White Nights - Ann Cleeves [129]
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 Helly 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 space, 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 grass, 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