'You don't have to…' began Dunn, but I did. I had to prove to them all, and to myself most of all, that I was not going to be freaked out – not for more than a few minutes anyway – by some- thing I'd seen and handled countless times before. I picked the heart up and put it on the scales.
'Human hearts typically weigh 250-350 grams,' I said. The electronic reading on the scales said 345 grams.
'Within the range,' said Dunn.
'It is,' I agreed. 'And there's an outside chance this is the heart of a big adult male. Over six foot and powerfully built. But if I was putting money on it, I'd say it came from a large pig.'
The relief in the room was almost strong enough to reach out and touch. I was ordered back into the other room and questioned again. More police arrived. They dusted for fingerprints, walked the perimeter of the property with dogs and removed both the heart and the strawberries. Still no sign of Dana.
Eventually, Dunn came to join me on the sofa.
'You need to get some rest now,' he said, almost gently. 'I'm leaving a couple of constables in the house for the rest of the night. You'll be perfectly safe.'
'Thank you,' I managed.
'Duncan's back on Saturday, right?'
I nodded.
'You might want to find somewhere else to stay tomorrow. This is almost certainly some sort of sick practical joke but I don't like the fact that whoever got in here did so without breaking in. We'll be checking who might have keys to the house. A change of locks probably isn't a bad idea.'
I nodded again.
He reached out, touched my arm, seemed unsure what to do next and ended up giving it a feeble pat. Then he got up. 'Try to get some rest, Miss Hamilton,' he said again. Then he left.
I went upstairs thinking that, as practical jokes go, it was the least funny I'd ever heard of. And besides, it didn't feel like a joke to me. It felt as though someone was trying to scare the shit out of me.
13
'TOR, I FOUND THE RING.'
'What? You did what?'
It was seven forty-five the next morning; I was running late and driving too fast. Duncan had called to say he had an extra meeting scheduled – a really important one – and wouldn't be home till Saturday evening, if that was OK. He'd sounded so excited about the potential deal, so fired up, that I couldn't bring myself to tell him about what had happened the night before. I couldn't ruin a really big opportunity for him. I'd be OK for another night, I told myself. I could always sleep at the hospital.
So instead, I'd told him about all the stuff that had happened the previous day, things that had seemed so important at the time: finding the ring on my boot, checking the various registers and visiting both the Hawick family home and the graveyard. Speaking far too fast, praying he wouldn't notice how shaken I still was, I'd even told him about my plans to carry out an illicit search of dental records. He'd listened patiently until I'd just about done, then dropped his bombshell.
'I found it,' he was saying, 'months ago.'
I couldn't take it in. The ring had been stuck to the bottom of my Wellington. It had been buried beneath six feet of peat with the dead body of its owner.
'Where? How?' I managed.
'In the bottom field. Last November, I think, before you came out. I was laying concrete to put the fence posts in. I just saw it, lying on a pile of earth. I must have dug it up.'
'But, what… you never said!'
'I didn't give it much thought. I wasn't even sure what it was. It was filthy and I wanted to get the job finished. I threw it into my tool box and forgot about it.'
And suddenly, it all made complete sense: the ring had been in Duncan's toolbox. I'd dislodged it when I'd been looking for some- thing to cut the wire around Charles's leg and it had landed, to be found shortly afterwards, on the stair. It had been nowhere near my Wellington and – more importantly – nowhere near the grave. The fence that Duncan had built around our bottom field was a good hundred yards downhill from where I'd tried to bury Jamie. The ring was a total red herring after all.
'But how did it get there?' Red herring or not, it still didn't add up.
'Good question. Assuming it really is the wedding ring of the woman who died – Kirsten, was that her name? Is it possible it wasn't? How clear was the inscription?'
'Not very.' I hadn't even been completely sure about the letters. Only the date was clear and, as I'd discovered, several weddings had taken place that day.
'Tor, you're not really going to check dental records, are you? At best it's a waste of time and at worst highly unprofessional, probably even illegal. Don't get involved any more.'
It's not often Duncan asks me to do something. When he does, I nearly always agree.
'No, of course not. You're right.' I meant it, too. It had all gone far enough.
'Good girl. I'll see you tomorrow. Love you.'
He hadn't said that in a long time. By the time I was ready to respond, he'd hung up.
I was on the edge of Lerwick now and drove quickly to the hospital. I glanced at the car clock. I was going to be ten minutes late. I parked the car and jumped out, wincing. It occurred to me that I might be coming down with some sort of summer flu bug: every limb was aching, I had what seemed like a raging hangover even though I'd drunk nothing the night before, and felt like I hadn't slept in a week. And now I was ten minutes late for a bollocking from Kenn Gifford.
He was waiting for me in my office, looking out of the window, already dressed in blue surgical scrubs, his long hair scraped back in a ponytail.
'How are you feeling?' he asked, turning round.
'Been better,' I replied.
I might feel like shit but Gifford wasn't looking his best either. His narrow eyes were little more than slits in his face and the shadows under them had deepened.
'Sorry I'm late,' I said. 'Duncan phoned on my way in. Slowed me up a bit.' I told Gifford about Duncan finding the ring. When I'd finished, he nodded.
'I'll call Joss Hawick. It's almost certainly not his wife's ring, but if he wants to pursue the matter he can call into the police station to identify it. If it is hers, it looks like we have a pilfering problem; a particularly distasteful one, at that, if someone is robbing the morgue. I'm sorry all this is happening, Tora, it can't be easy settling in with all these distractions. Can I get you a coffee?'
'Thanks,' I said, and he walked over to the coffee-maker in the corner and poured two cups.
'Do you have some sort of master key?' I asked.
He turned round, a steaming mug in each hand, and raised his eyebrows.
'I lock my office in the evening but you managed to find your way in and organize breakfast. Do you have croissants baking as well?'
'I'll happily nip out to the bakery. Mr Stephenson's been waiting three months for his bypass and I'm sure another half-hour won't hurt. But, no. Having a master key – and using it – would be pretty unprofessional, don't you think? Unless, of course, you're a cleaner. Like the one who was in here when I arrived and who let me stay and make coffee. Just thought you might need it.' He handed me a mug. The warmth in my hands was comforting, like a hug from an old friend. He was standing very close to me and I didn't move away.
'DI Dunn came by earlier,' he said. 'He wanted Stephen Renney to confirm the heart wasn't human.'
'And…' I prompted, although I was pretty certain I'd been right the night before.
Gifford led me to two easy chairs in the corner of the room. He motioned for me to sit and I did. So did he.
'From a pig,' he said. 'Andy's got people checking all the butchers on the islands. If anyone bought a heart in the last few days he'll soon know about it.'