The Trowie Mound Murders Read online

  He’d dressed for the occasion. The sun picked up the dazzling white of his traditional Fair Isle gansey, knitted by his late mother and patterned with upright lines of cable and anchors on a dull-blue background. His reddish-fair hair was sleeked back, and his ruddy cheeks shone as if they’d just been shaved. They had to be visitors; Shetland residents enjoying a fine evening would have got the traditional blue boiler suit and yellow rubber boots.

  The motor-boat was a forty-five footer, with a long foredeck for sunbathing in port, and a high wheelhouse opening into a sheltered cockpit. The engine roared as she curved round outside the marina, then quietened to a purr as the driver brought her round to the pontoon where Magnie was waiting.

  Below me, on the slip, Norman watched open-mouthed as she gleamed her way across the water. There was a churning of water at the bow, then she stopped dead. Magnie threw the aft warp and the man at the wheel made it fast; a hatch opened in the foredeck and a woman came out, hand extended for Magnie’s second warp. A pause, while they made her fast on the other side too, then Magnie clambered aboard. I wondered if he’d got a welcoming bottle in his hip-pocket.

  Norman wasn’t the only one staring. Anders breathed, in Norwegian, ‘That’s a Bénéteau Antares.’

  I shrugged one shoulder at him, with the sailor’s traditional contempt for power-boats.

  ‘She’ll do thirty knots,’ Anders added.

  ‘Without getting her crew wet,’ I conceded, looking at the flared bow. She looked almost half as broad as she was long. ‘She must be huge inside.’ I turned my head to smile at Anders. ‘We’ll likely get a look later.’

  Having to throw your boat open to all and sundry is a perennial hazard of mooring in marinas.

  ‘They might want to look inside Khalida,’ he mourned.

  ‘Show them how the other half lives,’ I agreed. Khalida, my yacht and our shared home, was only 8 m.

  A thump of feet on the stairs announced that our youngsters were out of the showers at last. Anders went upstairs to dole out hot juice and chocolate digestive biscuits, and I took a quick recce into the talc-scented air of the lasses’ changing room. It was pretty good: a minor flood on the floor, two splash-suit coat-hangers, and the perennial single sock. Then I followed Anders up to do the debriefing and sign their RYA log-books: 27 July, activity: race practice, 2 hours helming, force 2-3, Cass Lynch. At last they rode off on their bicycles, or were collected by their parents in muddied pick-ups with a barking dog in the back, and Anders and I could go home.

  Norman hadn’t given up. As we came out of the clubhouse door there was a whine and a roar from his infernal machine, then he sped off in two wings of oily water. A pause, a spin to spray some of it over Khalida, with a look back over his shoulder to check we’d seen, before he roared off down the voe to make sure that nobody in a three-mile range could enjoy the quiet of a summer evening.

  We watched him go. I wanted to thank Anders for sorting him out, yet I hadn’t really needed the intervention, and I wasn’t at all sure that threats of violence would improve the situation. Nor did I want to leave it there. You pushed him overboard and left him to drown … Anders and I had never talked about Alain’s death, and I didn’t want him left with Norman’s twist. I gave him an uncertain look, which he didn’t see. He was too busy drooling over the newly arrived Bénéteau.

  ‘It has twin 500 horse-power Cummins.’

  Clearly Cummins out-ranked Khalida’s clanky Volvo Penta. I gave in.

  ‘Let’s go and say hello, then.’

  Chapter Two

  We sauntered along the pontoon. The woman had gone below, but the man was standing with Magnie on the foredeck, demonstrating a sizeable electric windlass. I felt a twinge of envy. Hauling Khalida’s anchor up could be back-breaking work, especially when the tide was pulling the other way.

  Magnie nodded once we were ten metres away, and gave us the traditional Shetland greeting. ‘Noo dan.’

  ‘Now,’ I replied. I nodded to the stranger. ‘Hello, there. Have you come far?’

  ‘From Orkney,’ he said. He was in his late forties, and dark-avised, a tan that gave him a leathered hide, a glossy black moustache, and bristly brows shielding brown eyes. He was beginning to go bald on top, you could see, in spite of the peaked yachting cap, his black hair receding from the front, but still thick at the back, and worn rather long in compensation. He was hefty, too, with a thick neck running down to broad shoulders and a bulky waistline that swelled his white jersey under the navy jacket. There was something familiar about him, but for the moment I couldn’t place it; I was sure I’d never seen him before. He came forward to shake my hand with a no-nonsense grip.

  ‘David Morse.’

  ‘Cass Lynch,’ I said, ‘of Khalida.’ I jerked my chin backwards. ‘The Offshore 8 m there.’

  He looked, picked her out straight away. ‘Van de Stadt.’

  ‘Yes, the Pandora’s big sister.’

  ‘He was a great designer. We had a Pioneer, oh, way back, must be twenty years ago.’ I couldn’t place his accent; educated Scots, east coast rather than west, with a corporate feel about it. Maybe a boat like this was what bankers did with their bonuses; she was split-new, and must have cost a packet. ‘Wonderful sea-boat, wonderful. Come aboard.’ He motioned me forwards, turned to Anders, held out his hand, stared, and raised the hand in the air, palm forwards. ‘Well, now, I thought for a moment I was seeing things. Your pet, young man?’ He held his hand out again. ‘David Morse.’

  It was the repetition of his name that did it. Suddenly I was five again, turning the pages of a French picture book, Capitaine Morse et le Dragon de la Mer, marvelling at the detailed pictures of the green and red sea-serpent, and the fishing boat belonging to ‘Captain Walrus’. Here he was in the flesh, genial smile, moustache, cap, and all. For all the bonhomie, though, if I’d had the placing of him, I’d have given him either an older male watch leader who could pull rank, or a young, efficient woman who’d catch him off guard. Otherwise, he’d be too inclined to take charge, even when he didn’t quite know what he was doing. You could see he was used to getting his own way.

  ‘Anders Johansen.’ Anders raised a hand to Rat, who was whiffling his whiskers in expectation of being allowed to explore a new ship. ‘You do not mind him? He is house-trained.’

  ‘Not at all, but I’ll warn my wife.’ He turned and called down into the cabin. ‘Madge? Madge, visitors, including a pet rat.’

  There was a muffled shriek from below, a clatter of dropped mug. ‘Oh, my.’ The voice was unmistakeably west-coast, the posher end of Glasgow. She peered round the doorway. She had hair the colour of a crab’s back, cut in a flicked-up bob, and a pink-powdered, plump face. Her grey-green eyes were fringed with mascara. Her eyes crossed me, reacted to the snail-trail scar across my cheek, moved too quickly on to Anders’ face and slid to his shoulder. Her mouth fell open. ‘Goodness me, that’s more like a small horse. It doesn’t bite, does it?’ The Glasgow accent was still strong, but, now I heard more of it, it was overlaid over something else, the north of England maybe.

  Anders shook his head, and gave his best Norse god smile. ‘Rat has never bitten anyone.’

  ‘Well, well, that’s the first rat we’ve ever had aboard this ship. Go on up, the kettle’s just boiled.’

  We stepped over the gleaming fibreglass side and into the cockpit. David motioned us upwards. ‘It’s far too fine a night to be indoors.’

  The high top of the wheelhouse framed an upper level with a table and chairs upholstered in white leather-look PVC, a little sink, a pale wooden worktop, and a double-bed-sized sun-lounger. Khalida’s whole cabin would have fitted into this bit alone. Her dashboard was like a car’s, with a wheel, gears, and instruments. Just this array of screens and knobs was worth twenty thousand. I recognised a fish finder, a radar, a chart plotter, and an Automatic Identification System, along with the usual radio, echo sounder, wind instruments, barometer, tide clock, and log. I paused by the AIS.


  ‘I’d like one of these, particularly out at sea. If you’re single-handing, it must be great to get early warning, and the chance to call them up personally.’

  Not that it always helped. That liner, Sea Princess, who’d passed us just before Alain had gone over, hadn’t responded to my call; she’d just kept on sailing away. She had a schedule to keep.

  David reached over my shoulder to switch it on. ‘It has an integral alarm, too. Anything comes closer than, well, you set it, ten miles, twenty miles, it warns you.’

  ‘Cool,’ I said.

  ‘Well, well,’ Magnie said. ‘It’s amazing what they can do nowadays.’

  I shot him a sideways glance. He’d been mate on a whaling ship in the Antarctic for many years before taking charge of a fishing vessel nearer home, and what he didn’t know about boat gadgetry wasn’t worth knowing. I’d ask him later why he was playing the yokel.

  ‘Now you just put that off again,’ Madge called from below. ‘I know what you sailors are like.’ There was a stomping noise on the stairs, then a tray appeared in the hatch, was set on the floor, and her crab-orange head appeared after it. She was wearing a jade velour tracksuit underneath a floral print apron, colourful and homely, the chairman’s wife relaxing. The hands that reached for the tray were encrusted with rings. ‘Switch one gadget on,’ she continued, ‘and you need to demonstrate it thoroughly, then the next one, and before we know it we’re back out at sea, looking for fish. No, thank you. Switch it all off, David, and let our guests drink their coffee.’

  It was real coffee, the aroma mingling with the suggestion of freshly baked chocolate cake. I slid my legs under the table, sat down on the cream leather settee, and admired the array on the tray: a cafetiére, bone-china mugs, milk jug, sugar bowl, and a plate with a neat pyramid of chocolate brownies. Bone china wouldn’t last ten minutes on Khalida.

  ‘Milk and sugar?’ Madge asked.

  ‘Just black,’ I said. I waited till she’d finished pouring, then held out my hand. ‘I’m Cass Lynch, of the Khalida, the little white yacht over there. First mast on the right.’

  ‘Madge Morse.’ She made a face. ‘I know, it sounds awful. Not only the short sound, but the two ms together. If we were marrying now, I’d keep my maiden name. Madge Arbuthnot sounds much more dignified.’

  ‘What’s your Cass short for?’ David asked.

  It seemed an odd question.

  ‘Cassandre,’ I said, pronouncing it French style. His brows rose. ‘My mother’s French,’ I explained, ‘and an opera singer. At the time she was in a production of The Trojan Women.’

  ‘Well, that’s exciting,’ Madge said. ‘I’m afraid we don’t listen to much opera, I’m a Radio 2 person, although we do love Andrew Lloyd Webber – has your mother ever sung in any of that?’

  I smiled, envisaging my mother receiving a phone call from Sir Andrew. You wish me to take part in a musical? She’d sound like a captain being asked to scrub the decks. You have the wrong number, monsieur. I am Eugénie Delafauve … And then laying the phone down, It was some person who wished me to sing light music. I must talk to my agent.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘she’s a “court of the Sun King” woman. Costumed performances in stately chateaux.’ At the moment, she was rehearsing a Rameau chief villainess, Erinice in Zoroastre, for a massive production at Chinon at the end of August. In keeping with their so-far-effective reconciliation, before Dad had headed down to Edinburgh to bully the Scottish Government into backing his company’s wind farm, he’d booked tickets for us both to fly over and see it.

  ‘That sounds fun,’ Madge said. She turned to Anders, still looking wistfully at the engine hatch. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

  He hauled his thoughts away from cylinders with a visible effort, and introduced himself.

  ‘Milk, sugar? Would your rat like a biscuit?’

  Anders looked doubtfully at the cream leather. ‘If you permit, I will give him some of mine, on the floor. A whole one to himself would be too much.’

  We settled down in the C-shaped curve of the sofa: Magnie forrard, the Charles Rennie Mackintosh mug looking dangerously frail in his gnarled hand, then me, Anders, Madge in the widest space between table and couch, and David completing the circle in the driving seat. I took a brownie and bit into it with appreciation. It was still warm, and very good.

  Anders asked Madge, ‘May I set Rat down to explore?’

  ‘Be our guests,’ she said. ‘Does he keep himself so white, or do you have to wash him?’

  ‘Oh, he keeps himself clean,’ Anders said. ‘Rats are very particular animals.’ He set Rat on the floor, spread-eagled, with tail waggling, and offered him a piece of brownie. Rat considered it, pulled his transparent toes under him, curled his tail, and tucked in.

  ‘You’re from Norway, then,’ David said. ‘Just visiting?’

  ‘At the moment,’ Anders agreed. ‘Cass brought me over to be engineer on a film ship.’

  ‘Oh,’ Madge said, surprised. ‘I took you to be a couple, now.’

  We both shook our heads. I was surprised to see David give Madge a steady look, as if this was somehow significant. Magnie spotted that too; I saw his fair lashes lift from his mug and fall again.

  ‘I have engineering work here at the moment,’ Anders said.

  He didn’t mention that he and his nerdish mates were also engrossed in a sword-and-sorcery intergalactic war, played with intricately painted figures on a model railway landscape that took up an entire basement, and that nothing would induce him to leave until it was over. I suspected he was winning too; he’d had an air of confidence this last week – the way he’d dealt with young Norman, for example. If it had been anyone else I’d have deduced a willing girlfriend, but with Anders it was far more likely that he was now Warlord Ruler of the planet Krill. I managed to suppress the smile brought on just by thinking about it.

  ‘There is no hurry to go home, although my father is beginning to be impatient. He runs a yard near Bergen – do you know Norway?’

  David said, ‘No’ at the same time as Madge said, ‘Yes.’ David looked annoyed, shook his head at her. ‘Not really,’ he temporised. ‘We’ve had one holiday there, but further south than Bergen, touring around from Stavanger. We keep meaning to go back. From here we’d get over to Bergen in seven, eight, hours.’

  It had taken thirty on Khalida.

  ‘Stavanger was lovely,’ Madge said wistfully. ‘All so clean, and the wooden houses with their red roofs around the lake.’

  ‘Is Stavanger the one that has the little wooden houses right down at the water front?’ Magnie asked guilelessly, as if he didn’t know every Norwegian port as well as he knew Lerwick.

  David shook his head. ‘That’s Bergen, I think, the Bryggen. Where did you say your father’s yard was, Anders?’

  ‘It’s just behind the marina in Bildøy,’ Anders said, ‘the Johansen yard, and if you are ever out there and need work done, they will make sure it is done well, at a reasonable cost.’

  ‘I’ll write that down,’ David said. ‘A good contact’s always useful.’ He pulled out an iPad and got Anders to repeat the address and phone number, then turned to me. ‘And where are you from, Cass?’

  ‘This is my home area, here – I grew up just over the hill, there.’ I pointed towards the green curve of Muckle Roe. ‘That island there – it’s joined by a bridge, but you can’t see that from here.’

  My dad had been one of the construction workers overseeing the building of Sullom Voe terminal; the house I’d grown up in had the Atlantic pounding the beach alongside and flinging salt at my bedroom window. This long finger of sea had been my playground, two miles to the widening turn that became the Atlantic (off-limits: next stop the remote island of Foula, then the tip of Greenland). I’d crossed the Atlantic several times now. In my mind’s eye the blue ripples hemmed so neatly to the brown shore by lines of mussel floats became a waste of grey water, with great breakers rolling across. A man who went overboard mid-Atlant
ic wasn’t easy to find again. I’d never found Alain.

  ‘A lovely area to sail in,’ David agreed.

  ‘A lovely place to grow up,’ Madge added, ‘although there maybe wasn’t much to do here.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘I was lucky that my best friend Inga lived just a hundred yards further along our road, so either I was at hers or she was at mine, or she and I and her brother Martin were roaming the hills and beaches together. It was a fun childhood. We made hoosies in the old crofthouse, and fires on the beach, and we swam in the loch and cycled along to the shop for sweeties. And of course I sailed. I had a Mirror, and Martin crewed for me. We went all round the regattas.’ The only thing I’d hated was being kept indoors. Maman had had a shot at turning me into a pretty little girl with long, dark plaits and frilled dresses. It hadn’t worked. ‘And now of course, bairns have the leisure centre and swimming pool right on their doorstep, as well as all the stuff in Lerwick.’

  Madge still looked unconvinced. ‘What about school, though? Did you have to travel to your main town for that?’

  I shook my head, and pointed. ‘That’s the school there, with the leisure centre, right next door. We had a good education. Computers, and PE, and foreign trips. The teachers all knew us, and we knew them.’

  ‘You took your exams there?’

  ‘No. My last bit of schooling was in France.’ I was beginning to share Magnie’s suspicions. Any Shetland person would ask these questions, of course, to ‘place’ me, and the conversation would end, ‘Ye, ye, I ken wha du is noo.’ But Madge wasn’t Shetland, so the names wouldn’t mean anything to her. Maybe she was just nosy, and too new to boating to understand the unwritten rules about privacy – yet she’d made the bow rope fast like a pro. I decided to make it their turn. ‘How about you, did you say you’re from Orkney?’

  Neither of the voices suggested Orkney, that lovely lilting accent, like Scots spoken by a Welsh singer, but they could be retired there. Orkney had a much higher incomer population than Shetland.