The Body in the Bracken

by Marsali Taylor

  ‘Does he, now.’ He was silent for a moment, negotiating the turn onto the single-track road leading to The Njuggle’s Nest. The road was dark on each side of us; far below, the moon glinted on the water. ‘She didn’t say who the boyfriend was?’

  He didn’t answer, which I took as ‘Yes, but I can’t tell you.’ Fair enough. I was sorry for Donna, though; I knew what it was like being afraid of your past returning to haunt you.

  ‘Now she’s going to spend the rest of her life in fear somebody else’ll tell the new man’s family about her affair with Ivor – and in the end somebody will.’ I looked straight ahead, into the darkness, where the headlands of Voxter and Cole, the dark bulk of Linga, were black against the silver water, and was glad Gavin knew about Alain’s death. The headlights caught the bars of the gate; I nipped out to open it, and we bumped down the gravelly drive to the house.

  Jeemie was in. The lights shone gold from each side of the porch, and I could hear the murmur of Radio Shetland in the kitchen. Gavin knocked on the door; a moment’s pause, then the radio was turned down, and a shadow crossed the window. I tried not to listen as Gavin explained who he was, and was beckoned in, but my window had been down, and this was one of these cars which needed the engine running before I could put it up again. I snuggled down in my seat and prepared to hear.

  The lights went on in the shop. I could see Gavin in front of the counter and Jeemie behind. He got out the tray of rings, and Gavin indicated the clasped hands of Julie’s grandmother’s ring. ‘Can you remember anything about the person who sold it to you?’

  ‘Well.’ Jeemie fished in his desk for a blue-bound book. ‘I’ve not had that one long.’

  I sat up, frowning. If Ivor had given Donna the ring, it was way back before August. Why had she waited to get rid of it? Answer: she heard a rumour of Ivor’s death, and saw ‘the girl detective’ in the restaurant, looking at her.

  ‘The gimmel ring … yes, here it is. Victorian gimmel ring, gold with garnet heart. The name I have is a Caroline Kingsley, at 34, King Harald Street. She brought in several things. This gold chain, and a bracelet, and a few trinkets.’ He bent forward to lift up items. ‘This one, and this.’

  Gavin fished in his sporran for his black notebook. ‘Caroline Kingsley, 34, King Harald Street. Do you remember what she looked like?’

  ‘She was a south-spoken lass, dark haired, and bonny the way they all are now, with a face made-up like one of these porcelain dolls.’

  ‘South spoken? English?’

  Jeemie shook his head. ‘Oh, I’m no good at accents. Scottish, I think, but I couldna be more particular.’

  ‘What height and build?’

  Jeemie shook his head. ‘Medium height, I think, and skinny.’

  ‘Clothes?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t remember. A black jacket, jeans. Fashionable looking.’

  ‘And when was this?’

  ‘Oh, I mind that fine, for I was only open a couple of days between Christmas and New Year. It was last Wednesday.’

  ‘The day I arrived home,’ I reminded Gavin. ‘Before she saw me in the restaurant. And the next day someone tried to gas me.’

  ‘But then she could be like Hughson’s wife, Julie. Christmas is a time for wiping the slate clean. Throw out the letters, get rid of the reminders.’

  ‘Then why not do it before Christmas?’

  ‘Work, maybe. It’s too far to do in her lunch hour, and he’d be closed by the end of her day.’ He was silent for a moment, frowning in the green lights of the dashboard. ‘The description was very vague.’

  ‘It fitted Donna.’

  ‘Not in any meaningful way. Dark, made-up, medium height, skinny, Scottish accent, fashionable black jacket and jeans. Shall we stand on Commercial Street one Saturday morning and see if we can pick her out from that?’ I saw what he meant. ‘And what’s striking about Donna, if it was her, is that fragile air. She was invented for knights in armour. No man would miss that.’

  ‘So you think he was making up a description?’

  ‘It’s possible that this Caroline Kingsley found herself short of money at Christmas, and sold an old ring she didn’t wear, and other bits and pieces. He’s the obvious place in Shetland to buy it. But there’re two minor snags.’ Gavin rolled smoothly to a halt in the middle of the T-junction onto the main road. ‘Brae and Frankie’s, or back to the town?’

  ‘Oh, Frankie’s. What’re your difficulties?’

  ‘Well, I stayed at 34, King Harald Street, on my first visit. It’s a very comfortable B&B.’

  ‘Maybe she was here on holiday.’

  ‘You don’t take your family jewellery with you on holiday, on the off chance you might want to sell it.’

  I had to agree. ‘Difficulty two?’

  ‘I don’t like her name. Did you read The Water Babies when you were little?’

  I shook my head. ‘We had a cartoon video. What has that to do with Caroline Kingsley?’

  ‘It was written by Charles Kingsley. Earlier on the page there was a Sam Boulter who’d sold a Victorian fob watch. Samuel Butler was a writer too – Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh.’

  ‘Ohhh,’ I said, enlightened. I remembered the shelves of old books, with their dark red leather covers and ornate gold decorations. ‘You think Jeemie is pulling a fast one?’

  ‘The page before had a Madge L. Feint. Margaret Oliphant was one of the most popular rivals to Dickens.’ He added, apologetically, ‘The Inverness library has a lunchtime readers’ group that specialises in Victorian literature.’

  ‘So he’s getting this stuff from a provenance he doesn’t want to reveal.’

  ‘Did I see in the paper that you’ve had a rise in burglaries recently?’ He pulled in to the red-gravel verge. ‘This won’t take a moment.’ He got out his mobile and turned away slightly. ‘Freya – good. I’ve had a look at The Njuggle’s Nest, and I wonder if we’re looking at receiving stolen goods. The names and addresses in his books are suspect … yes. See what you can dig up. Small pieces of jewellery thought to be lost somewhere, and reported a while after they went missing. Thanks.’

  He snicked the phone off, and put the car back into gear. The mussel floats of Olna Firth bobbed like serpent humps on the silver water, then we were between the banks that enclosed the double road. In spring they’d be yellow with daffodils planted by Community Service folk, but now the headlights spotlit bedraggled tussocks of fawn grass.

  ‘Well?’ I said at last.

  ‘What would you say security is like in Shetland houses?’

  I looked blankly at him. ‘Security?

  ‘Burglar alarms, double locks, catches on windows?’

  ‘Good gracious!’

  ‘Your dad’s, for example.’

  ‘Definitely no burglar alarms. The front door might have a mortice lock as well as the Yale. The window catches – well, just the usual sort, the long bar with the holes in it.’

  ‘So it would be easy for anyone to come into the house, if they knew, say, that your dad was off on business for a fortnight.’

  ‘Any house in Shetland, if you could avoid the neighbours seeing you. And anyone in the gossip chain would know who was away.’

  We came out into the open again. The lights at Busta shone over to us as we came past the little bay at Sparl, then winked out again as the houses surrounded us. We came through the first half of Brae and turned smoothly into Frankie’s Fish and Chip shop. A comforting odour of frying filled the air.

  It was only half a dozen miles further to Muckle Roe. I closed the door and looked at him over the roof of the car. ‘Shall I phone Dad and Maman and see if they’ve eaten yet?’

  It was the first time I’d seen him look dismayed. He gave a quick glance down at his comfortable jacket and green kilt.

  ‘Better still, let’s not give them notice, let’s just turn up. Otherwise Maman will terrify you with full Callas make-up and her best jewellery, and the sitting room will be so immaculate we’ll be scared to sit d
own.’

  He didn’t answer, just stood there looking out across the glimmering water, face downcast, as if he’d wanted his scarlet dress kilt and the black jacket with Prince Charlie’s button to meet my parents. I struggled to express the vague feeling in my mind.

  ‘I want them to meet you. This you.’ Damn it, I wasn’t good at this kind of words. I kept making the effort. ‘You were being DI Macrae when you met Dad, and you haven’t met Maman at all. I want them to see the you that just blandished a njuggle, the countryman who can handle a boat.’ I was running out of words. I finished in a burst: ‘If they see you in full Highland dress they’ll never believe you want me.’

  The words hung in the air. I could have bitten my tongue off, asking him to sacrifice his pride to save mine. My cheeks flushed scarlet; and then his hand came over the roof of the car, his fingers curled around mine, gentle as a ripple touching the shore.

  ‘Phone away.’ Now he was smiling again. ‘We’ll turn up scruffily together, and whatever scolding you get will be on your own terms.’

  I considered that as he waved me in front of him into the chippy. I had to concede he was right. If he’d been in full dress, Maman would have expected me to live up to his magnificent swirl of scarlet pleats, the stocking dagger with the winking gold Cairngorm in the handle. Here, now, we matched. I’d get told off for arriving without warning, or not inviting ourselves to tea, but the long-running battle of clothes would be left at truce. I fished out my mobile and called Maman.

  ‘Salut. Gavin and I are just at Frankie’s. We’re going to get a fish supper, shall we get for you and Dad too, and bring it round?’

  There was a half-beat pause, then a wail. ‘Oh, Cassandre, you must do everything the wrong way round! No, no, do not get fish and chips. I have a casserole in the oven. You will have to wait until it is cooked. Dessert, I have a tarte tatin in the freezer. Stop at the Co-op and buy some cream.’

  ‘We can’t stay all evening,’ I warned. ‘I left Cat alone on Khalida.’

  ‘The casserole will be ready in not less than an hour.’

  ‘And we’re not dressed for a formal meal.’

  ‘I think that what you are saying,’ said Maman severely, ‘is that you wish me to meet your young man over a paper of greasy chips and fish in batter eaten with the fingers. Will you permit at least that I offer him a cup of tea?’

  Greasy was a libel on Frankie’s. ‘He’d prefer a cup of your best French coffee.’

  ‘Then your father will have a steak pie supper, and I will have mussels without chips, and once this ice is broken you will bring him for a proper French lunch on Sunday.’

  I turned to Gavin in English. From the quirk at the corner of his mouth he had a working knowledge of French. ‘Would you be available for a proper French lunch on Sunday?’

  ‘I would be delighted, if work permits.’

  ‘He’s a policeman, his hours are worse than a sailor’s,’ I relayed to Maman, ‘but he would be delighted, if his work permits. See you in twenty minutes.’

  The fleas jumped in my belly as we waited in Frankie’s for our fish to be cooked. Twenty minutes was time for Maman to get on full dress. I didn’t trust her not to give Gavin the third degree on his family background and promotion prospects, and if she didn’t, then Dad might. It could all be horribly embarrassing.

  Gavin put a hand on my shoulder. ‘It can’t be worse than Kenny cross-questioning you about Shetland cattle.’

  My ignorance of the native cow had been exposed most horribly. They were black and white, smaller than normal cows, and there was a stuffed one in the museum; that was my limit. ‘It’ll do you good,’ I retorted, ‘to be on the wrong end of the interrogation, for once, and without even being able to tie trout flies.’

  He tapped the tin in his pocket. ‘Your father might be delighted to talk about something so uncontroversial.’

  I gave him a glum look. ‘I’ve never taken anyone home before. I don’t know how they’ll behave.’

  His grey eyes were smiling reassurance. ‘I’d never taken anyone home before either, and you fitted in straight away.’

  ‘But you fit in your home. I’m not sure I fit in mine.’

  ‘Then we can not fit together. Anyway, I want to meet your Maman. There was a know-it-all officer on the longship case who came back from a session with her looking as if he’d been put through a mangle.’ He grinned. ‘There was coffee-break talk of sending her an anonymous bouquet.’

  We drove past the marina and onto the Muckle Roe road, with me clasping the four warm blue and white boxes in a wonderful smell of batter and vinegar; past the white crowstepped gables of Busta House, over the bridge, along the single-track road, the headlights picking out the white lines on each side, and into the gravel space before our house. Gavin turned off the engine. ‘Well, are you all set?’

  ‘A la lanterne,’ I said heroically, and got out just as the front door opened in a flood of golden light.

  Twenty minutes was all Maman had needed. She’d put on dressed-down wide-legged trousers and a polo-neck pullover in her trademark black and white. There were pearl studs in her ears. She held out her hand to Gavin. ‘Lieutenant Macrae, I am enchanted.’

  ‘I’m honoured to meet you.’ Gavin managed a little continental bow over her hand. ‘I have several of your recordings.’

  She gave a deprecating flutter of one slim hand, and ushered us into the kitchen, where the table had already been laid with mats and cutlery, to make sure that the despised chips were at least eaten with knives and forks. Les Anglais do not take food seriously … ‘You know my husband, of course. Dermot, this is Gavin.’

  Dad was wearing a visibly just-ironed shirt. While he and Gavin shook hands, I dumped the stack of blue and white boxes on the table. ‘Mussels, Maman – steak pie – muckle fish – peerie fish.’

  Maman whisked a stack of china from the oven, indicated Gavin and I to opposite sides of the table, and dealt the plates out. There was merciful silence for a few minutes while we sorted out whose box was which, and Dad opened a bottle of wine. ‘A nice Loire white this. I got a case of it when I was over at one of your mother’s concerts during the summer.’

  ‘Chenonceau,’ Maman said. ‘Hippolyte et Aricie. I played Diana, a good role to sing, but the costumier’s head-dress –’ She lifted her hands to above-head level, and spread them out like a stag’s antlers. ‘It was as big as this, a crescent moon with stars dangling from it. One would have said Turandot, or something from a children’s show.’

  It felt odd to be eating fish and chips with a knife and fork, here in the house, rather than aboard Khalida, with Cat wolfing his share at my feet. ‘I hope Cat’s okay for this long on his own,’ I said.

  Dad made a visible effort. ‘You’ll be used to animals, Gavin, from what Cass was telling us.’

  ‘Yes, sir, we have a farm.’ He managed to make the ‘sir’ sound like respect, rather than police. ‘Though it’s my brother Kenny who is the animals man. I’m not home enough; I have a flat in Inverness through the week. I do a bit with the stalking ponies.’

  ‘Do you have a lot of stalking?’

  Gavin spread his hands. ‘Nothing compared to what there was in my grandfather’s day. The owner of the estate comes up for a fortnight and culls the number required, but he’s not really keen.’

  ‘But you get the venison.’

  ‘Oh, yes, there’s never any shortage of that.’

  It was stilted, but at least everyone was trying. I could see by the approving glances Maman cast his way from under her mascara-dark lashes that she liked him; I wasn’t sure about Dad, who had a Catholic Irishman’s distrust of the police.

  ‘My mother grew up on a farm,’ he said now, ‘before she married my father and he took her to Dublin. She always missed it. We’d go back there every summer sure as fate and help with the harvest.’

  ‘It’s a lot of work. We have hay, just enough for the animals, silage, and the vegetable garden. That’s my mother’s s
ide of the farm, and the poultry of course.’

  ‘It was lovely,’ I told Maman. ‘Fresh milk every morning, and bottled raspberries, just like Mamy’s in France.’ I turned to Gavin. ‘We used to go to Maman’s parents for Easter and October. They had a farm near Poitiers, well, a smallholding, with a cow, and chickens, and being France, they could grow just about anything, pumpkins, courgettes, even tomatoes outdoors.’

  That seemed about it for the farming topic. There was another silence, broken only by the scrape of knife on china. I was just trying to think of an innocuous topic when Maman dived in, graceful as a swooping tern, and with as much of a splash on the water. ‘Did Cass tell you that Dermot and I rendered a visit to Monsieur Georgeson with her?’

  I choked. Before I’d recovered enough to say that Gavin didn’t appreciate our efforts to get in his way of catching a murderer, he’d replied, very smoothly, ‘She did. What did you make of him, madame?’

  ‘Ambitious. He would play Macbeth. He has built up his business from almost nothing and now it is the largest haulage firm in Shetland. He has done well, and now he expects that all his children should do well too. His daughter is adjunct director of the Anderson High School.’

  ‘Vice-principal,’ I translated helpfully.

  ‘Expected, it seems, to take over should the director take early retirement.’

  ‘Not much chance of that right now,’ Dad said. ‘The authority’s cutting its expenses right down. Once the windfarm’s built, of course, it’ll be different. We’ll be able to expand again, with that money flowing in.’

  Gavin had told me that the tide of opinion was turning against windfarms on the mainland. I saw him thinking it again, but his long mouth remained shut.

  ‘The oldest son is a part of his firm,’ Maman continued, ‘and the second son has a building supplies business, also very successful, according to Monsieur Georgeson. I think he would not be content if the business of a son of his was declared to the receivers.’

  ‘There’s a difference,’ Dad insisted, ‘between being not content and going on to murder his partner.’