'A few days. Then there's a tour of Australia. I'm looking forward to it. I've never done Oz before.'

'Do you always stay with Bella while you're in Shetland?'

'Usually. She's the only family I have here now.' He didn't need to explain. This was another myth and he would a.s.sume that Perez would know. How his dad had died when he was a boy and his mother had fallen for an American oilman, gone back to Houston with him. How Roddy had refused to leave. Aged thirteen he'd stood up to them all, said he couldn't leave the islands. He was a Shetlander. It was the story that had appeared on CD covers and had been told to chat-show hosts. 'I'm a Shetlander.' And didn't the islands love him for it! Bella had provided a home for him. Spoiled him rotten, according to Kenny Thomson. Turned him into a performer. Encouraged his ambition. Funded the first CD. Designed the cover and sent it off to all her arty friends in the south. That story didn't appear so much in the papers. The official version had it that he was discovered by a producer who happened to be in Lerwick on holiday and heard Roddy play at the Lounge, the bar in town. In that version Roddy was an overnight success.

'You don't mind her wheeling you out to support her openings?'

'Why should I? I owe her. Besides, her events are always a bit of a laugh.' He was walking beside Perez along a path which led over Skoles land. It climbed steeply. Eventually they would end up at the top of the cliff, next to the great hole that was known as the Pit o' Biddista. Perez planned to have the conversation finished by then. The boy stopped abruptly and turned to Perez. 'What's this about? They were looking so serious in there. Is it my mother? Is she ill?'

'No,' Perez said. 'Nothing like that.'

There was a moment's silence and Perez wondered if Roddy was going over in his mind other possible explanations for the police to be calling. The cannabis or cocaine which Perez was pretty sure they'd find in his room if they looked. A hotel prepared to press charges after a particularly rowdy party.

'Did you think there were fewer people at the opening last night than Bella was expecting?'

'Yeah, I was surprised. She usually gets a good turnout.'

'Someone was spreading these all over Lerwick and Scalloway yesterday.'

Perez had slipped the flyer into a transparent plastic bag and he gave it to Roddy to read. Roddy stopped, leaning against an outcrop of rock in the hill.

'You don't think I had anything to do with this?'

'It might have been someone's idea of a joke.'

'But not mine. I told you. Bella took me in when I wanted to carry on living here. If it wasn't for her I'd be speaking with a Texas accent and playing country and western. I owe her.'

'Any idea who might have thought it funny?'

'No. There doesn't seem much to laugh about. That bit about a death in the family, it's just sick.'

'There has been a death,' Perez said. 'That's what I'm doing here.'

'Who?'

'There was a stranger at the party last night. He made a scene just after you finished playing. Got on to his knees and starting crying.'

'Guy in black. Shaved head?'

'Yes.'

They'd started walking again and Perez could smell the bird s.h.i.t and the salt in the air. The gra.s.s was cropped short here. There were patches of thrift and tiny blue dots of spring squill. They'd almost reached the top of the cliff. He slowed his pace.

'Had you ever seen him before?' Perez asked. 'Before he lost it the man seemed really interested in the paintings. I don't know, not just idle curiosity. As if he knew something about art. You don't remember coming across him at one of Bella's other events?'

'What does Bella say?'

'She was reluctant to commit herself either way. He could have been an acquaintance, but she couldn't be sure. Her memory's not as good as it was.'

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.' Roddy still had breath to give a choking laugh. Perez was starting to pant. 'Bella's as sharp as she always was. Sharper, if it comes to business. If your guy was a dealer or critic she'd have recognized him the minute he came into the room.'

'And you? Did you know him?'

'Sorry. Never seen him before in my life.'

Although they were some way from the edge of the cliff they could see the water now, glittering and fizzing against an offsh.o.r.e craig. Perez sat on the gra.s.s. A gannet was hovering in the thermals. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I'm not as fit as I should be. It's all desk work these days.' He hoped Roddy would sit with him, but the boy walked on. He stood with his back to Perez, looking out, arms slightly away from his body. The late-morning sun was right above him, his own spotlight. From where he was sitting Perez thought he would disappear. One more step and he would tumble into s.p.a.ce. It looked as if all Roddy had to do was reach out his hand and then he would touch the tip of the gannet's wing. An illusion, Perez knew. A trick of the light and the way the land dipped towards the cliff-edge. But it made him feel sick. He could feel sweat on his forehead, hoped it wasn't showing.

'You haven't asked how the Englishman died.' He hoped that would be enough to catch the boy's attention and Roddy did turn towards Perez, walk a few steps closer.

'What was it? An accident?' And that was the most probable scenario for unexpected death in the islands. Too much to drink. Narrow and precarious roads. Especially for a stranger.

'Kenny Thomson found him hanging in the hut by the jetty.'

'Suicide then?'

'Most likely.' The official version until the GP from Whiteness got his second opinion.

'Poor sod,' Roddy said, and then he did come and flop on the gra.s.s beside Perez. But the words came easily, without any thought behind them. He was young and lucky and couldn't imagine how desperate you would have to be to take your own life.

'Or murder.' The words sounded fierce to Perez and he knew he shouldn't have spoken. Not until it was all official. But he wanted Roddy to take the matter seriously. At the moment it was a game to him. Besides, Perez trusted the young Glaswegian doctor, and by the time the team arrived from Inverness the whole of Shetland would know what was going on.

'Murder!' Still the boy's mouth had a twist at the corner as if this was also a joke, too incredible to be true.

'It's a possibility,' Perez said. 'You do see why I have to find out who he was.'

'Really, I'd never met him before.'

'Did you speak to him at all during the evening?'

'He was standing in front of a painting by Fran Hunter. That silhouette of the child on the beach. I thought it was b.l.o.o.d.y brilliant. I mean I love Bella's work and I don't want to be disloyal but I thought that painting the best piece in the exhibition. I can't get it out of my head; if it hasn't sold yet, I think I'll buy it. Save it for when I have a home to move into. I was next to him, looking at it too. And he spoke to me. "Good, isn't it?" That was all he said.'

'Accent?' Perez asked. 'I couldn't place it, and you've travelled more than me.' How old was Roddy Sinclair? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? And already he'd played his fiddle all over the world. Except Australia, and soon he'd have been there too.

'North of England,' Roddy said. 'Yorkshire? But it was only three words. I can't be certain.'

'How did he seem?'

'Like someone admiring a painting. I mean calm. Ordinary. I walked away and five minutes later he was causing all that fuss, on his knees and bawling. It seemed really bizarre.'

So what had happened in those five minutes? Perez thought. A sudden blankness which had scared the stranger so much that he'd fallen apart? Or had the amnesia been an act, turned on for the audience? To disrupt the event further, like the flyers of cancellation scattered all over the town.

'What did you do after you'd finished playing?' Perez asked.

'I got p.i.s.sed. It wasn't much of a party, but I thought I should enter into the spirit of the event.'

'Who were you drinking with?'

'Whoever was around, but everyone drifted off very early. In the end it was just me and Martin. He was clearing up. I don't supposed I helped much, but at least I could keep him company, keep his gla.s.s topped up.'

'You two old friends?'

'Well, he's a bit older than me. But in the scale of things in Biddista, we're both children. If I'm staying with Bella we usually get together for an evening. If Dawn will let him out to play.'

'What time did you leave the Herring House?'

'Can't remember, I'm afraid, and it's hard to tell, isn't it, at this time of year? I mean, all night it looks as if it's just dusk. Martin might know. He was marginally more sober than me.'

'You left together?'

'Aye. I remember standing outside waiting for him to lock up. I had a bottle of wine in each hand. I'd invited him back to the Manse to carry on the party. You know how it seems a good idea at the time?'

'Anyone else about?'

'No. It was all quiet. I do remember thinking that. Most places in the world there's something. Traffic noise. Music. A siren in the distance. Here it was just the birds. The water on the shingle. Then I started singing and Martin told me to shut up or I'd wake his daughter.'

'Martin walked up to the Manse with you?'

'No, in the end he went all sensible on me. Said Dawn would kill him if he didn't get back at a decent time and he'd promised to help in the shop in the morning. I walked with him as far as his house, then carried on by myself.'

'Still no one else about?'

'I didn't see anyone.'

'Was Bella up when you got home?'

'No. The place was empty. Quiet as the grave.'

Back on the jetty, the GP's car had gone. Sandy was still sitting by himself. He never seemed troubled by boredom. Perez wondered what he could be thinking about, sitting so still and nothing to occupy him. Some woman, perhaps. Sandy was given to brief and violent infatuations. The relationships never lasted and each time he was left disappointed and confused.

Perez thought his own record was hardly any better. Now he was infatuated too. Perhaps he was making as big a fool of himself as Sandy always did. He felt himself grinning and decided he didn't care, looked at his watch to cover up the daft smirk. It was nearly one o'clock. Sandy was troubled by hunger and would soon be pressing for a lunch break. When he saw Perez approaching he jumped off the harbour wall.

'I've just tried to phone you.'

'No signal on the hill,' Perez said. There were black holes for mobiles all over the islands.

'The doctors have just gone.'

'And?'

'They're agreed. Murder.'

Chapter Nine.

So now it was official. They couldn't just call out the paramedics, cut down the stranger in black and hand his body over to the health authority. Perez looked at his watch. The squad from Inverness wouldn't get to Aberdeen in time for the ferry, but they should just make the last plane of the evening in. He was already dialling to let his team in Lerwick know what was happening, get things moving.

'Are you OK to stay here, Sandy? Mark it out as a crime scene and keep folks well away. I'll get them to send someone to relieve you as soon as we can.'

He supposed he should go back to town. There was all the bureaucracy that came with a suspicious death. His first priority should be to identify the dead man. He should speak to the Fiscal, start the legal process of the investigation. But really he wanted to stay in Biddista. There were other people here to talk to and he thought he'd get more out of them than would the incomers.

'Hey, I'm starving. Let me just go over to the shop to get some chocolate, huh?' Sandy could whine like a two-year-old. Perez thought sometimes he had the brains of a two-year-old; then he'd surprise them all with his technical competence he was better at IT than anyone else in the office. Perez couldn't help liking him.

'You stay here. I'll get you something.' Before Sandy could object he was halfway across the road. He could hear the Whalsay man shouting after him. 'A Mars Bar then. And crisps. Salt and vinegar. And a can of c.o.ke. Not the b.l.o.o.d.y Diet s.h.i.te.'

The shop had been built on to the last house in the terrace and was hardly bigger than an English suburban garage. There were shelves all round the walls for self-service and a refrigerated counter with a lump of Orkney cheddar and a couple of pounds of vacuum-packed streaky bacon. In one corner, the post office: a rack of official forms and some scales for weighing parcels. A young man stood behind the food counter. Perez recognized Martin Williamson, the chef who'd prepared the food for the exhibition the night before. Williamson's father had run a hotel in Scalloway until he'd drunk all the profits and the family had sold up and moved into Lerwick. The father had died soon after. He'd fallen into the water at the ferry terminal, full of drink. Rumour had it that he'd jumped, but n.o.body had seen him fall, so how could they know?

Yet Martin had a reputation for good humour. Even at the old man's funeral, he'd been heard cracking a joke with one of his friends. There were people who'd disapproved of that; others thought he was putting on a brave face. The story would be linked to him for ever. It defined him: Martin Williamson, the man who laughed at his father's funeral. 'He's always been a bit of a clown,' his mother was quoted as saying when the complaints got back to her. Apparently, the comment had been made quite without judgement.

Aggie Williamson had her name over the shop door and lived in the house attached. The same rumour-mongers who gossiped about old man Williamson's drowning explained her sudden affluence, the ability to buy the business, as the result of the payout from the insurance company after her husband's death. She'd grown up in Biddista and had always wanted to return there. She'd never settled in Scalloway or in the hotel. She was a quiet and withdrawn woman and the noise of the hotel's public bar, the stress of facing strangers who came to holiday there, had unsettled her. She could scarcely make much of a living from the Biddista business, but the Royal Mail paid her a little, and anyway she preferred it when the shop was empty. Then she sat on the high stool next to the post office and read romantic novels set in the past.

Martin lived in the house set in the middle of the terrace with his wife Dawn and his young daughter. He helped his mother out when he wasn't working in the Herring House. He had ambitions to open his own restaurant.

All this Perez knew, although his dealings with the family had been limited. He wondered occasionally how it must be to live in a community where the back stories to people's lives remained untold. Exhilarating, he thought. It could be possible to reinvent yourself with every encounter. But it might be flat and a little cold too. Biddista had even fewer people than Fair Isle, where he grew up. He thought the folk here would make sure they had some secrets to keep to themselves. n.o.body liked to think their neighbours knew everything about them.

He realized that he must look very odd, just standing there, deep in thought, and roused himself. The shop was gloomy. The only light came from the open door. In the shadow he saw a small child playing on the floor, a box of toys beside her. In her arms she held a knitted toy, a strange animal with elongated limbs and a snout. She held it round the middle and bounced it along the floor as if it was dancing. Martin looked at him over the counter, saw him staring at the toy and laughed.

'Don't ask what it is. Alice took a fancy to it at a sale of work and now we can't get it off her, even to wash it.' He grinned. 'Twice in two days: what brings you to Biddista again so soon?'

Perez ignored the question. 'I thought you ran the cafe in the Herring House. Aren't you there today?'

'The gallery's not open on a Tuesday. I give my mother a bit of a break by standing in here.'

Perez walked around the shelves, pulling off chocolate bars and crisps. No salt and vinegar. Would cheese and onion do? Sandy could be picky about his food. I can't believe that I'm really worrying about this, Perez thought, that I'm just about to start a murder investigation and I'm bothered by Sandy's choice of a snack lunch. He landed up at the counter, took his wallet out of his back pocket. 'That man who was at the gallery last night,' he said. 'You saw he was a bit upset. Did you recognize him?'

Martin shook his head. 'He looked like a visitor to me.' He began to ring up Perez's purchases on the till.

'I left him in the kitchen with you. What made him run off suddenly like that?'

Martin looked up, a packet of crisps still in his hand. 'Hey, it was nothing to do with me. I was still working on the buffet. Waste of time in the end, half of it was uneaten. They didn't get as many people as they were expecting. Bella was furious.'

'So what happened? Did he just get up and walk out without a word?'

'I don't know what happened. I carried a tray of food out to set on the trestle at the back of the gallery. When I got back to the kitchen he'd gone. Maybe he just sorted himself out and went home.'

'No,' Perez said. He saw that the girl was engrossed in her game, but still lowered his voice. 'He didn't do that. He's still there in Kenny Thomson's hut. He's dead. Hanging from one of the rafters.'

Martin's mouth stretched into the beginning of an embarra.s.sed laugh.

'You're joking?'

'No,' Perez said. 'Why would I joke about something like that? Kenny found him. He hasn't said anything to you?' He found it hard to believe that this was news to Martin. A place like Biddista, information escaped, seeped into general knowledge without any effort. 'Didn't you wonder what Sandy and the doctors were doing out there?'