'Of course not. He owns that house. It's a major a.s.set. And he wouldn't go away and leave all his stuff.'

'I wouldn't be surprised if the house isn't mortgaged to the rafters,' Liz said.

'Nonsense.' But Martha wasn't as sure as she sounded. She'd seen the books, seen what schools were prepared to pay a theatre group in order to tick a few boxes for the Ofsted inspectors, but actors and premises and the minibus didn't come cheap. 'This is a profitable business. And Jeremy likes money. I'm sure he'll be back.'

Late in the afternoon when they'd all gone, Martha sat in the office alone. She'd fended off the actors' questions all day, even giving the impression that she'd heard from Jeremy, that he was out pitching for work and he'd be back early next week with plans for a new project. She could see that Liz hadn't believed a word, but she'd not said anything and the others had been taken in.

Now the strain of putting on a brave face was too much for her. She picked up the phone strictly work calls only, according to Jeremy's instructions, but where was f.u.c.king Jeremy now? and talked to her best mate Kate.

'Do you fancy a drink in town? Early before it gets busy. Straight after work?'

Kate was a trainee reporter on the Huddersfield Examiner. She liked gossip. No one else might be interested in the disappearance of a middle-aged actor, but Kate would surely listen to her concerns. There'd be a relief just in talking it through.

'Have you seen the papers today?' Kate had ambitions beyond a local daily in West Yorkshire. She took the qualities and read them every day.

'No.' I've been too busy, Martha thought, suddenly sorry for herself. Keeping this b.l.o.o.d.y show on the road.

'There's some guy they're trying to identify. They found the body up north somewhere. "Suspicious cir c.u.mstances". That means murder. There's a drawing of him. It looks just like your boss.'

There was a giggle in her voice. Like she was saying, Weird coincidence, huh?, but not believing that it really could be Jeremy. Martha couldn't speak, found she could hardly breathe.

Kate must have sensed something was wrong. 'Martha, what is it?'

'My boss, Jeremy. He seems to have disappeared.'

'My G.o.d! Don't move. I'm coming to get you now.' Martha knew this wasn't just about Kate coming to support a friend. It was Kate smelling a story a mile off and wanting to be on it before anyone else found out.

Chapter Twenty-one.

It was the apparent lack of urgency around the investigation that got under Roy Taylor's skin, made him fidget and itch. There was so much to do and these local guys seemed to think there was all the time in the world. In his own patch he'd have shouted and ranted and soon got his staff moving. And he'd have felt better for letting off steam. Here he knew he had to contain his temper, and that added to the tension and the impatience.

He arrived at Biddista a quarter of an hour before he'd arranged to meet Perez, but still he felt irritated because the man wasn't there. At the jetty the scene tape had been removed and any of the locals could get in now to fetch out their gear for fishing. Waiting for Perez to arrive, Taylor thought fishing would be like torture to him. Being on the sea in a small boat. Not being able to move. Having to remain quiet. Wanting to throw up as soon as they left dry land. He knew he wouldn't be able to bear it. He'd end up diving into the water to escape, just to be moving. Then he realized that Perez's car had pulled up beside him. Five minutes early. He had a moment of disappointment; he would have liked an excuse to criticize, even inside his head. He had to be so pleasant to Perez that it hurt.

They sat for a moment on the low wall that bordered the road.

'Got anything for me?' Again, as Taylor asked the question he hoped, in a perverse way, that there was nothing. Every relationship for him was a sort of compet.i.tion and he liked winning, even here when it was part of the job to be cooperative. The last Shetland case had ended with Perez as a local hero. Taylor would never let it show, but it still rankled. That wasn't how events should have played out. He should have been the one to make the difference, to reach the conclusion. The stranger coming in to clean up town, like in all those cowboy films he watched on the telly when he was a lad. He knew it was pathetic and childish, but he couldn't help it. The fact that his work had been recognized more widely within the force helped, but each case was a challenge. He needed to succeed every time.

'A couple of things,' Perez said.

'Great,' Taylor said, shaking his head up and down to prove how pleased he was. 'Great.'

'I've found a witness who thinks she might have seen the victim being dropped off here. I've got Sandy tracing the driver. And the same woman says that the plastic mask over the victim's face could have been bought at the Middleton Sunday teas last week.'

'Sunday teas?'

Perez considered. 'I suppose the English equivalent would be a village fete.'

'We didn't have many of those in Liverpool.' Taylor wasn't sure where he'd feel more alien here, miles from anywhere, surrounded by sea, or in an English village with a vicarage, spinsters on bicycles, duck ponds. He thought he didn't really feel at home anywhere. Perhaps he should go back to Merseyside. Just for a long weekend. See how it felt. He still wasn't sure he could contemplate a permanent move.

'How do you want to play it today?' he said. He had to ask. Whatever he felt about being the boss, this was always going to be Perez's show. His patch. Besides, by now Taylor didn't really care who they saw first, he just wanted to make something happen.

Perez hesitated and Taylor made the decision for him, couldn't help himself.

'Let's go and see the artist. Bella Sinclair.' From everything he'd heard, Taylor saw her right at the centre of the case, a fat spider in her web. The victim had been at her party just before he'd died. He'd been involved in some sort of campaign to persuade people not to turn up. Taylor couldn't believe the dead man was really a stranger to her.

He looked at Perez, wanting some sort of response. Maybe his approval. That's what he expected from his own team. Great idea, boss. But again, he thought, you could never really tell what Perez was thinking. In the end the Shetlander looked at his watch and smiled. 'Why not?' he said. 'She should just about be out of her bed by now. Another hour or so and you might be able to speak to the boy too.'

If he'd been on his own Taylor would have taken the car, just to get there faster, but Perez started walking up the road and he followed. Perez gave a slow running commentary as they moved.

'This is the post office and shop. Run by Aggie Williamson. She was a Watt before she was married, grew up in Biddista. Her son Martin was working at the Herring House the night of the party. It was his wife Dawn who thinks she might have seen the victim climb out of a car.'

Taylor listened intently, tried to fix the details in his head. This was the stuff he had to digest if he was to have any chance of getting on top of what was going on here. He'd make notes later, but the concentration needed to memorize them made the players in this game seem more real to him. He needed to know these people better than he knew his own friends and family. They had to become a part of his life. Perez had the advantage of understanding them already.

The commentary continued. 'The end house has been rented by an English writer called Wilding. Peter Wilding. He was at the party too. I spoke to him. He claims not to have seen or heard anything, though he seems to spend most of his life staring out of the window.'

Perez paused.

'You don't believe him?' Taylor asked.

'I don't know. There was something weird about him. Maybe I just didn't take to the man. He's sort of intense.'

'What sort of stuff does he write?'

'Fantasy, he says.'

'Stories, then. Made-up stuff.' Taylor had never seen the point of stories. When he read, it was history or biography. He liked to feel he was learning. It wasn't just time wasted. As he walked past he turned his head up to the window and saw the upper body and face of a man. The man, dark and good-looking if you were into thin and moody, was sitting at the desk which faced the view, but he wasn't looking out. He seemed lost in concentration. Taylor realized that he hadn't noticed them. Hardly an ideal witness, then. He wondered if the same point had occurred to Perez and turned his head surrept.i.tiously to check. But Perez was looking the other way, out to the sea.

'That's Kenny Thomson's boat,' he said. 'You'll not be able to talk to him until later.'

Taylor was impressed by Bella Sinclair's house. He tried not to let himself be affected by shows of wealth and comfort, told himself he despised them, but deep down he was jealous. He would have loved this s.p.a.ce, this view. Sometimes he even caught himself watching those shows about houses on the television. Not the embarra.s.sing ones, the makeovers, all tacky decor and quick fixes, the home-made furniture you could tell would fall apart within days. He liked the programmes about grand building projects, the chateaux in France brought lovingly back to life, the mills and warehouses turned into breathtaking apartments. If ever he went back to Liverpool, he'd like one of those terraced houses near the cathedrals. One time the streets had been the scene of the Toxteth riots, but even then he'd been impressed by their elegance.

Perez rang the bell and they stood for a moment to be let in. Perez had his hands in his pockets, a bit of a slouch. Taylor consciously straightened his back. He wouldn't have been surprised to be greeted by some kind of servant, but he saw as soon as the door was opened that this must be the house's owner. She had the style to carry it off.

'Jimmy,' she said. 'What do you want now? I was just about to start work.' She was wearing jeans and a loose blue smock, which was spattered with paint. She had a thick silver band around her neck and matching earrings.

Perez didn't answer directly. Taylor sensed that Perez didn't like her, but couldn't work out how he could tell the antipathy was there. Certainly Perez was perfectly polite.

'This is Roy Taylor from Inverness,' he said. 'He's in charge of the investigation.'

She looked at Taylor, held him in her gaze. She stared at him as children stare at very fat people, or at people with a deformity, with a look that was at once frank and curious.

'Come up to the studio. We can talk while I get on with the prep.'

It was one of the corner bedrooms, not a huge, clear s.p.a.ce as Taylor had imagined, but rather cluttered. There were two windows, one looking north on to the hill and the other west over the sea. There was a tall Victorian chest of drawers which reached almost to the ceiling. One of the lower drawers was half open and revealed a pile of white paper. An easel leaned unused against one wall; on another was a stainless-steel sink which looked as if it had been installed recently. Although she made a show of preparing to work, Taylor thought her heart wasn't in it. She wanted to impress them, to let them know how valuable was her time, but really she was desperate to know what they were there for.

'Is there any news?' she asked. 'Do we know yet who that poor man was?'

The only place to sit in the room was a Shetland chair, made of driftwood, a rough drawer built under the seat. On it was curled a black and white cat. They all remained standing and it made the conversation seem awkward, hurried, as if they'd just met on the street and were about to move on in opposite directions.

'We think he was involved in spreading the word that your exhibition had been cancelled,' Taylor said. 'Seems a weird thing for a stranger to do.'

Bella looked at him with the same curious gaze.

'I've already explained to Jimmy that I didn't know who he was.'

'So why would he do it?' Taylor was persistent. 'Sounds to me like someone with a grudge.'

'If he had a grudge, I don't think it was against me.'

'What do you mean?'

'It wasn't only my exhibition. It was a shared project. I was working with a new artist Fran Hunter.' Taylor noticed that she didn't look at Perez during this conversation. He was meant to notice.

Bella continued. 'Fran's English. It seems the stranger was English. More likely, surely, that she knew him than I did.'

At that point Perez interrupted. 'Did Fran give any indication that she recognized the man?'

'I'm not sure she noticed him. She was too busy talking to Peter Wilding.'

There was a silence. Taylor couldn't understand what might have caused the awkwardness. What was Perez keeping from him?

'Is Roddy around?' Perez asked. 'I think DCI Taylor would like to talk to him too.'

'Roddy's leaving today,' she said. 'This was only going to be a flying visit. He's off to Australia next week.'

'You'll miss him.' Taylor couldn't tell if Perez meant the words. It sounded almost as if he was mocking her. But Bella answered without question.

'I will. And I'm not sure when he'll be back. Each time he comes he seems less at home here. Maybe it's easier for him to be a Shetlander when he's away from the islands.'

'Where will we find him?' Perez asked.

'He was packing, but I think I heard him go out.' She paused. 'You might find him in the graveyard. He goes there sometimes, usually just before he leaves, to say goodbye to his father.'

Chapter Twenty-two.

Roddy Sinclair was just where Bella had said he'd be. The graveyard was a bleak sort of place and Taylor thought he wouldn't want to end his days here, right next to the sea, drowned with salt spray during the gales and picked over by seabirds. Most of the headstones were very old and misshapen, looking, Taylor thought, like a mouthful of crooked teeth. Roddy had moved away from the graves and was standing by the low drystone wall, looking out over the water. He wore a bright yellow sweatshirt with a design on the back which could have come from an alb.u.m cover. Taylor recognized him immediately; the floppy fair hair and the grin. What must it be like to have people know you wherever you went?

On the beach to the north a young man was playing with a child, holding both her hands and swinging her around. It was a long way off but they could hear her laughter. Perez muttered under his breath that the man was Martin Williamson, the chef at the Herring House, and for a moment Taylor's attention was distracted. Another suspect. Another life to explore. Roddy didn't seem to hear anything of the conversation. He was lost in his memories. He only turned to look at them when Taylor spoke.

'Sorry to disturb you.' Taylor thought it was best to be conciliatory. He'd first seen Roddy Sinclair on a television chat show. He'd been flicking through the channels, looking for football, and had been about to move on when something about the conversation held his attention. The boy had a confiding way of speaking which made the audience feel he was giving away secrets. A couple of months later he'd been on the TV again. The doc.u.mentary. Taylor would have liked to be a celebrity. He found the idea of such attention, the small courtesies and luxuries, immensely appealing. And despite himself he was attracted by famous people, a little over-awed by them.

'This is DCI Taylor,' Perez said. 'He's in charge of the investigation into the man who was killed at the jetty. We shouldn't take up too much of your time.'

'No problem.' The young man smiled. He looked to Taylor like a boy, much younger than his actual age. A schoolboy, too young to drink, too young to drive. Perhaps that was part of his appeal for the people who bought his music. 'I come here sometimes to talk to my dad. Daft, huh?'

'Were you very close?'

'We were. I was an only child. Maybe that had something to do with it. And then he was ill for quite a long time. He couldn't get out to work so much, so he was in the house more than my mother was. He read to me a lot. We played music together.'

'What work did he do?'

'He was an engineer. He worked for one of the oil companies. He'd travelled a bit before he came back to Shetland. Mostly in the Middle East. They think maybe that was where he got the skin cancer. He was very fair-skinned. By the time he was diagnosed it had spread. For a while he seemed well, just as he always was, and it was like one great long holiday. Then he got very weak and thin. But we still managed to play together almost to the end.'

Taylor wished he could think of his own father in those terms, with fondness and the memory of shared activities. He looked again at the couple on the beach. It was low tide and the sand was flat and smooth. The man had fixed together a red box kite and was getting it into the air. They watched as he pa.s.sed the string to the girl, then stood behind her, helping her to control it.

'Martin's a fantastic father,' Roddy said. 'I hope I can do as well when the time comes.'

Taylor had a sudden image of a leggy actress from a soap. Hadn't there been a story that Roddy was dating her, of a proposal even? There'd been a picture in a tabloid paper that he'd picked up in Aberdeen Airport while he was waiting for the fog to clear. Both obviously drunk, stumbling out of a nightclub. It was hard to imagine them in Shetland, playing happy families on a windswept beach.

Perhaps Roddy had followed his line of thinking. 'Not that I'm planning on settling down any time soon. My dad died when he was young. If I'm taken early I want to have had a great life before I go.' He paused. 'I'm glad my father's buried here. Biddista always seemed more like home to me than the house in Lerwick.'

'You spent a lot of time here even before you came to live with Bella?' Perez asked the question in that hesitant way he had, as if he didn't want to intrude, but he was so interested that he'd overcome his scruples. Taylor felt a mild irritation at the interruption. He was leading this interview.

'Yeah. I was never an easy sort of kid. Hyperactive. I never slept much. It can't have been great for my mother, with Dad to look after. So I came here to stay with Bella most weekends and holidays. I loved it. There was always something going on. People staying. Artists. Musicians. Maybe that's when I got addicted to partying. And I was the centre of attention, constantly entertained. I remember there was one guy who was a brilliant magician. He did this fantastic magic show just for me the whole lot, rabbits from a hat, card tricks. Later I realized it was more for Bella's benefit than mine they all wanted to please her but at the time it was wicked. There was the freedom here that I never really had in town. Bella was pretty relaxed about bedtimes and mealtimes and I was just allowed to roam.'

'Real life would have been hard after that,' Perez said.

'Yeah. I think I've been spending the rest of my life trying to recapture the magic.' Roddy gave a self-deprecating grin. 'Nothing ever quite lives up to it.'

'Did Bella have a serious relationship with any of the visitors?'

'Definitely not serious. I guess she might have slept with them, but I never really knew about that.'

'Do you manage to see much of your mother?' Perez asked.

'We get on OK these days. I was very hard on her when I was younger. Just grief maybe. I couldn't understand how she could take up with another man. Things are still a bit tricky between me and her husband, but we manage to be polite to each other for her sake.'

'The Englishman who died,' Taylor said. 'We think he was the person who was trying to sabotage your aunt's exhibition. Do you have any idea why he would want to do that?'

'Why would anyone?'

'Your aunt doesn't have enemies?'