‘Did you see a vehicle?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘We were walking in the opposite direction though. It might have been parked here.’

  ‘What were you doing later that evening? Godfrey Lansdown said he hadn’t seen you in the bar.’

  ‘We’d been invited out to an early supper, and then we went straight to our room. We skipped the bar. We fancied a night to ourselves.’

  ‘Where did you go for supper?’

  ‘To Hillhead, with Tom and Evelyn.’

  ‘Vaila’s parents.’ Willow was surprised. She wasn’t sure what the couples might have in common. ‘Are you friends?’

  ‘We knew them when we were here that summer in the eighties, and then again in 2006. I’ve kept in touch. Nothing formal. Christmas cards. They let me know when Magnus and May died, and they came to stay with us once when they were on their way south for a wedding. Islanders are remarkably hospitable, Inspector.’

  I know, Willow thought. I grew up on an island. And I’m married to an islander. She found herself resenting the woman’s tone. There was something annoying about tourists who felt they absolutely understood a place’s culture and sensibilities because they’d visited a few times.

  ‘Did you mention that you’d seen Archie? Or that he’d been behaving a little strangely?’

  ‘No! It wouldn’t have been appropriate to gossip about their son-in-law, would it?’ Barbara seemed amused. ‘Besides, it only became more significant once he’d died.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It turned into a strange evening, cut short when Vaila phoned to say that Archie was missing. We thought maybe there’d been some domestic problem, a row between them before Archie had stormed off. I’d have thought he might be given to dramatic gestures. It seemed tactful just to make our excuses and leave.’

  Chapter Nine

  ELLIE HAD BEEN OUT AFTER AN early breakfast, liaising with the crime scene team at the Noltland site. The investigators had gone back to Kirkwall the evening before, taking Archie’s car with them, and arrived in again on the first ferry. Willow met Ellie in the lobby, just as she’d finished talking to Tony and Barbara Johnson. The sergeant was red-faced from the cold, wrapped up in her bulky down coat.

  ‘It’s freezing out there. And I always thought that Yorkshire was Baltic.’

  ‘Have the CSIs got anything?’ Willow wasn’t optimistic, but something real, concrete, would be helpful. At the moment, all she had were impressions.

  Ellie shook her head. ‘Nothing from the scene. It’s so exposed, and there was a gale that night. There might be trace evidence snagged in the long grass on the dunes, but nothing so far. They reckon they’ll be done there today. They found a few spots of blood in Archie’s car, but they reckon that might be coincidental. He could have cut himself on a quite different occasion. They’ll test the DNA to check that it was his. They have Archie’s clothes and any possessions that were on him back in Kirkwall, and they’ll work on that.’ A pause. ‘Are we heading back to town too?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Willow couldn’t decide what Ellie made of the decision to stay. Did she want to be home with her family, or was she enjoying the break in routine?

  ‘Won’t the team from Glasgow want to take over?’ There was a reflex sneer in Ellie’s voice. In Orcadians’ experience Glasgow always wanted to interfere in island affairs.

  ‘Nah. Apparently, there’s freezing fog all over the mainland and there’s no way the flights would get north. I think they’re more worried about being stuck here for Christmas.’ Willow grinned. ‘So let’s show them how it’s done, shall we? I’d like to chat to the Angels, before Vaila gets back from Kirkwall. And Jimmy has asked me to talk to the boys. They were too upset to face any questions yesterday.’

  ‘Angels?’

  ‘That’s Vaila’s parents’ family name. A ship was wrecked here years ago. There was a little lad still alive inside. He was adopted by an island family. They wanted to give him their own name, but the ship was called the Archangel, so the island called the lad Archie Angel. He married an island woman later and the name persists. And I presume Archie has become a traditional Westray name too.’

  Another tale, Willow thought. Another story that might or might not be true.

  She nodded towards the dining room, where the Johnsons were lingering over a second pot of coffee. ‘Those visitors had supper at Hillhead, Tom and Evelyn Angel’s place, the night Archie disappeared. They had the impression that he and Vaila had some sort of domestic before he stormed off into the night. That’s a slightly different tale from the one we got from Vaila. I’d like to check before she gets back this afternoon.’

  Hillhead was another traditional Westray farm – solid and surrounded by barns and outbuildings. Some land low and green for grazing, other fields cut for silage. These were very different from the smaller crofts Willow knew from Shetland and her home island in the Hebrides. Despite the name, it stood in the lee of a curve of hills, which ran down the west of the island, and this time of year, with the low winter sun, it must almost always be in shadow. Willow felt shut in.

  Vaila’s boys must be helping their grandfather to feed the cows, because she could hear their voices, coming from the byre, when she and Ellie got out of the car. She knocked at the back door and Evelyn shouted them into the kitchen, which was shiny, rather grand, like something out of a design magazine. Evelyn was baking. On the table in front of her there was a mixing bowl, pale yellow like one Willow’s mother had used, and bags of flour and sugar.

  ‘I don’t feel much like it, but we still have to eat.’ Evelyn looked up at them. ‘And the boys do love a chocolate cake. Anything to cheer them up, eh?’ She slid the kettle onto the hotplate of the range. ‘You’ll have some tea? Tom’s trying to keep the boys busy. We don’t think it’s healthy for them to be cooped up in their rooms on their screens all day.’

  Willow thought this was a complaint that Evelyn had aired long before Archie’s death – grandparents thinking they knew best – but the woman added: ‘You never know what they might read about their daddy on social media.’

  ‘Of course.’ And that was something else they’d have to check: crazy theories that probably had no substance, but which should be monitored. She’d get Phil onto it. He was great with anything tech.

  More tea. They sat not at the table where Evelyn was baking but at a marble breakfast bar. There was a view east through the window of a spit of beach, backed by shingle. A sliver of sunlight lit it, but soon even that would be in shadow.

  ‘They’re very lucky growing up here in Westray,’ Willow said. ‘With all this space.’

  ‘Aye, we think so, though some kids can’t wait to get away. Iain loves being in the hostel in Kirkwall and he’s thinking already of a university in the south. Lawrie’s not academic. I think he’ll leave school as soon as he can. We always thought he’d work with his father, but I’m not sure what’ll happen to Nistaben now.’

  ‘Vaila never fancied a different path?’ Willow was taking the lead in the conversation. Ellie sat to one side, listening. She was a great listener and had a memory for detail. ‘She seems very interested in the history of the islands and she’s made a beautiful home. You could imagine her as a designer.’ She looked around the room. ‘She must take after you.’

  ‘Aye, maybe.’ Evelyn was dismissive. ‘We’d have encouraged her if she’d really wanted to go. She had a fancy for art school at one time.’

  It seemed to Willow that any encouragement had been theoretical rather than practical. ‘But she fell for Archie and stayed in Westray?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Evelyn’s mouth snapped shut. Perhaps she’d been even less enthusiastic about the marriage than the idea that Vaila might go south to study.

  ‘It seems as if they were a lovely family, Archie, Vaila and the boys.’

  This time Evelyn didn’t reply. She emptied the kettle into a pot before turning back to the table.

  ‘We’re checking where everyone was on the night Archie disappeared,’ Willow said. ‘Can you confirm that the Johnsons spent the evening with you?’

  ‘The prof and Barbara? They did. We’ve known them for years.’

  ‘But they’ve only been in Westray twice, once when they were students and then again when Tony came back in 2006 to work on the dig.’

  ‘They were different from most of the visitors who come. Westray was special for them because this is where they met, and they weren’t just here for a week at a time. They kept in touch with us. And then they put us up when we went south last year. The least we could do was offer them a meal.’ Evelyn’s voice was defensive.

  ‘What time did they arrive?’

  ‘You can’t think they had anything to do with Archie’s death? Respectable people like that! Tony’s famous in his field. Besides, they barely knew him.’

  ‘We have to ask,’ Willow said gently. ‘Routine, you know. It’s what makes for good policing and how we’ll find out what happened.’

  Evelyn rubbed her cheek with her hand and left behind a smudge of cocoa powder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know.’ There was a pause. ‘We always eat early, especially in the winter. And that night there was such a storm although it passed through quickly enough. They arrived at about six, and I had the meal on the table by half past. I had some stewing beef in the freezer from the last cow we killed. Some animals can be a peedie bit tough, but I made a casserole, tarted it up with lots of wine and shallots and called it beef bourguignon. They liked it fine. And we had crab for starters. There’s never any shortage of shellfish.’

  She stopped abruptly. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t need to know all that. I’m rambling.’

  ‘Not at all. The more detail the better.’

  ‘I was a bit nervous about the meal. I thought they’d be used to what they call fine dining. The prof’s famous, you know. He’s written a book about the runes on the story stones, and like I said, we’ve seen him a few times on the television. He had his own show last year. Something serious on BBC Two.’

  ‘I didn’t realize that.’ Willow glanced across at Ellie, who gave a little nod to say that she’d check the details when they were back in the hotel. Willow wondered if that explained the man’s arrogance: he was something of a celebrity in his field, and he was used to being recognized. ‘What time did you hear that Archie was missing?’

  ‘We’d finished eating and we’d moved into the living room with coffee and drinks.’ She looked apologetically at Willow. ‘We don’t have a resident police officer here in Westray, and we’re not as careful as we should be about drinking and driving.’

  Willow smiled back. She understood even if she didn’t condone, and this certainly wasn’t the time to comment.

  ‘It was just before eight when Vaila phoned. Maybe a little bit earlier. At first, I wasn’t anxious at all. We knew they’d been going through a bad patch recently and Archie wasn’t the easiest of men. I thought he’d be in some house down the island with a pal, whining about the life that he had.’ A pause. ‘He was given to self-pity and didn’t realize at times how lucky he was.’

  ‘And the Johnsons left at about that time?’

  ‘Yes. It was a bit awkward. They could see that something was wrong, and I’d had a few drinks myself so maybe I was a wee bit indiscreet, talking about Vaila’s marriage. They probably thought they were being tactful to leave us to it. Or that one of us might want to go to Vaila.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘No. She was in the bar at the Pierowall Hotel, and I thought one of the guys there would track down Archie soon enough.’ A pause, then her voice bitter, the crudeness shocking: ‘You can’t fart in Westray without everyone knowing.’ She stared out of the window before adding: ‘I thought Vaila was making a fuss over nothing. No marriage is perfect. We were here in the warm, a fire going and a good meal inside us. The last thing we wanted was a wasted journey up the island. Of course, I feel guilty now.’

  ‘You’d heard rumours that Archie had been having an affair with Rosalie Greeman?’

  Evelyn didn’t answer directly. ‘Like I said. No marriage is perfect. We all have to work at it.’

  ‘Someone must have checked that Archie wasn’t with Rosalie at Quoybrae.’

  ‘Of course they did. Bill o’ the hotel phoned her first. He didn’t want one of the lads going up there. They’d have loved catching Archie with his trousers down while his wife was making a scene in the pub. That would give them something to gossip over through to the New Year.’

  ‘According to Rosalie, they weren’t having an affair,’ Willow said gently. ‘They were just friends.’

  ‘Aye well, she would say that.’ Evelyn shot her a look that suggested Willow would be a naive fool to believe such a thing.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘Archie’s position on the island,’ Willow said. ‘Was he respected? His father represented the north isles on Orkney council, but Archie never took on the role. I think Tom took over once Magnus died?’

  Evelyn was dismissive. ‘Archie would never have been interested. He’d have been bored stupid after the first meeting. There was something of the hyperactive child about him. He could never sit still.’

  ‘Yet it seemed something was worrying him that day. Something close to home.’

  Evelyn looked up sharply. ‘Who told you that?’

  Willow shrugged and didn’t reply. ‘Had you heard any rumours? As you said, you can’t fart in Westray without everyone knowing.’

  Evelyn shook her head. ‘No. I never heard anything like that.’ But the reply came so quickly that Willow didn’t quite believe her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I need to talk to the boys. Could you call them in? Or I could go out to them?’ She thought that Evelyn would protest, but she must have realized that Willow was determined.

  ‘Wait there. I’ll fetch them in.’

  Willow watched the woman cross the yard to call in her grandsons. Evelyn had pushed her feet into wellingtons but hadn’t put on a coat over her apron and she wrapped her arms around her body to fend off the cold. She stood at the door of the byre and shouted inside. Willow couldn’t hear what she said, but it didn’t take long for Tom and the two boys to appear.

  Tom led them through to the overheated living room. The carpet had recently been hoovered. There were lines in the pile like an English lawn that has just been cut. The grandfather stayed there with the boys throughout the interview. He sent Evelyn away before it started. ‘You need to finish off in the kitchen, get that cake in the oven,’ he said to his wife when she tried to join them. His voice was firm, and reluctantly Evelyn left them to it.

  Lawrie had grown since Willow had seen him last and looked very like his father, sandy-haired, blue-eyed. She thought he could be descended from the writer of the runes on the story stones. Iain was small and slight and took after his mother.

  ‘I need to ask you some questions,’ Willow said. ‘I know this is painful, but it might help us find out who killed your father.’

  They stared back at her.

  ‘I’d kill the bastard,’ Lawrie said, ‘if I got my hands on him.’

  Willow only realized then that anger had overtaken grief. It must be his way of dealing with the loss. He’d clenched his fists, and his whole body was tense. His grandfather reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Iain started crying.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Willow looked up at the grandfather. ‘Let’s get this over as soon as we can. Your mother’s in Kirkwall now, with Jimmy, but she’ll be home soon. We have to think of her too.’

  There was a moment of silence, then Tom spoke. ‘We’ll help in any way we can, won’t we, boys?’

  They stared at him, and then they both nodded.

  Willow continued: ‘Lawrie, you were at home with your dad while your mum was helping with the old folks’ lunch, and Iain was at his friend’s house. How did your father seem?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Willow had interviewed lots of teenage lads in her time as a cop. Most were monosyllabic. She knew not to take it personally.

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘The farm. Christmas. The Ba’. It’s my last year in the Boys’ Ba’ so we’re hoping for a doonies win. We were all going into Kirkwall for it.’

  ‘We’ll still go in for it,’ Tom said. ‘Whatever your grandmother says. It’s all planned, and your dad would want it. He was a great one for the Ba’ although it’s such a Kirkwall tradition. It’ll be a celebration for your father.’

  ‘I saw a photo of him in your room at Nistaben,’ Willow said. ‘He must have been a great player.’

  ‘Fearless.’ Tom put his arm around his grandson’s shoulder. ‘Just like this one.’

  ‘What else did you talk about?’

  ‘He told me what he’d got Mum for a Christmas present.’ The boy was talking more freely now. ‘Some fancy perfume he’d had to send away for. He’d asked the purser on the ferry to bring it in from Kirkwall so she wouldn’t see it arriving in the post. He got me to hide it in my room.’

  ‘That’s why he was at the pier when the ferry came in?’

  ‘Aye. John, the purser, is a Westray man.’

  ‘Your dad didn’t seem upset about anything? Disturbed in any way?’

  Lawrie shook his head. ‘He was just Dad.’

  ‘Did he tell you where he was going when he went out after lunch?’

  ‘He was taking bags of firewood to some people. I helped him load it in the trailer.’

  ‘And both you boys were here when he came back for dinner later.’

  ‘I was in my room,’ Lawrie said, moody again. ‘Headphones on. Listening to my music. I don’t know when any of them came back.’

  ‘I had to go and get Lawrie when it was time to eat,’ Iain said. ‘He can never hear even when we shout. Sometimes we have to text him.’

  ‘And you didn’t notice anything unusual about him when you were eating that evening?’

  ‘Not really.’ Iain looked across at his brother. Asking for permission to speak or perhaps needing support before he went on. ‘He was a bit quiet maybe. Like there was something on his mind.’