On the fifteen-minute ferry journey from Yell to Unst I asked, 'Did he retire early?' I had no idea how old Richard was but he barely looked seventy. Yet he hadn't worked in all the time I'd known him. I hadn't mentioned Richard the whole journey but Duncan knew immediately whom I meant.
'Ten years ago,' he replied, looking straight ahead.
'Why?' I asked. If Richard had left his post under some sort of cloud, that at least could explain why he was so reluctant to talk about his former profession.
Duncan shrugged without looking at me. 'He had other things to do. And he'd groomed his successor.'
'Gifford.'
Duncan was silent.
'What is it between you two?' I said.
Then he looked at me. 'Do I need to ask you that?'
'He said he stole your girlfriend.'
The light disappeared from Duncan's eyes and for a moment the face looking back at me was not one I recognized. Then he gave a sharp, angry laugh.
'In his dreams.'
The ferry was docking and the three other cars making the late crossing had started their engines. Duncan turned on the ignition. As the ferry engines roared up and the heavy harbour ramp slammed down, he muttered something under his breath, but I didn't dare ask him to repeat himself.
18
UNST, LYING ON THE SAME LATITUDE AS SOUTHERN Greenland, is home to around seven hundred people and fifty thousand puffins. The most northerly of all the inhabited British islands, it measures roughly twelve miles long and five miles wide, with one main road, the A968, running from the south-eastern ferry port at Belmont up to Norwich in the north-east.
Two miles after leaving the ferry we turned left along a single- track road and started to drive up and down the shore-edged hills. At the end of the road, just about literally, you find the handful of buildings that is Westing; and the cold, grand, granite house that is Duncan's family home.
Elspeth hugged Duncan and pressed her cold cheek against mine. Richard shook hands with his son and nodded to me. They led us into their large, west-facing sitting room. Drawn by the colours I could see outside, I walked over to the window. Behind me, a short silence fell; I bristled at a sense of being stared at, and then I heard the sound of a cork being pulled.
The sun was almost gone and the sky had turned violet. Close to the shore at Westing stand several massive lava rocks, all that remain of ancient cliffs that in past days withstood the might of the Atlantic. These rocks were black as pitch where the light couldn't catch them, but their beaten and jagged edges glowed like molten gold. The clouds that had been thick and threatening all day had become soft, dusky-pink shadows and the surf bounced at the water's edge like sparks of silver.
There was movement beside me and I turned. It was Richard, holding out a glass of red wine. He stood beside me and we both looked out. The sun had disappeared behind the cliffs of Yell but, in doing so, had draped them in light. They looked as if they had been carved from bronze.
'The loveliest and loneliest place on earth,' said Richard, and he seemed to be voicing my thoughts.
I took a large gulp of wine. It was excellent. Elspeth and Richard's home had a huge cellar beneath it, but, unlike ours, it was kept well stocked. Richard took my arm and led me to an armchair near the fire and Elspeth scurried forward with a loaded plate. I surrendered myself to their hospitality and ate and drank gratefully, doing my best to respond to Elspeth's attempts at polite conversation.
Half an hour later, while Duncan and his father were discussing the state of the roads on the island and plans to develop some of its peat resources, I excused myself and went upstairs to our room. When we stayed with Duncan's parents, we slept in the best guest room – not, as I had first expected, in Duncan's old room. That, he'd told me once, had been in the attic but had since been converted into storage. I hadn't asked what had happened to all his old stuff, all the dusty souvenirs of childhood.
I pulled my mobile out of my bag and checked messages. There were three from Dana and I felt a glimmer of affection for her. She, at least, was not part of the general conspiracy to get me out of the loop. I knew my mobile wouldn't work too well this far north so I risked using the landline in the bedroom. She answered on the second ring.
'Thank God, Tora, where are you?'
'Serving exile in the Siberian wastelands.' The bedroom phone was by the window. Our room faced east. I could see more hills, bathed in a rich rosy light, and the strawberry-pink waters of the inland lake behind the house.
'Come again?'
I explained.
'Well, that's probably good. At least you'll be safe up there.'
Why did everyone keep going on about my safety? It was unnerving, to say the least.
'Can you tell me what's been happening?' A puffin landed on the window ledge and looked directly at me.
'Of course. I just got back from Edinburgh. I went to interview a Jonathan Wheeler. He's the regular pathologist at your place. Been on sick leave for a few months.'
'Yes, I've heard of him. What did you find out?' The puffin, bored with me, started wiping his multi-coloured beak against the stone of the ledge.
'Well, it didn't help that he'd obviously been warned I was coming. Your friend Gifford needs banging up for obstructing justice, if you ask me, but that's hardly likely to happen, is it, given that he and my inspector are old rugger-bugger shower buddies, sharing a soap on a rope and any number-'
'Dana!' Not that I wasn't enjoying her invective against Gifford but I knew my time was limited. I could hear movement downstairs.
'Sorry. Anyway, that notwithstanding, he seemed pretty straight. I took him down to Edinburgh nick, kept him sweating in the interview room for half an hour, gave him the full treatment. He remembered the case – well, he would, wouldn't he, having had his memory jogged by your boss – and was pretty forthcoming with the details. Haven't got my notes in front of me but it all seemed to square with what we'd been told. Young woman, malignant lumps in both breasts and extensive spread of the cancer through most of her major organs. I tell you what didn't fit, though.'
'What?'
'Well, apparently Melissa Gair was pregnant when she first went to her GP. Very early stages. Even Stephen Gair didn't know.'
'Gifford told me.'
There was a sharp intake of breath. 'Bloody man's a menace. Anyway, Melissa and her GP did a urine test that proved she was pregnant, but by the time of the post-mortem, three weeks later, she wasn't.'
I was sorry to dampen Dana's enthusiasm but I didn't want her chasing stray hares.
'That's very easily explained.'
'How?'
'Lots of early pregnancies fail to develop. Eggs get fertilized and the pregnancy hormone appears in the woman's blood, giving a positive pregnancy test, but then the egg dies. Melissa could have had a period between her visit to the GP and being admitted to hospital that was actually a very early miscarriage. Given the invasive nature of the cancer, I'd say that was pretty likely.'
There was silence, while Dana processed the information I'd just given her.
'Dana,' I continued, when she still hadn't spoken. 'I've been thinking about something. Maybe the woman who was admitted to hospital with cancer, who died there, the one you've been researching all day, wasn't Melissa Gair. Maybe records got mixed up.'
'We thought of that.'
'And…'
'It was her. Her GP is adamant that Melissa came to see him. He'd known her for years. We also spoke to the receptionist at the practice. She knew Melissa, too. The hospital staff didn't know her personally but I've shown them photographs and they're pretty sure it was her. Of course, she'd changed quite a bit by the time she was admitted. Pain does that to people, apparently. But they all, distinctly and separately, remembered her hair and her skin. She was a striking-looking woman.'