Annie appeared to say that their food wouldn’t be long, apologizing because the kitchen was busy.

  ‘Did you know that George Riley was in Westray the day that Archie went missing?’ Willow asked.

  ‘I’d heard that he was here.’ Annie smiled. ‘What a lovely man he is! I was expecting him to call in, asking for a room when the boats were cancelled, but I didn’t see him that evening at all.’

  ‘Not even for a drink in the bar?’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t see him at all that day.’

  ‘Had he asked anyone for a key to the heritage centre? He might have wanted to be in there to do his research.’

  ‘He didn’t contact me, but I can ring round the committee and find out for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The woman left.

  ‘So,’ Ellie said, ‘what was the man doing all day?’

  Annie came back in with more information. ‘George Riley got the heritage centre key from Vaila, but she didn’t see him. She gave it to Archie to pass on at the pier when the ferry got in. Archie had to be there anyway, waiting for some delivery. Then George dropped it back at Nistaben later in the afternoon, while she was still at the old folks’ lunch here. It was waiting for her in the porch when she got home.’

  ‘The boys didn’t see him when he dropped it in?’

  ‘Apparently not. She says George didn’t even knock. He left the key in the porch without speaking to them.’

  Willow nodded. She supposed that explained Riley’s presence in Westray. The story seemed to be hanging together, but something about it struck her as unusual. He was a sociable man. He’d surely have enjoyed an evening in the hotel, catching up with former students, playing the entertainer, more than an alcohol-free, solitary night in Nat Wilkinson’s place. She hoped that Perez would be in touch with the teacher soon.

  Annie returned with their food and more apologies for the delay. In the restaurant, the diners were becoming even more rowdy, and she left the women to talk.

  ‘How did you get on chatting to the islanders who’d been visited by Archie the afternoon he went missing?’ Willow had finished eating. She was tired now and wanted her bed and her last chat with Jimmy, but she hadn’t had a chance to catch up with Ellie before they’d headed out to talk to Nat.

  ‘It was all just as we thought. Archie turned up with his bagged wood. He refused to take any money for it, so in most places, he got invited in for tea or a dram instead. A lot of the folk he called on were elderly and maybe a bit lonely. I’ve drunk more tea this afternoon than I have in years. Archie didn’t stay long in one place, and really, I don’t think he’d had so much to drink that he wouldn’t notice if someone came up to him and hit him over the head with an ancient rock.’

  ‘There’s not much more we can do here at the moment.’ Willow was turning over the logistics in her head. Suddenly, she felt a longing for home. ‘Let’s book ourselves out on the ferry to Kirkwall tomorrow. We can bring Phil in to be a presence on the island, because folk here will still be anxious.’ She looked up at Ellie. ‘It’s Christmas in a few days, but he doesn’t have kids and he’ll be glad of the overtime. We can always come back if anything crops up.’ A pause. ‘I’d like to talk to Vaila again before we go, but we can do that on our way to the ferry. And I still haven’t quite got a handle on Rosalie Greeman. It might be flimsy, but her entanglement with Archie does give her a motive of a kind, and she certainly had means and opportunity. Let’s visit her in the morning. We might catch her just as she’s doing her swim, if you fancy joining her for a dip.’

  Ellie pulled a face and nodded towards the bar. ‘I’m having one last drink before bed. Shall I go and disturb Godfrey Lansdown again? Just for a chat?’

  ‘Sure. Have a drink for me!’

  Willow thought she should find the Johnsons to ask if they’d had any dealings with Riley, but the noise from the restaurant was even louder, and she thought it would wait for another day. She couldn’t face the educated English tonight.

  In her room, Willow opened her curtains wide so she could see the stars. Perez answered the phone as soon as it started ringing.

  ‘How are you?’ His voice was concerned without being patronizing.

  ‘I’m fine. Both of us are fine.’ Meaning her and the baby. ‘I’m planning to head back tomorrow on the afternoon ferry. Ellie will come too. I want to talk to Rosalie and Vaila before we leave. We need a presence here though, so let’s bring Phil back in. He’s a local – Orcadian at least – and if anyone has any concerns, they’ll feel they can talk to him. He’s bright enough to know that he has to pass on everything he hears, even if it doesn’t seem to be immediately important.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘I think we’ve found out what George Riley was doing here, and we know where he stayed last night.’ Willow explained about the children’s book on the Neolithic history of the islands.

  ‘So he had a key to the heritage centre?’

  ‘He did, and as far as I’ve been able to tell, nobody was in there after him, so he could have taken the story stones. And Wilkinson told me he seemed quiet and preoccupied when he got back that evening. We still don’t know where George went after he’d eaten there. According to Bill, he wasn’t in the bar. He’d dropped the heritage centre key back to Vaila in Nistaben, so he couldn’t have been in there still working on his book.’

  ‘Isn’t the old guy, Godfrey Lansdown, writing a book too? There must be more written about Westray than anywhere else in the UK.’

  Willow laughed. ‘That’s more of a pamphlet, I think, and he claims never to have met Riley.’

  ‘What did you make of Nat Wilkinson?’

  Willow could imagine Perez in the living room of the old manse, a notebook on his knee, a pen in his hand, waiting for her answer. She was tempted to tell him how much she was missing him, that she wanted to be there too, but instead, she played the professional and answered his question.

  ‘Honestly, he seems like a reformed character. Sober and clean. And I know that addicts make the best liars, but I believed him when he said he was no longer using. He brought up the fact that he’d witnessed his father’s drowning and said that it had screwed him up.’

  ‘I suppose it would.’

  ‘Yeah, but the words he used resonated a bit. He said he was just a lad. Too young to know death. That last phrase made me think of the inscription on the story stone.’

  ‘Another coincidence?’

  Willow had been thinking about that herself. ‘Maybe. Worth checking out though. It might be useful to speak to the cop who went in to look at the accidental death. And I wonder if Doc Grieve did a post-mortem.’

  ‘I’ll ask him.’

  There was a moment’s silence then. Willow imagined that she could hear slightly damp wood spitting in the fire in their living room. She wished that she was there already. But when she spoke, she was calm.

  ‘Nat’s still living in the cottage on the Nistaben farm, earning a living with his art – he makes cards and gifts for the tourists – and helping out as a casual labourer there. I’ll ask Vaila about him tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to phone George all day,’ Perez said. ‘He’s still not answering. I’ll be at the airport to meet the Inverness plane in the morning if the flight goes ahead. The weather’s still not looking good on the mainland though. It’s beautifully clear here, but there’s still a blanket of freezing fog grounding the planes across the central belt and into the highlands.’

  Willow thought at least that meant they were keeping Glasgow off their backs. She couldn’t imagine that they’d want to make the trek on the boat. Not until after Christmas. She hoped she and Perez and the team would have things tied up by then. If only for Vaila and the boys.

  ‘Maybe you should get in touch with the head teacher of the grammar school,’ she said. ‘Lucy Martindale. If Riley is away with work, she’ll know what he’s doing.’

  ‘I’ve set up an appointment with her. I’m going to see her first thing in the morning.’

  Willow stopped talking about work then, and asked about James, and nursery festivities and all the Harray gossip. That was what kept her grounded. Kept her sane.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THEY ARRIVED AT QUOYBRAE WHILE ROSALIE was still in the water. They saw her swimming in the small bay below her house, her hair black and sleek so she looked like an otter or a seal.

  ‘Is it safe?’ Ellie sounded concerned. ‘Surely she shouldn’t be out there alone. There’s still frost on the ground and ice on the shore. Aren’t there rules about it?’

  Willow shrugged. She knew what it was to take risks and she’d been brought up by hippy parents to have a disregard for rules, even the sensible ones. ‘She looks as if she knows what she’s doing.’

  It seemed the woman had had enough, because she turned towards the shore, and walked out of the water, shaking her head like an animal. Willow saw she wasn’t even wearing a wetsuit. The skin of her arms and legs was glowing red, contrasting with the white face and black hair. She wrapped herself in her dry robe and headed for the house, grinning. It seemed to Willow that she was high or light-headed with the cold and the freedom. Again, there was no sign of grief at the death of her friend. She caught sight of them and waved.

  ‘Inspector,’ she called. ‘You should have come a bit sooner, then you could have joined me.’

  ‘Not for me! Though, if I weren’t pregnant . . .’

  ‘Ah, excuses. Come on into the house. I’ll just change and then I’ll join you, make us all some coffee.’

  They sat in the kitchen where Willow had been with Perez. She looked at the paintings on the walls. A recent addition was a piece of driftwood, which had once been part of a tree. Now it was white as bone, and Rosalie had planted it in a green ceramic pot and tied red glass balls to the upper limb. Rosalie came into the room. ‘My own concession to Christmas,’ she said. ‘White, green and red, the colours of the season.’ She switched on the kettle. ‘I suppose you have more questions.’

  She’d changed into jeans and a big Norwegian sweater.

  ‘A few. This is Ellie, a sergeant from Kirkwall.’

  ‘Hi, Ellie!’

  ‘We’re heading back to Orkney mainland later today, so I thought I’d bring you up to date.’

  ‘That’s kind.’

  Rosalie scooped coffee into a jug and poured over the water. She waited before pushing the plunger.

  ‘Do you know a man called George Riley?’

  ‘He’s a teacher at the grammar school. He’s writing a children’s book about the islands’ history.’ She looked up from the coffee. ‘Vaila told me about it before the rumours about Archie and me began and she stopped visiting. She encouraged me to talk to George about doing the illustrations.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yeah, I phoned him. He said he hadn’t reached that stage, but he’d keep me in mind.’

  ‘He came into Westray on the morning Archie disappeared. Apparently, Archie gave him Vaila’s key to the heritage centre. Did you meet George to discuss his book when he was here?’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t even know he’d come into the island.’

  She poured the coffee. Willow was about to refuse a mug, but the smell was so tempting that she took it.

  ‘Have you had any more thoughts about what might have disturbed Archie that afternoon? A number of people say that he was quiet and preoccupied, but so far, we have no explanation for his change in mood.’

  ‘No, but perhaps there is no explanation. His mood could change like the Orkney weather, triggered by some comment or slight. He came across as thick-skinned and jovial, but in reality, he was remarkably sensitive. He needed everyone to love him.’ For the first time since their arrival, Rosalie seemed sad. She stared out at the water. ‘He was a very complicated man.’

  Willow remembered that, according to Perez, Evelyn Angel had said the same thing.

  ‘You didn’t say anything that might have troubled him while he was here?’

  Rosalie frowned. ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘You might have broken off the friendship that was developing between you.’

  ‘I’ve already explained, Inspector, there wasn’t that sort of friendship to break. We might have ended up having a fling – he had a kind of teenage crush, and I was flattered – but I knew he would never leave his family. They’d always be the most important part of his life.’ She looked up at Willow. ‘You asked when you were last here why I seemed not to be grieving his loss. I’ll miss him, of course I will. I’ll miss his fun and the laughter and feeling attractive again. But in a lot of ways, my life here will be easier, less complicated without him. I’m not a sentimental woman. Now I’ll be accepted by the island again. I can be my own person and grieve for the real love of my life in my own time.’

  ‘Did you say any of that when you last saw him?’

  Rosalie shook her head again. ‘I had a vague plan that I would explain to him just how I felt, but he seemed so down that I ended up holding him, and reassuring him that all would be well, that he’d come through whatever was worrying him.’ She glanced up at them. ‘I’m not sure that I convinced him.’

  They left Rosalie and drove south down the island to Nistaben, where Vaila and the boys were living. To talk to another of Archie’s women. Ellie was driving and Willow looked out on hills flooded with light, stretches of water, and deserted buildings falling into ruin. This end of the island was almost empty. She asked Ellie about her conversation with Godfrey Lansdown in the hotel bar the night before.

  ‘Did he have anything useful to add?’

  ‘Nah, I asked if he’d seen George Riley on his wandering around the island, but he didn’t even know who the man was.’

  ‘He said the same to me.’

  Turning into the track to the farm, they almost bumped into a small tractor carefully driven by Lawrie. He’d be doing his best, Willow thought, to keep the farm running, to take his father’s place. He raised his hand in a kind of greeting – almost exactly mimicking the gesture Archie would have made – and pulled in to let them past. She hoped that Iain would be out too. She wanted to speak to Vaila alone.

  They walked past the barn where the cows were in for the winter, the rolls of silage, a smaller shed holding the chainsaw Archie had used to cut up wood for his neighbours, a sawhorse and a shiny new quad bike. They glimpsed Vaila through the living room window. She was sitting in the corner that she’d turned into an office, staring at a computer screen, apparently lost in thought. Her hands weren’t moving across the keyboard. Willow tapped on the window and the woman turned and waved for them to come in. By the time they were in the room, the screen was dark, and she was on her feet to greet them.

  ‘Willow, Ellie.’ This time there was no offer of tea. She still seemed preoccupied. ‘I was trying to keep things straight for the farm, but I just can’t focus.’

  ‘Of course not. It’s too soon.’

  She nodded for them to sit down. There were still ashes from the night before in the grate and the house felt a little cold.

  ‘How can I help you now?’ She was doing her best to be civil, but Willow could sense that she resented the interruption, the demands on her, the inevitable questions.

  ‘We’ve just come from Rosalie.’

  ‘Oh?’ Vaila pretended not to care, but Willow picked up a spark of interest.

  ‘She said that she and Archie weren’t in any sort of sexual relationship, that she was flattered by his attention, but there was nothing more to it than that. And honestly, I think I believe her.’

  There was a silence. They could hear the rumble of the tractor coming back into the yard.

  ‘This island,’ Vaila said at last. ‘It’s just full of stories. Stories of the past, of shipwrecks and heroes and lost children. And if that wasn’t enough, we make up more stories to explain the present.’ She looked straight at Willow. ‘Are you saying that’s all this was – a story?’

  ‘I think that Archie might have been attracted to Rosalie, but that nothing happened.’

  ‘And that story ripped a hole in our marriage. The last months were all bicker and mistrust. The last things Archie would have known of me was as a shrew of a wife.’ Now Vaila started to cry. She pulled a tissue from a pocket and scrubbed at her face with it.

  ‘Rosalie told me that the most important thing to Archie was his family.’

  Vaila didn’t answer. ‘I’m taking the boys into Kirkwall tomorrow morning. We need to escape. Our memories and all the talk here. It’s like a poison, seeping into your system. You find yourself not being sure of anything. My parents will look after the farm and this time of year, there’s not much to do. My dad will manage fine on his own, and Nat Wilkinson will always help if he’s needed.’

  ‘How do you get on with Nat?’

  ‘He’s a gentle soul. A perfect tenant, since he straightened himself out. He worshipped Archie and would do anything for us.’

  ‘Did you know George Riley was staying with him the night that Archie disappeared?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘But you knew that George came into the island that day?’

  ‘Yes, he wanted access to the heritage centre, so I sent Archie down to the ferry to pass on the key. George dropped it off later that afternoon. I wasn’t in, but it was in the porch when I got back from the old folks’ lunch.’

  ‘The boys would have seen him though?’

  ‘No, Iain was in Pierowall at a friend’s house. Lawrie was in, but he’d have been upstairs in his room.’ Her voice tailed away. ‘He’s a good lad, a great worker, but he still needs time for himself. He’ll take over the farm when he’s old enough. That was always the plan. If I can hold on to it long enough now.’

  ‘Of course.’ Willow tried to choose her words carefully. As Vaila had said, stories could be fabricated out of nothing here. ‘George was out that evening, and nobody seems to know exactly where he went. Would you have any idea?’