‘One benefit of living on an island,’ Gavin agreed. We spun round in the waltz again, steps matching neatly. He was making me into a better dancer than I remembered myself being. I was sorry that the black plastic bag prevented my skirt from swirling out as we swung.
‘The entire community must have helped clear the ship,’ I said, once we were back to criss-cross stepping. ‘She had a full cargo of wine, flour, tea-sets, all sort of stuff.’
‘It’s odd talking to someone with a green face,’ Gavin complained. ‘What about the crew?’
I remembered the broadcast, and put on a story-telling voice. ‘All dead aboard, and the captain sitting at the table with a gold ring apo’ his finger.’
My policeman raised his brows. ‘Sitting?’
‘Or there’s a rumour they were murdered, but our teacher didn’t believe that one. She made us listen to the story in groups and sort out first-hand evidence from rumour.’
‘What first hand evidence did you have?’
‘Oh, the records from Hay and Co – they were the shipping agents. The gold ring was right, because they sent it back to the widow. Anyway, there’s a saying up in Nesting, where she went ashore, “Dey’re gotten a Gudrun there”, meaning a windfall.’
‘I don’t suppose I’d have time to go to the archives tomorrow. Maybe some other time.’ He sighed. ‘The world is too full of interesting stories. Why would they have been murdered anyway?’
‘You canna rob the sea of her prize. Shu’ll tak a life in revenge.’ I remembered what I’d meant to tell him. ‘I heard about Jeemie, in the shop.’
‘Yes. That took up most of yesterday.’
‘So if Jeemie is out of it, and Georgeson senior, then who …?’
‘Still under consideration. Tomorrow.’ The tune ended; Gavin held me still in waltz hold, ready for the second bout. ‘You see, I’m learning. At home, we do each dance only once.’ He smiled at me. ‘We dance rather well together, don’t you think?’
‘On easy dances,’ I agreed cautiously. ‘I wouldn’t offer to do an exhibition tango.’
‘It’s good having someone who’s the right height for me. At the police ball, all the female officers are as tall as me anyway, so once they’re in high heels I feel like I’m steering a giraffe round the floor.’
We stepped and twirled round the floor in silence for the next stage, while I contemplated that. I’d never thought of myself being the right height before. I’d got good at stretching or clambering up to holds designed for six-foot men. I could wedge myself into small spaces, and I’d never complained about a sea-berth being too short. Yet here we were with his shoulder the height above mine that meant my arm fitted comfortably under it, and our strides matching. His grey eyes caught mine, with that teasing glint, but he didn’t speak, just smiled and kept dancing, his arm firm round my waist, his hand warm around mine, and I was contented.
He’d just drawn me back to join Reidar and Anders when there was a drum roll from the band: ‘Put your hands together, please, for squad number 6, squad 6.’
A crash of heavy metal music, and the fiddle box boy came in with a construction labelled ‘The Tunnel of Doom’. Behind him, an even smaller boy struggled with ‘The Hoop of Horror’. A pause, then three men in motor-biking leathers boinged into the room on orange spacehoppers. We laughed and clapped as they hopped round, contemplating the obstacles, then lined up ready to try them. There was a shrilling of whistles, and a set of neon waistcoats charged in, brandishing clipboards labelled ‘Health and Safety Audit.’ Heads were shaken, mouths pursed, then the H&S people issued the bikers with purple helmets and swimming goggles. They stood back; the bikers revved up their spacehoppers, and two men with lawnmowers disappeared into the other side of the tunnels. The bikers went in; the tape ended in loud whirring noises, clanks, and screams; the mowing men came out of the front of the tunnels, bedaubed with fake blood and with rather horribly realistic severed limbs dangling from the mower blades.
We laughed and clapped, then I went to the toilets to remove the green face paint. Without it, without the make-up, my face was scrubbed and red, the scar horribly visible. We dance rather well together … All the same, I’d wanted to do him credit. I made a face at myself, and returned just in time for the squad dance, a St Bernard’s Waltz. Anders took me up for it. ‘And how did you come to be green in the first place?’
I explained. My feet knew this dance without me even having to think about it. He held me tighter than Gavin had in the waltz, but I didn’t mind. We belonged, Anders and I, and I was tired, so tired, it was good to have his shoulder to lean on …
‘Hey!’ he said, in my ear. ‘I know that you can sleep on a clothes rail, but it is not polite to doze while you are dancing.’
I shook myself awake. ‘Sorry. It’s been a long day waitressing.’
He spun me in an extra circle as the first set of music ended. ‘Pretend you are on watch on a tall ship.’
I put my hand over a huge yawn. ‘I can’t.’
‘Then talk to me. Tell me all your plans for this year. Somewhere warm.’
That woke me up a little, but not quite enough; I kept yawning through the next squad, the one we’d spotted as Socks, the moonwalking pony. The ponies were auditioning for a cute pony advert, and any that didn’t make the grade were handed over to the butchers, and taken behind a screen. There were thumping noises and whinnies, then the butchers came out carrying Spam tins. Rainbow and Vaila wouldn’t have liked it, and my eyelids were heavy, so heavy … then I jerked awake as I found myself falling forwards. ‘I’m sorry, I think it’s probably my bedtime.’
Gavin glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll have a busy day tomorrow. I’ll walk you to your gate.’
Anders and Reidar flicked a glance at each other. I could tell exactly what they were thinking: if this was to be a romantic moment, they didn’t want to spoil it, but if Gavin was going to abandon me at the gate, they wanted to make sure I came to no harm. ‘How about you two?’ I asked.
‘I am tired too,’ Reidar said. I wasn’t surprised; he’d been on his feet all day.
‘Waiting at tables and being a baker is much harder than taking an engine apart,’ Anders agreed.
‘We’re a set of wimps,’ I said. ‘Everyone else will be up until dawn. You haven’t even seen the Jarl Squad.’
‘What do they do?’ Gavin asked, cautiously. ‘Rape and pillage?’
‘They sing the Up Helly Aa songs, and the squad song.’
Gavin waved one hand. ‘They were very impressive at the burning. I really do have to work tomorrow.’ He smiled at me. ‘I shouldn’t feel relieved you don’t want to dance all night.’
‘I couldn’t.’ As I walked across the floor, I was swaying as if I was drunk; or maybe it was the world swaying around me. Gavin gave me his arm; my hand curled around the rough tweed, stone-steady. Outside, the cold was biting after the warmth of the club, but even that didn’t wake me up. The moon shone above us, ringed with a frost halo. Anders and Reidar went on first, Gavin and I behind them, side by side, steps matching. At the gate, Gavin leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek, quickly, lightly, just as I’d kissed him. We said goodnight, beannachd leat, speak tomorrow . He walked briskly to his car, and I locked the gate and stumbled forward to Sule. Cat didn’t want to leave the warmth of Anders’ sleeping bag, where he and Rat were curled up, but by the time I’d renewed the hot water bottle I’d tucked into my berth to pre-warm my thermals and two downies, brushed my teeth, and wriggled into my bunk, he’d slipped in through the forrard hatch, finished his supper, and was ready to curl in beside me. We were out cold in less than a minute.
Saturday 11th January
High Water at Scalloway UT 05.11, 1.3 m
Low Water 11.39, 1.0 m
High Water 17.40, 1.3 m
Low Water 00.03, 0.9 m
Moonset 04.31
Sunrise 08.59
Moonrise 12.16
Sunset 15.26
Moon first quarter
There’s some hidden motive or undisclosed reason.
Chapter Thirty
Someone was following me. I could hear the footsteps, soft on the pavement, as if the person wore unseasonal canvas shoes so that they could move unheard. Like an echo, when I paused, they paused, but not quite quickly enough; when I went on, a little faster, they hurried after me, yet when I looked over my shoulder there was nobody there in the dusk.
I cursed my hurry. Anders had gone off to a Warhammer game, and I should have waited for Reidar to finish preparations for tomorrow, but I’d been worried about Cat, left alone all day while I waitressed, and it was just past five, with people in the shops and street, discussing last’s night’s triumph. I’d come past the brightly lit shops, the open car park with the Shetland Bus Memorial in the centre, and come around the corner at the first of the sheds. It was there I’d heard the echo. I’d gone on, past the Walter and Joan Grey Eventide Home, past the Bus men’s repair shed; the red of Norway House was on my right, its windows dark. On my left, the water lapped at the rusted slip. I came out into the centre of the road. ‘Who’s there?’
There was no reply. The echo stilled. I remembered Hubert, lying in the snow on the marina pontoon with the blood bubbling over his chest, and felt a cold slither climbing up my spine. The long street between me and Khalida stretched before me. I could run back to the old folks’ home, where there’d be a warden on duty, but the footsteps had been behind me.
Then a hooded shadow moved in the blacker shadow of the nearest doorway, not twenty yards from me. A woman’s voice breathed my name: ‘Cass, wait! I want to talk to you.’
I paused, turned, and realised I’d made a mistake, for she was holding a gun in her hand, pointed straight at me. She wasn’t going to do the ‘murderer confesses all’ chat, like an Agatha Christie. She was going to shoot me at point-blank range, as she’d shot Hubert. It took a good shot to hit a moving target. I leapt sideways, then turned and ran, the lights of the Walter and Joan Grey bright before my eyes.
There was a queer crack, and I was flung backwards, a searing pain in my belly. My head hit the ground with a bang that half stunned me. My side was wet – I was bleeding and hurting, and a shadow was gliding over the road beside me with a shadow gun in its hand, like something from a film, except the gritty pavement under my cheek, the hardness under my hip, made it real. I tried to get up, but my arms had no strength. I could only move in slow motion, as if I was in a nightmare. The shadow on the ground by my head looked over its shoulder, as if it heard something that the drumming in my ears shut out, then I was grabbed under the shoulders and half dragged, half tumbled down Prince Olav’s slipway.
‘You shouldn’t move me,’ a voice in my head was protesting. ‘The first rule of first aid, don’t move the casualty. Airways, bleeding, consciousness. I’m losing enough blood, and you’re hurting me …’ Over it, I was thinking. If she thought she’d got me with her first bullet, she wouldn’t shoot again. It took all the resolution I could muster to go limp, let myself be hauled like this, down the sharp rocks of the shore and towards the cold water of the sea. I could feel the wave motion trembling through the beach, and the pebbles were wet as my hands brushed them. Born to be drowned … the shoosh of the waves was getting closer, then I felt the shock of icy water on my face. The fog that filled my brain cleared for a moment. My oilskins held out the water for a few seconds, then the chill fingers crept around my collar and down to my breastbone. My heart tensed with shock for a moment, then resumed the beat that thumped through my chest, echoed in my ears.
All the time I was praying, praying incoherently for help. Now I was lying half-in the water. I felt her hand on my head, and took a long, silent breath, mouth open to gulp in as much air as I could, lungs filling to the very bottom, as if I was Maman preparing for one of her lovely runs of sound, like a lark’s trill on a summer day. The hand clamped on my head; my face went down into the water. Count, Cass, count. Pearl divers could stay down for unbelievably long times. I felt a larger wave come over me, lift me, and glory be, she automatically stepped back from it, and I was able to sneak another long breath, salt-smelling, my own sea that was both foe and friend, that would clean the wound and stop the bleeding if she would only leave me lying here. The hand came back to my head, grasping my hair. My nose went down into the swirling sand.
Then there was light. I saw it even through my closed eyelids, dazzling through the dark: a car stopping, using the car park to turn in. The clutching fingers let my hair go. I felt the stones move as she turned and ran, and let my hands grasp the wet pebbles to haul myself out of there, inch by painful inch, gasping for breath, with the snatching wave receding from my shoulders, my waist. The wind was colder than the water had been. I didn’t have long to get help.
The car had turned and gone, the driver looking over his shoulder while his searchlights had blazed over the sea. Heaven send she didn’t come back to make sure I was finished off. Heaven send my oilskin jacket pocket had kept my phone dry. I rolled onto my back, ignoring the waves washing over my legs, and fumbled the velcro open. Please, Lord … It lit up as I touched the button. I manoeuvred my other hand to my face and pulled my glove off with my teeth.
The black waves a metre from me came and went, and there was a singing in the air. The screen was blurring in front of my eyes. Airways, bleeding, consciousness. I swapped the phone into my bare hand, then fumbled a fold of my jacket tight around my body and pushed against it, keeping my hand there while I worked the phone. One click of the centre button, up one, another click, and I should have ‘contacts’. I’d re-saved Gavin as A Gavin, just to save scrolling through. Another click, to open his name, and then the green button. My hand was shaking, my mouth was filling with blood. I turned my head to spit it away. One ring – two – three – oh, Gavin, I need you, pick up – and then at last his voice was saying ‘Cass?’ and with my last rags of consciousness I found myself going into the formula I’d learned by heart, although I’d never yet needed to use it: ‘Mayday, mayday.’ I was struggling for breath now, and a red mist swum in front of my eyes. He needed to know where I was. That was the most urgent thing. I used the last rags of my strength to speak clearly. ‘I’m on the beach. Prince Olav slipway.’ Bless him, he didn’t ask questions or try to interrupt. ‘I’m bleeding badly.’ I should tell him who. ‘Julie shot me. Julie. M’aidez.’
Then the darkness washed over me.
The time passed as if I was dreaming. I thought I heard Cat’s almost silent miaow, then felt a rough tongue licking the salt from my face. The waves came up me, chilling my hands, soaking my clothes. I couldn’t feel my legs any more, but there was warm fur against my cheek. A njuggle hovered just at the edge of my vision. The trickster, the mill-dweller, the killer. There was something I had to remember, but it was lost in the darkness. Julie’s voice. Then there were sirens, in the distance first, faint through the singing in my ears, then closer, splitting the quiet night with their clamour. Cat leapt away. Blue flashing light spilling over the wall above me, then the white glare of a searchlight raking the beach. Shouting. I felt the pebbles under me vibrate to running feet. Now I was surrounded by people with the antiseptic smell of medics. Someone was kneeling beside me; competent hands were unclasping my grip on my jacket. I heard an indrawn breath.
‘Don’t cut my gansey,’ I managed to murmur.
Someone was at my head. ‘Cass, can you hear me?’ It was Gavin’s voice. I tried to move my hand, and his fingers grasped mine. ‘Hang on, Cass. Keep talking to me.’
‘Julie,’ I said. ‘She shot me.’ A hand clamped a bandage pad to my side. I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing deeply against the pain. When I opened them again, Gavin’s face was hovering over me, calm as if he was in church; but his eyes were filled with anxiety. ‘Be fine,’ I promised him. ‘Cat. Here. Ask Reidar – look for him.’
‘I’ll get an officer to go.’ I heard him giving instruction
s: she’s worried about her cat. It would have been following her. Not following, my head contradicted, waiting for me.
‘Won’t come to a stranger.’ My voice didn’t sound like my own. ‘Knows his way home. I just want to be sure he gets there.’
Gavin’s voice turned away from me again. ‘The café where the museum was. Tell Reidar what’s happened, and ask if he’ll come and check on Cat.’
‘Julie.’
Gavin’s face hung over my eyes, his shoulders lost in white mist, as if he was hovering in the air. ‘Are you sure?’
I tried to nod, and felt the pain spasm down my side. ‘Certain.’ The hands holding the pad lifted for a moment, then pressed again. Dear God, it hurt so that I could barely think of anything else. The sweat was cold on my forehead. ‘I recognised her voice.’ I forced the words out of my memory. ‘She said, “Cass, wait. I want to talk to you.” Julie. Dragged me here – was going to hold my face under water – car came.’
Gavin turned away again. ‘Go and pick up Mrs Julie Hughson, and take her to Lerwick. No arrest, we’d just like her to answer a few questions. Recommend she has a lawyer. I’ll see Cass safe to hospital then come along.’
I heard the feet tramp up the beach. ‘Grievous bodily harm. Attempted murder.’
‘We don’t know you’re grievous yet,’ Gavin said. I felt him move back, though his hand still held mine. Another face loomed over me.
‘Cass, can you move your legs?’
‘Cold,’ I said, and did my best.
‘Arms?’
‘Yes.’ I demonstrated.
‘Take a few deep breaths for me.’
I had breathed deep for Julie. I could do it again, though the effort hurt. The paramedic spoke softly into my face. ‘We’re going to lift you onto the stretcher now. Don’t try to help us, just lie limp. We’ll do everything. Just relax, you’re going to be fine.’
The Body in the Bracken Page 26