The Body in the Bracken

by Marsali Taylor

  The keyboard struck up, the guitars joined in, and we were launched into ‘Bethlehem of Noblest Cities’. I listened to Maman sending her clear notes across the crib to the saints at the altar, and imagined the chirping sparrows in the bushes outside pausing to listen. Then we had the reading: the wise men and Herod’s trickery and slaughter. At communion one of the singers did a solo of a carol I hadn’t heard before, a lament for the slaughter of the innocents: Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child. Genocide, we’d call it now; I thought of villages in war-torn Syria, of the schoolgirls who’d been kidnapped in Nigeria, and wondered where we’d ever got this belief that two thousand years of civilisation had made us better.

  As we came out of Mass, Father Mikhail bowed over Maman’s hand. ‘Happy New Year, madame.’ He turned to me. ‘What is it you are mixed up in now, Cass? I hear rumours of another death.’

  I shook my head. ‘I just found the body. The police are establishing identity, then they’ll take over.’

  His eyes were worried. ‘You take care, now.’

  We went for a cup of tea in the parish house, then Dad and Maman drove me back to Scalloway. I ate Sunday lunch (stew maison with pasta twists, cooked in the flask), and was just about to head for the café when I heard my name being called. Hubert Inkster was at the marina gate.

  He was wearing church-going clothes, a dark suit, with his navy jacket over the top, and black shoes. He raised a hand. The perp may proceed to direct violence, Gavin had said. I considered Hubert as a perp, as I headed along the pontoon towards him. He’d been with Ivor on the trip to the west of Scotland in August, and there had been some kind of quarrel, severe enough that he’d left Ivor to sail short-handed round Ardnamurchan and through the Caledonian Canal, then alone through the tricksy tides around Orkney and up the wastes of the North Sea. He was in love with Julie, but that wasn’t a reason for murder, unless his own religious convictions meant he didn’t believe in divorce. I contemplated a Christianity that would prefer killing the husband to marrying the divorced wife, and didn’t believe in it. I opened the gate. ‘Aye aye.’

  ‘Now then, Cass. I was just wondering if I might have a word with you.’

  ‘Come in,’ I said, and motioned him before me along the pontoon. ‘Would you take a cup of tea?’

  He sat in silence until I’d filled the tea-pot and set it to stew on the ring, and set the mugs in front of us. ‘Milk? Sugar?’

  ‘Just milk. Thanks to you.’

  I put the biscuit jar between us, and he helped himself to a couple of Rich Teas, then at last he looked at me, shyly, sideways. ‘I was hearing that maybe Ivor was dead.’ His voice was uneven with bewilderment. ‘I wondered that he took off like that, without a word, but I thought –’ He lifted his cup and drank a couple of mouthfuls, set it down again. I waited. Hurrying him would make him more tongue-tied.

  His fingers relaxed on the cup. He drank another few mouthfuls, then lifted his head. ‘I wanted to tell you about the time I was down there with him. To be sure you kent that Julie wasn’t involved.’

  ‘Julie was still south when he came home,’ I said. His heavy face brightened at that. ‘But tell me about the voyage.’

  ‘Well, we set off from Brae on Friday the second of August.’ He was obviously one of those people that have an exact memory for dates. ‘It took us twa days and a half to sail down there. Boanie, boanie weather it was, all the way, though the wind a bit light at time, so we did a bit of motoring once we were level with Scotland. We arrived in Uig, on Skye, and had our first night there.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, and fished out an old envelope. ‘Let me write this down. Left on the second, so you were in Uig on the fifth?’

  ‘All day Friday, all day Saturday, Sunday taytime. The fourth, Sunday the fourth. Then we went round the back of Skye, and had a night in Loch Snizort, and a night in the shadow of Dunvegan Castle, that was most special boanie, and then Loch Harport. Have you been there?’

  ‘Under the Cuilleans,’ I said, and he nodded.

  ‘Yea, this great mountains of rock. I coulda lookit at them all day. Then – where are we now? Yea, we came out again, and had a beat down the back of Skye, with the wind dead on the nose, a force six with some vicious gusts.’

  ‘How did the boat handle that?’ I asked, getting diverted into technical. ‘With the centreboard, rather than the fixed keel?’

  ‘She was good. I was dubious about it as well, but she pointed fine, without too much leeway, a bit more as a fixed keel, maybe, and she didna slam into the waves more than any other would a done. She went well altogether.’

  ‘What day are we on now?’

  He counted the days on his fingers, muttering the names. ‘Thursday. It was Thursday we were going into the wind, and that night we were in Loch Eishort.’ He took off his cap, and began turning it round in his hands. His voice became hesitant, as if this was what he really wanted to tell me, yet wasn’t sure that he should. ‘See, Ivor had been getting these texts. I kent him and Julie had had their differences. We were aye friends, Julie and I. His phone would bleep, and he’d take it away from me to read, and I kent by the smile o’ him that it wasna from Julie. He was high way, as if, as if he’d got a ticket he kent was a lottery winner. Excited. Then she turned up. Donna.’ I couldn’t read his voice as he said the name. For the first time I wondered about his friendship with Ivor. Suddenly I could see them as teenagers, Hubert with spots or greasy hair, two steps behind and envying Ivor his charm, coveting his girlfriends.

  ‘At Loch Eishort?’

  ‘Na, na, the following day. The Friday. We went across to Mallaig, and then in the afternoon this young lass arrived.’ He spread his hands. ‘A young lass. Ivor could a been her father. She had a bag with her, and waterproofs, and she was riggit all ready for coming aboard, with jeans and a warm jumper. I was that taken aback to see her, and she was the same to see me. For a moment neither of us kent what to say. Ivor telt me she was called Donna.’ His voice softened. ‘She was a right boanie peerie thing, with dark hair, and that kind o’ open look, and I thought black shame of Ivor to have taken up wi’ her, for you could see she wasna a bad lass, and I wondered if she even kent he was married at all.’ He fell silent, lips tight.

  ‘So she arrived in Mallaig on the Friday,’ I prompted.

  ‘Yea. Well, we had a cup of tea with her, then she said she’d forgotten suntan lotion, and she’d just need to go and get some, and off she went. Ivor and I had words then. I telt him he had no right to be doing this to Julie, and if Donna was biding aboard with him then I most certainly was not, and he tried to talk me out of it, and it ended with me firing me gear into my bag and walking out.’

  His brown eyes lifted to mine. ‘That’s why I thought, when Ivor went off, I thought that was it. He’d gone off with this Donna. He was most awful keen on her.’

  ‘But,’ I said, trying to get my head around the timetable, ‘surely Julie was coming down to join him?’

  ‘Well, it was kinda off and on. When we first spak, back at Easter, she wisna coming – well, she never did. Then come June Ivor began to speak as if she might be, after all, and she telt me she’d decided she should gie it a go.’

  I thought of Maman, organising her tour to include Shetland, just to meet up with Dad. ‘But then, if they were trying to get together again –‘

  Hubert’s voice was harsh. ‘He was planning the weekend with this lass, she had to be back for her work on the Monday, and then Julie was coming on that same Monday. I could hardly believe it, but he was in one of those moods where there was no reasoning with him.’

  ‘So what did you do next?’

  ‘I walkit out and found a B&B in the village. When I went for a walk that evening, then the boat had gone. I wasna going to wait around till them coming back on Monday.’ His brown eyes lifted to mine, and I saw the worry he’d felt. ‘Except I wondered if I maybe should, you ken, stick around to meet Julie, not have her walking into the situation unprepared, but then I thought no g
ood ever came from interfering atween man and wife.’ He paused, then added, bleakly, ‘They’d likely both join together to shoot the messenger.’ His fist thudded on the table; the words burst out of him. ‘I’m kent Julie from we were in primary school together, and there’s never been anyone else for me. If she’d a chosen me I’d a loved and cherished her all her days.’ His voice sank to a murmur. ‘I’d a died for her. But it was Ivor right from primary 1. Always Ivor.’

  There was a long silence. Then he sat up straighter. ‘I got the bus to Inverness and hired an estate car, long enough to sleep in, and I spent the week exploring the Highlands.’ His slow speech speeded up, as if he was rattling off something he’d learned before he had the chance to forget it. ‘I was in Strathpeffer the next night, and then Loch Broom, I kinda went across the middle of the top section of Scotland, and boanie country it was too, then on the Monday I took the ferry to Stornoway, then to Uig from there, and went climbing – well, scrambling, I suppose you’d call it, on the lower slopes o’ the mountains for twa days, that was the Tuesday and Wednesday, then on Thursday morning I crossed the Skye Bridge again, and just daandered up the west coast and along the north coast, and then on Setturday I got the Wick boat to Orkney, had twa days there, got on the Sunday night boat, and I was home for me work on the Monday.’ He looked at the teapot. ‘Is there another cup of tay in there?’

  ‘It’ll be a bit cold, but go ahead.’

  He poured, drank, then looked at me again. ‘Do you really think it was Ivor that you found?’

  The empty eye sockets stared at me again. For a moment I felt sick. ‘I couldna tell, but they’ll be comparing the dental records.’

  ‘And where was he, exactly?’

  I explained. He drew his lips together, frowning, then took a deep breath. ‘I dinna want to get her into trouble, but he was going to take Donna there. They spak about it over tay. I mind that. She said it was one of the most romantic of the lochs, with Prince Charlie’s cave an’ all, and she’d like to see it, and he said, well, they could easy go there in the weekend.’

  ‘If it was Ivor, we’ll ken soon.’

  ‘Wid you phone me?’ He fumbled in his pocket and brought out his phone. ‘Or could I mebbe phone you? If it is him, if he’s dead like that, I’d like to ken, in case Julie needed me.’

  She hadn’t needed him as a deserted wife, except to check up on the boat; but I wouldn’t say that. I got him to phone me, and entered his number into my address book. ‘If I hear, I’ll let you know, so long as I’m allowed to.’ The words echoed the suggestion that I’d have information the police weren’t releasing; I amended them hastily. ‘But I won’t be told anything that’s not in the public domain, so you might see it on the Shetland News website before I hear. But I’ll call if I can.’

  ‘Thanks, Cass.’ At last, he rose to go. ‘Were you going out? Can I give you a life somewhere?’

  Accepting lifts from someone who had every reason to have killed Ivor didn’t come under the heading ‘Keeping myself safe’. I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but no, I’ll be a minute sorting out here.’

  He hesitated in the doorway for a moment, as if there was something more he wanted to say. Suddenly I remembered what I’d wanted to ask. ‘Was it you who took the boat’s heather off, when you tidied her away for the winter?’

  He looked blank. ‘Heather?’

  ‘From going round Ardnamurchan.’

  His eyes cleared. ‘Oh, the sprig of heather, aye.’ He was silent for a long moment, as if he was thinking what to say. I wondered if Julie had told him she’d not been there, but he didn’t know she’d also told me, and didn’t want to give her away. ‘Right enough, they came home round the point and up Loch Ness. Julie told me that. Likely she threw it away, it would be all withered. There was no sense in keeping it.’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘But you, now, I can see you letting your boat keep her prize until it fell off her. I’ll hear from you, then.’

  His footsteps clacked along the pontoon; there was the clang of the gate, his car starting up, then the silence flowed back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cat and I strolled along the seafront and past the village shops to the grey granite of the old museum, Reidar’s café. The sky was an arch of pale blue, with the sea disappearing into a misty haze. The long, grey cumulus to the north threatened a colder night.

  I thought as I walked. Hubert had come out pat with what he’d done in that week, yet everything else he’d said had shown his motive for murder. Ivor had betrayed Julie with Donna. There had been a quarrel. How easy it would have been for Hubert to have phoned Ivor, and offered to join him in Inverness. He could have staged an accident at sea, but then there would have been an inquest, and questions. It had been hard enough, after Alain’s death, when they’d pressed for details I couldn’t remember; I couldn’t have sustained a lie. Maybe Hubert hadn’t dared risk it.

  No, easier to wait for him here. They’d planned the trip together, so Hubert knew when Ivor was expected home. He could have waited for the boat to reach the marina, then gone into the house via a back door or unlocked window. A crofter who was used to hauling sheep around would have had no difficulty in hefting Ivor over his shoulders and dumping him in the boot of his own car. Then the packing Beryl had seen, with the lights going on in the rooms, the grabbing of clothing as if he’d left by himself.

  Then what? … one of the most romantic o’ the lochs … He’d made it clear that the loch was Donna’s choice. Maybe he’d heard talk in his B&B about the Argyll Gathering, and how everyone went to it. He went down on the boat, with Ivor’s car, left it in Aberdeen, and got the Sunday boat home. Then, on the Wednesday, he went down and took the body to the loch, where it would link up with Donna, who’d stolen Julie’s man. He’d have no bother handling a quad. Then he took the car back to Aberdeen and left it, and came home to Shetland. I wondered what traces had been found in Ivor’s car.

  Gavin would find that out. My ship, Cass. I knocked at the freshly painted door of the old museum, and went inside. The stove was glowing in one corner; Cat went straight to the hearth and began washing his paws. I followed the cinnamon smell to the kitchen, and found Reidar busy with boxes of old china. ‘I got these at the last auction. We must look at them, and arrange them ready to use. But first, I want you to try these.’

  He produced a plate of rolled biscuits, like brandy snaps, but flavoured with cinnamon instead of ginger, and oozing with softly whipped cream. ‘Delicious,’ I assured him, licking the last crumbs off my fingers.

  ‘You must not do that when you are waitressing,’ he warned me.

  I wiped my hands on my jeans. ‘Ready for work, sir.’

  We began washing tea sets and stacking them in the shelves behind the counter. I felt a sense of the past as I looked at the patterns: a navy swallow with forked tail and red head, a sprig of pinks with a gold embossed edge to cup and saucer, a green spray of flowers around the nibbled rim. These had been wedding presents, or bought with her knitting by some crofter’s lass for her bottom drawer; this single plate with a Chinese pheasant might have been brought back by a seaman grandfather and cherished in the middle shelf of the dresser until its old-lady owner died, leaving nobody to remember the bringer.

  ‘You are dreaming,’ Reidar observed, taking the Chinese plate from me.

  I shook my head. ‘Just wondering who owned these, and what stories they would have to tell.’

  ‘Do not forget to examine each one. No chips or cracks. We wish the customers to wonder on the history, not worry about the germs.’

  We were almost finished when there was a rap at the door, a male voice calling. Reidar and I looked at each other, startled, then the door jangled open and Mr Georgeson strode in, his shark grin puckered to sourness, as if he’d just sucked on a lemon. He took up the centre of the room, and looked around him.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Reidar asked.

  John Georgeson’s gaze scorched me, then moved to Reidar. ‘Councillor Geor
geson. A good idea this, to use the old museum for a café. I hope you’ll no’ be over much in competition with the local folk at the hotel and the college.’

  Given that the hotel owners were from Plymouth, and the college café presided over by Antoine, ‘local folk’ wasn’t really relevant, but I kept my mouth shut.

  ‘I hope not too,’ Reidar replied smoothly. ‘We are concentrating on tea, coffee, pastries, and a snack lunch menu, not evening meals.’

  Georgeson turned to scowl at me. ‘You’re working here?’

  ‘Reidar’s keen to employ locals.’

  He didn’t like that. ‘I’m sure there are Scalloway youngsters who’d be glad of the work. Aren’t you supposed to be at college?’

  ‘I’m paying my way through it.’ I looked him straight in the eye. ‘I was born in Shetland, you ken that, and I went to school in Brae. If I dinna belong here, then I dinna belong anywhere.’

  He scowled and turned back to Reidar. ‘I’m sure you have all the proper permits. It’d be a right shame if there was bother with that.’

  He was a tall man, Mr Georgeson, but Reidar seemed to grow until he was a head taller. ‘I have all the permissions I need, Councillor Georgeson, granted by your own departments. Now, if that is all, we have work to do.’ He went over to the door and opened it. ‘We open on Friday, as I am sure you know.’

  The look Georgeson gave him would have burnt a hole through metal. He gave me a last glare. ‘And you, keep your nose out o’ what doesna concern you.’ He turned on his heel and marched out of the shop. Reidar closed the door behind him.

  ‘You are making enemies, Cass.’

  ‘Maybe I should make myself scarce. I don’t want them to rescind your change of use permit or whatever he’s likely to do.’

  Reidar’s chest swelled. ‘I am not being dictated to by that bully. I wish you to work for me. But I also wish to know why he is so keen to put pressure on you.’