I glanced again at Dana. Her face was giving nothing away but she had to have registered that the names fitted. KG and JH. The date was right, too. I forced myself to look down at the carpet, worried my face would give me away. I'd watched enough detective programmes to know that the first suspect in a murder case is always the spouse. What I'd taken for grief on Joss Hawick's face might actually be guilt, not to mention fear of being found out. Dana and I could be alone in a house with a murderer. I looked at Dana again. If she was as worried as I, she wasn't showing it.
There was still, of course, the discrepancy of the year. The woman in my field had died sometime during 2005. Hawick claimed his wife had died in 2004.
'May I ask how and where she died?' Dana said, not taking her eyes off Hawick for a moment.
He looked at me again. 'In hospital,' he said. 'In your hospital.' He made it sound like an accusation. 'She'd been in a riding accident. Her horse was hit by a lorry just a couple of miles north of here. She was still alive when they got her to hospital but with very severe brain damage and a broken neck. We switched the machines off after three hours.'
'Who treated her?' I asked.
'I can't recall his name,' he replied. 'But he said he was the senior registrar. He said she had absolutely no chance of recovery. Are you about to tell me he was wrong?'
'No, no,' I said hurriedly, 'nothing like that. I do need to ask you something else, though; and I am truly sorry to add to your grief. Did your wife have a baby shortly before she died?'
He flinched. 'No,' he said. 'We were planning a family, but Kirsten was a good rider. She wanted to compete for a few years before giving up.'
Joss Hawick was pretty convincing. But he had to know I could check his story out in minutes.
Dana stood up. It was crunch time. I stood too.
'Tora,' said Dana, gesturing towards the door. I went quickly, almost jogging along the corridor, and grabbed at the front door, half expecting to find it locked. It opened and I stood there, allowing the wind from the voe to sweep into the house, making sure Dana joined me.
'One thing puzzles me,' he said as Dana and I stood in the door- way, she outwardly calm, I ready to bolt at any second.
'What's that, sir?'
'You said you'd found a ring. May I see it?'
Dana was a good liar. 'I'm sorry, sir, the ring is still at the station. But if your wife's ring is missing I can bring it round for you to identify. The inscription inside should make it very easy.'
Hawick shook his head. 'That's what I've been trying to tell you. It can't be Kirsten's.'
'Why not?'
'It was inscribed, but I knew it was tight on her finger and I didn't want it forced off. I asked that she be buried wearing it.'
I couldn't help it. 'Where?' I said. 'Where was she buried?'
He looked surprised and a little disgusted, as though the question was in poor taste. Which it was – but hell, I had an excuse.
'St Magnus's Church,' he said. 'Where we were married.'
'We should have brought two cars,' said Dana. 'Damn!' She started the engine and drove five hundred yards down the road, until we were just out of sight.
I fumbled in my bag and found my cell phone. Within minutes a local taxi was on its way to us. Dana pulled out a notebook and started scribbling.
'He's lying,' I said.
'I know.' She carried on writing. I glanced down at the page. She'd written Kirsten Hawick, nee Georgeson. Died summer 2004. Head injury. Franklin Stone Hospital. Senior Registrar in attendance.
'It's her,' I said.
'Possibly'
'You saw the photograph. How many women have hair that long? It's got to be her.' I couldn't stop talking.
'Tora, calm down. It was a small photograph. We can't be sure.' She scribbled something else. A number.
'This is my mobile,' she said, tearing the page out and handing it to me. 'Get to the hospital as soon as you can and check it. Don't speak to anyone else. I'll stay here until I hear from you.'
I nodded. 'Will you be OK?'
'Of course. I'm just going to sit in my car and watch.'
'Can you radio for back-up?'
She smiled. I was using language straight from a cop show.
'As soon as I hear from you. Let's just keep this to ourselves until we're sure.'
The taxi arrived shortly afterwards and I was off.
Fifty minutes later I called her mobile. She answered on the first ring.
'It's me,' I said. 'Can you talk?'
'Go ahead.'
I took a deep breath. 'Everything he told us is true.'
Silence. I thought I could hear the wind whistling around Scalloway Voe.
'What now?' I said.
She thought for a moment. 'I need to drop by the station,' she said. 'Go home. I'll see you there.'
Just after eight in the evening and the Franklin Stone was still busy. I hoped I wouldn't bump into anyone I knew as I left the building. I was seriously disturbed and I'm not a good liar at the best of times.
Kirsten Hawick had to be the woman I'd dug up in my field. Death hadn't changed her much. That delicate, white skin, with just a faint scattering of freckles, the type you only see on Scottish women, had been tanned by the peat, but her face had still been the perfect oval that I'd seen in the photograph.
Yet I'd just called up her hospital medical records. She had indeed been admitted on 18 August 2004 (the better part of a year before the woman in the peat was supposed to have been killed), presenting with severe head trauma and multiple fractures of her upper spine. She'd been pronounced dead at 7.16 p.m. and her body released for burial two days later. There had even been a post mortem.
I stopped at the front desk. At six in the evening the receptionist is replaced by a night porter. He was reading a newspaper and clutching a half-empty coffee mug.
'Hi!' I said, a lot more cheerfully than I felt.
He glanced up, didn't think much of what he saw and went back to his paper.
'Do you by any chance have a street map of the town that I could look at?' I asked.
He shook his head and carried on reading.
I fumbled in my bag, found my hospital ID card and placed it carefully on his newspaper. He looked up then.
'A map,' I said. 'The front desk needs to have one, or you can't do your job properly. If you don't have one, I'll make a complaint on your behalf, through the formal channels, that you're not being kept properly supplied.'
He glared at me. Then he got up, walked to a filing cabinet at the back of the room and searched inside. It took thirty seconds. He brought the map back and opened it.
'What would ye be looking for?'
'St Magnus's Church.'
With a tobacco-stained finger he pointed to a spot on the map.
I looked carefully, trying to memorize the place. It wasn't far from the hospital.
'Thanks,' I said.
He pushed it over towards me. 'Take it,' he offered.
'No thanks,' I said. 'Someone else might need it.'
I turned and left, feeling all warm and cosy inside at having made yet another friend at the hospital.
I was glad it was still light when I arrived at St Magnus's. I had to park on the main road and walk down the short, narrow street, and after dark I'm not sure I'd have found the courage to do so. The area was deserted. Tall, granite buildings towered overhead. Converted to offices, they were empty for the evening, but I had the sense of dozens of windows from which I could be watched.
Opposite the church was a large, old house set in a walled garden. Trees, the like of which I'd never seen before, grew along the cobbled driveway. They looked like some sort of willow, but were a far cry from the tall, graceful trees that line English rivers. None of them was more than about twelve feet high and none had a central trunk. Instead, thick, gnarled branches sprang from the ground, twisting and knotting as they reached upwards. Leaves hadn't started to open and the bare branches reminded me of an enchanted forest in one of the scarier fairy stories.