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‘Dawn’s pregnant,’ she said.
‘I know. She told me when I went to the school to talk to her.’
‘Lucky thing,’ she said. But there was no passion behind the words so he didn’t feel the pressure of expectation.
‘The woman with the masks isn’t here.’ He was disappointed, but thought that since they’d found Booth’s bag it didn’t matter so much. Booth could have bought the mask anywhere. He’d have had it in the bag he’d left on the beach before the Herring House party. The murderer would have found it and put it over his face. Why anyone would want to do that was a different matter entirely.
‘No,’ Fran said. ‘She just came that one week with all sorts of novelty goods. She doesn’t live in Shetland. She was up visiting relatives for a few days. They let her have a stall because she was raising money for a children’s hospice. Her mother-in-law is the lady who knits the sweaters and she’ll give you the phone number if you ask. But she says she’d probably not be able to give you the names of the people who bought from her. Because she’s not from here, she wouldn’t be able to recognize them. One interesting thing though. The daughter-in-law lives in Yorkshire. So that might be where Booth bought it.’
‘How did you find all that out?’
‘I asked,’ Fran said. ‘Now I want a cup of tea. And home-made meringues.’
Chapter Thirty-three
Ke
He would have been able to get more of the boys out on Sunday to help, but he had a kind of superstition about working on Sundays. When he’d been growing up, nothing was done on the Lord’s day. The women wouldn’t have considered hanging washing on the lines and most of the preparation of the di
So there would be fewer men available to help on the hill on Monday; they all had their own work to go to. But if they missed a few sheep, he could go back later in the week and fetch them in. Edith had arranged to take the day’s leave from the care centre so she would be there to help. He was grateful for that. He knew she’d been saving as much holiday as possible to go south when their grandchild arrived.
Martin Williamson came along. He’d opened the Herring House on Saturday, because it was always so busy and he’d heard nothing from Bella to the contrary. But when she’d found out she’d been furious and had insisted on closing the gallery and the restaurant for the rest of the week. He said he didn’t mind as long as she continued to pay him and he’d be glad to help with the sheep. Ke
Although he knew exactly what he pla
At the last minute Peter Wilding turned up. They’d just started up the track and he chased after them.
‘I heard from Martin what you were up to. I wondered if you could use an extra pair of hands.’
‘Of course,’ Ke
The second was seeing Perez and a young couple on the lip of the Pit o’ Biddista. They weren’t in the way to scare the sheep – Ke
While the others lined up down the length of a gully to begin the walk, Ke
‘What are you doing?’
Perez turned very slowly to him. Ke
‘You’re clipping today,’ he said. ‘If we get finished here in time I’ll come and help you.’
‘What’s going on here?’
He thought Perez would refuse to answer again. But he said, ‘I want a thorough search. Of the rockface and the tu
‘How long will this go on?’ Ke
‘When I know what happened,’ Perez said. ‘When I know who killed two men.’
The young people had been ignoring the exchange and preparing for their climb. The woman was already at the edge of the cliff, leaning out, held by the nylon rope. Ke
He ran to catch up with the line of people walking slowly across the hill. The dogs chased between them, filling in the gaps. The men had their arms outstretched and whooped and called to move the sheep ahead of them. The ones at the end seemed a long way off, their voices lost in the thin air. Ke
‘What’s going on up there?’ She had to shout to be heard above the noise of the men, the dogs and the sheep.
‘Some sort of search. I don’t know. I hate it. I hate all this happening so close to home.’
She seemed to be shouting back some words of comfort, but he couldn’t make them out because of the noise.