The Killing Stones, page 13
She’d just lifted the baking tray from the oven when her ruminations were disturbed by her phone. Phil Bain was calling in as she’d asked him to.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Okay, but I’m not able to speak to that many people today. It seems there was a mass exodus on the ferry this morning. Lots of islanders have gone in for the carol service at the cathedral. Most are planning to come back this evening on the last ferry. I’ll get to the folk who are still here today and catch up with the others tomorrow.’
‘That’s fine. Nothing else you can do. I know Vaila was planning to bring the boys out. Who else have you lost?’
‘Bill was already out. The three residents at the hotel – Godfrey Lansdown and Prof and Mrs Johnson. Apparently, Godfrey goes to the service every year. It’s something he used to do with his wife. I think the Johnsons made a last-minute decision to join him.’ A pause. ‘They might rave about island living but I get the feeling they were getting a bit bored and the idea of the bright lights of Kirkwall and a fancy lunch attracted them.’
‘Ah well, island life isn’t for everyone.’ Willow had left the commune on North Uist as soon as she was old enough to run away. Though now she was back on another island, and she had no wish to escape from this one.
Phil was still talking. ‘They said something about wanting to explore some of the archaeological sites as it’s close to the winter solstice.’
‘Did they say which ones?’
‘Nah, they don’t really think I’m worth talking to. I’m definitely seen as their intellectual inferior.’
She laughed. ‘Yeah, right! Any news on George Riley and where he might have gone the night Archie died?’
‘Yes. I caught up with Fiona, one of the Westray teachers.’
‘I know who you mean. Her son is best pals with Iain Stout, and he spent the afternoon of Archie’s disappearance there.’
‘Aye. I tried her because I thought she might know George professionally, and she might even recognize his car.’
‘And?’ James was starting to fidget. Willow fed him half a gingerbread man to keep him quiet. So much for being the perfect mother.
‘Fiona went out that night to check on her mother, who’s been a bit poorly, and she saw George’s car parked outside the Pierowall Hotel.’
Willow thought that was odd. Everyone said that Riley hadn’t been into the hotel.
‘Did she see George?’
‘Not then. But when she was on her way home later, George was just driving away.’
‘What time was that?’
‘About eight-thirty, so that fits in with the time he got back to Nat’s.’
Willow was sorting through the details in her mind. ‘Well, I guess that’s interesting, but it doesn’t help much. Jimmy’s meeting up with George later today, so he should be able to give us more useful information. He’s back in Orkney at last.’
But still playing hard to get, she thought. What’s that all about?
‘There is something else,’ Phil said.
‘Yes?’
‘Fiona noticed that the light was on in the heritage centre when she was on her way to her mother’s.’
‘That couldn’t have been George,’ Willow said. ‘He’d already dropped the key off at Nistaben in the afternoon.’
‘He might have left the place unlocked, so he could get in again later.’
‘You’re thinking he might have gone back to pick up the story stones?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Aye, so he could.’
Again, her mind was racing, trying out different possibilities, different scenarios, but she could tell that Phil was waiting for further instructions. ‘Can you ask around and see if anyone else was in the heritage centre that evening? There might have been a volunteers’ meeting, or some sort of party for them this close to Christmas. Annie might know, though I think she would already have mentioned it.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘What are your plans for the rest of the day?’
‘I think we’ll wrap up and go out. It’s too sunny to be at home all day. James might enjoy the carol service at St Magnus Cathedral.’
‘That sounds like a grand thing to do. They hold it in the early evening, just after it’s dark, so all the kids can take part.’
‘Perfect!’
Besides, she thought, I’ve had enough of being stuck in the house with a four-year-old. It’ll be interesting to see who turns up at the service from Westray. There might be the opportunity for an informal chat. So much for not wanting to cramp Jimmy’s style.
Outside, the chill took her breath away, and she had to clear the ice from the windscreen of her car, which was parked in the shadow of the house.
In the market square outside St Magnus, a crowd had gathered. Old friends stood chatting before going into the magnificent cathedral. The sun was already low and the lights on the tree shone in the early dusk. The sandstone of the building glowed red. Shoppers wandered down the street. The people at the front of the queue were already making their way into the building. Willow hadn’t seen any of the Westray visitors, but they could already be inside.
She’d never been religious. Her father had been a scientist before he dropped out to set up the commune in the Western Isles, and if her mother had believed in anything, it was a vaguely pagan celebration of the living world. At first, she was scanning the crowd, looking for people she recognized, the Westray visitors and any of the island residents. It had occurred to her that Vaila might have brought the boys, that being together in this space might have provided some comfort for them. But Vaila had come to Kirkwall wanting anonymity and she wouldn’t have found that here.
Just before entering the cathedral, Willow looked out again at the busy street. A woman in a coat made of brightly coloured patchwork drifted past, carried it seemed by the tide of people. It was the coat that had caught Willow’s attention – she would have worn it herself – but then she realized she knew the woman. It was Rosalie Greeman with her pale face and her dark eyes. She too, it seemed, had taken advantage of the convenient ferries to come to Kirkwall. Willow would have liked to speak to her here, away from her home territory, but by now, she and James were at the head of the queue, and they were swept inside.
Inside the cathedral, Willow caught a glimpse of Godfrey Lansdown sitting near the front of the nave, smart and serious, focused on his carol sheet, remembering, she thought, his beloved wife. She couldn’t imagine this quiet, dignified man as a killer. But as the service progressed, the investigation became less important, and she found herself moved by the music and the readings. The story of the virgin birth. This building. The child beside her and the child in her belly.
When her thoughts did return to the investigation, it was to ponder the old communities that seemed to have infiltrated the case. The Neolithic Orcadians and the Vikings who came later. They’d all needed faith that the seasons would shift, and the light would return. Like Olaf, they’d needed their tales of horror and of wonder.
James was getting bored. He started kicking the chair in front of him, and annoying an elderly woman who turned and frowned. Willow put his favourite video – about a dog with magical powers – on silent on her phone and handed it to him. He was soon quiet and engrossed. That, she told herself, was just a story told in another form. Nothing to beat herself up about. She wasn’t a terrible mother, whatever the woman in the chair in front might think.
When the service was over and they went outside, it was already dark, and the people in the street were finishing their shopping and making for the bars. She thought she saw Bill MacBride, already a little unsteady on his feet, heading away from her.
‘Inspector!’
She turned and saw Tony and Barbara Johnson, arm in arm, part of the crowd behind her.
‘What a lovely service!’ Barbara said. ‘So moving and of course it’s a magnificent building.’
‘You were there? I didn’t see you.’ Willow couldn’t work out why she disliked the couple so much, why she was so eager to distrust them.
‘Oh, we were there. Right at the back though. It’s really a celebration for the locals, isn’t it? We didn’t want to intrude.’ Barbara smiled. ‘We’re just going to sample one of the local whiskies before we get the ferry back to the island.’
They wandered away.
Only then did Willow look at her phone and see that there were a number of missed calls from Perez. She thought that George Riley must have passed on a piece of very useful information. Perhaps this was what they needed to find out who had killed Archie Stout.
Chapter Sixteen
PEREZ HAD BEEN RESTLESS ALL MORNING, annoyed with himself for not insisting that George Riley should make himself immediately available. He should have stood up to the man. Why had he allowed himself to be intimidated by an Englishman with a loud voice and a sense of entitlement? He wondered if Willow would have been more assertive, then thought this wasn’t a competition.
He was tempted to head to Finstown to see if Riley was there, hiding away in his Gothic pile, but his first encounter with Miles had been less than productive, and after all, Perez had agreed to the meeting in Maeshowe.
He tried James Grieve again and this time the pathologist was free to speak to him.
‘There was an accidental death on North Ronaldsay.’ Perez had already tried to work out the time frame. ‘Midsummer twenty years ago. A fourteen-year-old lad witnessed his father drowning. I wondered if there’d been a post-mortem.’
‘That’s a long time ago, Jimmy.’
‘Aye, but you have a better memory than anyone else I know.’
There was a moment of silence. ‘Was the man’s name Wilkinson? Trevor Wilkinson?’
‘It was!’
‘If you’re thinking suspicious death, then I’d say that was highly unlikely. The man had so much alcohol in his blood that I was astonished he could stand. It was hardly surprising that he slipped on an uneven pier.’ There was a moment’s pause. ‘His son was with him. He jumped in and tried to save him, but he was a skinny little thing, and the father was heavy, clinically obese. He had no chance.’
‘Thanks.’ So it was a coincidence, Perez thought. Odd though that Nat had used almost the same words as those on the story stone, when he’d said he had no interest in the archaeology of the island. It must have been a coincidental turn of phrase.
Just before midday he had a Zoom call with the team in Glasgow. The chief inspector was working from home.
‘It’s a nightmare,’ the man said. ‘Nothing’s moving. I can’t even get into the city. Anyone not living within walking distance is working remotely. So you finally tracked down your teacher?’
‘Aye, he came in on the ferry yesterday evening. I’m just about to meet him.’ Perez passed on the latest information from Phil Bain about Riley’s car having been seen outside the Pierowall Hotel and the light having been on in the heritage centre.
‘And that’s the nearest you’ve got to a suspect? It seems a bit thin.’ The DCI was less than impressed.
‘I don’t see him as a suspect at this stage. He might have had access to the weapon, and he had the opportunity, but there’s no motive at all and no evidence to connect him to the scene.’
‘It seems that there’s no evidence of anyone at the scene.’
‘We’re a very small team here.’ Perez was losing patience. ‘We could have done with more officers. As I said, Riley managed to get back here . . .’
The implication was that the Glasgow officers could have taken the ferry too. But Glasgow seemed to see the islands, as the Romans saw northern Britain, as a wild and uncivilized place best avoided. That was why they’d appointed Willow to manage all the Scottish islands on their behalf.
‘Aye well, he was coming from Inverness. It’s a bit different down here.’ The man was defensive, but immediately became more placatory. ‘Orkney’s a small place, Jimmy, and you know it well. With your experience we thought you’d have it all wrapped up in a couple of days. No need to stretch the budget with overtime and travel at this time of the year. And as the weather’s turned out, it seems we made the right call.’
‘I see George Riley as an important witness rather than a suspect,’ Perez said. ‘I’ll get back to you when I’ve talked to him.’ As he spoke, he wondered if that was true. There was something odd about the teacher’s lack of communication, his insistence on meeting Perez at a tourist site instead of agreeing to come to the police station.
‘Sure, Jimmy. We’ll leave it in your capable hands.’
Behind the DCI, a woman appeared on the screen. She was carrying a mug of coffee and a slice of cake. Suddenly, the Zoom call ended. For the Glaswegian, it seemed, the holidays had already begun.
Riley had arranged to meet the inspector at two-forty-five in Maeshowe.
‘If it stays as clear as this, we might even see what our ancestors saw, the very reason for building the burial chamber in that position.’ The man had sounded as excited as one of his pupils. ‘I’ll be there before you, Inspector. I’ll be inside. Waiting for you and for the magic to happen.’
Perez parked outside the old mill, which had been turned into a visitor centre. There was nobody there now – it would open again in the summer. In the far corner there was an old Land Rover, and closer to the road there was another car, belonging, Perez supposed, to George Riley.
He crossed the main road, waiting for the bus to Kirkwall to pass, and made his way along the footpath towards the rounded mound of Maeshowe, stopping on the way to look out over the standing stones of Stenness, with the Ring of Brodgar in the distance. These were Orkney’s answer to Stonehenge, and the area was flooded with visitors in the summer, the car park full of tour coaches from the cruise ships. In the distance there were the twin hills on the island of Hoy. They seemed visible from every point on Orkney mainland. Now, everything was still and quiet, the flatland leading down to the loch still frosty, the water covered in ice.
At the entrance to the burial chamber, he waited for a moment. There was a metal cage on the wall next to the tunnel, which Perez thought had held the key to the entrance. The cage had needed to be unlocked too, and George Riley must have been given that key. He’d be inside as he’d promised. Perez paused for a moment and looked out once again to Hoy. The sun was lower, approaching the rim of the left-hand hill. Perez felt something of the teacher’s excitement. He knew people who’d visited Maeshowe many times in midwinter, only for clouds to appear at the last moment to cover the sun. Today the sky was still completely clear. He bent double and almost crawled through the low entrance into the chamber itself, determined not to miss the spectacle that was only apparent at the time of the solstice.
Inside, it was dark. Electricity had been connected to the monument, but with his sense of the theatrical, George must have switched off the lights. Perez saw that he was just in time to see the magic of the solstice, but at the same time felt a frisson of danger. The teacher was a murder suspect, and Perez could be walking into a trap. Then he remembered the man that he knew and thought he was being ridiculous.
A thin light ran along the floor of the chamber. Not silver, but gold. A very rich gold. Perez called out to the teacher.
‘George, where are you?’
The chamber was small – it would hold only a dozen people in comfort – and there was no sign of the man. Perez was torn between a desire to see the full impact of the rays of the sun filling the place with its light, and a sense that he should go back outside to look for the teacher, his star witness, his possible suspect.
The earlier anxiety returned, with the idea that this could be a trap. But the light was increasing and Perez stood mesmerized, astounded at the knowledge of the ancient builders who had built this place in exactly the right place for the sun to come through this narrow entrance and fill it with light in midwinter. George must be playing silly buggers. Or perhaps, with a teacher’s desire to thrill his students, he wanted Perez to have this almost mystical experience alone. In any event, Perez waited, sharing some of the wonder and awe felt by the early builders. He had never felt so close to the ancient world.
The gold path was widening. Perez started to make out the scratched runes on the walls. There had been Viking graffiti artists here too, it seemed. The light appeared liquid now, more like a stream than a path. Perez saw the shadowy circles in the curved wall on each side of him, mini-chambers for the dead. Then the golden stream seemed to defy nature and gravity and to flow up the wall ahead of it, lighting the whole building, pouring into the small cavity opposite the entrance, which had been in darkness until now.
George had been a big man, and it must have taken some force to squeeze him into that small circular chamber, carved into the wall. He was bent double and one of his legs hung out, limp, making him look like a giant puppet. His face was turned out towards Perez. His eyes were open, astonished. Lying on the floor at the foot of the chamber, behind a large rock, was a rectangular stone picked with spirals. Perez knew that on the other side there would be carved Viking runes. Translated, they would read: ‘I am Olaf, teller of tales.’ Even in this fading light, Perez could see that it was covered in blood and shards of bone.
The flood of light was withdrawing, like an ebbing tide. The sun would be sinking behind the hills of Hoy. Perez pulled on gloves and felt for a switch to turn on the electricity. Suddenly everything was normal, prosaic. With the discovery of George Riley, the magic had disappeared. Perez went outside to check that he had phone signal. His first call was to Willow, but there was no answer. Then he rang the police station to set the new murder investigation in motion.
Standing, freezing, waiting for his uniformed colleagues as the colour drained from the surrounding landscape, Perez tried to work out what Archie Stout and George Riley might have in common. They were both big personalities, well known by their communities. George had been on the northern isle on the night that Archie had been killed. They’d known each other, but there was no indication that they’d been close friends. And they’d both been killed by an ancient stone from the island of Westray.
