‘To start gossip about him and me.’ I’d known even then that I wasn’t the heroine of his movie, however much he smiled at me. ‘All that stuff in the Norwegian newspapers, the crew taking bets on whether I’d console him. He set that going. Even allowing for newspapers making smoke without fire, there was nothing, nothing, for anyone else to start that up. He stopped at the end of the day to check over the next day’s arrangements, and that was it. So I was suspicious when he came visiting, as if we were friends. He was giving me a motive for killing Favelle.’
DI Macrae nodded.
‘As well as that,’ I continued, ‘well, he said he’d come to ask why Favelle had come to Stormfugl, and he did want to know that, genuinely, but much more important was where Maree was hiding. I pretended I heard someone listening, so as to have an excuse for stalling, but he knew from what I said that the police were still suspicious. So that night he burned the videos. It was like the rock; lots of visible damage, but no real harm. The actual footage was safe in London. All he’d lost was the time he’d spent editing, and I bet there’s some kind of back-up of that. It looked good, though. He’d announced very publicly that he was going to finish the film, and here was somebody trying to stop that. The saboteur who’d killed Favelle was still going.’
‘Plausible, but no proof,’ DI Macrae said.
‘I’m pretty sure it was a splash that woke me,’ I said. ‘The folding bicycle going over Busta pier, maybe. When I smelt the burning I phoned Anders. He was at Busta too, but I couldn’t get through, because there’s no signal there. I should have remembered that. I tried Ted, and got through straight away. Ergo, he wasn’t in his room at Busta. He was outside, where he’d get a signal. He sounded breathless, too, as if he’d just sneaked down with a folding bicycle in one hand and a heavy bag of videos in the other.’
‘Why get rid of the bicycle?’ DI Macrae asked.
‘To keep you from thinking of his alibi? To make it look like someone from the Busta end had done it? Maybe in a day or so he’d have discovered it was missing. This is important, though: Kenneth passed a cyclist, at about the right time. Well, Kenneth wouldn’t have passed someone from Busta, he came from the other direction. So that cyclist was coming from the Ronas Hill direction towards Busta, towards where Favelle was.’
‘Ted’s folding bike had smaller wheels than a regular bicycle,’ Maree said. ‘He might have noticed that.’
‘Possible.’ DI Macrae made a note. ‘The signal thing is a better bet, though. You’re certain a mobile can’t be reached in Busta House?’
‘Positive. And then Mr Berg arrived, with Norwegian newspaper clippings of Ted and me, and a general suggestion that I’d killed Favelle for love of him. That brought on tonight’s episode. He was lucky to find me aboard Stormfugl, but if he hadn’t he’d have made some excuse to take me there.’ I could hear his voice in my head: Cass, honey, I wanted to go aboard in private before tomorrow – will you come with me? ‘Knock me on the head and fire the boat. My last sabotage, as good as a confession. Case closed.’
‘I wouldn’t have believed it,’ DI Macrae said. I gave him a long look; he smiled at me. ‘Your suicide as a confession was one thing, but nothing would have induced you to fire your boat.’
‘Gudrid didn’t die in the original script,’ I said. ‘But maybe this version of the movie would have included a Viking funeral. James and Michael were both filming away.’
‘It’s still illogical,’ Maree said. ‘To think that me having a baby would drive her haywire, but my murder, her sister’s murder, wouldn’t.’
I wasn’t sure that Favelle was connected enough to other people to be deeply distressed by the murder of even a sister, but there was no need to say that now. ‘A baby was her obsession,’ I said. ‘And he was conceited. He knew she had him to console her, so that made it all right.’
I wondered if prisons had an editing suite.
I half thought Anders would stay over at Busta, but he put a proprietorial hand under my elbow and steered me out, turning to ask Maree, ‘Can we give you a lift home?’
‘To Jessie’s yeah,’ she said. She was looking drained. ‘Do you think they’ll get him?’
‘He’ll do his best,’ I said.
We dropped her off at Efstigarth and came on down to the pier. I was knackered, and my head ached. Anders undid the washboards, shoved the hatch open. ‘Have you eaten?’
I shook my head.
‘I’ll make something. You sit still, Cass. You’ve had a hard day.’ He gave me an anxious look. ‘Perhaps I should take you to the hospital, for a head X-ray.’
‘No. I’ll be fine.’ I slumped onto the starboard berth and leaned my head against the wooden bookshelf. Rat came to curl around my neck. I closed my eyes, then opened them again to look thoughtfully at Anders. ‘Was it Michael you were with, at Busta?’
The back of his neck went scarlet. ‘Yes, but it was not – we are not –’
‘There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to other men,’ I reassured him.
He turned and glared at me. ‘I am not in the least attracted to other men. Really, Cass, you can be very obtuse.’
‘So what were you up to?’ I asked.
He went crimson again, and I wondered what he might be so embarrassed about. Porn movies? Masonic meetings?
‘I had better show you,’ he said. He went forrard and rummaged in his kit-bag for a roll of green baize, which he laid on the table between us. I undid the ties and gradually began to unroll it. The thick material enclosed something knobbly, no, a lot of little somethings, each in its own pocket of baize. I drew one out. It was a knight in futuristic armour, beautifully hand-painted.
The pair of them were Warhammer addicts.
I knew he was a nerd.
‘Not boat,’ Peerie Charlie said, leaning in a dangerous fashion over Khalida’s side to look over at the jetty where Stormfugl had been.
I took a firm hold of the back straps of his dungarees. ‘Gone,’ I agreed.
He leaned over, looking down at the water and humming to himself. Inga re-settled her red-amber scarf around her neck and looked at me quizzically.
‘Yes, I saw it,’ I said.
‘That anti-wind farm leaflet is hopeless. I was making up a new version, with pictures, and Kenneth has a far better scanner than ours. Don’t even think of joining Jessie in believing the worst.’
‘So what was he doing tooling around Brae at 4 a.m.?’
‘Ah,’ Inga said. She started to laugh. ‘Filming otters, Simon King style. You know, getting up at dawn and creeping around the hills in a camouflage jacket, instead of just sitting quietly by the shore like everyone else.’
Peerie Charlie wriggled back between the guard wires and slid down to stand on the cockpit floor. ‘Velle gone too.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Favelle’s gone too.’
‘But you can still see her,’ Inga said. ‘On the telly. I’ll get you the video to watch, and when you’re big you can tell everyone Favelle loved you.’
Mr Berg didn’t apologise for his suspicions when he came round that afternoon, but he paid me in full. I didn’t ask if he’d give me a reference. After he left I walked up to the standing stone and stood with my back to it, staring out over the water. My first and last post as a skipper wouldn’t bring other employment, as I’d hoped. I was back to the hand-to-mouth business of a summer here, a deckhand job there, trapped in this round of summer in the Med, making sailing instant fun for overweight brats, and winter waitressing.
It was a bleak prospect.
Maree came down from Efstigarth to say goodbye. ‘I’m going back to the States. It wouldn’t have worked, you know. Dermot was just too old for me. I think I was using him as an escape route out of the movies. And then, you know, he reminded me of my own Pop.’
‘A classic,’ I agreed. Alain’s energy and certainty had been like Dad too.
Maree blinked a couple of times, mouth working. ‘I don’t need to escape now. My poor sister.’
&n
bsp; ‘What about Michael?’
‘He was an escape chute too. I didn’t have to worry about giving myself away. He’ll soon get someone else.’ Maree looked across the glimmering water and took a deep breath. ‘Even now, maybe I was wrong about Ted. I thought he was just hitching his falling star to her rising one, but he loved her enough to kill for her. Kinda romantic, even. He made her the star she’ll always be. Favelle, honey.’ Her chin tilted defiantly. ‘Good luck, Cass. I’ll see you at the trial.’
I reached out a hand to stop her. ‘Maree, what about the baby?’
She didn’t look at me as she shrugged. ‘False alarm. Just as well really. Your Mom and Dad are better together. Same generation, all that history. Best kept together.’ She turned away. I thought about the way the green velvet dress had draped across her rounded belly. Eating for two, Agnes of the Old Haa cafe had said.
The son Dad had longed for, my little brother.
I asked, ‘Will you give me your address?’
She stopped then, shook her head.
‘I’d make a cool half-sister,’ I said. ‘Even though I’m so much older. Exciting even, blowing across the Atlantic to say hello. Children like that.’
Maree took a step back to me. ‘So they do.’ A long pause, then she turned away again. The words whispered across the grass. ‘I’ll write you.’
Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t. When the time was right, I’d need to talk to Dad. I watched her go and thought about parents and children: about my father who’d driven me to so many regattas, and about Maree and Favelle and their mother, who’d wanted two stars and had to make do with one. I thought about Favelle, who’d wanted a baby so desperately, and about Maree, who was having one, and about Ted, who’d killed to stop her.
Maree, who’d always been her sister’s stand-in. I wondered how she’d manage on her own.
I’d barely got back to Khalida when Maman came stepping delicately onto the marina pontoon. She scanned the boats, biggest ones first, then, finally, her gaze came round to the smaller ones. I stood up in the cockpit and waved.
‘Here, Maman.’
Her eyes went along Khalida’s sides, doubtfully, and came back up to my face. ‘Salut, Cassandre. I’ve come for a cup of coffee with you.’
‘Come aboard.’ I held out a hand to make it easier. ‘Foot up on the side, then swing the other leg over.’
She managed it with her usual competent elegance and then stopped on the top step to look around the small cabin. I saw dismay in her face, but she spoke with her usual calm. ‘He is handsome in the summer, but how do you heat him in the winter?’
I grimaced. ‘A flowerpot on the gas ring, a warm sleeping bag, and mooring near a heated swimming pool.’
‘You are very resourceful.’ She sat down on the berth and said no more until I was facing her, our coffee steaming up the window. Then she took a deep breath. ‘Listen, my Cassandre. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. When we are young we do things, follow priorities, but as we get older we start to see more clearly.’ The selkie wife finding fish harder to catch, and wondering if she should have chosen the security of old age ashore. ‘You are not young any more, and perhaps you should look at your life and see if this is how you wish to continue, while you are still young enough to change it.’
Now I was old enough to tell the truth. ‘I’ve been thinking that too.’
‘You see,’ she continued, as if she’d learned her lines and was going to say them, ‘I let you down when you were little. I wasn’t there. Oh, yes, my body was in the house, but my mind wasn’t there for you. I was longing for singing again.’ She paused, her long, dark-lidded eyes scanning my face. ‘When we tried again, in France, I didn’t realise that you were longing.’ She looked out at the sea glinting in the marina. ‘Longing so much you had to run away.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘As you did.’
‘I was unhappy, you know,’ she said. ‘Unhappy staying, unhappy going.’
‘You left all your dresses,’ I said. ‘I thought you’d come back.’
‘I thought I’d come back too,’ she said.
The water rippled outside: time, flowing in a never-ending stream.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘It matters. What I did then has made the Cassandre who’s sitting here now. It has made the Eugénie and the Dermot too, but we will work on those. I want to talk of you.’
I shrugged, and she made a distressed movement.
‘Cassandre, you aren’t happy. I can see it, feel it. Listen to me. I have a talent for singing, just as you have a talent for the sea. I’m a director’s first choice for Rameau. There is not a significant production without me. Rameau, he’s a great talent, but not the greatest, and I’m not the greatest either. For these little talents, I sacrificed you and Dermot.’
It was funny, I thought, how you could get away with saying that kind of thing in French.
‘We wouldn’t have been any happier if you’d stayed and been miserable,’ I said, and realised that it was true. The weight of blaming her shifted and lightened, and I could feel that in a short time, when I’d got used to the idea, I’d walk away from it.
‘I thought I could justify it,’ she said. ‘If I became famous, you’d know it had been worthwhile. Then the time comes when you realise you’re only a star in a very little sky, and your heart aches for what you threw away that was ultimately more important: love, companionship, vows, children.’
She blinked and turned her face away so that I saw only the smooth cheek.
‘Can you and Dad make a go of it again?’ I asked.
‘Perhaps not. I would like to try.’ Her dark eyes were on me again. ‘But I wish to talk about you, Cassandre.’ She took a breath then asked simply, ‘Did you love Alain Mouettier very much?’
I didn’t know. ‘No – yes.’
‘You cannot keep punishing yourself. He would have to hate you very much to want that. Besides –’ She shrugged. ‘If the Church is right, he is sleeping here on earth and waiting for the Resurrection in our time, and already in the Holy City in God’s. If the Church is wrong he is nowhere.’
I winced at that. I needed the Church to be right, so that I could meet him again. If he was nowhere I could never ask forgiveness.
‘Either way, he would not want you to turn your life into ashes.’
I thought of Alain, laughing over the fish twisting and glinting in his hands. I remembered him coming into the cabin with his scarlet oilskins running water and smiling apologetically at me as he dripped past, or pulling me into his arms and holding me there in the cold nights. Only the Alain who’d fired at me had been a stranger. I felt this burden shift too.
Maman set her mug down and rose. ‘Will you think about it, at least, Cassandre?’
I nodded. ‘I promise.’
I lay in my bunk that night and thought, as the tide turned, as the sun came up to catch the gold flecks in the wood along the front of my pilot books. I lay snuggled in my sleeping bag with my head cradled in the pillow that smelt slightly of damp, and thought about life on land. I tried to imagine being home, where everyone knew me and all my past deeds were behind. I tried to see myself marrying and having a Peerie Charlie of my own.
I couldn’t live on land yet. I was still longing for my ocean, for the tides and currents, and the rushing waves, but I didn’t want to be a nomad any more. Maman was right. I was punishing myself for Alain’s death, and it was time I stopped. What I’d done had been very far from Ted’s calculating ruthlessness. I’d reacted from pain and shock and fear. If Alain had surfaced again, I’d have saved him. He might still have died from head injuries on Marielle, as Favelle had died on the longship. I would make another confession, a good one, with all the hate and confusion I’d felt, then accept forgiveness. I’d allow myself to go into my own society, into the closeness of a floating world.
I’d cut myself off from that too, with my stubborn teenage will that wouldn’
t let Maman and Dad know best. I could have returned to France and been educated there. I could have come back and applied for college here. Pride, deadliest of the seven. It wasn’t too late to turn that around.
I wriggled quietly out of my berth, hauled my jumper and jeans on, and started up the computer.
When I drove along the next morning they weren’t very long up. Dad was relaxing in his favourite old jumper and Maman was in her floating dressing-gown, humming as she made coffee. I paused for a moment in the doorway to watch them, and hoped that the trying worked out.
Maman poured me a coffee and I sat down at the table, mouth too dry to drink.
‘Maman, Dad, I want to ask a huge favour.’
Dad’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Ask away.’
‘I want to go to college, and I can’t afford it.’ His eyes widened, then half-closed in satisfaction. Maman’s hand came to his shoulder. I was determined to go the whole way to them. ‘Would you pay me through?’
He was smiling so hard he could barely manage the business questions. ‘What college, and what courses exactly?’
‘The North Atlantic College, here in Shetland. I can live aboard Khalida in Scalloway. I want to get my ticket, so that I can get permanent work afloat. I want to belong on a tall ship.’
Gavin Macrae came to see me before he went back south. I was peaceably below, re-splicing a worn mooring rope, when I heard a knock on Khalida ’s side. He was standing on the pontoon, waiting. I kept the guard rail between us. ‘Hi.’
‘I came to say goodbye,’ he stated. He looked down at Khalida’s cockpit benches. ‘Can I come aboard?’
I shrugged and stepped back. No, he wasn’t here to apologise. I did my job, his eyes said, and if you didn’t like it, tough. I tried to transfer that thinking to a ship. If someone told me in confidence that he had epilepsy and was liable to seizures, I’d have to tell the other officers. Catching a murderer was the kind of ship that took priority.
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