The Body in the Bracken Page 4

  ‘A good New Year to you too, Cassie. It was a pity you couldn’t join us last night.’

  ‘I was out cold. I’d been awake for two and a half days.’

  ‘We thought that would be it.’

  ‘Did you and Maman stay up for the New Year?’

  He went slightly pink. ‘We had a bottle of champagne to toast the bells in France, then in Britain.’

  Well, well. It sounded a pretty thorough entente cordiale. ‘The fireworks woke me, but I couldn’t be bothered to get up and party.’

  He gave me a sideways look. ‘A pity you couldn’t have stayed down in Scotland. They take the New Year seriously there.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘Gavin has a body on his hands,’ and explained, which between a description of the skeleton and the work it would generate brought us nicely around the western curve of the voe, above the white bulk of the Jacobean Busta House, the laird’s former residence, now a hotel, and across the bridge onto the island of Muckle Roe: the big red island, named by the Vikings. Ours was the second-last house at the end of the road, a square, eighties box, with a path down to the beach where I’d kept Osprey, my first dinghy.

  We were met by the smell of roast duck. Maman was busy laying the cutlery on each side of her china plates with the pink cupids; I hadn’t seen those out of their cupboard for eighteen years. She greeted me with two kisses on each cheek. ‘Cassandre! Happy New Year. Salut, Cat. Dermot, please open the champagne.’

  She looked a most improbable apparition to find out in these wilds, my maman. Her dark hair was swept up in a Callas chignon, her eyes outlined with kohl, her complexion flawless. She wore a black dress with a silver waistband and a rib-length silver jacket, smart enough for the dress circle bar of the Paris Opéra. A jade pendant hung in her curved neckline. She’d stood out like a shalder among seapinks at school functions, which had equally exasperated me and made me proud. I hoped the reconciling would keep working.

  She waved us through to the sitting room. A plate of pastry twists and three champagne glasses stood ready on the low table. Dad had the glasses filled by the time I’d sat down at one end of the couch. Cat inspected the inside of the piano, then installed himself on the Chinese carpet. He liked it here; there was this fire, and there would be a saucer of something more interesting than home-caught tiddlers.

  ‘Eugénie, Cassie, all the best to you for the year to come.’ Dad raised his glass to Maman. ‘Interesting parts and sympathetic directors.’ The glass tilted to me. ‘A triumphant graduation and an officer post on your favourite square rigger.’

  He must have thought that one through beforehand, for I suspected he really wanted to wish me a happy marriage and a male first-born. I raised my glass, thinking fast. Not even for peace did I think I could drink success to his firm’s windfarm. Then I knew the toast I wanted to give, and smiled at them both, sitting together on the couch. ‘To the Irish-French alliance.’

  The meal was wonderful. There was boar pâté on toast and slices of cured sausage, roast duck, and potatoes, an endive salad tossed in vinaigrette, and Maman’s pear tart. The third degree on how I’d got on with Gavin’s family was restrained, and we’d just settled back in the sitting room with tiny cups of coffee when a car drew up outside. There was a tap at the door, and a diffident Shetland voice called, ‘Is there anybody home?’

  Dad rose, and there was a bustle while he ushered the stranger in and along to his study, rather than bringing him into the sitting room. I raised my eyebrows at Maman. ‘Business, on New Year’s Day?’

  She touched a finger to her lips and went into French. ‘Have you finished? Then we will do the dishes, like a good mother and daughter. Cat, it is your turn now.’

  He leapt up from the fire and trotted before us, tail held high. Maman closed the kitchen door behind him. ‘This poor man visited us two nights ago. He worked with your father many years ago. He wanted advice, and couldn’t think who else to ask.’ She paused to put a bowl of duck trimmings down for Cat, who launched in as if he hadn’t seen food for weeks. ‘He has a small haulage firm, bringing goods up from south and taking loads down – well, his partner has absconded and he is now in money difficulties. Your father said that if he brought the books round he would look, and see if he could advise him. Though he said to me afterwards that he did not think there was much to be done, except to go bankrupt, or to ask his father to bail him out – his father is the big firm, you have seen the trucks stacked in front of the ferry terminal. Georgeson Removals, and a red and blue logo.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know. John Georgeson, the councillor.’ I scowled. ‘Father of Miss Georgeson that we had in primary six.’

  Maman laughed. ‘I think that she was probably quite a good teacher. You just did not get on well together. You always asked for reasons, when she just wanted you to obey orders.’

  ‘Huh. She had a tongue that would clip cloots.’ I brooded darkly for a moment, remembering long-past tussles of will over the sharpness of my pencil, or exactly where I’d laid my satchel. ‘So this is her brother whose partner has absconded?’

  ‘He is, I think, the baby of the family, very keen to stand on his own feet, that is why he does not wish his father to bail him out.’ She put an arm around my shoulders. ‘But children can be very proud.’

  ‘Worst of the seven deadlies,’ I agreed. I’d have been proud myself if I’d had to ask a favour of John Georgeson. He was a butting ram of a man, who gave short shrift to alternative views. ‘Do I know the absconder?’

  ‘Certainly. He’s a sailor at the club.’ She filled the basin with hot water and plunged the dishes in. ‘Ivor Hughson.’

  In Maman’s accent it came out as Ifforh Uson, so it took me a moment to work out. ‘Who? Oh, him.’ He had a yacht in the marina, a beamy flyer with a sugar-scoop stern – that’s where some of the money had gone, if I was any judge, for he’d had new sails for her just last year, and distinctive green sailcovers and dodgers, the side panels with the boat’s name. The cockpit was bristling with expensive gadgetry: the latest chart plotter, AIS, wireless wind, speed, and depth instruments, all that. He was out in every Saturday or Sunday points race, with a keen, young crew – young, that is, compared to the yacht I crewed on, Jeemie’s Starlight, where I was the only one under sixty-five.

  I set his boat aside and focused on the man himself as I swirled the sponge around the china. Ivor Hughson wasn’t a type I particularly took to: he was too slick, too trendy in his new Henri Lloyds, beside Magnie’s ex-trawlerman jacket and Jeemie’s ancient green sheep-round-up oilskin. Thinks himsel nae sma dirt, Jeemie had commented. He was in his early forties, with chin-length dark hair framing a high forehead, a sideways-tilted smile under a narrow moustache, and designer stubble on his chin. It was all a bit Cap’n Jack Sparrow, that charmer look. I’d nodded at him in passing, but the only time I remembered actually speaking to him was when he’d been stuck at a table with us for the between-races soup and sandwiches. He’d offered me a drink, bright blue eyes crinkling at me, and followed it up with some question about Khalida. I’d answered politely, drunk my soup, and taken my corned beef roll to a fellow-instructor, to talk about who we’d trust with the Feva. It didn’t surprise me in the least that he’d come up with some business scheme to milk and then abandon. ‘When you say absconded …?’

  ‘Completely gone.’ Maman dried each plate with meticulous grace, as if a theatre of people was watching. ‘I gather this Robert-John Georgeson –’ She gestured along the passage. ‘– became suspicious when he took a phone call intended for Hughson, and so he went to the bank to look at the account and talk to the manager, and realised things were not right. This was back in August, and Hughson was just about to go on holiday, so he said that they would talk about it when he returned.’

  ‘Even I know better than to fall for that one.’

  Maman sighed. ‘Monsieur Georgeson believes others, because he would cheat nobody himself. So, this Ivor Hughson came back from holiday for only one nigh
t, and instead of meeting up with him as they had planned, he left on the next ferry.’

  ‘But surely – has his family not heard from him?’

  Maman spread her hands. ‘I suppose not, for this Robert-John would have asked them first.’ She pulled a face, the goddess Juno being asked to supervise the petty affairs of mortals, then came as quickly back to earth. ‘It is very sad. I hope he did not involve his house in the business. He has a family, a very pretty wife, and a little girl, and another child on the way.’ She gave me a sideways look from her dark-lashed eyes and changed the subject. ‘You enjoyed being down with your Gavin’s family?’

  Had that last quick kiss on the cheek made me an official girlfriend? ‘I felt at home there.’

  ‘You will sort out who lives where,’ Maman said serenely. ‘You can come and go by water, now you have found the way.’

  ‘Children,’ I said. ‘They’re a handicap to sailing off.’

  ‘I do not see why they should be. If I had been sensible, I would have kept singing, and taken you along to rehearsals, instead of giving up, and withering inside. A month in France, listening to beautiful music, then back to school here.’ She smiled. ‘Though not during the sailing season, of course.’

  ‘Tricky,’ I said, ‘since your best son-et-lumieres are rehearsing in high summer, ready for the autumn season.’ I began on the cutlery. ‘What’s the next one?’

  ‘Oh, one of the Loire castles in February, then my spring tour of Scotland.’ Under the smooth make-up, she was blushing. ‘Here too, to Belmont House in Unst, then in Lerwick.’

  I gave her a sideways glance. ‘Since Dad was too proud to come to you …?’

  She nodded, a little smile trembling on her scarlet lips. ‘But all is well now. And for the summer, I have a first time. Glyndebourne has at last discovered Rameau. Les Indes Galantes. A confection of nonsense, but Hébé is amusing to sing.’

  ‘Glyndebourne! Oh, wow!’

  ‘I just hope it will be a traditional production, not some designer whose concept of Rameau is setting the stories in a fridge.’ Her dark eyes flashed. ‘If only they would understand that all that is needed is some costumes in keeping with the text, to help the imagination, and a stage, and the orchestra and singers. But no, we have to have a concept.’ She lifted the pile of dishes and stowed them in the cupboard. ‘Your father is investigating how to get tickets – for you too, if you are on this side of the world, and ashore. What is next for you?’

  ‘College. Safety at sea, engines, navigation, handling work rotas, marine waste disposal, buoyage, and all the rest, until I come out with my Deck Officer ticket. I’ve already sent my CV to all the tall ships I’ve ever sailed on, starting with the Norwegian fleet.’

  ‘Sørlandet, Staatsradt Lemkuhl, Christian Radich.’ She smiled. ‘You are a child of the north after all.’

  ‘I’ll fly back to the UK for Glyndebourne,’ I promised.

  There were steps in the passage, and Dad’s voice: ‘I’m vexed I can’t be more help.’ There was the murmur of goodbyes, the door closing again.

  Maman and I returned to the sitting room. ‘How is it?’ Maman asked.

  Dad shook his head. ‘A mess. Oh, I’ll have a go at his books, but the total’s clear. He has to find Hughson. He tried an internet firm, but they drew a blank. Hughson owing money like that makes it a police business, but Robert-John would rather try to get out from under by himself. I just don’t see how he can, unless he goes back to a single-van outfit with him doing all the driving.’

  ‘The house, does it also make part of the enterprise?’

  Dad sighed. ‘He put everything he had into it. People like Hughson should be strung up. He’s the type who’ll go bankrupt without a thought for his creditors, then set up a new company six weeks later.’ His fist clenched on his knee. ‘I’ve seen a dozen like him. Enthusiastic, plausible, and with no morals. It’s always fine fellows like Robert-John who trust them.’ He shook his head. ‘Well, I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘It’s odd that he’s disappeared so completely,’ I said. ‘All his family are up here.’

  ‘Maybe they’re ashamed of him.’

  ‘There’s not another woman involved?’ Maman asked.

  ‘Robert-John didn’t mention that.’ Dad considered, eyes narrowing. ‘Yes, that would explain it. If he’s living with her, then he might not show up on the kind of records a tracer firm would use.’

  ‘But he’d need to get money from somewhere,’ I pointed out. ‘Bank account, credit card, a job. Even I have a national insurance number, and the taxman chases me to argue that I can’t really be living on what I’m earning.’

  ‘Perhaps this girlfriend is from another country.’ Maman leaned forward. ‘He may have gone abroad with her.’

  ‘If that’s the way it is, then Robert-John has had it. The sums aren’t large enough to warrant the fuss of extradition.’

  ‘Large enough to him, though,’ I said, with sympathy. I thought the girlfriend option was entirely plausible. ‘I’d better be getting back to the boat.’

  ‘I will drive you,’ Maman said. ‘No, no, Dermot, you rest there. I will be gone only ten minutes.’

  I gathered up Cat and put him into his basket. An indignant miaow came out through the wicker; he’d planned on washing his duck-juiced whiskers in front of the fire, then having a snooze.

  ‘Not that there is any point in saying it to your father,’ Maman said, once we were in the car, ‘but this is just the day for the police to be out in force, and he is over the limit. Perhaps …’ She stopped. I waited. ‘Perhaps you could ask your inspector about Ivor Hughson? Robert-John is an amiable being, and it seems unfair he and his family should suffer for the misdeeds of another. I am sure the police would have surer ways to find Hughson.’ Her dark eyes flicked sideways at me. ‘But perhaps you are now too tentative. You can no longer ask as a friend, but cannot yet demand as a lover.’

  I gave a reluctant grin. ‘Mind reader.’

  ‘Then do not ask. Bonne nuit.’

  She dropped me off at the marina, and I put Cat back aboard, lit the lantern, and sat down on the side-couch. Suddenly it was too solitary, this little world of wood with the lamplight sparking golden grains in the walls, and the curved white ceiling closing me in. I’d got used to people to talk to in the evening …

  There was a brightly wrapped parcel tucked into my bookshelf: the picture-book I’d got for Peerie Charlie, but hadn’t managed to get to him before Christmas. The tide lapped at

  Khalida ’s sides, the wind tugged my halyards. I went out to fasten them, reached back in for the parcel, and headed out of the marina and up towards the road. I’d go and see what Inga was up to.

  Chapter Six

  It wasn’t quite dark; the sun was just nestling into the hills on the west side of Aith, leaving a bright glow. From time to time, as the clouds shifted, the new moon was visible as a darker shadow. A bonny day tomorrow, the old folk would say: When the sun gengs sheening tae the hill, the morn geng whaur du will.

  I’d passed the Building Centre, which sold every useful tool known to DIY man or woman, and was almost at the Co-op (Britain’s Most Northerly) when I remembered that it was New Year’s Day. If Inga didn’t have all her in-laws round, she’d be flying every foot to get big Charlie, her husband, ready for going back to sea. As well as having his own smaller boat, he was second in command on one of the pelagic trawlers, the sort with nets so huge that in theory it could catch its whole quota (its permitted weight of herring or mackerel) in one cast. The fish would be bought almost as soon as it hit the ship’s hold, and delivered to a processing factory in Shetland, Norway, or Ireland, whichever was nearest. Charlie’d be away for between a fortnight and a month, then the ship would be tied up at the pier until its second outing, in September. There were eight of these huge trawlers, and innumerable smaller whitefish and shellfish boats, as well as all the aquaculture industry of salmon and mussels. Fishing was still Shetland’s main source of wealth.<
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  I glanced over my shoulder at the sinking sun. Not quite four o’clock. If Inga had visitors, they’d either be at the tea and coffee stage, or not due till six, and given that the fishing boat had all mod cons, including a kitchen, a cook, and a washing machine and tumble dryer, all that needed done for big Charlie was throwing a few clothes and books into his bag. I kept walking.

  Inga and Charlie lived on the old side of Brae, in a square eighties house built by old Charlie, Charlie’s father. One look at the drive told me the whole clan was there: Charlie’s mother’s orange petrol-saver, Charlie’s brother’s grey 4x4, his other brother’s turquoise people carrier. Inga’s mother-in-law was known, against stiff competition, as one of the worst gossips in Shetland, so I’d get serious grilling about what I’d been up to down south with that ‘policeman ida kilt’. I was about to walk on past when I heard a voice yelling ‘Dass, Dass!’ and saw Peerie Charlie waving to me from a precarious position at the top of a shiningly new adventure playhouse. I sighed and went in.

  ‘C-C-Cass,’ I reminded him.

  He gave me that ‘humour her’ look. ‘Cass. I climbing.’

  ‘So I see. Is this what Santy brought you?’

  ‘Come up, Cass.’ He pointed round at the back of the fortress. ‘You climb here.’ His eyes went to the carrier bag in my hand, with the bright wrapping blazing above the plastic. ‘Is that a parcel?’

  ‘A Christmas present for you.’

  Another two faces peered out from behind him: a boy and girl cousin. The boy had red hair, which made him the people-carrier brother’s; the girl was smoothly dark. They were aged around seven. If I stayed in Shetland much longer I’d be getting to the traditional greeting for unken bairns: ‘Whaur’s du from? Wha’s dee midder? Yea, yea, I ken wha du is noo.’

  I resisted the temptation, especially when the girl came out with, ‘Girls can’t climb.’

  I looked her straight in the eye. ‘How’d you get up there, then?’

  She amended it. ‘Big girls can’t climb.’