Part 22 (1/2)

'Really, Jimmy, you have to come down. You can manage down the gra.s.s, can't you? You don't need a rope if you come that way.'

Perez had avoided the climb when Roddy Sinclair was found. Sandy had taken care of the crime scene then. Now he saw he had no choice. Sophie was still looking at him.

He took off his jacket, folded it carefully and placed it on the gra.s.s, feeling a little like a man who decides to commit suicide by drowning. Then he slid over the lip of the Pit on to the first of a series of rabbit tracks that crossed the slope. He kept his centre of gravity low and tilted his body into the slope, so one hand was always on the gra.s.s. There was no danger of his falling Sophie would bound down it. He could imagine her confident and upright, jumping from one path to the next, facing forwards all the way down, only needing her heels to grip. He knew he was being painfully slow. Occasionally he stopped and glanced up so he could see how far he'd climbed. He didn't think it was sensible to look down.

He knew he was approaching the bottom because he could hear Sophie, shouting through into the tunnel to Roger. Her words were blurred by echo, but he could tell she was standing quite close to him. Then he did turn and saw he was only six feet from the ground. He slid it on his backside and landed beside her, one foot slipping on a slimy rock into a pool. There was no direct sunlight there; a strong smell of rotting seaweed, organic and salty. It was somehow prehistoric. He tried not to think about the return to the real world.

'What have you found?'

'We didn't like to touch it. This way.' She led him into the mouth of the tunnel.

The floor was uneven s.h.i.+ngle, solid rock which formed creva.s.ses and pools, and small smooth boulders which must have been washed in from the beach. Too late he remembered a directive he'd received a couple of months ago about risk a.s.sessment. He wondered what Health and Safety would make of this. Roger and Sophie weren't even employees.

At this point the tunnel looked like a cave. It must curve further in and the gap leading to the open water must be very narrow, because no natural light showed from the other end. Roger had put on his torch and was waiting for them, haloed in a yellow glow. He was sitting on an outcrop of rock which jutted from the channel wall, eating a bar of chocolate.

'Sorry,' Sophie said. 'Jimmy was a tad slow.'

'Have you found Booth's phone then?' Perez thought they were playing a sort of practical joke on him. They knew he was uncomfortable with heights and had dragged him down here under false pretences. They'd pull out some ridiculous object that had been washed in a pair of false teeth, an old boot and expect him to find it amusing.

'No,' Roger said. 'But we found this.'

He shone his torch into a pile of debris which had been lifted on to a shelf in the rock. There were sc.r.a.ps of fis.h.i.+ng net, sh.e.l.l and seaweed, two of the plastic rings which hold four-packs of beer and, creamy and smooth, a piece of bone.

'Very funny,' Perez said. A sheep had become trapped down here, starved to death. It wouldn't take long for the flesh to rot and be eaten away by fish and other creatures. When it was exposed to the air the bonxies and the rats would have it. The tide would have lifted the small piece of bone on to the ledge.

'What do you think it is?'

'Sheep? Dog maybe?'

'Look closer,' Roger said. 'I think you're wrong. If I'm not mistaken it's a human thigh bone.'

'Roger works as a physio,' Sophie said. 'He knows about human anatomy.'

Perez could tell she was enjoying herself. It was that excitement around unexplained death again.

'It must have been pushed up to the ledge on a really big tide.' Roger played the torch along the tunnel wall, half a metre below the ledge. 'You can see this is the normal high-water mark.'

'So it could have been flushed in from the open sea?' Perez said. He wondered how many men had been lost in the seas around here over the years. The currents were so fierce that it wasn't unusual for the bodies from wrecks never to be recovered. The bone was worn s.h.i.+ny and smooth. It had been here for ages.

'It wouldn't take very long for it to get like that,' Roger said, seeming to read his thoughts. 'I mean not decades. Not necessarily. Not down here. Think of the action of the sand and the s.h.i.+ngle.'

'When was the last really high tide? I mean, when do you think it was lifted on to the ledge?' Perez found his thoughts moving very fast. It was as if he'd had a shot of caffeine.

'This year,' Sophie said quickly. 'Spring equinox. Don't you remember, those wonderful photos in the Shetland Times of the waves at Scalloway? It could have been here in the tunnel before that but washed on to the ledge then.'

'I need to get right to the end of the tunnel.' Perez had forgotten any question of risk a.s.sessment. 'I need to know how big the entrance is on the seaward side.'

They walked in single file with Roger in the front, Perez in the middle and Sophie at the rear. The way into the tunnel from the Pit was wide enough for them to stretch out their arms, but it narrowed as they approached the sh.o.r.e. A slit of natural light appeared ahead of them, and there was a gust of salt fresh air from the sea. Now they were clambering over solid rock. Before they could reach the gap the tunnel had become so tight that they couldn't move further forward. Suns.h.i.+ne shone through the strange vertical crack, picked out the colour in the rock at their feet in a sparkling strip.

'A body couldn't have been washed in there,' Perez said. 'Even with the force of the tide behind it. There's no room.' Sandy needn't have worried about leaving Booth's holdall down here. There was no way it would have been washed through the tiny gap.

'Couldn't the body have broken up at sea? A bone the size we found could just about have been sucked in.'

Still Perez's thoughts were racing. 'That's possible. But if we find any more than that, it would be more than chance. Think of all the places along the coast where they could be washed up. And if we discover part of a corpse which is bigger than the piece we found, it couldn't have come in this way.' He looked at them. 'Could it? The gap's too narrow. If we come across more bones, or a bigger fragment of bone, it means the body was tipped down from the top of the Pit. Like Roddy Sinclair. It means another, older murder.'

Chapter Thirty-five.

On Monday afternoon Fran went to visit Bella. She'd been thinking all weekend that she should go. She wasn't sure what she could do to help, but the death of someone so young and beautiful needed marking. It demanded a certain ritual. She knew Bella would see things that way too. Fran thought she would be waiting in the Manse, queenly, expecting visits. That didn't mean Bella would be feeling the loss any less Roddy was as much a child to her as Ca.s.sie was to Fran but she would want his going dramatized, turned into art, made splendid.

There was a small group of reporters at the entrance to the Manse. None of them looked local. They seemed content to sit in the sun and take photos of the Manse with their long lenses. A uniformed policeman stood there too, and he seemed to be enjoying the banter with the journalists. He let Fran through with a wave when she said she was there to see Bella. She thought she'd seen him before at one of Duncan's parties. Those days seemed a long time ago.

Bella opened the door to her and as Fran had expected she was dressed to meet guests. Her clothes always tended towards the theatrical. Today she was wearing a long skirt, gathered and full, in a plum-coloured muslin, and a white embroidered cotton top. The effect was exotic flamenco or gypsy. Fran despised herself for considering such trivial matters as dress, but Bella would want it to be noticed. Fran wondered if it would be tasteless to say how nice the artist looked and decided that it would be. Besides, she would know she looked good.

'I wanted to come,' she said. 'I probably can't do anything, and if you'd rather be alone, do say.'

'No.' Bella stood back, so she was framed by the light through the old kirk-style window. 'Company helps. It stops me brooding quite so much. Have you had lunch? Aggie Williamson keeps bringing me food. Either things she made or wonderful little goodies Martin's cooked, but I can't face eating.'

And Fran saw that she did seem to have lost weight. Her eyes were hollow and her cheekbones angular beneath the fine skin. She had put on make-up though, a very subtle foundation, a smudge of shadow on her eyes. I would do the same, Fran thought. It would keep me from falling apart altogether.

Bella was continuing. 'Shall we have tea then? And perhaps a slice of cake. Do you mind sitting in the kitchen?'

Fran was reminded of the last time they'd sat here, discussing the fake notices which had been circulated to cancel the exhibition. How fierce and angry Bella had been then. How important the launch had seemed.

'Do the police know yet why Jeremy Booth put out all those flyers?' she asked.

'Surely you'd know that better than me.' For a moment it was the old Bella, amused, sharp. 'Haven't you taken up with Jimmy Perez?'

'He doesn't discuss the case with me.'

'I've been trying to think where I might have met Booth,' Bella said. 'I've been thinking a lot about the past in the last few days. It's suddenly become sharper, somehow more vivid. It's more pleasant than the present, and with Roddy gone there's really not much future left. Nothing worth caring about, at least. It is possible that I knew him.'

'There's your work.' That would hold me together, Fran thought. That and the pride of keeping up appearances.

'Oh yes, there's always that.'

'Any idea where you might have met Booth?'

'There were occasional visitors,' Bella said vaguely. 'People who drifted into my life for a few weeks and then disappeared. Students and other artists. I liked the energy of the people who came and sometimes I asked them to stay. I'd bought this big house. And I loved parties. Just like your ex-husband, my dear. So why not?'

'You think Booth might have been one of your stray guests?'

'Perhaps.' She nibbled at a piece of fruit cake. 'I think Peter Wilding might have been one of them too. I hadn't realized before. It's only since Roddy died, this strange escape into the past, living the old days in my head. If it's the man I'm remembering, he doesn't even look very different. But the summer I believe he was here wasn't a very happy time for me. I've been trying since then to put it out of my mind. Besides, I can't be sure.' She seemed to realize she was rambling, looked up and gave a quick, wicked smile. 'Will you pa.s.s all this information on to Jimmy Perez?'

'Would you rather I didn't?'

She gave a shrug. 'Just tell Jimmy I can't be certain. And Wilding never mentioned having been here. That does seem odd, doesn't it? When he first started writing to me, telling me how much he enjoyed the paintings, he didn't bring that up. His letter was very flattering, of course. We all enjoy being flattered. But you'd think he'd say something, wouldn't you, if he'd been a guest in my house? Something self-deprecating and hopeful. I don't suppose you remember but you were kind enough to put me up one summer. I'm not sure how accurate my memories are. It could all be make-believe. I think grief makes everyone a little bit mad. That and the simmer dim.'