There was something else faint on the wind, a smell of burning. Had it been the crackle of a fire I’d heard? If it was by Busta, the headland would hide the glow. Yes, burning paper and wood, then a sudden whiff of an acrid smell, and with the smell a reflection of light in the water, so faint that I would never have seen it if the sky had been lighter.
Anders was at Busta. I called him, but there was no answer. Either he’d seen it and was dealing with it already, or was too sound asleep to wake. When the voicemail cut in I breathed a message: ‘Cass here. Someone’s up to mischief on Busta beach.’
Now what? This could be our chance to catch someone red-handed. Nobody would be carrying out legitimate burning of old tyres at this hour. I was dying to jump into the dinghy, but either by fast, noisy outboard or slow, silent oars they’d be gone before I reached them. I had to get somebody on the spot to check it out.
I called Ted, and he answered on the second ring. ‘Cass?’
‘Somebody’s up to something on the beach. I can smell burning.’
‘I’ll check it out.’
‘Not on your own,’ I said, alarmed.
He didn’t reply. I laid my mobile down and put shoes on. This was my post, guarding Stormfugl, and I wouldn’t desert it. Fires were classic diversionary tactics. I padded softly round to the shelter of the boathouse, where Stormfugl lay dark beneath her spider’s web of glinting tape, but all remained still in the marina.
It was fifteen long minutes before my phone shrilled: Ted’s voice, brief and curt. ‘He got away. Either off along the beach or back mingling with us. Sabotage. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Thanks, Cass.’
The light was dissolving the darkness now, the water gleaming blue instead of black. I went slowly back around the marina curve and pulled my downie over me. The first ripples of the turning tide began to tap on Khalida’s hull. I’d be no good in the morning if I didn’t sleep again now, but my heart was racing, as if I’d been with Ted chasing that shadowy figure along the beach.
More sabotage …
Chapter Fifteen
At eight, the sounds of the day began again: cars moving around, the snicks and clatters of the new house being built above the road, the bleep of a truck reversing. I shook myself awake and headed for a hot shower to chase the stiffness of the night. I was just eating breakfast when Anders tapped on the window.
‘Good morning, Cass.’ His fair hair was damp and brushed, and his neat beard jutted out with a satisfied air. ‘Is the kettle boiled?’
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Go you.’ I fed Rat a couple of crispies and let him run up my arm to my shoulder. His warm fur was comforting against my cheek.
‘How did you enjoy Ted’s visit?’ Anders said.
‘Now how did you know about that?’ I asked.
‘I was talking to his minders,’ Anders said. ‘The odds are mixed on you.’
A crispie went down the wrong way as I took a deep breath. Rat leapt for the bookshelf; Anders considerately thumped me on the back, against all the best First Aid practice. ‘Mixed?’ I asked when I could breathe again.
‘Half for you and half against you,’ Anders said precisely.
‘I know what mixed means,’ I retorted. ‘I don’t know why there should be odds.’
Anders shook his head. ‘Cass, really. Odds on you consoling him. Half of the crew think you would be a good match, the ordinary one to keep his feet on the ground. The make-up girls agree they could make you into a beauty.’
‘They won’t get the chance,’ I said. ‘What about last night, at Busta?’
‘Yes,’ Anders said. There was a long pause while he poured the hot water into the mug and turned to set it down. ‘There has been more sabotage.’ He sat down. ‘Someone has destroyed all the videotapes of the film shot here in Shetland.’
For a moment I thought I’d misheard. Then I remembered the smell of burning plastic on the air. ‘Destroyed? All the film taken in Shetland?’
‘No, not the film,’ Anders said. ‘Stormfugl will still be a star. The video copies. It will delay the film a bit, I gather, because Ted will need to edit again what he had already done, but the original footage is safe.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘So tell me what happened.’
‘In the middle of the night, Ted saw a fire on the beach. You will not agree, I expect …’
I glared, and he raised his hand. ‘I just wondered how he happened to see it.’
‘He saw it,’ I said, ‘because I phoned and woke him. I smelt it.’
‘You did not phone me?’ Anders said, disconcerted. ‘Cass, surely you do not think that I have something to do with all this?’
‘I tried,’ I said. ‘Your phone was switched off.’
He looked blankly at me. ‘But it was not. Why would I turn it off? It didn’t ring all night.’
There was no point in arguing that one. ‘So what happened?’
‘Ted awoke his minders and went down, and found a heap of videos burning. They were all kept in their cases, labelled, in one of the stores at Busta, so that Ted could make a start at editing. The cases had been opened, then closed again, so that the store looked normal, but the videos were gone.’
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘So they could have been stolen bit by bit at any time.’
‘More or less,’ Anders agreed. ‘The actual film was developed in London, there is only one firm that does it, and they sent back a video of it by courier, so that Ted could watch it in his suite each night. There was no great security, why should there be?’
‘But it doesn’t stop the film being made,’ I mused, ‘because the originals are all in London. Who would know that?’
‘All of them,’ Anders said with confidence. ‘Even down to the make-up girls. It is the standard procedure on all movies, and they all know how it works.’
‘So,’ I mused, ‘the saboteur wasn’t a member of the crew.’ Kenneth. Gibbie. Inga.
‘But,’ Anders said, ‘it would have been somebody who’d seen the news on television last night, where Ted said he was determined to finish the movie.’
‘Favelle’s memorial.’ I took a couple of sips of tea, thinking. Khalida creaked on her moorings as Anders leaned back and stretched his legs across the cabin. ‘I was thinking that her death might be to do with the wind farm, to stop the publicity shots, but that doesn’t fit. If anything, the movie would benefit the wind farm protesters, by showing Shetland as an unspoiled place you wouldn’t want to erect turbines all over.’
‘It is a pretty weak motive,’ Anders said. ‘Just to stop the publicity shots.’
I nodded. ‘But destroying her memorial, that looks vindictive. Maybe killing her was personal. I’m going to go and see if Kenneth’s up. I want to talk to him.’
Anders looked alarmed. ‘Cass, you mustn’t. Suppose he’s our murderer?’
‘Girl insists on going into lonely house,’ I murmured.
‘It’s a bad idea,’ Anders insisted.
I jutted my chin at him. ‘Favelle died on my ship, and I’m going to make sure it’s sorted out. If it’ll keep you happy, I’ll phone you.’
‘No,’ he said, his face grave, ‘I’ll phone you. You phone me the minute you arrive with the car at his house, and I will call you back in five minutes, once you are inside. You tell me loudly and clearly that you are at Kenneth’s house, and then he will know that I know.’
I had to turn left out of the marina. My right-hand look for traffic showed me a police car, indicating to turn down to the boating club. I shot out before it and slowed down around the curve to look back. It slithered down the gravel hill and stopped beside Anders. DI Macrae got out. His lips moved, and Anders straightened. I pulled over to look properly. Inspector Macrae gestured, and Anders preceded him towards the club, shoulders slumped.
‘You’d better tell the truth this time,’ I mind-projected at him. At the door of the club, he paused, gestured towards the north. I could read his lips, plain as plain: ‘I have to phone Cass. I
t is really important.’
He’d explain why, and Macrae would be up here to stop me. I checked over my shoulder and shot off.
Kenneth lived several miles north of Brae, on the road that led towards Ronas Hill. His house looked like a fifties villa, grey-harled with a small porch projecting in the centre. It was facing the fretted dazzle of sea, with a grassy curve of Ronas Hill rising to the blue sky behind it, and a burn fringed with marsh marigolds running though the middle of the valley below. The impact of the natural scenery was diminished by a white picket fence enclosing an empty stretch of lawn: no children’s toys scattered, no deckchairs or plastic tables. The gravel before the door was as empty as the grass, with none of the usual impedimentia of normal Shetland living, no boots or oilskins hung out to dry, no bags of peats on their way in or black rubbish bags on their way out. It looked like the tourist accommodation it was, but with the last family moved out and the next not yet arrived. Kenneth’s car was parked by the byre, but there was no sign of movement behind either of the downstairs windows.
I called Anders’ mobile, gave it two rings and cut the connection. It rang back immediately. I didn’t pick up. Instead, I swung the car door open and got out.
I stood for another moment looking around, and listening. There was still no sign of life, but a prickling in my shoulder-blades suggested I was being watched. I didn’t want to do anything as obvious as tilting my head to the dormer windows. I opened the door and walked in, calling in traditional fashion, ‘Is there anybody home?’
The hall was as tidy and as impersonal as the exterior. There was a row of brass hooks dangling one fawn Burberry and one green anorak, and a pair of Hawkshead walking boots underneath, toes set to the wall. A dusty mirror reflected me framed in the doorway. At the end of the hall was the stair to the two upstairs rooms; on each side of the stair was a door. I called ‘Hello’ again, louder, and opened the door to the left.
Good guess. It was the kitchen, all fake-wood cupboards and beige tiling. An upturned pan crouched on the stainless steel draining board with a wooden spoon beside it. At the other end of the room were two armchairs, each with a modern throw in a rainbow-coloured stars-and-moons design which only pointed up the blandness of the fawn and grey swirled lino. There was a wooden table by the window, with the inevitable pile of jotters, a pile of A4 paper, used, and a widescreen computer with a scanner on one side and a printer on the other. If I’d been a proper private eye I’d’ve headed straight for it, downloaded all the sensitive information directly into my own memory stick, and scarpered.
Lying beside the computer, as if it had been taken off by someone coming to sit down at the table, was a red scarf. I was just stretching out a hand to it when there were footsteps on carpet above me, then creaking down the stairs. I retreated to the doorway and turned. ‘Hiya.’
‘Cass,’ Kenneth said, without noticeable enthusiasm. He was wearing his school clothes, a white shirt covered by one of those green army jumpers with the elbow pads, and a pair of dark grey trousers in a style which made his legs even longer and skinnier. The pinkness of his cheeks suggested he’d had a go at shaving what whiskers he had, and his heron’s comb hair was sleeked back, showing off the receding patches. His watery eyes surveyed me with suspicion.
‘I hope I’m not bothering you too early,’ I said, and launched into the story I’d thought out on the way over. ‘I was passing, and I’d been thinking about you – about the wind farm.’ His mouth relaxed slightly, but his eyes were still wary. ‘Dad was talking about it last night, and I hadn’t realised the scale of it. I thought it was just two or three, like the ones above Lerwick.’ The phone in my pocket rang again; we both jumped. Anders calling, the display said, but I’d have betted my best mainsail that it wasn’t.
‘Anders?’ I said innocently into it.
‘Ms Lynch,’ said DI Macrae, ‘I’d like you to return to the marina right now.’
‘Oh, Inspector,’ I said. ‘I’ve just got to Kenneth’s house. I’ll see you down at Stormfugl in about half an hour.’
His voice would have iced up a running engine. ‘If you’re not back here in ten minutes I’ll be sending a car to fetch you.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll see you soon.’ I snicked the phone closed and smiled at Kenneth. ‘Sorry about that. Yes, the scale of the wind farm. I thought it’d be small.’
‘That’s what a lot of us thought,’ Kenneth said. I could see him working out what a feather it would be in their cap if Dad’s own daughter came over to their side. ‘Have a seat.’ He gestured towards one of the armchairs. ‘D’you want a cup of tea?’
I didn’t, but no chat can take place in Shetland without one. ‘Yes, please.’ I went over to the chair, back to him, which gave me the chance to give the scarf a really good look. It was loosely knitted in reds and ambers, mixing cashmere and mohair with narrow, shiny ribbon, and if it wasn’t Inga’s she had one very like it. I wondered if there was any way I could slip it into my pocket and return it in a casual fashion, to see her reaction.
He filled the kettle and switched it on, still giving me suspicious looks.
‘So,’ I rattled, ‘I’ve only heard Dad’s side, you see, and I saw you offering leaflets around, and thought I’d like to read one or two, you know, just to get the opposition point of view.’
‘I can certainly give you that,’ Kenneth said. ‘Milk? Sugar?’
‘No, thanks,’ I said. I put on a look of alert intelligence.
He sat down on the other chair and fished in a khaki bag that hung over its back. ‘We’re a shoestring outfit, so we don’t have glossy leaflets, but we do have factsheets and a website.’
He handed me a couple of pages of very closely printed A4. ‘This top one is mostly looking in more detail at various statements made by Shetland Eco-Energy, and the one underneath is other detailed ecological arguments against the wind farm. Ecological arguments. We mustn’t let ourselves be swayed by the moral blackmail of ‘needing to do our bit.’ We’re not questioning that the world needs alternative sources of energy. It does, and badly. We’re not disputing, either, that the Shetland wind farm up at Burradale is already out-performing every other wind farm in the world. The problem is whether that energy generated in Shetland can be transported elsewhere economically.’
He sat down on the other armchair, fixing me earnestly with those watery eyes. The red corners and the stare reminded me of a weasel trying to mesmerise a rabbit. The scarf lay like a fiery ribbon just behind his shoulder. ‘See, now, the first question is the connector with the mainland. They’re talking in terms of a joint project between the Scottish Electricity Board and Shetland Eco-Energy. Problem one: the cost of the cables. Enormous. The wind turbines have a projected lifespan of twenty-five years, and they’d spend that paying that cost off. No benefits for the consumer there, no benefits at all. Problem two: every time you run electricity through cables, you lose some of it. Of the hundred per cent you put out at this end, only forty per cent would reach the Scottish mainland. That’s an appalling waste of resources.’
‘It certainly seems it,’ I agreed. Inga had had the scarf on the day we’d filmed aboard the longship, with Peerie Charlie. I remembered her almost losing it as Charlie threw his tantrum. She’d worn it on Saturday too. Suitable attire for a Shetland beach on a bonny June day: scarf, woolly hat, gloves.
‘So that’s the first big problem,’ he summed up. ‘Over half of the energy created by these turbines wouldn’t even reach the consumers on mainland Britain.’
‘That’s such a waste,’ I said. That meant she’d been here on Sunday or yesterday.
‘The next problem is financial too. Did your father explain how the company works?’
‘Not really,’ I said. There was no reason why Inga shouldn’t have called in, but the way that scarf was lying suggested someone making herself at home.
‘Okay.’ He was really getting into his stride. ‘Well, it was set up as an independent company, but then it was taken over by the S
hetland Islands Council. To fund the wind turbines they’d need to use money from the Charitable Trust – you know, the oil disturbance money which was to be set aside for the good of the people of Shetland. That’s the money whose interest runs the leisure centres and care centres and all that. It’ll be hugely expensive, so it’ll take all Shetland’s nest egg for a rainy day, and between the recession and dwindling oil in the North Sea that rainy day could come soon.’
‘Dad seemed to be saying the returns would be huge, though,’ I said. ‘Enough to fund our prosperity for the next two decades.’ Just how far had this affair gone?
‘Oh, theoretically,’ Kenneth agreed. He shuffled some papers around and produced a glossy brochure with a picture mock-up of Busta Voe with the wind turbines topping the hills on the front, found a page of graphs and spread it open. ‘This is their brochure. Problem is that it is totally theoretical.’ His voice boomed again, as if this was a speech he’d used several times at meetings. ‘Until they know the cost of the cable, the returns on the energy sent south, and the subsidy the government’s going to give them – and whether it’s going to continue, can you imagine the same government staying in power for 25 years? – then their sums aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. It’s all speculative, and it could go spectacularly wrong. See?’
I nodded, meekly.
‘The big thing though is the destruction of our environment.’
This conversation was too one-sided. I pushed Inga right out of my mind and made myself focus. ‘Absolutely,’ I agreed. ‘It’s partly the filming – you know, the reactions of the crew – that’s made me realise what a unique landscape we have here.’
‘Absolutely,’ he echoed. I gave him a sharp look from under my prettily cast-down lashes, but he didn’t seem to be being sarcastic. ‘This mock-up doesn’t start to give the impact of it.’ He brandished Shetland Eco-Energy’s brochure. ‘It’d be pretty rare the turbines would blend into the clouds so well. You’d get them either black or white against the sky.’
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