Shetland 05: Dead Water Read Free

thought very little of him and wasn’t surprised. He thought very little of himself. His boss, Jimmy Perez, was still on sick leave, inching his way back into work a couple of days a week, and it gave Sandy nightmares to think that in reality there were times when he was in charge.
    ‘Sergeant Wilson.’ Everyone in Shetland was on first-name terms. Except the Fiscal. Sandy knew he should listen carefully to what she was saying, but found his attention wandering. This was a nervous reaction to stress, which had got him into trouble since he was a peerie boy in the school in Whalsay. From his office window he looked down towards the harbour. The Bressay ferry had just left for the island across the Sound. The gulls were fighting over a scrap of rubbish on the pier.
    ‘So I need you here. Immediately. You do understand?’ Rhona Laing’s voice was sharp. Obviously she had expected a swifter response from the detective. Rhona had never thought very much of Sandy, as a man or as a police officer.
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘But before you leave you must tell Inverness. They’ll need to send a team. The Serious Crime Squad and the CSIs.’
    ‘They won’t get here until the morning now,’ Sandy said. He was on firmer ground here and could understand the practicalities. ‘The last plane from Inverness will already have left.’
    ‘But we need their advice, Sergeant. I’ve tied the yoal to my mooring in Aith. I assume I leave the body where it is. The forecast is good tomorrow, so it should be safe enough there, if it’s properly covered. We should mark off the marina as a crime scene and keep people out. But we’ll need screens too. You know how people gawk. And tomorrow’s Saturday, so there’ll be a lot of people about.’
    ‘You’ll not be popular keeping folk away from their boats on a weekend.’ Sandy scratched his arm and thought there was nothing better than a bit of fishing at this time of the year. At last you could feel that the long, dark winter days were over.
    ‘I don’t aim to be popular!’ the retort came, sharp as gunfire.
    ‘Did you recognize him?’ Sandy asked. ‘The dead man, I mean.’
    There was a pause at the other end of the line and he understood that she was considering the matter. He thought people always looked different when they were dead, and if you didn’t know them well, it wasn’t always easy to identify a body. But when the answer came it was unequivocal. ‘I didn’t, Sergeant. And that’s another reason why I need you here. If he’s a Shetlander, I assume you’ll be able to tell us who he is.’
    There was a pause. Sandy could hear the sound of water in the background. The Fiscal must still be at the marina, using her mobile. She was lucky to get any reception. That part of the island was a black hole when it came to phones. ‘I’ll send some people over to secure the site,’ he said, ‘and contact Inverness. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
    ‘Good.’
    He knew she was about to end the conversation and almost shouted, to hold her attention: ‘Miss Laing!’
    ‘Yes, Sergeant.’
    ‘Should I tell Jimmy? Inspector Perez?’ This had been troubling him since he first realized the implication of her call. Jimmy Perez wasn’t himself, hadn’t been since the death of his fiancée. He was given to black moods and bouts of rage that came from nowhere. His colleagues were sympathetic and had given him time. He’d come back to work too early, they said. He was depressed. But after six months their patience was wearing thin. Sandy had picked up mutterings in the canteen: maybe Perez should resign and devote himself to looking after Duncan Hunter’s child. Promotion in the Shetland police service was about filling dead men’s shoes. Perhaps Perez should do the decent thing: move on and give somebody else a chance to do the job properly.
    At first there was no answer from Rhona Laing. Sandy wondered if her phone had cut out. Then she spoke. ‘I don’t know, Sandy.