. I wondered if Caleb had just brought it here, in his baggage, in his pocket, as if it was nothing at all. ‘We inherited the rest of his pile. This was for you.’
‘So why are you needing to pawn it?’ Inga asked bluntly.
Caleb laughed, and took a piece of millionaire shortbread. He bit into it, and his eyes widened. ‘You baked this?’ He took another bite, in reverent silence. I didn’t blame him; Inga’s shortbread was meltingly soft, the toffee layer gooey yet not over sweet, the chocolate crisp. ‘You should be exporting this. Yeah, pawning. Because I’m disgracing the family by being a singer. Or maybe I’m lifting it up by being in opera.’
Inga’s eyes flicked to me. ‘I was wondering where you came in, Cass. So –?’ She came to a halt, realising she didn’t know his name.
‘Caleb. Caleb Portland – well, Caleb Anderson, but there was another one, would you believe it, a ukelele player, so I took the city’s name. I didn’t figure it would mind.’
‘You’re part of Eugénie’s tour, then?’
He nodded. ‘Theseus.’
‘One of the parts,’ I explained.
The idea of an opera singer in the family had awed Charlie into silence. Caleb looked over at Peerie Charlie. ‘And who’s this young fellow?’
Peerie Charlie scrambled down off my knee and fixed Caleb with a stern glare. ‘I’m Peerie Charlie. Are you a pirate?’
‘Not in this production. My grandfather would sure be pleased to meet you.’ He looked back at Charlie. ‘You take his gold for this little fellow’s education.’
‘We’ll share it between the three of them,’ Inga said. She smiled at Caleb. ‘Our oldest lass is Vaila Jane, she’s twelve, and away playing netball, and then we have Dawn, she’s nine and over at her pal’s house. That’s why the house is so quiet. Normally it’s a madhouse.’
‘Is your grandfather still living?’ Charlie asked.
‘We’re a long-lived family. He’ll be a hundred and two next birthday. He’ll be tickled pink that I came. I’ll phone him tonight.’ He stared straight at them. ‘He’d say you should take it too.’
Inga and Charlie exchanged a long look, then Inga nodded. She picked up the purse, weighing it in her hand, then took out one coin and gave it back to Caleb, closing his fingers over it. ‘That’s your luckpenny. Then you’ll still have one to pawn, when the going gets tough.’
A luckpenny was a Shetland thing. If you struck a bargain on something, buying a boat, say, then the buyer gave the seller a coin of the purchase price back, for luck.
Caleb gave a little bow. ‘Ma’am, thank you.’ He put the sovereign away in his pocket. ‘I surely believe it will bring me luck.’
I was beginning to feel as if treacle was being poured over me. This was all a bit too touchy-feely. I leaned forward. ‘Has anyone from the company managed to get in touch with you?’
Caleb lifted his head. ‘We’re meeting at Mareel at half past twelve.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gavin clocking that it wasn’t quite an answer. ‘That’s still on, isn’t it?’ He felt in his pocket for his phone, and made a little business of noticing it wasn’t switched on, not quite convincing.
‘In that case,’ Gavin said, ‘I’m afraid we have bad news for you, Mr Portland.’
Inga made a wait gesture, swept Peerie Charlie up and carried him out. Caleb watched them go, face unreadable. Then he turned back to Gavin. Now he was registering concern, with a touch of alarm. ‘Bad news, sir?’
‘Adrien Moreau is dead.’
Yes, he’d known already. His eyes widened, his mouth opened, but he couldn’t counterfeit the shocked whiteness of Bryony, or the blank look in Maman’s eyes. He made a wide gesture with his hands. ‘Dead?’
Gavin nodded, and gave him rope.
‘But how? An accident, like Kamilla?’
‘A suicide note was left.’
Caleb nodded. ‘I was afraid that might happen. I don’t want to sound a heel, but when Kamilla was showing interest, you know, I steered clear because of Adrien. He’s – he was –’ The correction was just too self-conscious. ‘He was one of those brooding, intense types, and you could see there would be trouble. I didn’t like her enough for that. Well ... when did it happen?’
‘During the night. Where did you spend the night, sir?’
‘I used the hotel room the company had booked in Lerwick. The Lerwick Hotel. I can’t prove that, of course. Once I’d got my card, I came and went as I liked. I spent the afternoon exploring, I drove down to the south end and saw that archaeological site, where the people dress up. Old Scatness. And I went up the road to the lighthouse.’ He looked at the coin in his hand and reddened. ‘I knew it wasn’t mine, but it was harder than I expected to hand over a fortune. I was putting off this visit to the last minute. Then I spent the evening in Lerwick. I walked around the little roads running up the hill – gee, your Lerwick folk must be fit – and along the seafront, where the water comes right to the buildings. It would all have been like that when Andrew left. I went into the pub where the music is, and listened for a bit, then I went back to the hotel. I slept until –’ There was a sudden pause, then he continued smoothly, ‘– ten, then I got up, had a cup of coffee, threw my bags in the back of the car, and came here.’
‘Did you check out of the hotel, sir?’
‘Why, sure, I –’ He felt in his pocket again. ‘No, I still have their card. I’d need to call in and give it back.’ He looked at Gavin’s face, which had polite scepticism stamped all over it. ‘I had no interest in Kamilla, Inspector. None at all. I certainly wouldn’t have killed Adrien over her.’
‘And how,’ Gavin asked, with polite interest, ‘did you know I was an inspector?’
I’m neither maet nor drink
for fantin’ man
I’m neider frock nor hat
for bonny lady;
yet yowsed wi’ care
I can be aa these things,
an’ foolish man and his vain wife
seek me abune aa idder.
... gold.
Sunday, 29th March (continued)
Tide Times at Lerwick
High Water07.20, 1.6m
Low Water14.06, 0.8m
High Water20.18, 1.6m
Low Water02.23, 0.9m
Sunrise06.41
Moonrise12.05
Sunset19.36
Moonset03.36
Waxing quarter moon
Blud shared wi’ my blud, bane o’ me bane,
Son o’ me faider, uncle tae me son.
Chapter Twenty-two
He’d clammed up then, but I had a nasty feeling I knew who’d phoned him: the only one of the company who knew who Gavin really was. I looked out of the car window at the heather hills speeding past us. This, the Lang Kames, the hill ridge that was the central spine of Shetland, was where Dad was going to build his wind farm, now that permission had come through, and the objectors had lost their appeal. It was a jigsaw wilderness of rust heather and soft, brown peat mould, green-hazed pools and olive-orange sphagnum moss. There were Shetland sheep grazing, brown, black, grey, all heavy with lamb, and moorland birds, including the rare whimbrel. I didn’t want to think abo
ut the destruction of something so beautiful: the heavy machines moving in to tear the peat back to rock, the steam hammers digging down for the tarmac in-fill, to create a heavy-duty road leading to each turbine; then the foundation for the turbine itself, before the heavy lorries brought the 90-metre columns and the three 55-metre blades. Each one would be 145 metres tall – double the height of the Burradale wind farm above Lerwick – and seven times the height of Lerwick’s Victorian town hall. When I was sailing with the bairns at Brae I’d see a line of them, marching over the green hills. Inga was one of the objectors, and I had no doubt that now that the legal challenge in the UK had failed – although there was still a chance of taking it to the EU – she’d be sitting in front of the bulldozers when they arrived.
We came past the halfway house – halfway, that is, between Voe and Lerwick, and one of the few places with drink in the times of prohibition – past Sandwater and Girlsta Loch, and into the green pastures of Tingwall. Above the hill, the five Burradale turbines whirled.
‘Maman,’ I said.
Gavin nodded.
I could understand why Maman had phoned Caleb, to tell him, to warn him, but I was on Gavin’s side now. We didn’t know whether his knowledge was from her, or for a darker reason, and there would be no chance for further questions, because there would be a rehearsal with the new singers, the performance, and then they’d all be on the boat.
‘Are you sure it’s safe to let them go? I know you’ll be watching, but even so –’
His left hand spread upwards from the wheel. ‘We’ve no reason to detain them. We know where they’re going, we’ve had no lab report to say Kamilla’s death was any more than a severe reaction, or Adrien’s not suicide. He was known to possess poison. I was hoping to hear by now, but because of the storm, the boats didn’t sail, so Kamilla’s body will only arrive in Aberdeen tomorrow morning.’
I grimaced. ‘She’s travelling with them?’
‘In an unmarked white van. Don’t mention it.’
We came around the last bend, climbed the hill and came into Lerwick. This was the industrial end: two garages; the brown bulk of the power station; the industrial estate; the mustard-coloured block of the Shetland Hotel opposite the curved red roof of the ferry terminal; and the grey walkway leading to the ferry. It was navy below, white above, with a huge shades-of-blue Viking pointing onwards painted on each side. Past that was the Co-op, a roundabout, then the town proper: a line of fishermen’s houses, many still with their net sheds behind, then the first of the Victorian houses on our right, and fifties council ones on our left. Behind them we caught a glimpse of the high brown wings of the new museum, shaped like the sails of the old herring boats.
‘Left here,’ I reminded Gavin, and he turned at the mini-roundabout, turned again, and parked in Mareel’s car park.
There had been huge opposition to it, Inga had told me, at the planning stage. A modern cinema and arts venue, whatever next? It was a waste of money, the critics had screamed. ‘Never been to a cinema in me life,’ boasted one councillor. Week after week, people had written in to the paper, objecting that nobody would use it, the council would have to bale Shetland Arts out, it would be a white elephant ... Shetland Arts dug their heels in and kept going. Gradually, the structure rose, to more criticism: an ‘eyesore’ L-shaped glass and wood structure, flat-roofed, sited on the edge of the harbour, ‘spoiling the bonny view’. From this side, it was one huge window, showing the foyer to the left, the stair to to upper floor, hung with posters, the white upper corridor and door to the upstairs bar.
‘Bankrupt within a month,’ the council critics had said, but the Shetland folk ignored them. Audience numbers for the first year had been treble Shetland Arts’ most optimistic estimates, and every time Reidar and I had gone to the movies, the foyer and café had been busy with folk: groups of teenagers; families; older people. It had silver screenings and toddler days, art movies and the latest blockbusters, private hirings and worldwide live streamings of ballet and theatre. The huge auditorium hosted choral concerts, visiting writers, jazz artistes, fiddle music, country, rock, and now opera. Maman’s face stared out at me from above the stair, twice my height.
We went through the revolving door, Gavin’s hand on my back, and into the popcorn-smelling foyer. The stair to the cinema entrances went up to our right; the auditorium door was straight ahead. We eased it open. The singers were all on stage, with, among them,the older man who’d talked to me at Belmont, and a pre-Raphaelite redhead that I took to be Gabriella. I closed the door again.
‘In full rehearsal. Lunch?’
We headed for the café, ordered a cheese toastie each and sat down. From here we were looking straight out at the water, towards the little harbour that fronted the Museum, Hay’s Dock. Hay and Company had been the main merchants in Shetland for many years, with a finger in every pie: building boats; shipping supplies; fitting out men for the Greenland whaling. The boat sheds were still in use, as part of the museum, and come the summer there would be half a dozen double-ended Shetland sixareens lying on the shingle beach. Now, in winter, only the two larger boats floated by the stone jetty, the historic fishing boats Pilot Us and Nil Desperandum, and the slip that led from the sheds to the water was green with algae. Five white buoys bobbed gently; the dark head of a seal rose and sank again, until just the tip of its nose was visible.
‘Bonny view,’ Gavin said.
The tide was almost completely out, and a narrow curve of stony beach showed below the café. Beyond the harbour, the sea was still churned white, with long breakers rolling upwards through the north-south sound between Lerwick and its sheltering island of Bressay. The ferry passengers would feel the movement the minute their boat cleared the jetty. I hoped Maman had her Stugeron to hand. Dad was a good traveller. I leaned back and gave a long sigh, but it didn’t dispel the tension I felt building within me. Fournier, Per, Bryony, Caleb. We knew about Caleb now; I cleared him away from the puzzle. Were Kamilla’s and Adrien’s deaths linked to the Viking treasure, then? I tried to think that one through. Suppose Kamilla’s death had been an accident. We hadn’t known, that night, that she was already dead. Suppose Adrien had gone out into the dark, headed for Vinstrick Ness, with his GPS marker to guide him, to get the treasure he thought would win her back, and stumbled on Peter and Fournier, digging up the necklace he’d found.
I stuck there. They talked him round ... persuading him that she was going to live – then a day later, Fournier poisoned the water bottle by Adrien’s bed. I shook my head.
‘What don’t you believe?’ Gavin’s grey eyes smiled at me, and I realised that part of my wound-up feeling was the tension underlying this surface worry. Last night had been good between us, we could work, and we had tonight too, except that I was just about to go back to my real life. With the white waves rolling past not a hundred yards away, and the horizon hazy in the distance, I could feel the sea calling me. The day after tomorrow, if the forecast held, I’d be out there, on my way to Norway, and after that I’d be on the great ocean, with nothing but waves and sky, the creaking of the rig, the wheel kicking under my hands, the ship moving beneath my feet.
I shook the thought away. ‘That Fournier killed Adrien because he caught him and Peter digging up the treasure. He wouldn’t wait until a day later. And then, if he died round about the time the suicide note was written, Fournier’d have had to stay awake half the night waiting for him to wake and drink the poison. I suppose he could have pretended he was having a bath, but those doors are heavy and practically soundproof, so he’d need to keep looking out, and Adrien would have wondered what he was up to. Charles too. And that solution assumes Kamilla’s death really was an allergy.’
Gavin nodded. ‘I don’t like it either. But the same objection applies to all of them: Fournier, Rolvsson, Blake, Portland, Michel. Any of them would have to keep watch so that the note was similar to the time of death. Of all of them, it would be easiest for Michel. All he needed to do was wedge
his door open and check every so often.’
I shook my head. ‘I can’t believe in Charles as an assassin. He’s survived years of Maman.’
‘What do you know about him?’
I tried to dredge up memories from when I’d lived with Maman, fourteen years ago. ‘He lives just outside Poitiers. He’s got a wife and two children, a boy my age and a girl a bit older, and a huge vegetable garden. He used to bring us asparagus. Ordinary. Not at all the sort of person to have nasty secrets.’
Gavin’s face was grave. ‘That’s just the sort of person who’ll kill to protect his ordinary life.’
‘I’d rather see Fournier in some sort of skullduggery that Adrien found out about.’ I stopped there, because our toasties had arrived, slabs of home-baked bread oozing with hot cheese. I cut mine into quarters and launched in.
It was quarter to three by the time we’d finished the last cheesy crumbs and sprinkling of cress, and drunk the mug of coffee that went with it. I stood up. ‘I’d better see if somebody can let me into the backstage area, to wish Maman “break-a-leg”.’
‘I’ll keep you a seat in the auditorium. Back, middle, front?’
‘Oh, anywhere. End of a row.’ Now I felt awkward; should I kiss him or not? He didn’t look as if he was expecting it. ‘See you in a minute.’
I found an attendant, and explained who I was. She let me through the pass door at the end of the corridor, beneath the stairs, and I headed straight forward, listening for voices. I was going along the far side of the auditorium, in the heart of the building, with its bare wall to my left, and other doors to my right: studio; dressing rooms; store. I came through another heavy fire door, and past the side audience fire exit, just in front of the stage. A glance in showed me a good crowd, looking expectantly forward, and there was that pre-curtain murmur of voices. The artistes’ entrance must be around the other side of the stage. I went past a roll-up door, with a normal one beside it, came around the corner, and saw them all clustered at the far end of the corridor, Charles and Per in their dark suits, the others in costume: Caleb in dark blue; Bryony in grey; with Diana’s moon diadem; Maman’s former teacher in white,with Adrien’s fair wig; Gabriella in Kamilla’s scarlet; and Maman in her white robe, the gold headdress shining against her dark hair. I went up and hugged her. ‘Break a leg.’
Ghosts of the Vikings Page 24