White Nights - Ann Cleeves [21]
What are you hiding? Fran thought.
‘My God,’ Bella said. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit spooky? The flyer, I mean. “A death in the family”. Do you think he was predicting his own death?’
‘But he wasn’t family, was he?’
‘Don’t be silly, Jimmy. Of course not. I don’t have any immediate family left. Only Roddy and he’s still alive, thank God.’
‘We want to inform the man’s relatives and he has no ID. Are you sure you didn’t recognize him, either of you?’
‘Quite sure,’ Fran said.
‘I didn’t know him last night.’ Bella was twisting the stem of her glass. ‘But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t an acquaintance. Someone from my past. I’ve met so many people and my memory isn’t what it was. I’m an old woman now, Jimmy.’
She smiled, waiting to be contradicted.
It seemed to take him a moment to understand the rules of the game. Fran found that she was holding her breath. This was such a blatant cue for a compliment. Would he really have the nerve to ignore it?
At last he smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll never seem old, Bella.’
In the silence that followed, Fran saw the scene as a painting. A gloomy Dutch interior, all dark wood and shadow. Bella’s face in profile had an anxious, almost haunted look, and the lines of stress round her eyes made Perez’s words seem cruel, mocking.
‘I wonder if I might talk to Roddy.’ He leaned forward. Fran could smell the soap, her soap, on his skin.
Bella seemed about to refuse, but there were footsteps on the wooden floor outside and the kitchen door opened. Roddy Sinclair stood, backlit by the sunshine flooding through the long window in the hall. He yawned and stretched, aware that they were all looking at him.
‘A party,’ he said. ‘Oh good. I do love a party.’
Fran pulled up by the side of the road opposite the Herring House. She didn’t want to park too close to the jetty, to be thought the sort of rubberneck who’s excited by road accidents and blood. But the beach was so beautiful here and she needed to clear her head. She sat on the wall, looking out over the water.
She saw a figure walking towards her along the road, followed his progress. It was the dark-haired man who’d talked to her about her painting the night before. He’d spoken with such passion about her work that she’d been flattered and hoped that he would buy a piece. She’d thought he was a dealer because he’d talked with knowledge and authority and was surprised to see him still in Biddista. She struggled to remember his name. He’d introduced himself the night before. Peter Wilding. It had seemed familiar to her then and again she thought it should have some meaning to her.
‘Ms Hunter. I hope you don’t mind . . .’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not.’
He sat beside her. ‘I wanted to tell you again how much I enjoyed your work.’ There was an element of self-mockery in his voice. I know this is unsophisticated. To be so obvious in one’s admiration.
‘You’re very kind, Mr Wilding.’
‘Peter, please.’
Then she remembered how she knew the name. She’d read an article about him in the Observer. Something about contemporary genre fiction. ‘A writer of fantasy for intellectuals’, hadn’t that been how Wilding had been described? ‘You’re a writer.’
‘Yes.’ He was clearly delighted that she’d recognized him at last.
‘Are you staying in Biddista?’
‘Yes, I’m renting a house here. Just temporary. But I love Shetland. I’m hoping to make a more permanent arrangement. I’ve vague ideas of writing a fantasy series based around Viking mythology. It might work, don’t you think? And it would be wonderful to have the landscape to set it in.’
She was pleased that he seemed to value her opinion. He waited for her to answer, as if it really mattered to him.
‘It would be fascinating,’ she said. There were times when she missed the old London life. The talk of books and theatre and film. She thought he would be an interesting person to have around, entertaining, full of new ideas.
‘I wonder if you’d agree to have a meal with me sometime,’ he said. ‘I don’t have much scope for cooking where I am, but perhaps we could go out.’
The invitation