‘I’ll try to find out where he stayed.’ Willow paused for a moment. ‘He’s not a man who you’d miss. Someone will know.’

  ‘I’d be interested to know what brought him to Westray. Miles said it was work, but term ended nearly a week ago.’

  ‘You know George. He has fingers in lots of local history and community arts pies.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘That’s what Barbara Johnson does for work now – she runs a community arts centre.’ A pause. ‘Another coincidence?’

  ‘Maybe. But Miles wasn’t very helpful. I’m not sure if he was being deliberately difficult or if he really didn’t have anything to tell me. He could be one of those people who is kind of awkward and shy. Miles told me that as soon as Riley got back from Westray, he went into school to catch up on some work, later there was a panto rehearsal, and he got the early flight south this morning. George isn’t answering his phone either. He’s not due back until tomorrow. I’ll talk to him as soon as he’s home.’

  ‘That is interesting. You think it’ll wait until then? We could get one of the Inverness guys to track him down and do a quick interview.’

  ‘Nah, this is George! George Riley, with his passion for all things Orkney. Famous for his panto appearances and for writing the definitive history of the Ba’. What reason could he have to kill Archie Stout?’

  Willow was thinking about a logical answer to that, when Perez continued talking: ‘Can you check out a guy called Nat Wilkinson? He was a foot passenger on the ferry early that morning. He has an address in Westray, so he was probably just coming home after a trip into town, but he’s worth talking to. He’s the only one on the boat who has any kind of criminal record. It’s a long shot. He was done for possession ten years ago.’ Perez read out the address and she noted it down, recognized it.

  ‘Isn’t that the cottage on Nistaben land?’

  ‘Of course it is! So he’d have been close to Archie, geographically at least.’ There was a moment of silence before Perez continued: ‘Wilkinson was also questioned as a witness to an accidental death when he was a juvenile. Before our time in Orkney. His father drowned. They were living on North Ronaldsay.’

  ‘You think that might be significant?’

  ‘I can’t see how. Not after all this time.’

  ‘Interesting though.’ At this stage in an investigation, Willow thought, everything was interesting. ‘We’ll do a visit this evening.’

  ‘You’ll not be back tonight then?’ Perez sounded wistful and she couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘No. But we should have the initial interviews done by tomorrow evening. I’ll book onto the last ferry back to Kirkwall.’

  ‘James will be very pleased to see you.’ A pause. ‘And so will I.’

  Willow waited in the bar for Ellie to return. It was quiet this early. Annie was preparing the dining room for a couple of parties, people who’d be coming along for their works’ Christmas dinners, but Bill was there, polishing glasses, trying not to ask questions about the investigation. Willow had questions of her own to ask and didn’t mind chatting.

  ‘I understand that Archie owned a share of this place.’

  Bill looked up warily. ‘Aye. Well, his father bailed us out when we were going through a sticky time. We were grateful. It was a kind of loan and Magnus said we could pay him back whenever we liked.’

  ‘But Archie didn’t see it like that?’

  ‘No. We’ve been paying him a percentage of the profits since the old man died, and we’d rather be in sole charge of the place. With Archie, you could never tell what he’d come up with next. We found it kind of unsettling.’

  Willow thought about that. ‘Will Archie’s share pass on to Vaila now?’

  Bill shrugged, an attempt to make the matter seem unimportant. ‘I suppose that it will.’

  ‘She’ll be a lot easier to deal with than Archie,’ Willow said. ‘She’ll have so much to cope with now, she might be glad to sell.’

  ‘We won’t be pushing the matter.’ Bill’s voice was harder. ‘Not with a woman who’s just lost her man.’

  ‘Of course.’ Willow held up her hands, a gesture that she meant nothing by the questions. ‘Perhaps you could help me with something else.’

  ‘Aye?’ The landlord was still suspicious.

  ‘George Riley, the teacher at the grammar school, came into Westray the morning of the day that Archie went missing. Any idea what he was doing here?’

  ‘No! I didn’t even know he was on the island.’ Bill sounded affronted. He should have known.

  ‘Do you know where he might have stayed? Anyone else doing B&B?’

  The landlord shook his head. ‘Not at this time of year. Everyone knows George though. He taught most of the young folk on the island. And he’s a kind of showman. Always performing. But he’s a good teacher. At least he likes kids. Our two got on great with him.’

  ‘He teaches history, doesn’t he? Did he have anything to do with the archaeology here?’

  ‘Aye, he comes in occasionally to give a lecture in the heritage centre. He’s always a draw because he’s so entertaining.’ A pause. ‘I think he was planning a book for bairns on all the Neolithic history here. Something all the primary and junior highs in Orkney could use. Perhaps that’s why he was coming to Westray, to do some research.’

  Willow thought that was possible, but Ellie had talked to the volunteers at the centre asking about access and keys and none of them had mentioned meeting Riley.

  It occurred to her that the children’s book might provide Riley with a tentative link to all the outsiders staying in the hotel – Godfrey Lansdown was writing something too, there was the historical connection with Tony Johnson, and the teacher was involved with community arts like Barbara. It was all very weak though, forced. If she tried hard enough, Willow was sure she could find connections with other residents too. They needed something stronger.

  Ellie came in through the main door of the hotel then. Willow waved across at her. Ellie waved back and pointed to show she needed to go up to her room before they caught up.

  Willow nodded and turned back to Bill. ‘I want to chat to Nat Wilkinson. Just because he came in on the ferry too that day.’ She wanted to make it clear that the man wasn’t any sort of suspect. The last thing she needed was other islanders accusing him of murder and maybe taking things into their own hands after too many drinks in the Pierowall Hotel. ‘He lives down by the beach at Nistaben. You know him?’

  ‘Of course. He’s in the cottage that used to be the Stouts’ holiday let. It was where the archaeology students stayed all that time ago. When Magnus and May got too old to manage the weekly turnarounds, they let him have it as a long-stay rental. He used to help them out on the farm before Archie took the place over. He still does a bit of casual labouring around the place.’

  ‘That was the cottage where the Johnsons stayed during the first dig when they were undergraduates?’

  ‘Aye.’ He smiled. ‘If the walls could talk, eh? The parties they had in that wee house.’

  Ellie appeared at the door of the bar. She’d changed into her indoor clothes. Willow grinned at her. ‘Sorry, we’re off out again. Can you save us a table for dinner, Bill? Even if it’s just here in the bar.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Sure.’

  The house was small and low, so close to the shore that the sound of the sea seemed to surround them when they got out of the car. It sucked on the shingle bank, rattling the smoothed pebbles as it drew back with every wave. The air was icy and took away their breath. All the curtains were drawn, but someone was home. There was a chink of light showing where they weren’t quite closed, and when they approached, they could hear music, something classical and restful. Willow knocked at the door. It was opened by a very tall man. The light in the house wasn’t very bright and that was all they could make out at first.

  ‘Yes?’ He sounded anxious, his voice almost trembling, as if the knock had woken him from a deep sleep.

  Willow introduced herself and Ellie. ‘We just want a chat. It’s nothing scary.’ She felt the need to reassure him, as if he were a small child.

  ‘Ah, come in.’

  The place couldn’t have changed much since the Johnsons had stayed here as students, though Willow suspected it was very much tidier now. The students she knew would be more messy. There was a small range stove and beside it a frayed wicker basket of chopped wood, which might once have been fence posts. A table covered by oilcloth. A couple of easy chairs and a small sofa with a plaid throw. In the eighties, Willow thought, there might not have been mains electricity, and the students would have the rumble of a generator in the background, but even today the lamp on the table threw out very little light. No television, but a laptop playing the music, which Willow decided was Radio 3. So Nat Wilkinson must have an Internet connection of some kind.

  Now they were inside, she could see him properly. He was so thin that she wondered if he was suffering some kind of disease, if a cancer was eating away at his body. His clothes – jeans and a jersey – seemed too big for him.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have very many visitors. Should I make you some tea?’ The thought seemed to make him anxious again.

  ‘No, but thank you.’ Willow sat in one of the chairs. ‘We won’t be long.’ Then, when he didn’t respond, she repeated: ‘It’s just a chat.’

  He folded himself onto one of the hard chairs by the table. ‘It’ll be about Archie Stout, of course.’

  She nodded. ‘We’re talking to everyone on the island. You do understand?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You came in on the ferry from Kirkwall the day that he disappeared.’

  He nodded.

  ‘What were you doing in Kirkwall?’

  There was a pause. ‘I’m not very well. I was in to meet the team who look after me.’

  So I was right. ‘I hope it’s not too serious.’ Because what else could she say?

  He shook his head. ‘I have underlying mental health issues. Depression. Anxiety.’ A pause. ‘Addiction in the past though that’s not so much of a problem these days. There’s a community nurse who keeps an eye on me. The appointment was the day before and I stopped the night with a recovery pal in Kirkwall, then got the early ferry back.’

  ‘Did you see Archie that day? He must be your nearest neighbour.’

  ‘Aye, he dropped in some wood for me soon after the ferry got in. He was waiting at the pier for a delivery, saw that I was home, and came along not long after.’

  ‘You were friends?’

  Nat had to think about that. ‘Kind of. I’d like to think so. My parents were English, but they moved to Orkney before I was born. They ran the shop in North Ronaldsay before my mother retired and moved south again. I never fitted in. When I was eleven, I had to move into the hostel in Kirkwall for school. It was terrifying. There was a lot of bullying. Archie was there too, but he was older than me, in his final year. He saw I was struggling and became a kind of protector. He was popular, you know, confident. It made a difference to have him on my side.’

  Willow was working out how to bring up the drowning on North Ronaldsay. The man seemed so emotionally frail that she wanted to be tactful. In the end though, he mentioned it himself. ‘I saw my father die. We were fishing together, and he slipped on the pier. I was only a lad, too young to know death. It took me a long time to get over it.’

  The words shocked her. To know death seemed a strange way of describing his reaction to what had happened. And mimicked almost exactly the words on the stone that had killed Archie. She didn’t follow it up though. Now wasn’t the time. If he’d been involved in the murder, she didn’t want to spook him.

  ‘How did you come to be living here in Westray?’

  ‘When I left school, I got a bit lost. Drink. Drugs. I was in a real mess. Archie saw me in a bar in Kirkwall, when I was so blootered I could hardly stand. I guess that he kind of rescued me again. He said I could work for him. It was winter and there were no holidaymakers to stay in the cottage, so I got a place to live too. His parents were getting older and not wanting the hassle of new people coming in every week, and they were happy enough with a little bit of rent. Then Archie took over the farm from them. That was more than six years ago and I’m still here. I do some casual work on the farm, help out where I can.’ A pause. ‘I’ve taken up painting and turn some of my work into greetings cards and postcards. They sell in the shops in the village. I make enough to live. I don’t need much.’ He stopped for a moment, then looked across at his visitors. Suddenly there was pride in his voice. ‘Archie showed them to Rosalie at Quoybrae. She’s a real artist and she rated them.’

  ‘How did Archie seem when he called in to drop off the wood?’

  Wilkinson shrugged. ‘He was busy. It’s that time of year, isn’t it, if you have a family? We didn’t really have a chance to chat. He dropped off a bit of wood and drove north.’

  The man had turned down the sound on the computer when they came in, but the music was still there, very faint in the background. A piano piece that Willow didn’t recognize.

  ‘You came to Westray on the ferry with George Riley, the teacher. Did you speak at all?’

  ‘We did! He taught me in the grammar school, and I always got on fine with him. I think he liked the strange and troubled kids better than the swots. He thought we were more interesting.’

  ‘Did he tell you why he was coming into the island?’

  ‘He was a bit vague. I know he was planning a kids’ book about Orkney’s Neolithic archaeology. He was going to do something on Maeshowe and the stones of Stenness, and he wanted to include the Westray digs too, so I assumed he was here to do a bit more research on that.’

  ‘Are you interested in the island’s archaeology?’ Willow looked across at him, hoping for some reaction, but he only shrugged.

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Do you know where George planned to stay that night?’

  ‘He hadn’t planned to stay over at all. It was going to be a day trip. Then, when we were halfway across, the captain announced that it would be the last boat of the day. They do that sometimes. Cancel the boats without warning. The wind was already getting up and you could see the clouds building from the west, and they said the more recent forecast was for storm force winds.’

  ‘So where did he stay in the end?’

  ‘He stayed here.’ The pride was back in his voice. ‘I have a spare room, and it’s so close to the pier that he knew he wouldn’t have to get up too early in the morning.’

  ‘Was he with you that evening?’

  ‘Aye. He turned up here late afternoon. I don’t know exactly what time it was, but just as it was getting dark. We ate a meal together. I cooked for us. I had some monk in the freezer, and I’d got that out when I came in from the ferry.’ A pause. ‘He did go out for about an hour after we’d eaten. He said he had someone he needed to speak to, but he wasn’t late back here. He was probably back in the house by eight-thirty.’

  ‘Did he say where he’d been?’

  ‘No, and I didn’t ask.’ Another pause. ‘He’d been my teacher. You don’t pry into a teacher’s doings. I thought maybe he’d fancied a drink and he’d know I don’t keep alcohol in the house.’

  ‘Had you been told that Archie was missing before he came in?’

  Nat shook his head. ‘Vaila phoned just after nine to ask if I’d seen him, but Mr Riley was already in his room by then. He said he had work to catch up with and he’d have to be up sharpish to get the first boat out the next day. By the time I knew Archie was dead, George had already left on the ferry.’

  ‘How did George seem when he got back here from the island?’

  Nat shrugged. ‘A bit quiet maybe. I thought he might stay up with me for a while. I had a few bits in for Christmas. Good cheese, fatty-cutties, mince pies. I was going to make some coffee and bring those out. Have a bit of a celebration, you know. I spend a lot of time on my own and I’d have enjoyed the company. But I could tell as soon as George walked through the door that his heart wouldn’t be in it. He seemed low when he got in, quiet, and he wasn’t usually that sort of man.’

  Willow thought that anyone would be a little low if they’d just battered the head of a former pupil with a large piece of Caithness flagstone. She thanked Nat for his help, and she and Ellie walked out into the still, frosty night.

  Chapter Twelve

  WHEN THE POLICE OFFICERS RETURNED TO the hotel, a table had been laid for them in the residents’ lounge again and the fire had been lit. Willow looked through to the bar where Godfrey, the elderly birder, was sitting at a table writing in his notebook. There was no sign of the Johnsons but there was laughter coming from the dining room, and they could be there.

  She made her way into the bar, and again Godfrey stood up when he saw her approaching.

  ‘Just a quick question,’ she said. ‘Do you know a teacher called George Riley?’

  The older man was still standing. He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone by that name.’

  ‘Ah well, thanks anyway. I’ll let you get back to your book.’

  He seemed almost disappointed when she returned to Ellie. Perhaps he was just choosy about his companions.

  Annie took their order almost immediately and left them to talk. Willow wondered if Bill had told her of their previous discussion about the ownership of the hotel.

  ‘Do you really think George Riley could be a killer?’ Ellie sounded sceptical, and Willow thought it was hard to believe that the man who every year performed with the Kirkwall Players as a perfect pantomime dame dressed in an outlandish wig and corsets was the sort to hit a Westray farmer so hard that his skull was smashed into thin fragments of bone.

  ‘I’d like to know what he was doing here and who he met. None of the people we’ve spoken to has mentioned him. And then to disappear off in a plane to Inverness, without giving any real reason, is a bit odd.’ A pause. ‘Jimmy has tried to speak to him, but he’s not answering his phone.’