‘D’you mind the tall ships that were in Lerwick harbour, with the fireworks, and the big high masts, going way up there?’ I pointed skywards, wondering if she was old enough to remember three years ago.
‘I mind,’ Peerie Charlie broke in. I took that with a pinch of salt, as he’d been a babe in arms. ‘The fireworks went bang. I not scared.’
The girl nodded.
‘Well, I climbed right to the top of the masts.’
‘Why?’ the boy asked.
‘To work with the sails, the white cloth things that make the ships go.’ It seemed to be an acceptable explanation; the three faces nodded solemnly. ‘So anyone any age can climb.’ I swung round the fort to join them up in the top storey, and hammered my moral home. ‘Girls can do anything they like.’
Charlie opened his parcel, and we read the book. We were just dividing ourselves into Spiderman and baddies when Inga came out of the door. ‘Cass, stop winding them up and come in for a cup of tea.’
We’d spent our schooldays as a pair, Inga and I. Her house was the last on the end of our road, so when I’d got on our minibus I’d gone straight to join her and her brothers and sisters on the back seat. Her brother, Martin, had crewed for me in Osprey. Inga and I had compared the boys we fancied, and teamed up at discos; we’d swapped moans about our Saturday jobs, done our homework together, and planned our Standard Grades. Then Dad had gone to the Gulf, and I’d been sent to Maman in France. I’d been miserably homesick, had hurled myself on board a tall ship headed for Scotland the moment I was sixteen, and spent the next thirteen years travelling round the world in various damp ways, while Inga had stayed home, married the boy from across the voe, and had three children. I enjoyed baby-sitting Peerie Charlie, but was glad to hand him back, and Inga was already plotting the fun she’d have once the bairns were older. ‘When you,’ she’d add, with a sideways glint of her dark eyes, ‘are just starting with the toddler tantrums.’
I came over to the door, and hesitated. ‘You’re got the whole clan round.’
‘Denner’s over, we’re just sitting with a cup of tay. Come in.’
They were in the sitting-room, a big square space with a picture window which had a grandstand view of the voe. Old Charlie had been a great sailor, and Martin and I had always made sure we did our best gybes at this window, or we’d hear about it the next time we saw him: ‘Whit in the name of the Good Man were you twa doing with those spinnaker sheets on Setterday? I thought you would be swimming for sure. You’re no’ saying you won? Boy, the opposition mustna have been up to much.’
All three couches in the room were filled. On the right were Charlie, with his people-carrier brother, Harald, and his wife, the redhead. On the left, the 4x4 brother, John-Magnus, and his dark-haired wife; they had a croft to the north of Brae. A toddler and a baby were playing on the rug, one red, one dark.
Beryl, Inga’s mother-in-law, was enthroned in the centre of her family. She’d given the house over to Charlie on his father’s death with the excuse that ‘she was getting an elderly body, and no able, and it was far too big for her to keep up’ but her new bungalow a hundred metres along the shore was hoovered within an inch of its life daily, she was the terror of the Co-op check-out workers as she scrutinised each day’s reduced price items, and no weed dared raise its head in her symmetrical garden. ‘And,’ Inga had said, ‘until I insisted Charlie had a word with her, she’d give me the run-down on my week’s washing every Tuesday, how I could reduce it, what items I was washing away, and what I’d need to replace.’
Beryl was dressed for a party. Her massive shoulders and bust were squeezed into a maroon frock with a pattern of grey splotches over it, and she wore matching maroon sandals. Going by the photos that marched up the wall, she’d been as fair as Charlie in her youth, and she’d kept her hair blonde, though now it was moving towards that peat-ash colour. Her eyes were narrow, and constantly flicking everywhere. I was suddenly conscious that though my jeans and jumper were clean and untorn, they weren’t nearly smart enough. I sidled in with a general hello, and sat uncomfortably on the slope that her bulk made of the rest of the couch.
Her gimlet eyes sized me up. ‘Now then, so you got home okay. I saw you dastreen. You were fairly storming up the voe. I thought you’d end up on the beach like the bairns.’
The curved beach at the head of the voe was a magnet for dinghies with any south wind; however much you told the bairns not to get too close to it, they’d drift down and down, then find they couldn’t sail away.
‘I’ve had to tow enough of them off it,’ I agreed. The problem was that if you went in close enough to get the stranded dinghy off, you usually put the rescue boat on shore instead, or at least lost one propeller blade on the bottom. Even replaceable blades cost more than our shoestring outfit could afford. ‘Often the only way to get them off is by swimming them out into deeper water. Or walking them home along the shore, of course.’
‘Yea, yea, I’m seen you do that often enough. And how was your holiday south?’
‘Very good.’ I could either give information, or have it dragged out of me. ‘I’d have liked to bide for New Year, but this was my best weather window.’
‘And you were biding with the policeman who was up here, the one in the kilt?’
‘With his family.’ I might as well make that one clear. ‘He bides with his mother and brother – it’s his brother who keeps the farm.’
The word ‘farm’ galvanised John-Magnus into speech, and before I knew it, I was getting the third degree on the number of acres, animals, whether the kye were beef or dairy, and what fields were laid down to what crops. I didn’t think Kenny would have been impressed by my guesses, but at least I knew the kye were Highland cattle; the horns and long hair were unmistakable, even to me. ‘They have horses too, for the stalking. I even went for a ride on one.’
Inga came in with a mug of tea and a plate of Christmas cake and shortbread. John-Magnus took the chance of my mouth being full to launch into a monologue about his plans for trying a new breed of sheep, and Harald stood up for the native Shetland ewes: ‘They were bred for the place, they can look after themselves. You get breedy ones and this time next year you’ll be too busy in the byre, lambing, to come out for the New Year.’ It was all far too crowded and combative, and my brain began to hurt.
‘So,’ said Inga’s mother-in-law, once I’d almost finished my slice of cake, ‘what’s the news down at the marina?’
‘I’m no’ been up at the club yet,’ I replied, ‘but it all looks quiet enough.’
Her eyes narrowed. She heaved herself upright. ‘No sign o’ that Ivor Hughson’s boat up for sale?’
Ivor again. Of course, he and his wife lived just above Beryl, so she’d take a neighbourly interest. I shook my head. ‘I’m no’ heard anything.’
‘If I was his wife, I wouldn’t want another year of mooring fees,’ John-Magnus put in.
Not that I was going to bother Gavin about it, but since Ivor Hughson’s name had come up, I might as well get the story from the horse’s mouth. ‘What happened to him, anyway?’ I spoke casually, and saw Inga’s eyes narrow in suspicion.
The couch creaked as Beryl drew a deep breath. ‘Well, now, I can tell you all about that, for I was the last one in the place to set eyes on him. He and the wife – do you ken her? Julie Robertson, a bright lass, her folk bide in the council houses here in Brae. I mind her as a peerie lass. She teaches office studies at the Shetland College. Onyroad, they were all booked for a holiday together, south. He took the yacht down, with another of the boys from Brae, Hubert Inkster, you’ll ken him, and then a week later she flew down. They had a week cruising, and the idea was the men’d sail home, and she’d fly. Well!’ She leant towards me. My hand tightened on the arm of the couch as I felt myself being sucked down against her. ‘Whatever happened, he arrived all right, for I wasna sleeping well that night, and then the bang of the door next door woke me, and when I lookit out, there was his pick-up, and th
e lights on in the house, and him in his red overalls taking his bag out of the boot, and the mast back in the marina. The lights were on for a good bit, the kitchen first, as if he was having a bite to eat, then all over the house, one room then another. I thought he must just be checking everything was all right, after the house being left a week, but now I ken he was packing, and flying every foot to be off too, for when I woke up the car was gone already, and when Julie came home the very next day, all she found of him was a note on the table saying he’d gone on the south boat, and nobody’s heard a word of him since.’
‘Where was it they were sailing?’
‘Julie was to meet him in Mallaig. She telt me all about it. They came around to that island with the coloured houses, Balamory, then up through the canal and Loch Ness, most awful bonny scenery, she said. Then he left her in Inverness to fly home, and he sailed up himself, for there’d been some kind o’disagreement with Hubert. Then, when she got home, there was the note on the table.’ She lowered her voice to a penetrating sympathy. ‘She was that upset about it. I went up to see her, the moment I heard, to check she was all right. Well, I didna ask what had gone wrong atween them.’ She paused for breath, her little eyes challenging us all to disagree with that last statement. Inga, behind her back, rolled her eyes ceilingwards. ‘But her mother telt me later,’ Beryl continued triumphantly. ‘Julie wanted to try this IVF for a bairn, and Ivor widna hear of it. They’d left it a bit late, and she was faered they’d no’ be able to have one without.’ She sat back again, and turned her own question into a statement, in the best gossip-spreading tradition. ‘So, she’s putting the yacht on the market? Well, that must mean she has heard from him, for she’d no be able to sell it without his permission.’
‘There wasn’t a “for sale” notice in the window of it,’ I said, injecting a note of reality.
‘I heard she was thinking of it,’ Harald insisted. ‘It’s near a thousand poond a year to keep a boat in the marina.’
‘I doubt there was more to it than that,’ John-Magnus said. ‘Folk dinna split up like yon just over IVF, not at the first mention of it. I never likit him. It wouldna surprise me if there wasna another lass involved.’
Harald’s wife leant forward as if she was about to speak, but Harald shook his head at her, and she sat back again. ‘That’s all in the past,’ he said, ‘an’ the least said, the shoonest mended.’
Beryl nodded. ‘Aye, aye, there’s another man in the picture now, so it’s no’ her he’s run off with. But where there’s one there’ll be others.’ She shook her head and went into broader dialect. ‘He towt a hantle o’ himself, did dat een.’
‘Big-headed?’ I guessed.
‘That’s the kind that pulls in the silly lasses. I’ll tell you this, Julie’s well rid of him.’ Her narrow eyes speculated. ‘Or of course it coulda been another man, with her.’
John-Magnus’s wife shook her head. ‘Na, na, she’s one of these career women. She’s after the job of vice-principal in the college, and she’ll get it too. I dinna believe for one minute that she’s that keen on bairns that she’d quarrel with Ivor over it. More likely to be the other way round, that he wanted them and she didna.’
‘But if she’s really heard nothing,’ Inga said, with a quick glance in my direction, ‘that’s kinda odd, dinna you think? Folk row, I ken that, but they’re been married since university, and it’s no’ the kind of thing to do a moonlight over.’
‘If he left his yacht here he meant to come back,’ Charlie said. ‘He was brawly keen on the sailing.’
‘Was he no’ in business with the Georgeson Removals man? Him that’s on the Council?’ Harald made a face, and I remembered that he worked for Serco, and so, presumably, had to deal with Georgeson transporting goods south. ‘I widna want to cross him.’
‘Na, na.’ Predictably, his brother piped up. ‘It’s his youngest boy, Robert-John – you ken, he was just leaving the school when I went into secondary, then he was a joiner to DITT, while Ivor was with that whisky firm that went bust, then they went into this small haulage business together. I dinna ken how well that’s going. You see Robert-John driving the van at all hours, with a long face.’
‘Well, that’s more likely. He got into a mess financially, and bailed out. If naebody kens where you are, your creditors can’t get you.’
‘But surely his family’s heard from him,’ I said.
Beryl shook her head. ‘No’ a word, not one. I ken that for a fact. His mother Maisie, well, she’s head o’ the Burra and Trondra SWRI, and I met up wi’ her just last month, when our two groups had an evening together. “How’s all da faimily?” I asked her, and when she didna mention Ivor, I asked what he was working at now, and if he was coming home for Christmas, and she just puckered up her mooth and said “No’ this year” and I kent by that she’d heard nothing from him. He was the only boy, and she was aye that proud of him. If she kent he was working as a joiner she’d be telling us how he was cabinet maker in Buckingham Palace. Na, na, if there was anything to tell, she’d have telt us all.’
It was odd. To me, she sounded like the mother from hell, but for her adored son, surely she was the last person he’d leave in ignorance.
‘Besides,’ Beryl clinched it, ‘I kent by the look of her. She’s aged five years since he left, and her eyes were that worried when I mentioned him.’
She dismissed him with a shrug, and returned to the attack. ‘Now, then, what’s your mother up to? I saw she was home for the New Year …’
Chapter Seven
Inga saw me out. ‘What are you up to now?’
‘Really nothing,’ I assured her.
‘Then what’s the sudden interest in Ivor and Julie?’
I could trust Inga to be discreet. ‘Robert-John was along, asking Dad for a hand with his books.’
‘Our Susan was ages with them, and at Aberdeen Uni at the same time too.’
I considered that. I remembered Susan as being very sensible, and a bit bossy with us younger ones – as she had every need to be, I conceded now, remembering some of our exploits. If a balanced view of Ivor and Julie was needed, she’d give it; but I wasn’t sure it was needed. Their marriage break-up was none of my business. I said goodnight, and headed off along the road.
I hadn’t expected the club bar to be open that night, with everyone visiting each other for New Year, but prompt at 18.30 the lights flickered, then cast a line of bright squares out over the black gleam of the waves inching up the slipway. I might go up later, and catch up on club gossip. For now I boiled myself an egg for tea and settled down to read a book in the gold gleam of the cabin lantern, with Cat curled up on my lap, purring. I’d only managed a couple of chapters when a car scrunched down to the marina gate, there was a clunk as the lock opened, and the pontoon quivered. I turned my head to look out of Khalida’s long windows, and saw the blur of a man clambering aboard Ivor Hughson’s boat. He went below; a long pause, then a light shone out in the cabin, winking as if it was a moving torch. I set my book aside and picked up my jacket. If it was somebody with legitimate business, well, they could tell me to go away.
I scuffed along the pontoon, making as much noise and rock as I could, and stopped at the boat’s bow. Hi-Jinx, she was called. ‘Hello there?’
There was no answer. The torch light was steady now, and the hatch above the steps had been re-closed. I called again, louder, and knocked on the curve of roof. There was a startled pause, then the hatch slid back, and the person in the cabin came up the steps and looked out at me, shining his torch full in my face for an instant; then the beam fell to the cockpit floor. ‘Cass! You gave me a right gluff.’
The torch circle was still dancing in front of my eyes, but I recognised the voice. It was Hubert Inkster, that had gone down with Ivor to the west of Scotland, but not returned with him. He was a third cousin of my friend Magnie on Magnie’s Walls grandmother’s side, and, like Ivor, in his early forties. He had brown hair, receding a bit, with the sides str
aggled below his ears and the middle covered with a peaked-brim navy cap. His eyes were the same brown as his hair, set under low, dark brows that gave him a serious look; you could see him as an elder of the Kirk, giving out hymn books, or handing round the plate. He was wearing a navy hooded jacket over an oilskin bib-and-brace, as if he’d come straight from feeding sheep.
He put the washboards back, unhurried. ‘I’m just been keeping an eye on the boat for Julie while she’s away in Tenerife.’ The way he said her name was a give-away, the rough voice smoothing to silk. I wondered how Gavin said “Cass” when I wasn’t there to hear. ‘She’s that busy, and she kens nothing about boats, so I said I’d run the engine from time to time, check the bilges, all that.’
‘Yea,’ I agreed, ‘you can’t leave a boat unattended in winter.’
He agreed, and sidled off, head down against more questions. I went back to call Cat, and close my own boat up properly, then headed up to the bar.
Magnie was on duty, with one customer in front of him. Magnie’d been my teacher when I was a sailing-mad youngster, and he was still senior instructor here at Brae. He’d been a whaling man in his youth, then a fisherman when the last factory in South Georgia closed. He was well through his sixties now, and retired from professional fishing, but no Shetlander ever gave up totally; he had a little boat he took out to ‘da eela’, and he set the occasional crab pot, lobster creel, or illegal trootie net. He was dressed in his best gansey, a traditional all-over with bands of blue pattern alternated with white The curls of his fair hair were smoothed down with water, his eyes were bright under their heavy lids, and his cheeks rosy with a recent shave.
He looked up as I came in, and nodded. ‘Aye, aye, Cass. Happy New Year to you.’
I walked up the line I’d sailed the day before on the lino map of Busta Voe, and propped an elbow against the polished counter. ‘The same to you.’ I nodded at the bottles of Shetland ale. ‘A White Wife, please.’
Magnie indicated the lone customer on one of the high bar stools. ‘Do you ken Jeemie o’ Grobsness?’
The Body in the Bracken Page 5