White Nights - Ann Cleeves [78]
‘I’m not so sure,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what he could want with the old man. He’s full of questions and demands and Willy gets upset so easily.’
‘Perhaps he wants to put Willy into a book.’
‘Perhaps he does, but he’s like some sort of parasite, sucking the life from him.’ She paused and Kenny was surprised to see she was shaking. ‘Wilding told me he’s put in an offer on a house in Buness,’ she went on. ‘He wants to stay in Shetland, but Willy’s old house in Biddista isn’t good enough for him. “Shetland is my inspiration.” That’s what he told me.’
Kenny wasn’t sure what to say. He’d taken Wilding fishing once with Martin Williamson and thought he was a weak, easily scared sort of man. He’d sat white-faced, holding the side of the boat. He wouldn’t be sorry if the writer moved to the south of the island. It would be better if a young Shetland family could move into Willy’s old house. It would be nice if there was another child around the place, a friend for Alice Williamson, who must get awful lonely.
Edith went into the garden to dig some early tatties to go with the fish and came back, carrying them in a colander with a cut lettuce on the top. She rinsed the light soil from her hands under the tap.
‘Would you like me to come in and talk to Willy?’ he asked when they sat ready to eat. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen him. We could talk about the old days, and he always wants to know what the fishing’s like now and how I’m managing with the boat. I won’t suck the life out of him. I promise that’
She looked up at him and smiled. ‘He’d love that. You’re a kind man, Kenny Thomson.’
She squeezed a quarter of a lemon over the piltock and ate the fish very seriously, almost with respect. He reflected that that was how she did everything.
After the meal he asked if she’d like to take a walk with him over the hill. Some evenings she came with him and he always enjoyed her company. He thought it might help her forget her worries at work. She hesitated a moment before answering, so he could tell she was tempted, but in the end she shook her head.
‘I’d like to finish the knitting for Ingirid. Just in case.’
Their daughter was expecting a baby, their first grandchild, and was due in ten days’ time. Edith had holiday saved up so she could fly down to Aberdeen as soon as labour started. She was making a shawl for the child. The knitting was so intricate that it looked like one of the wedding veils worn in his grandparents’ day. Then, the women had said the yarn should be so fine that you should be able to pull the veil through a wedding ring.
‘I might speak to her on the phone,’ Edith went on. ‘Just see how she is.’
Kenny understood. As the birth got closer Ingirid had become homesick for the islands. It had seemed to them that she’d never missed Shetland before. She had her new life in the south, her friends and her man. Now some nights there were tearful phone calls. Hormones, Edith said, but Kenny thought it was just that she wanted her baby to be born a Shetlander.
He put his boots on at the door, and called to Vaila. Walking up the track his mind wandered and suddenly he found himself near the top of the hill looking down to the sea. A bonxie dived at him, just missing the crown of his cap. They were always aggressive this time of year when they had young. But he was used to the skuas on the hill and he didn’t miss a step. He never had to worry about where he was putting his feet. The hill was so familiar and the way he took was the same every evening. If I had paint on my boots, he thought, there’d be one set of footprints on the grass even after a week, because I never vary my path.
It was a clear evening, so still that he fancied he could hear the waves breaking on the rocks at the foot of the hill. There were cars outside the Herring House. Martin opened the café there for dinner on Friday night. It seemed having a murder so close by hadn’t put people off coming.
Tonight he thought he would walk on a little further, break the usual routine, check how many sheep there were up near the Pit o’