'What about you, Aggie?' he asked. 'Can you tell me what's been going on?'

She sat very upright in the sofa and shook her head. The rest of her body was frozen and the movement seemed unnatural. It reminded Perez of a mechanical doll.

'What were you doing fifteen years ago?'

'I was living in Scalloway with my man, running the hotel and minding Martin here.'

'Your mother was still living in Biddista then?'

'Aye, she was still in this house. My father was dead by then. I moved back here when she died.'

'So you visited quite often?'

'I was here a lot,' Aggie said. 'Somehow I never quite settled in Scalloway. Maybe it was my fault that my husband was the way he was. My heart was never in it the marriage or the work.'

Perez looked at Martin, expecting some sort of reaction a defensive comment or an attempt at humour but there was nothing.

'What about you, Martin? Did you spend much time in Biddista?'

'I was a teenager,' he said. 'Into hanging around with my mates, football, music. There wasn't much to bring me to Biddista. And I liked the hotel in Scalloway, talking to the visitors, helping my father in the kitchen. It suited me fine.'

Perez returned his attention to Aggie. 'Did you keep in touch with Bella too?'

'Oh, aye. I'd go and visit her at the Manse. She liked to have me as an audience when there was n.o.body better around. She liked to show off her fancy house and her fancy furniture. Having me there made her realize how much she'd moved on.'

'You sound quite bitter.'

'Do I?' She seemed surprised by the thought. 'No, I was never jealous of Bella. She wasn't a contented woman. However much she had, it was never enough for her. And she never had a child of her own. I know she wanted that. Physically, like a craving or an addiction. She talked about it to me. She had all those new friends around her, all those men to admire her, but it was her old pals she confided in. These days having the baby she wanted would be easier. She'd have been able to arrange it. Then things were more old-fashioned and Bella always wanted to do things the traditional Shetland way. You needed a husband before you had a child and Bella couldn't get herself a husband. Not one who would suit, at least. There were lots of men, all drawn to her, but none of them wanted to marry her or give her a baby.'

'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 Kenny's father was still living. He was a demanding old man.'

'Anyone else?'

'Well of course Bella paid Lawrence and Kenny to work on the Herring House. It was one of those jobs we thought would never get finished. When she bought the building first we all decided she was mad. It was just a sh.e.l.l with a rusty corrugated-iron roof, nowhere near the size it is now. They almost built it from new, just using the old stone and some of the old timber. And now look how lovely it is, with the gallery and the restaurant.'

'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. Kenny had the croft and Lawrence was doing building for other folks in the day. Folks who were willing to pay. It was almost finished when Lawrence left the island. We decided he waited until it was done before he went. He couldn't bear to leave it half finished.'

'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. Kenny had some work away for part of it. He wasn't around so much. But Lawrence was there. Bella would invite him as a guest to the parties.'

'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 Kenny. He was the one playing second fiddle. He was the quiet one, the dark horse; Lawrence was full of laughter and sunshine, all show.' She looked up at him. 'Take no notice of me. I'm just being foolish.'

But that summer Kenny was in Fair Isle, Perez thought. A boat or plane ride away.

'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 sh.o.r.e. 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 pa.s.s 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?

He walked quickly over the gra.s.s, swearing under his breath when he twisted his ankle on a clump of heather. As he approached the cliff-edge, the sound of the seabirds got louder and the orange light stronger, so his head seemed filled with the noise and the light and he couldn't think clearly at all.

Kenny Thomson didn't hear Perez approaching. Perez thought the man was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that if Perez had been accompanied by the whole Up h.e.l.ly Aa marching band, he still wouldn't have noticed. Kenny stood very close to the cliff-edge, with the Pit at his back. Perez called to him.

'Come away, Kenny. Come here where I can talk to you.'

The man turned slowly.

'I'm fine where I am. And I've nothing to say.'

'I can't shout at you across all this s.p.a.ce, man. Not about this. Not about Lawrence.'

Kenny turned again, so once more he was facing the sea.

Perez inched closer, felt his stomach tilt and turn. Now he could see the waves breaking on the outlying stacks. The sound of the water seemed to take a long time to reach him. He had an image of Roddy's body, smashed in the Pit. He stumbled, and although he was still yards from the edge his heart seemed to stop. A pebble, loosened by his foot, rolled and bounced down the rock until it was lost in the spray at the bottom.

'Kenny, I can't do this, man. Why won't you come here where I can talk to you?'

Perhaps Kenny heard the panic in his voice, because for the first time he looked directly at Perez.

'There's no need for you to be here.'

Perez struggled to find some connection between them, some way of holding the man back from the cliff with his words. 'Do you mind that summer when you were working on Fair Isle, Kenny? The harbourworks in the North Haven. I've been thinking about that since we met up again.'

'Have you?' Kenny frowned, willing to be distracted, for a moment at least, from his own thoughts. Perhaps he was glad to be distracted.

'You came to stay with us in my parents' house, then you moved back to the hostel. I wondered why you might do that.'

'Did your mother ever talk to you about me?'

'Not since. When you were staying on the Isle, I could tell she liked you. She had nothing but good to say about you.'

'I thought I loved her,' Kenny said. 'A bit of summer madness.' A pause. 'I did love her.'

Perez felt his stomach tilt again, only this time it had nothing to do with the height of the cliff. His mother was his mother. She wasn't a woman for men to fall in love with. He didn't say anything.

'Nothing happened,' Kenny said. 'We weren't lovers, though I would have liked us to have been. That was why I moved back to the hostel. It drove me mad being in the same house as her. I couldn't settle. I couldn't sleep. Now I know it wasn't a lasting thing. Edith was the woman for me.' He gave an odd cry, which was lost in the noise of the seabirds.

'Did my father ever know how you felt about each other?'

Kenny didn't answer and seemed drowned again in thoughts of his own.

'Why don't you move away from the edge, Kenny? So we can talk properly. Not about Fair Isle, but about Lawrence.'

Perez saw that the man's face was streaming with tears. Molten copper in the orange light. Watching him standing there sobbing, Perez found he was holding his breath. He felt his heart thumping against his ribcage. A couple of steps and Kenny could be over the cliff.

'Don't you see?' Kenny said. 'There's no point in talking. Not any more.'

'I think I've worked out what went on.' Perez sat on the gra.s.s, felt the thrift rough against the palms of his hands, and he started to breathe again. 'Why don't you sit down too, Kenny? Sit here with me.'

Kenny remained standing. Perez could see that he wasn't getting through to him. 'When did it start?' he asked urgently, shouting out the words, willing Kenny to listen. 'Did Lawrence always want what you had, Kenny? Even when you were boys?'

'He was older than me and brighter than me,' Kenny said. 'That was only right.'

'Come away here,' Perez said again. Kenny was rocking with grief. He'd always been a controlled man, quiet, understated, repressed even. Now he seemed taken over by emotion, unaware of how close he was to the cliff-edge. If he continued like that it would be only a matter of time before he fell. Perez kept his voice light and easy, speaking just loudly enough to be heard above the kittiwakes. 'But to take Edith away from you, Kenny. That was never right, was it?'

Kenny threw back his head and screamed. 'What does any of that matter now? Can't you see, man? It's all over.'

Something made Perez lean forward and look down to the beach made of rock and shingle at the bottom of the cliff. A small, white figure lay there. Edith. Kenny's wife. His love.

Chapter Forty-four.

Kenny crouched and put his head in his hands. Perez got slowly to his feet and inched towards him across the bridge of rock, keeping his eyes firmly on the man and not looking down, feeling the rush of air on all sides. At last he was standing right behind him. He put his hands around Kenny's shoulders and pulled him upright, led him to safety away from the cliff-edge. Then they walked together in silence back to Skoles.

In the house Kenny took him through to the sitting room, seeming to think that something more formal than the kitchen was called for, though with its big window looking out over the bay, the sheepskin rugs and the comfortable chairs, this was hardly a standard interview room. On the mantelpiece stood pictures of the Thomson children, smiling, gap-toothed. A wedding photograph. Still Kenny didn't speak. Perez knew he should telephone Roy Taylor to let him know what had happened, and arrange for Edith's body to be collected, but all that could wait.

'You'll take a dram, Jimmy.' Kenny was quite composed now, though very white and strained. The outburst on the cliff might never have taken place.

Perez nodded. Kenny took a bottle of Highland Park from a cupboard built next to the chimney and poured out two gla.s.ses. They sat looking at each other.