She'd heard Alex Henry talk about it on the radio. Part of the problem was overgrazing, he'd said. There were just too many sheep, loosening the root structure of the grass, pulling away the fabric of the land. It was a good thing the system of subsidies would change and there'd no longer be a payment for every animal. She'd thought it had been a brave thing to say. It wouldn't make him friends among the farmers. He was a local and perhaps he was more isolated than she was. She'd heard the parents muttering about him in the school playground and wondered if he had any real friends at all.
The dog had run on, unaffected by the gradient. Now she stopped and was barking. Fran called to her, but she refused to return. Fran followed her across the hill, sliding occasionally where the ground was bare and muddy.
Maggie was at the top of a steep peat bank. The rain seemed to have loosened a pile of rocks and boulders exposing the black peat below. The dog was scrabbling into the debris. Fran called her again. She turned, but still she didn't move. The sun came out from behind thin cloud and shone more brightly than it had all day. It was low against the hill now and the light seemed unnatural, sulphurous. The dog and the boulders and the hillside seemed hard-edged, drawn by a heavy hand.
Breathing heavily, Fran reached the dog. She began swearing at her and told her she'd never wanted her in the first place. Then she stopped and caught hold of her collar and pulled her away. There was something under the pile of rock. A shoe. The leather was discoloured and the buckle was tarnished. It was a child's shoe. The dog was going crazy, barking and jumping, and Fran thought she would strangle herself. She was still trying to keep hold of the collar. There were a few tatters of clothing. Yellow cotton. And then the waxy outline of a small foot, pale against the black, fibrous peat.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Perez's mobile rang when he was on the landline to his mother. He'd just got in from talking to Alex Henry and decided he couldn't put it off any longer. He didn't know what he'd say to her, but she deserved a call. He poured himself a beer and dialled the number.
'Well?' she said, not asking first about the case, though she must surely know all about it, at least have heard about it on Radio Shetland. 'What about Skerry? Have you decided?' Her voice was calm. She wouldn't want to put him under pressure, but he could sense her excitement. More than anything she wanted him back at home. Perhaps she wanted that even more than grandchildren.
If she'd asked first about the case, if she'd realized how important his work was, not only to him but to the victims' families, he would have responded differently. But he felt a stab of resentment because her world was so restricted. Its limits were the edge of an island three miles long and two miles wide – the North Light and the South Light, Sheep Craig and Malcolm's Head. So when the mobile rang and he saw Fran Hunter's number come up on the display, he said, 'Look I'm sorry Mum, that call's urgent. Something to do with the Ross case. You can imagine what it's like here. Manic. I'll have to take it!
'Of course,' she said, contrite, because she could imagine it. 'I'm sorry. I know you've other things to think of!
'I'll ring you back. This evening if I can make it.' Already he regretted being so abrupt. 'We'll talk about it then!
'There's someone else interested,' she said quickly, fitting the words in, while his mobile played its ludicrous tune in the background. 'In Skerry. Willie's grandson. The one who went away to agricultural college. He wants to come home! Then she put down the phone. She took a starring role in the panto every Christmas. She knew how to do dramatic endings.
'Hello!'
Automatically he'd pressed the answer button and he could hear Fran Hunter, but his mind was elsewhere and it took a couple of seconds of her shouting Hello, hello, like a passenger on a train as it hits a tunnel, before he answered her.
'I've found the other girl,' she said, when she realized he could hear her. The words came singly. They dropped one by one into his ear, pebbles thrown from a cliff into water. I've / found / the / other / girl. By then he was sufficiently aware of how serious this must be, he could tell by the dull flat tone of her voice, so he didn't have to ask her what she meant.
Perez found her on the road outside her house, looking out for him. She'd shut the dog inside and she was jumping up at the window. It was almost dark. There was just a light grey strip above the horizon to the west.
‘I’ll take you up’ she said.’ It’ll take you ages to find it on your own’
He thought she looked like a child herself, huddled inside her jacket, the hood pulled right down over her forehead and zipped up over her chin, so all he could see were the eyes.
'I have to wait for a colleague! He'd left a message at the hotel for Roy Taylor. His phone had been engaged.
Perez knew his life wouldn't be worth living if he went on without the English detective. 'He'll not be long!
'Oh! She looked very pale.
'Shall we wait inside?' 'Are you OK?'
'What do you think? I've just found a body. The second in a week! He was surprised by the sharpness in her voice and wasn't sure what to say.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It just seems weird. I mean, why me? Again!
'Where's Cassie?' The coincidence of the first name struck him and he was astonished that he hadn't realized it before. Another girl whose name started with C.
'At a party. Otherwise she'd have been with me! She turned to him, to make him understand what a nightmare that would have been.
He wondered if he should say something, warn her never to let the girl out of her sight, but then Taylor turned up, driving the car so hard that they could hear it long before it came into view. Perez found himself disappointed by the arrival. He liked the inside of Fran's house. He wouldn't have minded waiting there with her, by the fire in the warm.
Taylor’s first concern when he jumped from the car was for Fran. He bounded towards her, very solicitous in an eager, clumsy way, which was patently sincere. He took one of her hands in two of his. 'How dreadful,' he said.
'What a terrible shock all over again! There was no trace of suspicion. Nothing to indicate he thought finding two bodies in less than a week was more than an unfortunate coincidence.
Perez realized that he was looking at his boss almost as a rival. Perez wanted Fran to like him best, to think him most considerate. Did Taylor have a partner? He had never mentioned a wife or a regular girlfriend. But perhaps there was someone. He had been talking on the phone for a long time while Perez was trying to get through to him.
Perez thought his own response to Fran must have seemed mean and uncaring in contrast and tried now to put that right.
'Mrs Hunter has offered to show us the place on the hill,' he said. 'I don't think that's necessary, do you? We'll pull in some other. men, cover the hill ourselves!
By now it was completely dark, but the sky had cleared and there was a moon. Taylor seemed to consider the matter very seriously. He turned to Fran. 'If you really don't mind,' he said. 'It would be a tremendous help!
Even in the dark, Perez could tell she was smiling. A child was lying dead on the hill and Roy Taylor could make her feel good about herself.
'Actually, I don't mind at all. It's much better than sitting on my own and waiting!
The expedition across the hill was an experience at once bizarre and strangely companionable. Later, he would remember it as a series of scenes. Fran led the way and the men followed one after the other. He was at the rear. At one point he looked up and saw that all three of them must be silhouetted against the moonlit sky. From the road they would look like characters from a children's cartoon. Something strange produced in Eastern Europe when he was a boy, he thought. Three eccentrics in search of hidden gold. Those films always had a quest at the heart of them.