The Trowie Mound Murders Page 6

  I was almost at the top of the hill above it, the Hill of Heodale, rather out of breath, and with the grass-covered walls of the trowie mound looming imposingly above me, when I found a dead kitten. I took it to be a baby black rabbit at first, too visible for its own good, then my brain registered the blunt ears and stubby tail. It lay in a hollow of heather, white paws spread in mute protest. A feral one, I supposed, that had strayed from the rest of the litter and been caught by a black-back gull. They were vicious birds. Fifty metres further, I spotted a second one. Perhaps the mother cat had been killed, and hunger had driven them from the nest. They had to be very young, for neither was bigger than my hand. Poor peerie things.

  I climbed the last ten metres to the platform and leaned back against the trowie mound to look around. The sun was still warm on my face, and glittered gold on the water. To the west was the sweep of open sea, with Papa Stour crouched just short of the marmalade horizon, and the faint smudge of white that was the Ve skerries, where, in 1930, the men of the trawler Ben Doran had waited, tied in their rigging, for the help that couldn’t reach them across two hundred metres of rock-toothed sea. To the north was the hunch of Ronas Hill, made red by the granite gravel and boulders of its wind-blasted arctic tundra. To the south was my own island of Muckle Roe, and behind it stretched the long spine of the Kames, three lines of hills separated by slices of sea. Continue those, and you’d reach Scotland’s Great Glen. To the east were the green hills to the north of Brae. The old ones would be able to bless all their world.

  There was nothing moving on the green of hill, blue of sea, seaweed-rust of shore. There were no red sailing jackets marching up a slope or lying ominously still at the foot of a bank. I stood up and did a long, careful sweep with my spy glasses. No sign.

  I leaned back on the trowie mound, biting my lip. Reasons for reassurance: Peter and Sandra Wearmouth were extremely capable adults, and well used to walking rough terrain. They could easily have decided to stay a night ashore. They were on holiday up here, after all, and could please themselves. Their cat could have been left double-rations and a litter tray. All the same –

  All the same, the sea wasn’t a safe habitat, and every sensible skipper made a plan before setting out. That plan included a port and time of arrival, so that shore back-up could investigate further if there was a no-show. Peter had told me their plan of a day’s walking, and that made me their shore back-up. They hadn’t arrived back at their boat, and they hadn’t called to say the plan had changed. Granted, they didn’t have my mobile number, but the club number was in the book, and they could leave a message.

  I slid down the green grass of the trowie mound to sit on the sheep-cropped green turf at its base. There was a great slab of stone behind my back, and I wriggled against it until my back was comfortable, then took my mobile out from my backpack and was surprised and pleased to see a signal; three bars, even. Contacts; Anders; call.

  He answered straight away. ‘Yo, Cass.’

  ‘Hiya. No sign of them here.’

  ‘None here either. I have driven all the way to Ronas Hill, in case they decided to go and climb that too, but I did not see them, and I have asked several people on the way.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘No. I’m now back at the marina, and they are not here. Nor has there been any word to the club, to say they are delayed, or have changed their plans. Do you think we should call the coastguard?’

  ‘Yeah –’ I said reluctantly. ‘I’ll call them from here. See you back at the marina.’

  The coastguard number was programmed in my mobile, although I’d normally call them on the VHF from Khalida. It was Hilary who answered.

  ‘Hiya, Hilary,’ I said. ‘It’s Cass here, Cass Lynch. We could have a problem.’

  ‘That handsome Norwegian of yours not servicing your engine well enough?’ she riposted. I could hear her colleagues guffawing in the background.

  ‘Men,’ I said, rather lamely. I wasn’t feeling up to bright back-chat. ‘No, it’s something quite different – we maybe have a couple of missing people.’

  She went serious. ‘Who, where, how long?’

  I explained, hearing her scribbling at the other end of the phone. ‘And you’ve had no word? No word at the club either?’

  ‘No. And they were older people. I know it’s only one night, but they knew we knew their plans –’

  ‘And a night’s a long time to be in trouble on the hill,’ she finished. ‘Okay, Cass, I’ll talk to the chopper boys. They could do a sweep over. Descriptions?’

  ‘Nice, spottable scarlet sailing jackets,’ I said. ‘He’s tall, getting on for six foot, with white hair, and she’s that peat-ash colour, a reddish blonde. Maybe five five.’

  ‘We’ll get the search underway,’ she said, and rang off. I sat down against the trowie mound once more. I couldn’t do any more now. I dug in my rucksack for the bottle of water and mackerel rolls I’d made back on Khalida.

  I’d just bitten into the first one when I heard a furtive, scraping noise beside me, from within the trowie mound.

  Chapter Six

  I froze in mid-bite and listened. It was a very faint noise, yes, scraping. Was there any chance that Peter and Sandra had somehow got stuck inside the mound? I shoved my roll back into its paper and stood up. The sound ceased.

  I called their names and my voice bounced off the stones. There was no answer. I began walking slowly round the mound, looking for the entrance.

  From the outside, it was simply a circular grassy mound maybe two metres high and ten across, set in a flatter space on top of the hill. It wasn’t obviously artificial; these hills were knobbled all over with outcrops of rock. When you looked at the lower sides, though, here and there the outer wall showed through, boulders the size of my body set flat-face outwards and fitted together like crazy-paving. Above one of these, a strip of turf had been torn away to show the first layer of dry-stone wall; torn away recently, too, for the exposed stones were still dark with earth, and the strip of turf lay at the base of the wall.

  There was one of these chambered cairns, excavated in Victorian times, above my favourite anchorage on Vementry Isle. I frowned, trying to visualise what it was like. My impression was of a small, square chamber, set with shelves for the bones. It was mostly a rumble of stones, but you could still see the crawl-through entrance. That faced south, down the spine of Shetland towards Fair Isle and Orkney, the stepping stones their ancestors had used to get to Shetland. I came slowly around the mound until I’d got a quarter of the way round.

  The rustle came again, from behind me. I jerked my head around. My rucksack was wriggling as if there was something inside it. I turned and crept back, but the vibration of my feet on the soft turf must have been sensed, for just as I got to it a tiny grey-striped kitten backed rapidly out, and vanished under the stone I’d been sitting beside.

  I knelt to look. The smooth turf had crept up the stone, but at the side of it the grass was scrabbled into bare earth beside a hole, like the mouth of a rabbit burrow. Perhaps this was where the dead kittens had come from. This one could be the last survivor of the litter, and starving. I spread some bits of mackerel and buttered roll in a line coming forward from the hole, sat back, and waited.

  The kitten came out straight away, bolting the crumbs ravenously. It could only have been a few weeks old, staggering on its little paws, with its high-domed head seeming too heavy for its tiny body. Its eyes were that opaque colour of sea-washed blue glass found on the tide line, and its stubby tail was tucked in under its body. It was grey above, cream below, with darker over-hairs on a cloud-grey undercoat, and its white paws were grubby with earth, as if it couldn’t quite wash itself. Its ears were flattened, its eyes alert on me as it gollopped the food. As I moved to get the second roll out, it flinched, froze, then dived back into safety. There was a pause, then the little moon face peered out again from under its rock, hoping for more, but ready to retreat.

  I sat very still, thinking m
y next move through. A feral kitten wouldn’t take kindly to being carried, but I’d have to try. I couldn’t leave it here to starve. It watched nervously as I pulled off my fleece and put it in my rucksack, curling it into a nest and adding a few pieces of the buttery roll. Then I laid out another trail of mackerel. The taste of food had made it bolder; it came almost to my hand as I laid the first piece, and followed it forwards, so that it was easy to turn my hand and lift it, tiny paws scrabbling helplessly in the air. I put it straight into the rucksack. The kitten gave one protesting mew, then crouched there, sniffing, found the pieces of roll, and began eating again. I pulled the drawstrings almost closed and carried the rucksack in front of me as I made my way carefully down the hill.

  The dinghy was going to be the worst bit. The kitten had to stay in the rucksack for that. I felt the prickling sensation again as I tightened the drawstring and put the bag on the dinghy floor, but I was too busy to worry about phantoms just now. I shoved the dinghy afloat, rowed out to Khalida, handed the rucksack up into the cockpit, and climbed aboard after it.

  Boats aren’t like houses; you don’t have an under-stairs cupboard or back room where you can stow cardboard boxes that might come in useful some day. The best I could manage was a blue plastic mushroom box that kept tins out of the leak in the mid starboard locker. I dried it off and wound my woollen scarf inside it, making a kitten-sized nest. It would have to do for now. I put a dribble of milk in a soup bowl, and I even had a little cooked mince to offer, from remnants intended to make the base of tomorrow’s tea.

  I slid the washboards into their groove, so that the kitten couldn’t bolt on deck, but when I opened the top of the rucksack it showed no signs of wanting to escape. The cream belly was comfortably rounded, the milky eyes opened and shut again. I tried stroking its head with one finger, and was touched to hear the rumbling of a purr. Maybe it wasn’t totally feral; maybe someone had dumped an unwanted litter out on the hill, saying: ‘Oh, cats can take care of themselves,’. People can be unbelievably cruel.

  Well, if it was happy in the rucksack, that was fine. I rolled the top down and wedged the bag in my bunk, with the bowl of milk beside it, then clambered over the washboard and stowed the dinghy. I was just hauling up the mainsail when I heard the drone of a helicopter in the distance. It was the Coastguard chopper, Oscar Charlie. I waved as its red and white chevrons came overhead. If Peter and Sandra were anywhere on the hill, they’d be found.

  Then I weighed anchor and sailed out of the bay. Khalida made much better speed under sail than under engine, and the noise might frighten my little passenger. The sea was flat, so the kitten wouldn’t be too jolted. I wondered if cats got sea-sick; hoped not.

  As I rounded the corner into the Atlantic, I glanced back at the old house. There was a flash from the window, sun reflecting on glass, as if someone had hastily lowered a pair of binoculars. I watched, but it didn’t come again.Somebody had indeed been watching me as I’d gone up, and come down again, a surreptitious somebody who hadn’t come out to say hello.

  It wasn’t a comfortable thought.

  Anders was waiting at the marina for me, back leaning comfortably against one of the bollards. His blue cap lay on the ground beside him, and the sun gleamed in his pale gold hair and glinted off his neat, Elizabethan-seaman beard. Rat was curled around his neck.

  Cat and Rat didn’t sound a good combination. I hoped it wasn’t going to cause too much trouble.

  As we came in the marina entrance under jib, Anders rose, picked up his cap, and strolled around to take my mooring warps. ‘Are you showing off, or is there diesel bug in the fuel again?’

  ‘Showing off,’ I said, ‘but for a good reason.’

  ‘Still no sign?’

  ‘None,’ I said. ‘But –’

  ‘I saw the chopper go over.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, as he made to swing himself down into the cabin. ‘We’ve got an extra passenger.’

  He turned, fair brows raised, and I explained about the kitten. ‘I couldn’t leave it there,’ I said. ‘The poor thing was starving. It can’t be more than a few weeks old. But what’s Rat going to say?’

  We went down into the cabin. Rat hopped nimbly out of Anders’ shirt-neck, leapt to his usual spot perched on top of the fiddle that held our books on their shelf and began washing his whiskers. Suddenly he looked rather sinister. I had a horrid feeling that I’d once read an account of pet rats killing a baby. My tiny kitten wouldn’t last ten seconds.

  Anders looked gloomily at the little curl of grey fur. I curved a hand down over it, felt the tiny muscles startle and tense, then relax again. The little head came up, the milky eyes opened. I sat down on the couch beside it and picked it out of the rucksack. The rumbling purr came again, impressively loud.

  Rat balanced along the fiddle to see what was going on, whiskers forward and twitching, body elongated. The kitten raised its head to watch, purring louder, then, with a scramble and a scrabble, leapt up to the fiddle too and balanced there, stubby tail waggling wildly. Rat froze, whiskers twitching; I put out a hand to grab the kitten out of danger.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ Anders said. ‘Rat will not hurt him. He has met cats before.’

  ‘But what if the kitten tries to pounce on him?’ It was already waggling its little tail ready to jump.

  ‘It’s playing. Rat knows that.’

  It seemed that Rat did, for as the kitten attempted to pounce, he leapt nimbly over it and turned to face it again. The kitten turned, overbalanced, slid down the wooden fiddle in a slither of claws, and landed on the bench cushions. Rat followed, dodged again. Within a couple of seconds they were chasing each other happily around the cabin floor.

  ‘Of course the rest of the litter were black and white,’ I said. I wasn’t totally convinced until the kitten suddenly fell asleep in a corner of the bench, like a wind-up toy running down, and Rat curled up beside it, with the air of a parent on guard.

  ‘He’s adopted it,’ Anders said. ‘It will be fine now.’ He rose to put the kettle on; I lifted the cushion under me for the biscuits. We’d just got settled when the VHF crackled.

  ‘Yacht Khalida, Khalida, Khalida, this is Shetland Coastguard. Channel 23, over.’

  I reached over to the radio, and changed channels. ‘Shetland Coastguard, this is yacht Khalida.’

  It was Hilary’s voice. ‘Cass, the chopper’s done a sweep. There’s no sign at all of your people. Do you have any other news of them?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘No sign here either. Their boat’s exactly as it was.’

  ‘Okay,’ Hilary said. ‘The chopper boys seemed pretty sure that if your people were in trouble anywhere in that area they’d have seen them.’

  ‘They would,’ I agreed. ‘It’s as clear a day as you’d get.’

  ‘Then I think we have to assume they’ve just gone off for an extra day, maybe to a B&B somewhere. Inconsiderate not to let anyone know, but people are like that.’

  ‘Thanks anyway,’ I said.

  ‘Get back if there’s still no sign tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘Bye.’

  I looked at Anders and shrugged.

  ‘Strange,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose that as a skipper you get used to doing your own thing, not constantly telling people where you’re going,’ I said.

  Anders shook his head. ‘The opposite, rather. Look at the way you inform the coastguard when you are going any distance. You don’t think twice about it – it’s a sensible safety measure. He, Peter, would think like that. He told you where he was going.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  The wind didn’t fall that evening, but veered to the east, causing a white-topped chop against the outgoing tide in the marina mouth, and slapping small waves against Genniveve’s sides. It was colder too, a raw air that breathed cold mists, deserted moorlands, the wave-smashed beaches of the selkie wife who’d deserted her child. Khalida snatched at her bow-rope and her fenders rubbed
at her sides like the creak of a ghost’s rocking chair. The moon was a cold grey penny, with the flattened face giving it a secretive look. It was one of these nights where sky and forecast were agreed there wouldn’t be any great change, yet my instincts said watch, stay awake. I tightened all warps and went to bed, uneasy.

  I was woken by movement on the pontoon, a person walking past, and the jetty rocking. It was at the darkest point of the night, near-twilight – one, one thirty. I took a couple of seconds to register that Peter and Sandra must have returned, and by that time their engine was fired up, put straight into gear, and Genniveve was backing towards the turning space. I slid out of my berth and swung into the cockpit. Anders was only seconds behind me, pulling his jacket over his bare chest. Genniveve was already sideways on to us, her nose pointing to the marina entrance, her hull gleaming white in the marina lights. The red-jacketed figure in the cockpit leaned down to put her into forward gear and she moved smoothly forward. The figure straightened, looking ahead, then glanced over its shoulder to see us watching. It raised a hand, and a woman’s voice shouted, ‘Bye!’ Then she looked forward again, away from us, the hood screening her face.

  We watched the yacht go through the entrance and behind the rock wall of the marina. The masthead light shone red, green, white above it, moving further away, and further; the chug of the engine dwindled, diminished but still audible on so quiet a night.

  ‘That’s them, then,’ Anders said softly. His tanned face was pale in the white of the lights.

  ‘I suppose,’ I agreed. ‘Who was it steering, could you see?’