Red Bones (Shetland Quartet 3)

Pier House. He’s not been well the last few days. It gets Andrew down, not being able to get out with the boys on the boat. He was the one who made all the decisions. Now he feels kind of powerless. It’s not a physical thing so much; he just gets frustrated. Anna wanted Ronald to make a start on her garden today, but I said to him, “That can wait. Your father’s more important than planting a few beans and tatties.”’
    Perez wondered what Anna had made of that. But he just nodded. ‘Can we go through into the other room? Enjoy the view now the windows are so clean?’
    ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Why not? I usually sit in the kitchen, but you go through and I’ll bring the coffee in to you.’
    It was a big square room the width of half the house. There was a marble fireplace and the furniture was large and shiny: two sofas covered in grey satin, a highly polished sideboard and a couple of gleaming occasional tables, a gilt-framed mirror on the mantelpiece. The photographs were posed and covered in glass. There was one of Jackie and Andrew’s wedding, Andrew looking very grand in a morning suit, a giant standing next to his little wife. There was a shot of the house when it was first built, Ronald’s official school photos. The room seemed cold and impersonal. Perez wondered how often it was used. He sat on a chair looking out through the long window. He could see the whole of the southern point of the island, from the new bungalow where Anna and Ronald lived, along the boulder beach to Setter where Hattie’s body had been found.
    Jackie bustled in with a tray: the best china, milk in a jug and real coffee in a pot, a plate with homemade biscuits. What else did she do besides baking and housework? He thought she must get bored here in the giant show-house. Did looking after her husband take up all her time?
    She seemed to guess what he was thinking. ‘When we built the new house, I thought I might take in paying guests. Not so much for the money but because I’d enjoy the company, meeting folks from all over the world. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so big.’
    ‘Sounds like a good plan. Especially with Anna running the workshops. It would save her having to put people up in the Pier House or in the bungalow.’
    ‘Aye well, Andrew doesn’t like the idea. Not now. Since the stroke anything out of his usual routine upsets him. He couldn’t face meeting strangers.’ She shook her head, dismissing the dreams she’d had once.
    Perez poured coffee, waiting a moment to enjoy the smell. ‘Did you see Hattie James yesterday?’
    ‘No. I didn’t really know her. We weren’t on visiting terms. Evelyn took it on herself to look after the lasses, but that’s the sort of woman she is. She has to poke her nose in everywhere, especially when money’s involved. She’s not the saint everyone makes her out to be.’
    ‘How would money be involved?’ He was genuinely curious.
    ‘They’d surely get a fee for the dig at Setter.’ He sensed there was something more she wanted to say, but she snapped her mouth shut.
    Perez left the subject alone. He thought he should defend Sandy’s mother, but really how much did he know about the woman, except that she was hospitable? He found the bickering between the cousins depressing. Suddenly he was back in Fair Isle, at a Sunday-school lesson in the hall, him a child of seven or eight, listening to a gentle, elderly woman talking about a love of money being the root of all evil. ‘The love of money, you see. Not the money itself. It’s when money takes over our lives that things start to go so badly wrong.’ Is that what’s happening here? he thought. It’s not the wealth itself that’s soured relationships between these two families. It’s the bitterness and envy that surrounds it.
    ‘So the lasses from the dig never came in here?’
    ‘No. Once we used to have grand parties and invite most of the island. We ’d push back the furniture; someone would start playing music. Grand times. Then the house would be full of young people. Ronald would bring in his friends from the High School and all the boys from the boats would come along with their wives and kiddies. Andrew was a great one with the accordion. There’d be songs and dancing. But Andrew can’t deal with big numbers of visitors these days. He finds it a strain just with the family.’
    ‘Of course.’ Perez helped himself to more coffee. ‘You must miss the old times.’
    ‘Oh,’ she