White Nights

‘Did you ever get invited to Bella’s parties?’

‘Not as a guest.’ Aggie smiled. ‘And I wouldn’t have wanted that. I’ve never been easy talking to strangers and Bella’s parties were full of folks I didn’t know. It would have been like the hotel in Scalloway, only worse. I’ve always been kind of shy.’

‘But sometimes you were there?’

‘Aye, sometimes I’d help out. Prepare the food, clear up afterwards.’

‘You worked, skivvying for Bella Sinclair?’ Martin sounded horrified.

‘Well, isn’t that what you do, son, in the Herring House restaurant? And it wasn’t really work. It was just helping out, if I was around.’ Aggie smiled. ‘I didn’t even get paid that often – not a real wage. Bella would bring me back a present from her travels – something pretty I’d never get the chance to use – or she’d put a twenty-pound note in a thank-you card. We’d been at school together. We’d gone our separate ways but we were friends.’

‘What about the other people in the valley?’ Perez asked. ‘Did Bella employ them too?’

‘Edith came in occasionally when there was a big party, but not so often. She never really got on with Bella. She’d had two children very close together and though they were a bit older by then she still had her hands full with them. And Ke

‘Anyone else?’

‘Well of course Bella paid Lawrence and Ke

‘The restaurant’s a recent feature,’ Martin said. ‘It only opened five years ago.’

‘What about the gallery?’ Perez asked. ‘When was that completed?’

‘The boys worked on it in stages,’ Aggie said. ‘Because they could only do bits and pieces in the evenings. Ke

‘Did he tell you he was going?’

‘No, but I wasn’t surprised when he went. He’d been kind of restless all that summer.’

‘That was the hot summer, the summer Bella had her house parties.’

‘That would have been the one. Ke

‘What did he make of it all?’

‘He behaved like a great court jester, playing to the gallery. I hated to see it. He was a good man but he had a sort of short fuse on him. He should have carried himself with a bit more dignity. He believed all those fancy artists and writers thought he was such a clever, witty fellow, but they were laughing at him behind his back. Calling him a clown.’

‘You sound as if you were very fond of him, Aggie.’

She blushed. Very suddenly, so he felt as if he’d hit her with his words, marked her face.

‘I didn’t mind him playing the fool. Better that than when he lost his temper. Besides, he didn’t try so hard for me as he did for the soothmoothers.’

‘Were you ever more than friends, Aggie?’

He thought she would blush again, but she answered with great dignity. ‘We were friends. Nothing more than that. All that showing off wouldn’t have suited me, and I was married to Andrew.’ Then she paused. ‘I always felt a little bit sorry for Ke

But that summer Ke

‘Tell me, Aggie, did Roddy spend much time in Biddista then? He’d only have been a boy. How old? Five? Six? At school in Lerwick during the week, but he’d maybe come to visit at the weekends.’

‘Most weekends. And sometimes during the week too. He could twist Bella round his little finger even then. “I’ve got a tummy ache, Auntie. I can’t go to school.” And there was one period when Alec was away in the hospital and he went to the school in Middleton. Aye, he was always in the Manse, getting under my feet when I was trying to get things ready for the people who were staying.’

‘Do you remember any of the visitors, Aggie? Any of the men who came up from the south to stay with Bella?’

‘I never really met them,’ she said. ‘They were so loud and full of opinions I wouldn’t have known what to say to them.’

‘You never met any of them again?’

‘How would I do that?’

‘Two of them came back,’ Perez said. ‘Peter Wilding was one. He lives in the house next door. He uses the post office. He hasn’t changed so much. Did you never recognize him?’

‘No,’ Aggie said very quickly. ‘How would I remember him after all this time?’

‘And he never said anything to you? Not a hint about the old times?’

‘Nothing. He’d certainly not mind me, after all. I’d be pouring the drinks and clearing plates. Would you remember the face of a waitress who served you in a restaurant fifteen years ago?’

‘No,’ Perez admitted. ‘Probably not.’

‘Who was the other man who came back?’ Martin broke into the conversation abruptly. It was hard now to believe that he was a man famous for his jokes, for laughing at his father’s funeral.

‘That was Jeremy Booth, the man who was found hanged in the hut on the jetty. He was here that summer too.’

Chapter Forty-three

Perez left the house and stood in the street. It was very quiet. The wind had dropped with the full tide. A family of eider duck floated on the water near the shore. He walked back past the Herring House. There was a path that led that way up towards the hill and back down to Skoles. It would save him having to pass Wilding’s place; he couldn’t face being a subject of the writer’s voyeurism tonight. But perhaps Wilding wasn’t at home. Perhaps he was in Buness, supervising some work to his new house. Perez thought Fran could be there too, discussing flooring and wallpaper, and the idea gave him a chill of unease. Then he thought she wouldn’t be so foolish. Not until the investigation was over.

He walked out on to the open hill to the sound of skylark and curlew and into a raw orange light. It must already be late in the evening, because the huge ball of the sun was dipping towards the cliff-edge. There too, silhouetted, was the figure of a man, unrecognizable at this distance. A gothic figure against the setting sun.

Although he couldn’t make out the man’s features, had to squint against the light to make him out at all, Perez knew who it was. He wasn’t prepared for the encounter. Things had moved more quickly than he’d expected. He was tempted to turn away, to wait for Taylor, who might have evidence. But the man was right at the edge of the cliff, on the narrow bridge of rock between the Pit o’ Biddista and the sea. Perez thought the hot summer fifteen years before had resulted in enough loss. He’d allowed Jeremy Booth to run away from him to his death after the Herring House party, and was still troubled by a nagging guilt. How much worse would that be if he made no effort to stop this man jumping?