Red Bones (Shetland Quartet 3)

Bergen to buy a new boat? Then another that was a bit bigger. But your grandfather was clever. Everything invested, nothing too sudden or too showy. There were rumours about where the money had come from, but the island put it down to luck and thrift. And the great work he’d done during the war for the navy with the Bus. Then Andrew inherited and perhaps he managed to persuade himself that the family good fortune all came about through hard work. He was better than Joseph Wilson, who went off labouring for Duncan Hunter and spent his weekends scratching a living on the croft. He bought Cassandra and you were set up for life. Until two young women started digging in the ground . . .’
    ‘Mima thought it was her Norwegian lover that they’d dug up,’ Ronald said. ‘She thought it was his skull that they’d found.’
    And perhaps one of the bones did belong to him , Perez thought. The fourth fragment that didn’t match the others. He rested his head on his hand. ‘Then she remembered the stories Jerry had told her about his hoard of foreign cash and perhaps she went back over the years and thought of the big new boat, one of Cassandra ’s predecessors, that the Cloustons had bought in the fifties. Norwegian built. Perhaps she just had questions. And she wanted money too, not for herself, but for Joseph. Evelyn had got into debt and Mima wanted to help the family out. She thought the Wilsons finally deserved their share. Is that how it happened?’
    Ronald nodded.
    ‘For the tape machine please!’ Sharp and brusque, because for an instant Perez had again caught himself feeling some sympathy for the man and had to remind himself how Hattie had looked in that trench.
    ‘Yes, that was what happened.’
    ‘But it wasn’t your idea to kill her?’
    ‘It was the last thing on my mind! I’d just had a son. Do you understand how that feels, to hold your child in your arms, to see your wife giving birth? Nothing mattered more than that . . .’
    ‘Are you telling me you killed Mima for the sake of your child?’ Perez’s voice was so cold and hard that Morag, who had known him since they were at school together, stared at him, frightened too. Later in the canteen she would say it was like a stranger speaking.
    ‘No! Not that!’
    ‘Then explain, please. Tell me why you killed a defenceless old woman.’
    ‘She’d gone to the big house to talk to my father . . .’
    ‘Was your mother there?’ The interruption came sharp like a slap.
    ‘She was in the house, but Father sent her out of the kitchen. She didn’t know what the conversation was about. My father told Mima he couldn’t give her money. His capital was all tied up in the Cassandra . And even if he wanted to sell her it wouldn’t be his decision; there were the other share-holders. Mima said that in that case she’d have a word with her grandson.’
    ‘Meaning Sandy, because he worked for the police?’
    Ronald nodded again. This time Perez didn’t ask him to speak for the machine. He had more pressing questions. ‘And Andrew asked you to deal with the matter? To make sure that Mima didn’t cause you any more problems? For the sake of the family.’
    Ronald shut his mouth tight and refused to speak.
    ‘Tell me what happened the night Mima died,’ Perez said. ‘Take me through the events of that evening, please.’
    ‘The baby had been awake for most of the night,’ Ronald said. His face suddenly seemed very flushed and although it wasn’t hot in the room he’d started to sweat. ‘He had colic and made a sort of high-pitched squeal, like some kind of animal, a piglet maybe. You couldn’t sleep through it even if you tried. Anna was tense. Patient enough with the baby, but shouting at me every chance she had. I decided to go into Lerwick to the library and the supermarket. I thought I’d be better with a break from the bungalow. I got an earlier ferry back than I was expecting and called in to the big house on my way home. My father had had a phone call from Mima. Sandy had come to the island and she’d asked him to visit. Andrew was in a terrible state.’
    ‘So you offered to sort the matter out for him.’
    ‘Something had to be done!’ Ronald said, his voice unnaturally loud. ‘My father was making himself ill and scaring my mother. I said I’d go to see Mima, persuade her to be reasonable, offer her something.’ There was a silence. Perez waited for him to continue. Ronald went on, more calmly. ‘Back in the bungalow, I