White Nights - Ann Cleeves [108]
‘So that’s a possible scenario?’
‘No. The crack into the tunnel is too narrow. A body wouldn’t be washed in there. Not even the body of a child, and this is an adult.’
‘What are you saying, Jimmy? I don’t have all day. Help me out here!’
‘I think this is the body of a victim who was killed and then thrown down the Pit. The same means of death and disposal of the body as with Roddy Sinclair.’ He squinted against the sunlight. ‘It suggests, wouldn’t you say, the same murderer?’
‘But Jeremy Booth was killed in quite a different way. Are you saying someone else strangled him? Two separate murderers?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m feeling my way.’
You think you know what happened here, Taylor thought. But you won’t commit yourself.
‘We should have done a thorough search of the crime scene when Sinclair’s body was first found.’ Taylor thought he could allow himself that. The comment was measured and moderate, but Perez would pick up on the criticism.
‘You’re right. We should.’ Perez paused. ‘What should we do now? Wait for a specialist search team from the mainland? There are no high tides forecast. We’re unlikely to lose more than has been lost already.’
Taylor tried to imagine how long that would take. Tracking down the right people and getting them here.
‘What’s the alternative?’
‘Us!’ It was the young woman. The climbers had been sitting slightly apart, obviously listening in but pretending not to. ‘We’re free for the rest of the day. Tell us what to do and we’ll do it. You can get one of your experts to talk us through it if you want.’ She had frizzy fair hair and she’d tipped back her head to appeal to him. She wore a sleeveless vest with a fleece thrown over it, and he found it hard to keep his eyes away from her breasts. ‘You wouldn’t even know that there was anything down there if it hadn’t been for us.’
And he agreed, because he couldn’t stand the thought of more hanging about. And because if there was a team brought in from outside, they’d have their own leader and he wouldn’t be in control any more. To this couple he was the expert. They’d do what he said.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Why not?’
The young woman grinned at him, excited, like a little girl.
When Taylor turned back to Perez, he smiled too, complicit. It was like the time in the winter, when it had been them against the system.
Later he thought the Shetland climbers were as careful and meticulous as any professionals would have been. He and Perez stayed at the top and watched them quarter the base of the cavern in lines, sifting through the shingle and the seaweed with their fingers. They found one new bone very quickly. It was only a fragment. Perez wondered if it could be animal, but Roger seemed to think it was human. Then nothing happened for a long time. Taylor called down to them:
‘Are you OK?’
‘Apart from being starving.’
Taylor was torn. He didn’t want to miss anything but boredom had set in a long time before. ‘I’ll go and see if I can rustle up some coffee and food for them,’ he said to Perez. ‘And for us.’
‘I’ll go.’
‘No. You’re the local. You stay here.’
The Herring House was closed to visitors, but he could hear movement inside and banged on the door. There was no reply but he persisted.
‘For Christ’s sake, man. Can you not read? The gallery’s closed.’ He’d been expecting Martin Williamson, but it was Aggie, his mother. Because he’d never seen her in the Herring House before it took Taylor a moment to place her.
‘I know,’ he said.
She blushed when she saw who it was, seemed to feel some explanation for her presence there was required.
‘I don’t open the post office on a Monday afternoon,’ she said. ‘I’m helping out with a bit of spring cleaning here while the place is closed.’
‘I’m surprised Miss Sinclair is thinking about the business at a time like this.’
‘Bella didn’t ask me,’ she said. ‘Martin did. She leaves the restaurant