‘Do they say what she thought of that?’
‘She liked the fact that he went to all the bother,’ she said. She sat for a moment in silence, thinking. ‘I’m not sure Bella could ever do a real relationship. It would get in the way of the one thing that’s most important to her.’
‘What’s that?’
She gave a brief mischievous smile. ‘Bella Sinclair. Her work. Her reputation.’
‘Where does Roddy fit into that?’
‘He makes her feel good about herself. And he does her reputation no harm at all either.’
‘Do you not like him then?’
‘Is this relevant to your inquiry?’
‘Probably not. But I’m interested in your opinion.’
‘Everything’s come too easy to him,’ she said. ‘Looks, talent, money. I don’t think that’s good for a young boy. He flaunted all he had in front of our kids. But maybe I’m just jealous. Kenny and me, we had to work for everything we have.’
‘Kenny told me Roddy went out with your daughter a couple of times.’
‘Roddy always has to have a woman in tow. Just like Lawrence in that respect. Someone prettier came along and he dropped her. That made me angry.’
‘He lost his father when he was still a child. And his mother too, in a way.’ He’s lonely, Perez thought. He’s portrayed as a golden boy, but he has no real friends.
She considered for a moment. ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know Alec very well. He’d already left Biddista when I married Kenny. But you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Roddy.’
‘He spent a lot of time in Biddista when his father was ill. He’d have been around the same age as your children. You say he showed off to them. Did they know each other well when they were younger? Even before he took up with your daughter?’
‘Sometimes he came on to the croft to play. I didn’t like my two going to the Manse. I didn’t want them picking up his wild ways and quite often Bella had unsuitable people to stay. Sometimes Willy took all three of them out in his boat.’ She paused. ‘The children all liked Willy. He was a sort of Pied Piper. When he was home they all hung around with him. Like I said, he was full of stories. He never had kids of his own and he enjoyed having them around. He taught most of the children in Biddista to handle a boat. He took Kenny out when he was a lad. And Lawrence was in a boat almost before he could walk.’
Beyond the office door there was the sound of movement, plates banging, the jangle of cutlery.
‘Lunchtime,’ she said. ‘The high spot of the day. Some of our people only come here for the food. Will you eat with us, Jimmy? Have a bowl of soup at least.’
So Perez found himself sat at a table with Willy, a woman with Down’s syndrome called Greta, and Edith. Willy had the look of someone whose clothes had been chosen for him. Despite the heat of the centre he wore a thick jersey over a plaid shirt. He’d shaved that morning but not very well. His hair still had some black in it and was thick and curly.
‘Where are you living now, Willy?’ Perez asked.
Willy looked up at him, his spoon poised, his mouth slightly open.
‘I’m a Biddista man.’
‘But that’s not where you live now,’ Edith said gently. ‘Now you’re staying in the sheltered housing at Middleton.’ She turned to Jimmy. ‘A carer comes in twice a day.’
Willy blinked and raised the spoon to his mouth.
‘Tell me about the old days in Biddista,’ Perez said. ‘You kept a boat there, didn’t you?’
‘The Mary Therese,’ Willy said eagerly, his eyes losing their blank, clouded look. ‘A fine boat. Bigger than anyone else’s in Biddista. Some days I had so much fish I could hardly lift out the box.’
‘Who did you take fishing with you?’
‘They all wanted to come fishing with me. All the lads. Kenny and Lawrence Thomson. Alec Sinclair. The lasses too. Bella Sinclair and Aggie Watt. Though Aggie was a timid little thing, and they were awful cruel the way they teased her. Bella was as strong on the boat as a boy. Nothing frightened her.’ He stared into the distance and Perez thought he was imagining midsummer evenings out on the water. The children laughing and fighting, the family he’d never had.
‘You stayed friendly with them, did you, Willy? As they got older?’
Willy seemed not to hear. He tore a chunk of bread from the roll on his plate and dipped it into the broth.
‘There was Roddy Sinclair too,’ he said. ‘He liked the fishing when he came to stay at the Manse.’
‘That was later,’ Edith said. ‘Roddy was younger than Kenny and Lawrence. They wouldn’t have gone fishing with you together.’
Willy tried to think about that. The soup dripped from his bread on to the front of his jersey. Edith leaned across and wiped it carefully with a paper napkin. Willy shook his head as if trying to clear the pictures in his mind.
‘Did you ever have any English friends, Willy?’ Perez asked.
Willy suddenly gave a wide grin. ‘I liked going out with the Englishmen. They brought a hamper full of food and tins of beer. Sometimes, later, we’d build a fire on the beach to cook the fish and they always had a bottle of whisky. You remember that, Edith, don’t you? The summer when Lawrence and me took the Englishmen fishing?’
‘I remember that Lawrence always liked a drink,’ she said.
Willy grinned again.
‘What were the Englishmen’s names?’ Perez asked.
‘It was a fine time,’ Willy said. ‘A fine time.’ He returned to his meal, suddenly eating with great gusto, and Perez thought he was tasting the fresh fish caught just that day and cooked over the driftwood beach fire.
Perez turned to Edith. He didn’t want to pull Willy back to the present, to the indignity of slopped food and endless games of cards. ‘Do you know who he’s talking about? Were there any regular English visitors to Biddista?’
She shook her head. ‘Willy used to hire out his boat for fishing to the tourists, but I don’t remember anyone regular. Perhaps it was before my time.’
Willy jerked out of his reverie. ‘The Englishman came asking me questions, just the other day,’ he said. ‘But I told him nothing.’
‘Which Englishman would that be?’ Perez asked Edith.
‘There’s a writer called Wilding who comes after the traditional stories,’ she said. ‘Something to do with a book he’s writing. That must be who he means.’
Perez would have liked to spend the afternoon there, sitting in the sun flooding in through the windows, listening to Willy talking about fishing and the Biddista children, but he knew he couldn’t justify it. How would he account for his time to Taylor? Edith got up from the table and walked with him to the door.
‘Come back,’ she said. ‘Any time.’
In the car, his mobile phone suddenly got a signal again. It bleeped and showed a couple of missed calls, both from Sandy. Perez rang him, could hear the buzz of the incident room in the background. Sandy seemed to have his mouth full of food and it was a moment before Perez could make out what he was saying.
‘I’ve tracked down the lad who gave the Englishman a lift. Stuart Leask. He works on the desk at the NorthLink terminal and he’ll be there all afternoon.’
Chapter Twenty-four
Fran was working on a still-life, some pieces of driftwood and a scrap of fishing net she’d found on the beach. It was more as practice than for a picture to sell. She’d become obsessed by the need to improve her drawing. Even at art school, she thought, she hadn’t paid it enough attention.
The phone call came just as she’d taken a break from work and put on the kettle for tea. She thought it would be Perez. He was her lover, the man who had been there at the back of her thoughts for months. But when she heard the English voice at the end of the line, there was a thrill of guilty excitement. She’d looked Wilding up on the internet. He had his own website, which listed the reviews. Perhaps he wasn’t bestseller popular, but he was recognized as an interesting and original author. One of his short stories was in production for a feature film. There was in his celebrity the same glamour that surrounded Roddy and Bella.