Willow looked up at James, who was twitching with excitement, looking out for Vaila and her sons. He thought he’d got a glimpse of them and wriggled, persuading Perez to lift him down onto the pavement. He didn’t want Lawrie and Iain to think he was a baby. As the crowd got bigger, she knew that Perez would be holding his hand tightly. She didn’t believe there would be any bother at this boys’ game, but there were so many people crammed into a small space, and she’d never been good in crowds. This afternoon, it would be even more scary. She was glad that she’d have their son home then.

  Usually, Westray folk wouldn’t have bothered with the Ba’. It was a Kirkwall tradition and not considered important by people from the outer islands. They preferred to spend Christmas Day at home. But this year must be different, because she started seeing people she recognized. There wouldn’t have been a ferry, so perhaps a couple of the islanders had brought out their creel boats and offered a lift to Archie’s special friends and relatives. A way of showing their support to his widow and sons. The first person she came across was Godfrey Lansdown, who was elderly, but definitely not infirm.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought the Ba’ would be your thing, Mr Lansdown.’ Because the man was a birdwatcher, gentle and considered. Willow couldn’t see that he’d take pleasure in such a rowdy spectacle.

  ‘Since Edith died, I’ve felt the need to experience life to the full,’ he said. ‘I’m more aware of time slipping away. I tend to say yes rather than no these days to new opportunities. When Bill invited me, I took the opportunity to watch the game. Sometimes I rather surprise myself.’

  In the distance she saw Nat Wilkinson, tall and awkward, centimetres above the rest of the crowd. He was alone. Perhaps his friend was over the crisis, or perhaps the Ba’ had memories for Nat too.

  Annie and Bill MacBride were there, taking a day off from the running of the hotel. They were holding hands in a shy, embarrassed way, like teenagers acknowledging their relationship for the first time. Willow didn’t suppose they’d have spoken to Vaila yet about buying out Archie’s share of the hotel. Bill might have been tempted to rush in, eager to start negotiations immediately, but Annie would be more cautious, more tactful.

  She was about to speak to them, when she saw Vaila and the boys. She thought Perez would want to be with them, but he was talking to a woman she recognized as the head teacher from the grammar school, and he hadn’t noticed them. He was still holding James’s hand. Willow pushed her way through the crowd to join the Stout family.

  Vaila looked exhausted, strained. Willow thought she could scarcely have slept since Archie had died. It was hard to picture her now working so hard on the farm. Even Iain seemed to tower above his mother. When she was standing with them, surrounded by the noise and the people, by all the fathers, Willow didn’t know what to do, how to show support.

  ‘This is very brave of you,’ she said at last, and gave Vaila a hug.

  ‘Ah well, this is Lawrie’s last chance to be in with the boys and he’s doing it for his father. Archie won the Ba’ when he was a lad. Next year Lawrie will be sixteen and with the men, and it’s hard to be up against those strong chaps. Iain could have joined in, right enough. There are boys younger than him in the team, but he had more sense, didn’t you?’ She stroked Iain’s head. Lawrie stared out at the crowd.

  ‘Well, brave of Lawrie too. It must be tough.’

  ‘Will you stand with us?’ Vaila looked up at her. The skin of her face seemed desperately thin, as if it could rip any moment to let the bone show through. ‘That might stop other folk coming up to us. I can’t stand their pity. Or their curiosity. It’s just a drama to them.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Lawrie’s determined to play the game. I tried to talk him out of it, but he said it was for his father.’ Vaila’s voice was low and bleak. ‘And we have to be here for him. The organizers want me to speak later. I wish today was over.’

  ‘Are your parents here?’ Willow thought the Angels might be better support than she could be.

  ‘Oh yes. They’ll be here, but I’ve told them to find a good spot to cheer my boy on. I can’t stand people I know well to be near me. They fuss and I just feel like ranting and swearing at them. I don’t want to upset them. Do you understand?’

  ‘I think so.’ Willow imagined Evelyn and Tom somewhere in the crowd, watching their daughter and grandsons from a distance, banned from approaching. They’d be hurt already.

  They stood for a moment in silence. Willow glimpsed the brightly coloured jacket of Rosalie Greeman, as the woman passed through the gathered supporters. Like an exotic bird flitting through a forest of green and brown, she’d appear suddenly and then was lost from view.

  Vaila must have noticed too. ‘Is that Rosalie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to her, I think. Do you suppose she’ll come over?’

  ‘I suspect she might feel a little awkward about doing that.’

  ‘Would you ask her?’

  ‘Of course, if that’s what you’d like.’ Willow was surprised. It wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting, but she was relieved too. If Rosalie would stay with Vaila, Willow would have the chance to work the crowd and see who else from Westray was here. She moved off in the direction of the patchwork jacket, and found Rosalie, standing alone, close to the doors of St Magnus Cathedral.

  ‘You came,’ Willow said. ‘I didn’t think you would.’

  Rosalie gave a crooked little smile. ‘Archie might not have been the love of my life, but he was a friend and I wanted to be here to say goodbye. Sometimes the ritual matters. It helps.’

  ‘I’m not sure how much it’s helping Vaila.’

  ‘I saw she’s here. She looks wrecked.’

  ‘She’d like to see you.’

  Rosalie raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘To have a row? Make a scene?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t think it’s anything like that. I think she wants to build bridges. She needs a pal.’

  There was a moment’s silence before Rosalie grinned. ‘Imagine the gossip, when all the Westray folk see us together! It’ll be worth chatting just to see their faces.’

  ‘We’ll go over then, shall we. Then I’ll leave you to it.’

  They pushed through the people to find Vaila. It was only fifteen minutes to the Ba’ throw-up and every inch of the square and the surrounding streets was full. Apart from where Vaila and Iain were standing. Lawrie must have gone to find the rest of his team, and there was a space around Vaila and her younger son. It was, Willow thought, as if bereavement and grief were a kind of plague that other people believed might be catching.

  Vaila saw them approaching. She and Rosalie stood staring at each other, and then almost simultaneously each held out her arms and they hugged. Willow moved quietly away.

  She was looking for Perez and James, but they seemed swamped by the crowd, and she had no idea where to start. She got out her phone. Two missed calls from Perez, which she’d not heard because there was so much noise. He must be looking for her too. No point trying to contact him now – in the run-up to the start the noise was deafening. She wasn’t sure they’d even hear the bells of the cathedral, which would set the game off.

  The man who was doing the throw-up moved onto the cathedral steps. Willow didn’t recognize him. He was thin and upright. He could, she thought, have been an army officer.

  ‘Oh, that’s a nice touch.’ The words were spoken by a middle-aged woman she didn’t know, whose mouth was so close to Willow’s ear now, squashed by the crowd, that Willow heard the comment.

  ‘Who is it?’ She turned and shouted.

  ‘Miles, George Riley’s partner.’

  Willow thought she should have realized. He was just as Perez had described him. He looked as drawn and grey as Vaila. The hands holding the heavy ba’ were shaking. The woman was still talking. ‘Usually, it’s a star of the game, an old local who played lots of times in his youth. This is a recognition of all George did to record its traditions, and of his role as a teacher and mentor to our young people.’

  ‘And an acknowledgement of the two as a couple, perhaps,’ Willow said.

  It was, as the woman had said, a nice touch.

  ‘Aye. That too.’

  There was a crackly PA system. Miles was handed a microphone. ‘I’m here to represent George Alfred Riley. He should have been here in his own right. He loved this game, and he loved Orkney.’

  There was a moment of silence as Miles waited for the cathedral bells to ring out the time. On the stroke of ten, he threw the ba’ into the air and the boys surged forward, arms raised to have first touch. The game had begun.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  PEREZ COULDN’T HELP THINKING ABOUT BARBARA Johnson, holed up in the Kirkwall Hotel. She’d be grieving too. The hotel was some distance from where the Ba’ was started, but he wondered if she’d hear the noise, the chanting. Her husband had been seen as the villain in the tale, a fraud and a cheat. Local people wouldn’t mourn him as they’d mourned Archie and George. Even in death, it seemed, there was a hierarchy. Some were more worthy than others and that must make it hard. Everyone here had sympathy for Vaila and her boys; most for Miles. But he doubted that any of the spectators were giving Barbara a thought. It occurred to him that he should go and see her, once Willow had taken James home, in the break between the two games. Whatever her role in the murders, he hated to think of her alone in the bleak hotel room.

  Then, as if his imagination had conjured the woman up, made her solid, he glimpsed Barbara Johnson through the crowd. He recognized her coat, an unusual dusty pink, the hood pulled over her head, although the day wasn’t cold at all. It was a way perhaps of making herself anonymous. He wondered what she could be doing here, and if her presence threw into doubt the theories that he and Willow had dreamed up the night before.

  He was about to ease his way through the jostling people to speak to her, when Lucy Martindale, the grammar school head teacher, pushed through the crowd towards him.

  ‘Inspector, could I have a word? I know this isn’t an ideal situation, but it is rather important.’

  ‘Of course.’

  It was quieter now outside the cathedral, where they were standing. James had run across to see Iain, his big friend, before the ba’ was thrown. Willow had been there too, chatting to Vaila, but now there was no sign of her. Perez, scanning through the remaining people, thought they must all have followed the game through the lanes.

  The action had moved slowly out of Kirk Green, and the crowd had followed, crammed into the narrow streets, where owners had fixed wooden planks known as Ba’ barricades over the shop windows to prevent the glass from being damaged. It seemed that the uppies were winning. James would be disappointed. He was very much a doonie supporter.

  Perez pulled his attention back to the teacher. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Since you came into school to see me, I’ve been looking into George’s work emails. I’ve come across a number of rather disturbing messages. It seems he wasn’t quite the perfect teacher I’d imagined him to be.’

  Perez listened carefully to Lucy’s explanation. ‘Can you send the messages across to me?’

  He thought of Miles, upright, respectable, law-abiding. He wondered what the man would make of these revelations. Would it change the way he’d view his lover? Probably not. Miles had known all along that George was impulsive, a little entitled, overconfident. Perhaps he’d spun his evidence to Perez, protecting his lover’s reputation as Barbara Johnson had fought to protect her husband’s. What else might he do for his man? Surely, Perez thought, Miles wouldn’t commit murder. But again, there was a worm of doubt. So many stories could be told around these killings, and he was no longer confident that he knew which was true.

  He handed Lucy his card, so she had his email address.

  ‘It’s so upsetting,’ she said, ‘and of course I’ll have to take action. I can’t pretend that this didn’t happen.’

  Perez wanted to discuss these developments with Willow, but there was still no sign of her and James. Perez phoned her to find out exactly where she was, but there was no reply. Of course she wouldn’t hear. There would be too much din close to the centre of the game. He wandered in the direction of the shouting and cheering, but he was more focused on the information given to him by Lucy, and by his glimpse of Barbara Johnson, than on his surroundings. He supposed George’s emails provided the confirmation that they needed to close the investigation, but he couldn’t allow himself to believe it. He felt no elation. No pride. At last though, perhaps they had their proof.

  When Perez glimpsed Willow, she was on the edge of the mob, and she was talking to Miles. He saw her as a wild Viking woman, with her long hair tangled by the breeze, the strong features. The conversation seemed intense, intimate, and when he approached, he heard that she was inviting the man to spend the rest of the day with them in Harray.

  Miles was refusing but was obviously pleased to be asked.

  ‘Not today,’ he said. ‘Today, I’d be rather poor company, but another time.’

  Perez felt a quick moment of relief. He couldn’t quite trust the man.

  Willow turned and saw Perez. ‘Where’s James?’ A catch of anxiety in her throat.

  ‘He came to join you and Vaila before the throw-up.’

  ‘No!’ Now she was almost crying. ‘No, the last time I saw him, he was holding your hand.’

  ‘He’ll be with Vaila and Iain.’ Perez kept his voice even. Willow always accused him of overreacting where the boy was concerned. ‘Following the action. Cheering on the doonies.’ But he’d recognized her fear and was struggling to breathe evenly. He’d never had a panic attack, but this must be close to it.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Miles said, ‘and help you to look for him.’

  Perez wasn’t sure he wanted this man’s help. Not now. But he could hardly refuse. Not with Willow standing beside him, white and trembling, overcome too with a kind of terror.

  It seemed that Miles had picked up on their anxiety and now his voice was brusque, demanding. ‘What was he wearing?’

  Willow described the jacket, the bonnet knitted by his Fair Isle grandmother with the puffin motif.

  ‘That’s unique, then.’ Miles gave a tight little smile. ‘I’ll know him at once when I see him.’ He strode off into the crowd.

  Perez watched the man go, before turning to Willow. ‘I should have held on to him, and not let him head off on his own. But you were only a few yards away. I thought it could do no harm.’

  I was obsessed with this case, he thought. I was glad that James had gone to find you, so I wouldn’t have the responsibility of him. So I could plan what was needed to have this business over.

  Anxiety made his body tense and froze his mind. He couldn’t think clearly and even his vision was blurred. He worried that he wouldn’t see the boy with the blue down jacket and the hand-knitted hat. He wouldn’t recognize his own son among all the other children, who were cheering and yelling. He thought the game was dangerous and riotous, and the police should have put a stop to it decades before. He should have gone with his instinct and called the whole thing off.

  Willow put her arm into his. ‘Not your fault.’ Each word emphasized. ‘But we have to find him.’

  He turned to her. ‘Could Vaila have him?’ The question desperate and packed with meaning.

  Willow shook her head. ‘Maybe. But if she has, he’ll be safe. I left Vaila with Rosalie and Iain.’

  ‘I’m sure I saw Barbara,’ he said, ‘just after the throw-out, hiding in plain sight.’

  That made Willow pause for a moment. ‘Not playing the grieving widow then.’

  They followed the crowd along the street. The game seemed stuck there, the houses tall on each side, pressing in on the boys. No sign of the ba’. The only indication of where it might be was a cloud of condensation over the players’ heads. The weather might not be freezing now, but the boys were so hot and sweaty that they’d formed their own microclimate. They were a mess of bodies, of arms and legs, turning the group into one huge multi-limbed monster. Lawrie might be at the heart of the action, proving himself his father’s son, but there was no way of distinguishing him from all the other players. It was a giant rugby scrum with no rules, and between Perez and Willow came the crowd of spectators.

  It would be impossible for the two of them to push their way through. From the upstairs windows of the buildings on each side of the road, people were watching and shouting. Nothing but noise on all sides, so there was no point phoning Vaila to see if James was with her. Even if she’d want to answer, she wouldn’t hear. Perez’s breathing had settled a little now and his vision had cleared. He couldn’t see anyone from Westray. Perhaps Vaila, Iain and James had gone ahead of the players and were trapped on the other side of the melee.

  He was wondering whether they should take one of the side streets, which would lead them beyond the jam of bodies, when one of the players broke away. The lad was small and wiry, and Perez didn’t recognize him. He had the ba’ in his arms and headed towards them, followed by the crowd. A doonie heading for the harbour. Perez pulled Willow into a doorway and out of harm’s way.

  Now, he thought, there was a chance of finding James. The crowd had thinned a little. People were more spread out as the boy sprinted ahead of them. Only the most active would be able to catch up. The players on both teams were chasing after the lad, but he was fast and fit. An athlete. This was probably his last year too in the boys’ game and he wanted to make his mark. The spectators followed at a more leisurely pace. Though they hoped to be there to see the finish, this wasn’t the main event. That would take place in the afternoon, with the men.

  Perez and Willow waited for the spectators to pass. There was still no sign of Vaila and Iain, and Perez hadn’t noticed Lawrie in the tumbling mass of boys. Even Miles seemed to have disappeared.