The Body in the Bracken Read online

  Georgeson Removals was in the new industrial estate opposite the brown bulk of Lerwick’s power station. It was a metallic building with a wide glass porch. Dad drew up at the side of the door. ‘You go in the front,’ he said, ‘and I’ll go round the back and chat to the lads. You can learn more on the shop floor than in the office.’

  He fished a boiler suit out of the back of the car and gave me a sideways grin, the adult masking the child’s desire to play spies. His voice broadened so that he sounded like Grandpa Patrick. ‘Sure, an’ I’m after hearing there might be work for a driver with this outfit, but I’m no’ wantin’ to be changing me conditions for the worse, now, am I?’

  ‘Go for it, Dad,’ I said. I trailed quietly in Maman’s magnificent wake to the front door, hanging back enough that I wouldn’t be associated with her. My jeans, Hawkshead boots, and worn Musto jacket were far more likely to belong to a delivery courier than to the daughter of Eugénie Delafauve.

  ‘Good morning,’ Maman said. ‘I would like to speak to Monsieur Georgeson personally, about the removal of a piano.’

  The receptionist was a competent-looking woman in her forties, with brown hair clipped back at the nape of her neck, and a no-nonsense top above black trousers. She wore a hands-free headset. ‘I can take the details,’ she said. ‘Where is the piano now, and where’s it to come to?’

  Maman shook her head. ‘Non, madame. Zat will not do.’ Good, Maman, I thought, the ‘distinguished foreigner’ act. ‘It is a piano of value, and I must ensure myself that it can be delivered safely.’ She glanced towards the customer chairs and coffee machine. ‘If Monsieur Georgeson is busy, I can wait.’ Her dark lashes flicked towards the window in the inner wall, showing an office with a grey-suited man behind a large desk, then swept down the receptionist and up again. She added, with polite indifference, ‘It is too important for conducting through an intermediary.’

  The receptionist eyed up her poise, reached down to her desk, pressed a button, and murmured into her headset. On the other side of the window, the man looked up, then rose. The receptionist nodded, and returned to Maman. ‘Mr Georgeson is just coming now, Mrs –?’

  ‘Eugénie Delafauve.’ Maman looked at the customer seats, made it clear without a change in her expression that they were not clean enough for her white coat, and simply waited in the centre of the floor. She wasn’t much taller than I, but she filled the whole space.

  The man came out with hand extended, and a smarmy smile. ‘Madame, this is an honour.’

  Even without seeing him grinning in the paper each week, I’d have known him for Miss Georgeson’s father. He had the same dark colouring, the high cheekbones and ruddy skin, the same air of knowing exactly how this empire was going to be run. Perhaps she’d had qualms under her confidence, being faced with twenty unruly ten-year-olds, but he looked as if he’d never had a qualm in his life. What he decided would be done. Looking at the sharp nose, curved like a hawk’s beak, and the harsh lines between the thick brows and around the thin-lipped mouth, I could imagine him deciding that this or that competitor had to be eliminated, and going ahead in a ruthless fashion, even if it wasn’t ethical. If there was a secretary to be bribed, he’d have the money ready in the envelope, and maybe, I thought, looking at the narrow, steel-grey eyes, a story from her earlier life ready to threaten her with if she resisted the bribe.

  He was all charm now. ‘I know your delightful singing of course. I had the pleasure of hearing you in the Town Hall, last summer.’

  A concert in Shetland had been Maman’s pretext to come to our rescue in the longship affair. She gave a gracious inclination of her head, and let Mr Georgeson usher her into his office, all shark smiles. I was about to follow when I spotted the other person in there: Miss Georgeson herself, with her dark hair coiled up in a bun on the top of her head, and the crisp cotton shirt I remembered. There was zero chance of her not recognising me. I nipped into the corridor behind them, dodged out of sight of the receptionist, went through a varnished wood door, and came out into the working area of the firm.

  Dad would be hanging out with the drivers in the glassed cabin by the big roll door. I’d come out in the storage area. There was nobody at this end at the moment, but if I was going to poke around I’d need camouflage. I grabbed the clipboard of forms that someone had abandoned on the top of a pile of cardboard storage boxes. There was a red boiler suit too, hanging over a chair back. I checked it didn’t have the Georgeson Removals logo, then hauled it on, tucked my plait down my back neck, straightened my spine, and looked as much like a stupid boy as I could. There was a grey toorie cap; I added that. If anyone challenged me, I was looking for Jeemie, second name unknown, who’d said I was to call today for a package on last night’s boat. It was a safe bet that at only – I checked my watch – quarter to eleven – the stuff on last night’s ferry wouldn’t have made it here yet.

  I sauntered into the warehouse centre. Where I’d come in seemed to be a dumping ground for bits and pieces, but as I penetrated further back among the storage bays, it was clear there was organised thinking behind the system. This far end of the warehouse was divided into a dozen bays, each marked with a letter of the alphabet. Every second bay was shelved, and each shelf was numbered. The boxes inside were turned so that the label was outwards, and there was a contents list, with shelf, item and owner, pinned to each bay. Several bays were labelled with destinations: Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, London. Aberdeen was almost full, as if there would be a truckload ready to go soon; London must have just gone, for the bay was empty. The rest had a variety of parcels and packages: a palette of furniture, wrapped in cling film, a new sofa under plastic, square boxes marked CHINA FRAGILE. Some of the items were clearly newly arrived, and awaiting collection or delivery; others looked as if they were being stored long-term, while the owners changed house. There was a stack of wooden boxes the size of old teachests with Mr Georgeson’s own name on them, way back in the corner of one bay, and enough dust on them to suggest they’d been there a while. Beside them were props for the Lerwick Gala: a Bugs Bunny cut-out in sugar blue, and a plump girl in a bonnet in candy-floss pink, several benches and a barrel with a notice still attached: ‘Lucky Dip’.

  Tucked in beside that was something else I recognised, from Miss Georgeson’s class: a saddle and bridle on a trestle. The reins had yellow cloth festoons on them, and there was a folded cloth over the saddle, one of those long blankets worn by knights’ horses. Her big brother had taken part in medieval tournaments, with everyone in costume. He’d been our class pin-up, handsome in his shining breastplate and plumed helmet, astride a smoke-grey horse with this same yellow cloth flung over it. We girls had rather fallen for him, and been thrilled when one day he’d actually come to the school and shown us some of his horse’s tricks: rearing up while he whirled his sword around, charging forwards then stopping dead, and jumping sideways out of the way. I was leaning in to see if that glint behind the saddle trestle was armour when footsteps clumped behind me. I turned casually, my mouth falling open, my eyes growing blank, and brandished the clipboard.

  ‘Looking for a box that came off the boat this morning.’ I pitched my voice low. ‘They said to ask Jeemie.’

  If I hadn’t just been remembering the photos, I’d never have known Miss Georgeson’s brother. The smiling mouth of the photos was set into a sneer; the broad shoulders had a substantial paunch below them. It would take a Shire horse for him to joust now. ‘Jeemie wha?’

  ‘They didna say.’ I added a whine to my voice. ‘Nobody ever explains properly. Just sent me here to say Jeemie would have it.’ I squinted at the clipboard. ‘I dinna see it on this.’

  He was still looking suspicious. I was a bit old for the gormless apprentice I was pretending to be. ‘Wha’s “nobody”? Wha d’you work to?’

  I picked on the largest firm I could think of. ‘DITT.’ With inspiration, I remembered the classic newie joke. I handed him back the clipboard with a defeated
look. ‘It’s weights,’ I said. ‘Long weights. Come up from Aberdeen on last night’s boat.’

  His grin was as much like a shark’s as his father’s. ‘Oh, that’s what they sent you for, is it? Come you with me.’ He turned on his heel, and I trailed scrape-footed after him down to the strip-lit cabin. ‘Bide you there.’

  I stood obediently, shoulders slumped against the draught from outside, while he went into the cabin. Dad had made himself at home, I saw, with a mug of tea in one hand, and a caramel wafer in the other. Through the glass, heads turned to look at me. There were guffaws, then Georgeson Junior came out again, still grinning. ‘I’ll go and have a look for it mesel’ for you. The office’ll maybe ken.’ Then he turned to look at me more closely. ‘That’s a hell of a mess you’re made of your face. What was it, a car accident?’

  Mr Tactful. I hung my head. ‘Came off a quad. Fucking thing turned right ower on me, split me cheekbone.’

  ‘That’ll learn you to be stupid. You’ll no’ get a girl so easy with yon.’ He turned away and strolled off up the warehouse, whistling. Bastard. I watched him open the door I’d come out of and decided it was time to leave.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘The drivers weren’t falling over themselves to recommend the place,’ Dad said, once we were safely ensconced in the Peerie Shop Café. The town-centre harbour was bleak and empty, with winter having banished the fleet of visitors which made a guard of honour round the concrete pier: yachts from Scandinavia, Germany, Britain, America. Instead of the white cruise liners, with glassed windows and yellow pod lifeboats, there were two barges for the Totale builders: one red and grey one, a great block of a thing like a sixties student hall of residence, and the other a nightmare zig-zag of black and white, named Sans Vitesse.

  Once, steamers had come into Lerwick harbour and anchored off, as the largest cruise ships did now, and little flit boats had come out to them from the beaches between the stone-built houses that stood with their foundations in the sea. You could still see how the whole Esplanade had once been when you looked along past the Queen’s Hotel: grey stone buildings with the water washing up their walls, and wooden doors and pulleys just above high tide level, for loading goods. The Peerie Shop had once been one of those, gable end on to the sea. Now, it was a shop to go to for an interesting present, with a café above. We’d given in our orders, taken the coloured cube to identify us, and gone upstairs to a corner table, beneath framed prints of peewits by a local artist.

  Dad and Maman were flushed and triumphant, as if they’d enjoyed themselves playing detective. They went for coffee with freshly baked scones and home-made jam; I opted for tea and a slice of strawberry cake that matched even my friend Reidar’s best baking.

  ‘Well,’ Dad said, ‘Georgeson runs a tight ship. “Every time you spit’s recorded,” one of the drivers said. The pay’s not particularly good, given the wages in Shetland right now, with Totale paying Monopoly money. Georgeson doesn’t forgive or forget anything, and besides, they said, I’d be lucky if he employed me in the first place, with my accent. The older son, the one who collared you, he’s unpopular too, throws his weight around, and has never heard the words please or thank you. “Treats us like he was a laird ordering the peasants.” A tough organisation, but I’m not sure how prosperous. I’d like to see their books.’

  ‘I did not like him. He was very oily on top, but underneath there is a ruthless character. His daughter tried to interrupt at one point, when he was giving me prices, and was given a very short answer.’

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  ‘I am not sure if he would kill on his son’s behalf, how can you tell, but if Robert-John had had an argument with Ivor Hughson that had ended in Hughson’s death, I think he would dispose of the body.’

  ‘Did you have any feeling of something dishonest?’ I asked Dad.

  He shook his head. ‘Not in the haulage business. Ruthless cost-cutting at the employee’s expense, and I can see them resorting to the kind of dirty tricks you described, but drivers’ hours and conditions were adhered to, if only to keep the unions off their backs. I had no feeling of illegal cargo, or none that the drivers knew about. Of course, you’d have to strip the trucks to make sure there wasn’t a drugs operation, but at first sight I don’t think that’s likely.’ He leaned towards me. ‘The main thing, girl, is to get the police in on this. Don’t meddle with them yourself.’

  ‘Yes, Dermot, you are right,’ Maman said. ‘They are not gentle, gentil, not nice people.’

  ‘The son was a bully,’ I agreed. ‘As for the police, if that poor man we found really was Ivor Hughson, then it can’t be a proper investigation until they get the dental results. Naturally there are no dentists open until Monday.’

  Dad drained the last of his coffee. ‘Why don’t you bring your boat round to our jetty? Moor up there, use the house showers and toilet. You’d be less isolated over the weekend.’

  Maman’s smile said she knew I wouldn’t move back to the safety of the parental roof. I shook my head.

  ‘I need to sail back round to Scalloway. Tomorrow’s looking good for that.’

  ‘I’ll give my contacts a prod,’ Dad said. ‘Call in a few favours. See if I can find out more about Georgeson Removals.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  We headed out into ‘The Street’, Lerwick’s main shopping road, running parallel to the sea-front.

  ‘I just have a couple of errands,’ Maman said. ‘Meet you at the car in half an hour, Cass?’

  I nodded, and she and Dad headed off, leaving me beside the Market Cross, where the strains of a fiddle swelled around me, from High Level Music. The street ran for a hundred yards southwards and three hundred northwards, until it reached the stone cliff wall and projecting guns of Fort Charlotte, built for the seventeenth-century Dutch wars. I pottered along to the Shetland Times Bookshop and browsed the latest titles, then sauntered back towards the pier carpark. I was just looking in the window of the Shetland Soap Company, and trying to remember how much was left in my bottle of shower gel, when I spotted Miss Georgeson herself striding along the street towards me. She said my name as sharply as if I was still in her classroom. ‘Cass Lynch.’

  I stuck my chin in the air. I was thirty, and wasn’t going to be intimidated. ‘Hello.’ I took the war right into the enemy camp. ‘Maman was saying she’d seen you in your dad’s office.’

  She looked me up and down, ending with a stare at the scar. ‘Well, you’ve had some very varied experiences since we last met.’ Her tone would have curdled milk. ‘Including playing the girl detective, I believe.’

  Attack was the best form of defence. ‘How well do you know Ivor Hughson?’

  Her eyes flared in shock. If she’d been less rigidly in control, I suspected she’d have taken a step back from me. She tried for a casual tone. ‘Ivor Hughson … I think I taught him at Bell’s Brae. A couple of years younger than you?’

  ‘Ivor Hughson who’s in partnership with your little brother.’ I suddenly realised that Ivor must be not far off ages with her. ‘You were at the Anderson together.’

  Her expression didn’t change, but the rosy colour drained from her cheeks, leaving them bone white. Her eyes stared dark and round, like a trapped animal’s, shifting from the Soap Company’s window to the Cross behind my shoulder. ‘Oh, that Ivor.’ Now she was rattling off words, as if talking could stop me seeing what she was thinking. ‘Yes, we were in some of the same classes. He was a great charmer, always laughing and joking.’ The off-hand tone didn’t stop her voice softening. ‘We were at university together too, but I was doing the B.Ed. while he did sciences, so we didn’t mix much.’

  He was a great charmer … but the past tense could be because she was remembering. Her gloves prevented me from seeing if she wore a wedding ring now. Hanging round her dad’s office didn’t feel like a married woman with a home and children of her own. ‘What’s he doing these days, do you know?’

  She gestured with one hand. A lit
tle of the colour had crept back into her cheeks, but her chest rose and fell as if she’d been running. ‘Oh, you know, you lose touch with people. Once he was a pair with Julie, well …’

  ‘Your brother’s partner?’ I reminded her.

  She almost managed her old, tart tone. ‘I don’t discuss his business with my brother.’ She looked over my shoulder, gave a start. ‘Is that the time? I must rush.’

  I turned to watch her go. She bumped into two people before blundering her way out of the shopping crowd and down towards the Esplanade. Naturally, looking in the direction she’d been facing, there wasn’t a clock in sight. She wanted to get away from questions about Ivor Hughson.

  Gavin could sit her down in an interview and keep asking. I could be nosy, but there was nothing to stop my suspects walking out on me. The shock had been genuine. Playing the girl detective, she’d said … and then, following Maman’s visit to Georgeson Removals, the girl detective had thrown the name of Ivor Hughson at her. If the skull staring up from the bracken was Ivor’s, did she know it? He was a great charmer …

  I was just staring blankly towards her wake when I heard a voice call ‘Dass!’ It was Inga with Peerie Charlie and his two big sisters, two smaller editions of Inga, with glossy dark hair and brown eyes. Vaila was almost in her teens, and Dawn had just been old enough to join the sailing last summer.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. I picked Charlie up and swung him round. ‘Hey, peeriebreeks, what’re you doing in town?’

  He held up one foot, in an eye-hurtingly white trainer. ‘I got new shoes, Dass. Boots too.’ He hauled at one of the carrier bags Inga was carrying, and opened it enough at the mouth to show me rubber boots with dinosaur eyes at the toes. ‘Roarrr.’