Red Bones - Ann Cleeves [9]
Sandy’s phone call had woken Perez up. His first reaction had been fear, which had nothing at all to do with his work as a detective. His girlfriend, Fran, had gone south for a couple of weeks over Easter, taking her daughter Cassie with her. ‘My parents haven’t seen her for months,’ Fran had said. ‘And I want to catch up with all my friends. It would be so easy to lose touch, living here.’ Perez knew it was ridiculous but when he thought of London he thought of danger. So while Fran dreamed of nights out at the theatre with her friends, leaving doting grandparents to make up months’ worth of babysitting, he’d been thinking gun crime, stabbings, terrorism.
The anxiety must have been with him even in his sleep, because the noise of the phone triggered an immediate panic. He sat up in bed and grabbed the receiver, his heart was racing and he was wide awake. ‘Yes?’
Only to hear Sandy Wilson, mumbling and incoherent as only he could be, with some story about his family, an accidental shooting, his grandmother dead. Perez listened with half his brain, the other half flooded with relief, so he found himself grinning. Not because an old woman was dead but because nothing terrible had happened to Fran or Cassie. He saw from the clock on the bedside table that it was nearly three o’clock.
‘How do you know it was an accident?’ Perez had said, interrupting at last.
‘My cousin Ronald was out after rabbits and it was such poor visibility, you can see how it might have happened. What else would it be?’ A pause. ‘Ronald likes his drink.’
‘And what does Ronald say?’
‘He couldn’t see how it could have happened. He’s a good shot and he’d not have fired into Mima’s land.’
‘Had he been drinking?’
‘He says not. Not much.’
‘What do you say?’
‘I don’t see what else could have happened.’
On the ferry, Perez left his car and climbed the stairs to the enclosed deck. He bought a cup of coffee from the machine and sat, looking through the grimy glass to watch Whalsay emerge from the dawn and the mist. Everything was muted green and grey. No colours and no hard edges. Shetland weather, Perez thought. As they came closer he could make out the shape of the houses on the hill. Large, grand houses. He’d grown up with myths about how rich the Whalsay folk were and he was never sure how much of it was true: Shetland was full of stories of buried treasure and trowie gold. It was said that one year a skipper was worried about the tax he’d have to pay and needed to take some money out of the company accounts. His crew were called to the pier on Christmas morning and each found a brand-new Range-Rover with his name on it. Perez couldn’t remember seeing any of the Whalsay men driving a Range-Rover and anyway the boats were co-operatively run, but it was a good story.
Sandy was waiting for him in his own car at the pier. Before the ferry had tied up, Perez saw him get out. He stood, his hands in his pockets, the hood pulled up against the damp, until Perez had driven his car from the boat, then walked up to join him. He climbed into the passenger seat. Perez could tell that he’d had no sleep.
‘I’m sorry about your grandmother.’
For a moment there was no reaction, then Sandy smiled grimly. ‘It’s how she’d have wanted to go,’ he said. ‘She always liked a bit of drama. She’d not want to slip away in her sleep in some old folks’ home.’ He paused. ‘She’d not want Ronald to get into any bother over this.’
‘Unfortunately,’ Perez said, ‘it’s not her decision.’
‘I didn’t know what to do.’ Sandy seldom knew what to do, but didn’t usually admit it. ‘I mean, should I have arrested him? He must have committed some sort of crime, mustn’t he? Even if it was an accident. Reckless use of a shotgun . . .’
Perez thought recklessness was a tricky concept to prove in law. ‘I don’t think you could have done anything,’ he said. ‘Besides, you’re involved.