White Nights by Ann Cleeves Read Free Book Online

the media. Did you see that TV documentary about her and Roddy? I’ll never believe anything I see on the TV again. They came to film in Biddista, you know, followed me around one day and you’d think from the programme I was some great landowner, almost a laird.’ The kettle came to a boil. ‘Don’t be taken in by the stories, Jimmy. Bella Sinclair always thought she was better than us. Even when we were at school and she was living in a council house down at the shore. It was true that she could always draw, mind, even as a scrap of a girl. She seemed to see things differently from the rest of us.’
    ‘Do you know if she had any people staying at the Manse with her last night?’
    He shook his head. ‘I’ve told you, Jimmy, we don’t mix with Bella these days. We wouldn’t know. I don’t think she has such big parties staying in the house as she did before. The old days, the Manse wasalways full of strangers. Even then it was as if Biddista folk weren’t good enough for her. Maybe she’s finally growing up and she doesn’t need people telling her how wonderful she is all the time.’
    ‘Roddy was at the Herring House.’
    ‘Then he’ll be staying with her at the Manse. Slumming it until he gets a better offer.’
    ‘You don’t like the boy?’
    Kenny shrugged. ‘He’s been spoiled rotten. Not his fault.’
    ‘He was at the St Magnus Festival in Kirkwall and Bella persuaded him north to play for her.’
    ‘He’s a fine musician,’ Kenny said. ‘Just as she’s a fine artist. I’m not sure that excuses the way they treat folk, though. Roddy used to tag along after my children when he came to stay with Bella. He was younger than them but he still used to boss them about. And later he took my Ingirid out a few times. Thendumped her. She cried for a week. I told her she was well out of it.’
    ‘I just know what I read in the press.’
    ‘Well,’ Kenny said. ‘That’s only the half of it. Even when he was at school he was a wild one. Drinking. Drugs too, according to my kids.’
    Perez found himself eager to hear the stories about Roddy’s exploits. It probably had no relevance to the death of a strange Englishman, but everyone in Shetland was fascinated by Roddy Sinclair. He’d brought glamour to the islands.
    ‘I did see someone leave the party,’ Kenny said. ‘I was just on the hill there behind the house. Someone dressed in black. I wondered if it might be yon man in the hut.’
    ‘What time was it?’
    The pause again. The deliberation. ‘Nine-thirty? Maybe a little later.’
    Perez thought that would fit in with the disappearance of the Englishman.
    ‘Did he get into a car?’
    ‘No, he didn’t go towards the car park. He came this way, up towards the Manse. But he was a good way off. I couldn’t swear it was him. He was running. The man I saw. Running as if the devil was after him.’
    Not the devil, Perez thought. Me. I’d assumed he’d gone towards the big road south and if I’d spent more time looking I’d have found him. Why would he come this way? If he had run away from the beach towards the Manse and Skoles, how did he find his way back to the jetty with a noose round his neck? Then he thought how frightened the man had been about being left alone. Perhaps someone else was chasing him too.
    Perez could tell that Kenny wanted to be away outside, and besides, he could think of nothing else to ask. He knew that there would be other questions, later. He’d wake up to them in the middle of the night. He stood in the garden waiting while Kenny stooped to put on his boots.
    ‘Would Edith have seen the man?’ It had come to him suddenly that from the house she might have had a better view.
    Kenny squinted up from where he was crouching. ‘She didn’t see him at all. I asked her.’
    ‘Will you both be in this evening, if I need to speak to you again?’
    Kenny straightened. ‘We’ll be around here somewhere. But there’ll be nothing more to tell you.’
    As Perez