White Nights - Ann Cleeves [45]
Martin carried across the coffee. Roddy nodded his thanks, but continued to look at Kenny, and waited till Martin had moved away before continuing the conversation.
‘You’re sure he was a stranger?’ he asked. ‘You’d never seen him before?’
Kenny allowed himself to be distracted a moment by the smell of the espresso. If it tasted as good as it smelled he could be converted too. He didn’t want to make a scene here in front of Edith, but he wanted to tell Roddy Sinclair to mind his own business. What right did he have to interrupt them here? Spoil the time he had with his wife?
‘I didn’t recognize the man,’ Kenny said.
‘He was here at Bella’s launch,’ Roddy said. ‘But I didn’t take much notice of him then.’
‘You saw him alive?’
Kenny almost asked Roddy if the man could have been Lawrence, but what would Roddy know? Lawrence had left when Roddy was still a small boy. He was living in Lerwick with his parents and only came to Biddista to visit Bella. He had been an annoying boy even then, spoiled, running wild about the place.
‘Yes. I wish I’d talked to him. If we knew who he was and where he’d come from, we could just get back to normal.’
What would you know about normal? Kenny thought. It seemed a strange thing for the boy to say. Normal was the last thing Roddy had ever wanted. He wanted drama, a different woman every night. Surely he’d be enjoying this small excitement.
Roddy turned to Edith. ‘What do you make of all this?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It sounds very callous, but I can’t get excited by the death of a man I didn’t know.’
Roddy was about to answer, but he was interrupted by the sound of a car driving down the road outside. Two cars. Everyone’s attention was turned to the window. The old ladies from Middleton stood up so they could get a better view. Quite shameless. Despite himself, Kenny swivelled round in his chair so he could see too.
Jimmy Perez got out of one of the cars. With him was a tall, heavily built man with a bald dome of a head. You could tell even from this distance that he was the boss. There were two other men and a woman, and a couple of police officers Kenny recognized: Sandy from Whalsay and young Morag. Suddenly he didn’t want to be here any more, staring down at the spectacle like children at the circus. He stood up and waited for Edith to follow him home.
Chapter Sixteen
Roy Taylor wasn’t sure what he felt about being back in Shetland. Certainly he was pleased to have finally arrived; all that waiting in Aberdeen had made him feel he was about to explode. And at least they’d got in on the plane. He hadn’t liked to tell the rest of the team – he didn’t believe leaders should admit to weakness, all that sharing, caring stuff wasn’t for him – but he felt queasy on the Mersey ferry. An overnight crossing on the boat and he knew he’d have thrown up.
Now, standing at the front of the queue waiting to get off the plane, that memory of the Mersey ferry suddenly made him homesick. A series of images played in sentimental succession in his head. The view of the Liverpool skyline from the river, Scouse voices in busy pubs, singing his heart and soul out in the Kop on a Saturday afternoon. It made him wonder if it wasn’t finally time to go back. His father was dead and couldn’t hurt him now. He dwelled briefly on the possibility of returning, then pushed it from his mind. He had other things to think about.
He’d headed for Inverness because it was the farthest place from home he could find. There’d been a masochistic pleasure in landing in a town so alien, so unlike anywhere he would otherwise have chosen to live. As if he’d wanted to punish himself as well as the family he’d left behind. And now he was back in Shetland, which was even more remote and more strange.
The plane door opened. He took the steps at a trot and strode across the tarmac to the little door in the terminal building. He’d given instructions that his team should only bring carry-on luggage. They’d wasted enough time and he didn’t want them hanging