He continued the story, his words directed now as much to Tom Angel as to Lawrie.

  ‘We know that throughout that day Archie was troubled. Rosalie Greeman thought it was an island matter that was haunting him, and so it was in a way. If news got out about what Lawrie had done, that would reflect on your family, but also on Westray. It’s easy to lump folk together, for a place to get a bad name.’

  Perez had suffered that at school too: off-island kids were considered such dweebs, so uncool. Stupid even.

  It was time, Perez thought, to confront Lawrie with a direct question. ‘When did your father discuss this with you?’

  Lawrie stared back. ‘He didna. There was nothing to discuss.’ The answer was challenging and defensive at the same time. A teenager caught in a misdemeanour and trying to tough it out. But in this case the misdemeanour wasn’t drinking underage or smoking a bit of weed. It was murder. Perez ignored the words and continued speaking.

  ‘I think it was when the two of you were alone in Nistaben at lunchtime. Your mother and Iain were in Pierowall. Your mum was helping out with the old folk at the hotel’s Christmas party and Iain was playing with a mate. That would have been a good time for a father-and-son chat.’

  Silence in the room. Somewhere in the distance Perez caught the cheers of the Ba’ spectators – the adult game was underway. They might be wondering why Vaila wasn’t there to give her speech.

  Perez lowered his voice a little. It was still sufficiently loud to be picked up by the recording equipment, but Lawrie and Tom would have to give their full attention to hear it.

  ‘I knew Archie very well,’ he said. ‘When I was your age, Lawrie, he was more like a brother than a cousin. He had a temper on him. And a tongue. Man, he could cut you down to size just with his words. What did he say to you, Lawrie, to make you lose your temper? What did he threaten to do?’

  This time there was a reaction. The boy’s hands on the table clenched into white fists.

  ‘Just tell me, Lawrie. I want to understand.’ Repeating the lad’s name, bringing him back to his family, letting him know he wasn’t quite alone here.

  ‘He said he’d send me away!’ It came out as a cry of pain. ‘He said I wasn’t fit to stay in Westray. He said until I learned to behave, I could go and live with his relatives in Shetland.’ A pause. ‘In Fair Isle!’

  As if Fair Isle was the end of the known universe, a kind of Van Diemen’s Land in the North Sea for recalcitrant young men. In any other situation, Perez would have smiled. Even now, he saved the moment to share with Willow.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘He started ranting about Tony Johnson and the story stones, linking us all together. Like I was as bad as the guy who stole our history from my grandfather Magnus. Like I couldna be trusted. All I did was to have a laugh with those lasses. Not my fault if they fancied me. I didna force any of them.’ But even as he was protesting, Perez could tell that wasn’t true. Lawrie had felt both entitled and confused. He was a lonely lad with nothing but Internet porn to show him how to interact with unhappy young women and a macho swagger to cover the inability to find real friends.

  ‘Your dad went out later and met up with Tony Johnson close to the Noltland dig. That’s a long way from Nistaben. How did you get there? What was the plan? Because you must have had a plan.’

  No response but a bull-headed stare, and a simmering anger. Perhaps the boy actually felt resentment at having to sit there, to be questioned like this when he should be celebrating his victory at the Ba’. Maybe he had so little understanding about what he had done.

  Perez went on with the story. He might have been reading from one of James’s picture books. His tone was the same.

  ‘Your mother and Iain came back from Pierowall and you all had your tea together, then Archie went out. He’d arranged to meet Professor Johnson, hoping to challenge him about your grandfather’s research, before heading to the bar for a drink with his pals. I’ve been wondering how you got to that end of the island. I’m sure you can drive. Most island kids learn to drive before it’s legal on the mainland. But you had to wait until your mother had gone to Pierowall in her car and your father had already left in his. It occurred to me that you could have taken the tractor, but that might have been noticed. Who’d be out on a tractor at night at that time of the year? Then I realized. The quad bike. That was kept in the byre, and nobody would see you leave on that.’

  Perez looked across the table at Lawrie. ‘That was clever. Who would notice quad-bike tracks later after the storm and all that rain turning the island into one big bog?’

  Lawrie said nothing, but Perez thought he’d liked that. He hadn’t been called clever very often.

  ‘How did you know that your father would be at Noltland?’ Perhaps now, Perez decided, the boy would welcome the chance to show off.

  And this time, Lawrie did talk. ‘He told me he’d be there. When he was talking about Johnson and the argument they’d had, and how I was bringing disrepute on the community too. “The professor’s demanded that I go and meet him. On a day like this! The cheek of it. I’ll be there right enough, and I’ll tell him what I think of him.”’

  Perez nodded. ‘I think you got to Noltland just as your father had finished talking to Johnson. Archie would be in a foul mood, after the day he’d had, and then talking to that smarmy academic, who’d lied to him, trying to persuade him that Magnus had agreed to his work being stolen.’

  Perez paused for a moment. ‘Did you go there intending to kill your father?’

  ‘No!’ The sound came out like a roar. The boy’s face was almost purple and his mouth wide open.

  Perez waited for a moment before speaking and in the quiet, the boy’s voice seemed to echo around the bare room.

  ‘Then why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?’

  ‘I wanted to speak to him, to explain.’ It was Lawrie’s turn to tell a story, his version of events that he must have repeated over and over again in his bed in Nistaben and then in his room in the Kirkwall Hotel, an attempt to justify three men’s deaths. He took a breath in an effort to appear calm and reasonable. Maybe an attempt to make Perez understand.

  ‘My father went out. Iain was in his room on his screen, some fantasy computer game he was playing with his mates. My mother was clearing up the supper things. I said I’d go out to the byre, that there was something I needed to do. She hardly seemed to hear me. I wondered if Dad had talked to her about me, but she didn’t seem angry. Not at me at least. Maybe something else had upset her, because she seemed kind of distracted. I didn’t think she’d notice what I was doing.’

  ‘You took the quad bike and headed out?’

  ‘Yeah. I waited until my mother had left in the car. I got to Noltland before anything was happening. I was about to give up and go home. It was dark and cold, and I’d hidden the bike behind one of the dykes.’

  Perez wondered if Lawrie had been glad that nothing was happening. Maybe he was having second thoughts about confronting his father. The boy continued:

  ‘Then I saw them. Two torches heading towards me. There was an argument. The wind was so strong then that I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could tell it was a row. I saw Johnson leaving Noltland and walking towards his car. He went right past me. I didn’t think he’d seen me, but he must have done. I realized later that he must have waited and heard Dad and me arguing.’ A pause. ‘My father was just standing there. It had started to rain, and yet he just stayed, watching me come towards him.’

  So, Perez thought, Barbara had lied when she’d told them she’d seen Archie alive, running towards his car. A figure lit by a flash of lightning. She hadn’t been quite sure that Johnson hadn’t killed him, and it was the sort of dramatic tale she would make up. She’d been protecting her husband’s reputation to the end.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Dad had a torch in one hand, and he was looking at one of the story stones. He seemed kind of thoughtful. Perhaps he was thinking about his father. We all loved Magnus. I thought maybe he was in a mood to change his mind. About sending me away from Westray. If I promised not to do that sort of stuff again, he’d see that family’s more important than anything.’

  ‘You wanted him to forgive you?’

  ‘Aye.’ A pause. ‘I guess that’s what I wanted.’ There was another silence. This time Perez didn’t prompt him. He just waited for him to continue. For Lawrie to remember the words he’d already strung together.

  ‘I didna shout,’ the boy said. ‘Not really. Only to be heard against the noise of the wind. I just wanted to explain. But he said that Mr Riley had sent through some of the photos I’d asked the lasses to take of themselves. That he could hardly bear to talk to me. He said I disgusted him.’ Lawrie stopped again and stared across at Perez. Now his voice was hollow: ‘He said that if I thought I’d ever inherit the farm, I was mistaken.’

  Then Perez understood what had prompted the extreme violence. This was a lad who couldn’t control his anger any more than his father had, who’d had his whole future mapped out for him – as a farmer, a husband, a father – and it had been ripped away. He’d thought his rightful inheritance had been stolen. In the end, Archie might have relented of course, but in the heat of that moment, with the wind blowing around them, Lawrie’s future had crumbled.

  ‘Your father was holding one of the story stones.’

  ‘Aye, and the other was on the ground.’

  ‘Then your father turned his back on you.’

  ‘He shouldna have done that. He said he couldna bear to look at me.’

  ‘And you picked up the other story stone and you hit him?’

  ‘He shouldna have turned away.’

  ‘I have to hear you say it, Lawrie. You hit him.’

  ‘Aye, I hit him.’ The words were clear and loud and defiant, but the beetroot-red face was streaming with tears.

  Chapter Forty

  WILLOW SAT IN THE OLD MANSE with James. Although the day was milder, she banked up the fire. She felt the need for comfort. Her thoughts were with Perez. This would be one of the most difficult interviews he’d ever undertake.

  On the way home in the car, James had been lively, full of chatter about the Ba’, fizzing with the reflected glory of Lawrie Stout’s win.

  ‘Lawrie did it, didn’t he, Mummy? He won for the doonies.’

  ‘Yes,’ she’d said. ‘He did.’

  She wondered when he’d be old enough to understand what had happened in these days in the run-up to Christmas, and how she’d find the words to explain that just because boys were strong, they couldn’t always do as they wished. He’d hear about it of course. The story would be everywhere. There’d be pieces all over the news, and earnest documentaries exploring the background to teenage violence, the role of social media in young people’s lives, the easy accessibility of pornography. Maybe a drama, attempting to bring the murders to life. For a while, Westray would be invaded by the press. The family would be blamed.

  Back home, James settled. He watched a film and built the small Lego kit he’d found in his stocking.

  Willow prepared vegetables for the evening meal, but she was digging back into her memories wondering if there’d been anything that could have predicted Lawrie’s behaviour. He’d been quiet, withdrawn, not as sharp as his brother, not as curious about the world away from Orkney, but helpful. He’d been kind to James. His parents might have had their problems, but they’d been good role models for their sons. The boys had always been loved and well cared for.

  Then she remembered one evening in Nistaben. A party. Music and too much drinking. Archie had come up behind her and groped her. She’d shrugged it off at the time, not willing to make a fuss about Jimmy’s best friend. Now the image stuck in her head.

  Willow peeled Brussels sprouts and her thoughts turned to Vaila. How would she be coping with this? Would she be alone in that hotel room, with Iain, needing to hold things together for the younger son?

  Her phoned pinged. A text from Perez.

  We have a confession.

  Chapter Forty-One

  IN THE INTERVIEW ROOM IN THE police station, Perez was still asking questions, pinning down details.

  ‘Were you sure your father was dead after you hit him? It didn’t occur to you to fetch help?’

  ‘I could tell he was dead.’ Lawrie closed his eyes. ‘I’ve lived on a farm all my life. I know death. I had the torch on my phone. I could see.’ Perez wondered if he’d always have a picture in his head of his father’s battered skull. The shards of bone. The blood. Would he wake up to it and see it before he went to sleep?

  ‘His car was found outside the Pierowall Hotel. Did you move it from the golf course?’

  Lawrie nodded. ‘There was an old piece of tarp in the boot. I sat on that. I was kind of mucky. I was wearing gloves anyway because of the cold.’

  So, Perez thought, you were thinking clearly. Or did it feel like one of your computer games? Were you working out the moves as if you were playing, hoping to outsmart the competition, as you would on the screen?

  ‘Why did you shift the car?’

  ‘I wanted to get home before anyone found him. If they saw the car at the golf club, they might start looking there.’

  ‘What did you do with the tarp?

  ‘I took it back with me on the quad bike. It’s hidden in a feed bag at the back of the barn. I was going to dump it off the pier, but I never got the chance.’

  That would be the concrete evidence they’d been hoping for. Even if Lawrie changed his story now, they should have enough to convict him.

  ‘And your bloodstained clothes?’

  ‘They went in the washing machine. My mother had already put stuff ready to wash. I added my things and set off the machine. She was in such a state that night. I could tell she wouldn’t notice.’

  ‘Why did you take the other story stone away with you?’ Perez hoped that the boy hadn’t wanted to keep it as some sort of trophy. Or that he wasn’t already planning another murder.

  Lawrie just stared across the table and shrugged.

  ‘You took it out with you when you came to Kirkwall. Why did you do that?’

  This time Lawrie did speak. ‘I thought you might search the house when we were gone. If you found it, you’d know that I was there that night.’

  ‘So it was in that rucksack you took to your grandparents’ house?’

  I watched you carry it away with you.

  Lawrie nodded.

  At that point Perez called for a break. He sent a text to Willow and asked for coffee for Tom Angel and himself. Coke and a snack for Lawrie. He left Ellie in the interview room and sat for a moment in his office. To clear his head and to plan the rest of the interview, to work out again the timeline for the Maeshowe murder. He thought it would be less distressing for Lawrie to talk about Riley and Johnson. They weren’t family. The confession might come more easily. Besides, the boy had already killed once by the time he came to murder them.

  The duty sergeant popped his head round Perez’s office door. He reported that the Ba’ was over. Until it all happened again on New Year’s Day. As if Perez would be as interested in the result as he was. It had taken three hours but the doonies had won the adult Ba’ too. The officer was downcast because he was an uppie, and because it was Christmas Day and yet he was still here in the station. His wife was used to late festive dinners because he always watched the Ba’, he said, but he had no idea when his shift would be over, and she was giving him grief. Hoping perhaps that Perez would show pity and send him home to his meal and his drams.

  ‘This shouldn’t take much longer.’ Perez got to his feet and joined the sergeant at the door. He wanted to be home with his family too. He walked back into the interview room.

  ‘Tell me about Mr Riley,’ he said. They were sitting in the same places, in the small room with the high window looking out over the car park. The neon strip light fizzed occasionally, as if it might stop working altogether, and he had the start of a headache. Ellie had begun the recording again.

  ‘Explain about that afternoon at Maeshowe.’ In his mind, Perez was walking towards the burial chamber, the frozen grass crunching under his feet, stooping to get inside, waiting for the sunlight to recreate the mystery of the solstice.

  Lawrie had clammed up again, jaws clamped shut, and Perez continued talking in his storyteller’s voice.

  ‘He wanted to talk to you, didn’t he? About the stuff he’d found on your social media and the complaints from the girls at the hostel. It never occurred to him that you might have killed your father, or I’m sure he would have come to us first. He was obsessed with the history, and he thought that Professor Johnson had murdered your father.’

  Perez wondered suddenly if that was true. George Riley had the confidence that came from an English public-school education and his fancy university.

  ‘Or perhaps Mr Riley had an idea that you might be responsible for your father’s death and thought he could persuade you to confess. Is that what happened?’

  It would be in the character of the man, Perez thought. He believed the best in everyone, and maybe he was convinced that redemption was possible.

  ‘No! It was nothing like that!’ The boy’s words came out as a shout.

  Perez waited for a moment for Lawrie to say more, before continuing:

  ‘So if he didn’t know that you’d killed your father, Mr Riley still wanted to help. He believed that you were going through a really tough patch because your father had just died, and he wanted to help, to sort things out without it all blowing up into a nightmare for you, affecting your future. He was tight for time that day. He was just back from a conference, he had pantomime rehearsals, and he wanted to spend the afternoon with his partner. But he saw the clear sky and thought you’d enjoy the drama of Maeshowe, so he arranged to meet you there. One of his many kindnesses.’ Perez looked across at the boy, hoping again for a response, but none came.