At first, she thought there would be a tactful, anodyne response, but here alone in her own home, Annie felt more able to speak freely.

  ‘He never let us forget that he was part owner. And he never paid for a single drink after Magnus died.’ A pause. ‘There was a kind of entitlement, you know, and it rankled. Bill could shrug it off, but I couldna. It felt disrespectful to Bill. Archie wouldn’t have tried it on if we’d both been born and raised here, but because Bill’s a new islander, somehow Archie felt he had the right. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d offered to help behind the bar when we were rushed off our feet, but he just sat there, playing the fool, entertaining his audience.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘And now I feel bad for speaking ill of the dead.’

  ‘Really . . .’ Willow sipped at the tea and took an oatcake. ‘I’m here about George Riley.’

  ‘Aye, I thought you might be.’ Annie shook her head. ‘He was a lovely man. He taught our three.’

  ‘He was writing a children’s book.’ Willow paused for a moment. ‘Apparently, it wasn’t just for kids.’

  ‘Ah, so you know about his great crusade to give old Magnus the credit he’s due.’

  ‘I’ve been told a little. It would be useful to hear what you know about all that.’

  ‘I had George in here about a month ago, sitting where you are, telling me about his plans.’

  ‘What did you think about them?’

  ‘I thought that Magnus wouldn’t have wanted all the fuss. He didn’t do that research for the glory, but because he loved it. It was an escape into a different world.’ She smiled. ‘Now, the island bairns escape into fantasy worlds on their computers, but then, in his head, Magnus was living with the Vikings, who came into Westray and discovered the Neolithic mounds, built all those centuries before. Those chambers must have seemed like magic to those people arriving in their longboats from the sea.’

  ‘But George did care that Magnus got the credit due to him.’

  ‘He did. I thought it was unhealthy, a bit of an obsession. It felt like revenge, though I’m not quite sure what Johnson might have done to harm him, why he had the urge to hit back. Or maybe it was jealousy, because here was Johnson, who only blew into the islands occasionally, acting as if he understood everything there was to know about the place. George always liked the starring role. It wasn’t as if he and Magnus were particularly good friends.’

  ‘Archie Stout found Magnus’s notebooks and thought George would be interested. That was what started the whole thing off.’

  Annie shot a glance across at Willow. ‘So that’s the way your mind is working, is it? That this research into ancient stones linked both the dead men.’

  ‘I can’t find much else.’

  There was a silence, then footsteps on the pavement outside the house. Drinkers perhaps calling it a night and making their way home.

  ‘This isn’t to be spread around the island, Annie. I know you understand. It’s speculation at this point.’

  The woman nodded. ‘I’ll not even chat to Bill about it. They say women gossip, but . . .’ She looked up, caught Willow’s eye, and they both grinned.

  ‘You do a great job of servicing the hotel rooms. Your lasses would notice anything unusual.’

  Annie nodded again. ‘Maybe, though they’d not pry. They don’t do a real clean until they’re preparing for a new set of guests.’

  ‘I’m wondering about bloodstained clothing. Nobody’s asked you to do laundry?’

  Annie shook her head. ‘We don’t offer a service wash, and the girls would have mentioned if they’d seen anything. Like I said, they’d not be prying into wardrobes or drawers.’

  ‘Of course.’ And any soiled clothes would be gone by now, put into a bag, weighed down with stones and thrown into the sea. Willow changed tack. ‘Did you see George that day? The day Archie disappeared. His friend, Miles, says he intended to bring the notebooks into the heritage centre for safekeeping. Or because that was the place they should be held, where the community could have access to them.’

  ‘Aye, I met him in the centre. It had all been arranged. He wanted a meeting, but I was too busy to spend long with him. We were hosting the old folks’ lunch in the hotel, and I wanted everything to be grand for them.’

  ‘You did meet George though?’

  Annie nodded. ‘He was there before me. He’d picked up a key from Vaila, or I think from Archie, when the ferry arrived at Rapness.’

  ‘He gave you Magnus Stout’s notebooks?’

  She nodded. ‘As if they were the Crown Jewels! He asked if we had a safe. I said they’d be fine in the room where we keep all the archive material, and that the building was kept locked. Who was going to steal a bunch of old notebooks?’

  ‘Were the story stones still there then?’

  Annie frowned. ‘Do you know, I’m not sure. I was all in a fluster, wanting to get shot of George, who was bursting to tell me a long story of his own. I told him the details would have to wait. He could tell me in the bar later that night. But he said he’d heard Johnson was staying, so he wasn’t going to set foot in the place.’ She looked up at Willow, who was helping herself to more tea. ‘I thought he was making mountains out of molehills.’ A little grin. ‘Bill always did call him the drama queen.’

  ‘You knew he was gay?’

  ‘Of course. And that’s no big deal these days, is it? Bill’s idea of a silly joke. No harm meant.’

  ‘You didn’t take the key from him?’

  ‘No, he said he’d hang on to it and drop it back to Nistaben when he was finished. He wanted to get some work done and the centre would be a quiet place to do it. I left the heating on for him.’

  ‘And that was the afternoon?’ Willow wasn’t sure that she could make the timings for this hang together. ‘Not later in the evening. His car was seen outside the hotel until gone eight o’clock, and apparently there was a light on in the heritage centre.’

  Annie shook her head. ‘I suppose he could have left the door unlocked and come back later to work on his project.’

  ‘I suppose he could.’

  Willow wondered about that. Perhaps George had been so obsessed with his ideas of providing justice for Magnus that he’d wanted to update his work immediately. Or perhaps he’d wanted to avoid small talk with Nat Wilkinson who might be kind, but not the most entertaining of hosts.

  ‘Did you put the books into the archive room,’ she asked, ‘or did he do it?’

  ‘He did! At least, I suppose he did. I just left him to get on with it and came back to the hotel.’ She set down her cup. ‘Should we go and see if they’re there?’

  Willow shook her head. ‘No need for that.’ She could tell that the last thing Annie wanted was to go out in the cold again. ‘If you can let me have your key though . . . I’ve arranged to see the Johnsons there in the morning and I can check then.’

  But once she was outside, Willow decided she would check the heritage centre now. It would be better to do it alone. Besides, she couldn’t quite face going back into the hotel, with the brightly coloured Christmas decorations, the enquiring glances and the laughter spilling from the bar and the dining room. Perez would be putting their son to bed, so it would be too early to talk to him again.

  The heritage centre was purpose-built, smart, right next door to the hotel. Willow unlocked the door, switched on the light and went inside. This was more than a collection of the locals’ objects and recorded anecdotes, though there were some of those too. She thought it was classic Westray. Anything the island decided to do, it did well. The labelling and information displays were as professional as in any small museum.

  Willow was distracted for a moment by the exhibits: the tiny figure of the Westray Wife, the oldest depiction of a human form in the UK, then the story of the wrecked ship that had given Archie and the Angels their names.

  At last, she walked through into the archive centre, a room with shelves on three of the walls, loaded with a collection of books, journals and articles. And there, on one of the shelves, stood a small square box full of notebooks. Each had Magnus Stout’s name on the front, and each was dated. Willow stood for a moment, wondering what this could mean. It wasn’t what she’d expected. Johnson might have killed Archie and George, but here the evidence of his fraud remained. Johnson wasn’t a stupid man. Surely he must realize that even with both men dead, these books meant that his theft of Magnus’s research could still come back to haunt him.

  There was a noise outside. Willow walked through to the reception desk. Perhaps somebody had seen the lights on and come in to investigate. But nobody appeared and when she’d locked the door and walked back to the street, it was empty.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  JAMES’S NURSERY WAS IN THE HARRAY community hall, not very far from the old manse. It was run by a couple of motherly women, helped by some younger lasses. Willow loved it because they got the bairns outside as much as they could, wrapped up against the cold in the winter, scooting around on the trikes and the bikes, climbing on the play equipment.

  Each day Perez went there were fewer parents queuing outside the building, fewer excited children; everyone, it seemed, was winding down for Christmas. The school had closed days before and now this was just a service for working parents. When he dropped James off, he felt a little guilty. Perhaps the boy should have been home too.

  In the police station, he found Ellie. He’d asked her to go through Archie’s phone records again. She was clearly resentful.

  ‘Did he call Johnson’s mobile on the night he died?’

  ‘No, he didn’t make any calls that night.’ She was quite certain and the Yorkshire accent was more pronounced than ever. ‘I’d have flagged it up to you if he had.’

  ‘Any way of getting a record of the call Johnson received when they were at the Angels’ house?’

  ‘I’ve contacted his service provider. They’re reluctant. We don’t have a warrant and we haven’t charged him.’

  Frustration was digging away at her too, and she thought he was questioning her ability or commitment. Perez softened his tone. It wasn’t the woman’s fault that they couldn’t find a more direct link between Archie and the professor.

  ‘What about from the Nistaben landline? Archie was at home for a few short periods that day, and most Westray folk depend on that because mobile reception’s so poor.’

  ‘I’ve checked that too. Of course.’

  ‘Of course. You will have done.’ Perez could sense his theory slipping away. Johnson and Archie could have met in person during the day, they could have arranged to meet later at the site of the dig, but without any evidence, it would be impossible to move the case forward.

  ‘What do you want me to do now?’ Ellie was still feeling truculent.

  ‘Let’s see if we can track the movements of all the Westray folk who were on the Orkney mainland on the afternoon that George was killed. We can check the restaurants where they claim to have eaten, the bars where they say they drank. There should be credit card records.’ Perez thought his voice sounded as it did when he was trying to jolly James out of a tantrum. Ellie deserved better than that, but he’d promised Vaila that they’d find Archie’s killer. Christmas, the day of the Ba’ when they’d all be celebrating Archie’s life, had felt like a kind of deadline. Now, it seemed certain that he’d fail.

  ‘You take Kirkwall,’ he said. ‘I’ll go to Stromness. See if you can put together a timeline for the Johnsons once they drove off the ferry. We need a gap when they might have gone to Maeshowe. Without that, we have no case at all against them.’ He wanted to show Ellie that he had faith in her – this was the more important task after all – but he had his own reasons for choosing to work in Stromness. He felt the need to be somewhere different and alone and to open his mind to the possibility of other suspects. It was dangerous to be too fixed on one theory. Willow was right about that.

  Rosalie Greeman had claimed to be in Stromness hoping to sell her crafts to the gallery there and she’d said that she’d called in to the cafe next door for her lunch beforehand. He could check the time. Willow had described her wearing a bright patchwork jacket. That wouldn’t be easy to miss. Besides, the drive could have taken Rosalie past the entrance to Maeshowe. There might be regular walkers who parked in the place. Someone might have seen her car. Perez had a strange superstition that just passing the site might trigger some new idea, some other possibility.

  His mood lifted a little as he drove out of the town, and the landscape opened out. He drove slowly and pulled in from the busy main road to the Tormiston Mill car park, with its view of the loch and the archaeological sites. An older woman was getting out of a Land Rover. She wore wellingtons, a tweed skirt and a waxed waterproof jacket. A headscarf that gave her the appearance of the late Queen. She opened the back door and a dog jumped out and raced around her, barking.

  ‘Betsy, be quiet!’ No Orcadian in the accent, but that meant little. She might be local but educated elsewhere. She had that look about her. Confident. Entitled. Once, maybe, she’d been the daughter of a laird.

  Perez approached and the dog jumped up at him. ‘Betsy!’ The woman had a voice that would have carried all the way to the Stones of Stenness, but the dog took no notice. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, the sound gruff as a bark. ‘She’s still a puppy. Not properly trained yet.’

  Perez introduced himself. The woman looked at him sharply. ‘You’ll be here about poor George Riley’s murder.’

  ‘You knew George?’ Perez could see that the two people might be friends, or at least that they might move in the same circles.

  ‘We served on some of the same committees.’

  Perez nodded. He could tell that she’d be a formidable committee member. He asked for her name.

  ‘Thorne,’ she said. ‘Belinda Thorne. I was here that afternoon. I saw him drive in. I wanted to talk to him about the local history society agenda, but Betsy was getting impatient for her walk and in the end I just waved.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ve been going over it in my mind, that I could have walked with him towards Maeshowe, stayed with him there. Then he’d still be alive, but I wasn’t to know, was I?’

  She looked at him, suddenly vulnerable, wanting reassurance.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course you weren’t to know.’ He looked across the road towards the burial chamber, his view blocked for a moment by a passing truck. ‘Was anyone else here? Other cars? Other walkers?’

  She shook her head. ‘It was bloody freezing. Anyone in their right mind would have stayed indoors.’ She patted the dog’s head. ‘But we’re not quite in our right minds, are we, Betsy?’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About one-thirty. I’d been listening to the radio on my way here. The World at One. It was still running.’

  Perez thought about that. So George had arrived an hour before he’d arranged their meeting. Lucy Martindale had said he’d had to rush out to see someone. Presumably his killer.

  ‘And when you came back from your walk? Was the car park empty then too?’

  She shook her head. ‘Despite the cold it was a beautiful day, and we were out for an hour and a half. I wanted to tire the rascal out. There was another car parked here when we returned.’ She paused, looked across at him and smiled. ‘Your car.’

  His hopes had been raised for a moment, but he smiled back at her. ‘Of course,’ he said again.

  The dog was tugging at its lead, so desperate to move now that it almost pulled her over. Quickly, he handed her his card. ‘If you remember anything, please ring.’

  ‘Of course.’ She slipped the card into her pocket and was dragged across the main road, only just missed by a passing van.

  He found the Stromness gallery open, and Grace, the manager, in the ground-floor reception area. Perez knew her – she was a friend of Willow’s. The women had met in the Kirkwall library reading group and bonded over a passion for translated crime fiction.

  ‘Jimmy! Are you in search of a piece of art for the manse? Feel free to wander around. It’s exhibition time and we have some wonderful local pieces.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s work. I have a few questions if you have time to chat.’

  ‘Sure. I’m hardly rushed off my feet. Lots of people are looking but not so many buying just now.’

  ‘Do you know Rosalie Greeman?’

  ‘The English maker who lives in Westray? Yes, I love her stuff.’

  ‘You’ll have heard that George Riley died?’

  ‘Of course! What a miss he’ll be. Such energy. And a wonderful teacher. He inspired Orkney kids to look at the place in a different way. He ran a series of lectures for me here in the gallery. I wasn’t sure how it would work, but we had a full house every time. The most popular was his history of the Ba’ talk. He’d discovered old photos, none of which I had seen before.’ Grace shot a glance at Perez, suddenly suspicious. ‘You don’t think Rosalie had anything to do with his death?’

  Perez shook his head. ‘No, but we’re checking on everyone who was in Westray when Archie Stout died and on mainland when George was killed. The two murders are connected. Rosalie is just one of those people. It’s a process of elimination.’

  A grandmother holding the hand of a small child came in, followed by a blast of cold air.

  Grace waved to them. Perez waited until they’d moved through to the exhibition space before continuing the conversation.

  ‘Rosalie claims that she came here that day, to show you some of her samples, but that you’d already left when she arrived. I need to check where she was, along with all the others. You do understand? It was the day of the St Magnus carol service.’

  Grace nodded. ‘I did leave early that day.’ She smiled, pleased that she could confirm Rosalie’s story. ‘She dropped in a few samples with Robbie at the desk. Some lovely pieces. And she left me a phone message later that day, saying she’d been along, and asking if she could make an appointment for the New Year so she could discuss her stuff. I phoned her back the next morning.’