None but the Dead (26 page)

The puddles on the floor decided her.

McNab was definitely not in his comfort zone, despite the two double espressos he’d drunk since arrival at the doctor’s surgery. DI Flett had asked him to describe
in detail what had happened both in their visit to Sam’s cottage and to the Sinclair house, then the circumstances that had led them to recovering his body from the causeway.

McNab had given him every last detail, down to the expression on Jones’s face when he’d opened the door to him.

‘When did you search the schoolhouse?’

McNab gave him an estimate, because he couldn’t remember exactly.

‘Did you check the outhouses?’

McNab stumbled over that, knowing he had, but not as thoroughly as he might have.

DI Flett was looking at him in a manner he didn’t like, because it reminded him too much of the man he regarded as his real boss, DI Wilson.

‘You think what happens here doesn’t warrant a proper investigation, Sergeant?’

McNab didn’t have an answer to that, at least not one he wanted to give.

‘Well?’

As he opened his mouth to speak he knew that what he was about to say was a mistake, but he found himself saying it anyway. ‘I think, sir, that it’s difficult to investigate a small
community if you are familiar with its residents.’

He’d shot his bolt and his opinion, which was that DI Flett shouldn’t be here and probably PC Tulloch too.

‘But
you
are in no way familiar with the residents of Sanday, Sergeant, and it’s you we’re talking about here.’

Things deteriorated after that, until the point when DI Flett suggested McNab accompany the body south on the helicopter. ‘As you originally intended.’

As McNab was about to argue to the contrary, the door to the treatment room opened and Rhona emerged to tell DI Flett that he could come in and see Sam now.

Erling had looked on death before a number of times. It never got any easier. The first time had been as a student. A friend had got high and drunk and leapt over a wall for
bravado, not realizing there was a huge drop on the other side. A young life, full of intelligence and hope, had been annihilated in an instant. The shock and horror of that brief moment had stayed
with him and would, he felt, remain forever.

He’d attended fatal road accidents, which thankfully weren’t frequent on Orkney, collected fishermen’s bodies from the waters surrounding the islands and dealt with the results
of a serious fire on Flotta, which haunted him still, especially when he thought of Rory.

But I haven’t had to face this.

Sam Flett had been more than just an ‘adopted’ uncle. He had been a friend. He and his wife, Jean, had dealt with his younger self with a skill Erling could only now appreciate. His
own parents had been more distant. Loving, but he had found it too difficult to speak to them about the growing realization of what he might be. He had always thought of it as ‘might’
as though there was some way things might turn, like the tide, and he would wake up to find he was normal.

And I wanted so much to be normal.

He had felt no such contradiction while with Jean and Sam. In fact, he had never worried for a moment about who or what he was when on Sanday with them. Maybe that was why he’d exuded the
pheromones that Magnus had smelt and remarked upon.

Erling observed the face that was no longer Sam Flett. The fish had claimed it. Sam had become a part of the food chain of the ocean. That aspect of his death Sam wouldn’t have minded.

‘What happened, Sam?’

Erling listened intently, as though he might hear a response.

‘He thinks I’ve screwed up,’ McNab told Rhona. ‘He wants me to leave.’

Rhona remained silent and drank her coffee.

‘When I said someone tried to drown
me
outside the hotel, he suggested it might have been horseplay. He’s the one not investigating properly, because he’s too close to
this place and the people involved.’

He waited again for her to comment, but she didn’t, despite her concerns. McNab didn’t scare easily. If he believed someone had tried to kill him, then from her experience, his claim
had to be taken seriously. On the other hand, Sanday folk were used to policing themselves. If an incoming officer of the law had been seen to fall short of what was required, i.e. take steps
against the infiltration of a known paedophile, then they might see that as a punishable offence. And he had been rescued pretty quickly, which suggested Torvaig had been given a heads-up on the
fact that McNab was in the water.

‘What if the same person attacked Sam Flett?’ he said.

Having stripped and processed Sam’s body, the evidence of a blunt-force trauma to his head had become apparent. Something she still had to tell Erling.

‘I don’t think you should leave,’ she said. ‘You’re part of the team sent in here. But perhaps you might try to work better with local officers.’

‘You sound like the rule book for MIT.’

‘I meant to.’

‘You’ll back me up?’ he urged.

‘Sam Flett’s death changes everything,’ she told him.

Erling turned on her re-entry to the treatment room. ‘Can you tell how Sam died?’

‘It’ll take a post-mortem to determine that for certain.’ She gave the stock answer.

‘But you have an idea?’

‘There’s evidence of a blunt-force trauma to the back of the skull.’

‘He fell on the causeway and hit his head?’

‘Maybe.’

Erling went quiet, appreciating he was putting her on the spot. Dr MacLeod wasn’t a forensic pathologist and wasn’t conducting a post-mortem. She was there to strip forensic evidence
from the body.

‘I found this,’ she said. ‘In the rock pool where his body lay.’ She held up a bag.

Through the plastic he saw a metal object. Studying it, he realized what it might be.

‘A sweetheart badge?’ he said, trying to imagine why Sam would have such an object on his person.

‘There’s a pair of initials,’ she said.

‘What are they?’ As he posed the question, Erling realized he was worried what her answer might be.

Magnus had been dozing in one of the Orkney chairs when the mobile rang. Startled into sudden wakefulness, he was puzzled as to where he was for a moment, surrounded as he was
by an image of the past.

His shock at the news of Sam’s death had been followed by a deep disquiet, and the realization that though Sam had been afraid for the girl, it may have been his own death he’d been
forewarned of. Magnus’s investigation of the second sight had unearthed many similar stories, but he hadn’t wanted Sam to feature in one of them.

He’d immediately asked McNab if he might help in any way.

McNab had answered no, then amended that somewhat. ‘Can you take another look around Sam’s place?’

‘What am I looking for?’

There was a pause, then McNab said, ‘I never thought he was being completely straight about the business of the cold case. And Rhona found a sweetheart brooch with the body, a replica of
the one in the grave, only this time it had the initials EF and BH on it.’

‘Do we know how Sam died?’

‘He was in the middle of the causeway, so drowning comes high on the list of possibilities.’

‘Sam Flett knew Start Island. He would never have got caught out by the tide.’

‘We all make mistakes.’

With that McNab had rung off, after which Magnus had fixed himself some strong coffee and started his search.

He had begun with the laptop. That in itself had taken some time. Magnus had looked at, he thought, every file on there. No doubt the police IT department would do a more thorough job, but it
appeared that Sam hadn’t been in correspondence with anyone apart from himself regarding the current case on the island.

And our correspondence focussed primarily on Sam’s fear for Inga.

He checked the sent folder to find nothing more recent than their last exchange. Then he noted that one email lay in the draft folder. Clicking it open, he found it had been written to him.

Weariness had set in for Rhona. That and despair. The longer they remained here, the worse the situation seemed to become. Her excavation of the wartime grave, or maybe the
discovery of the flowers in the attic, had apparently started an avalanche which continued to roll down the hill, creating havoc and death in its wake.

Such thoughts ran contrary to Rhona’s scientist brain, yet they presented themselves nonetheless.

No time had as yet been set when the helicopter would arrive to take Sam’s body away. Rhona didn’t have to be around when that happened. Everything was ready, including the forensic
report and the clothes and samples she’d taken from the body. It would be up to the pathologist to decide if he agreed with her findings on the nature of Sam’s death.

McNab had driven them back, as silent as she had been. Rhona had immediately gone through to bed, assuming he would do the same. Sleep hadn’t come easily, but eventually she must have
drifted off, because daylight filtering in through the salt-encrusted window eventually roused her.

There’s little wind
, was her first thought,
which means the helicopter can land
.

Her second consideration was the child and the continuing search for her. Start Island had to be part of that search. Along with the Maesry Mound, and the possibility of finding the skull.

Rising and showering, she entered the kitchen to discover McNab up and already cooking. What he’d found in the fridge, she had no idea.

‘Someone left eggs at the door,’ he told her. ‘I hope it wasn’t that bastard Jones.’

‘Maybe it was Derek Muir,’ she said, then suddenly remembered they hadn’t informed Derek about the death of his old friend.

‘He’ll have heard already,’ McNab responded to her concern. ‘Nothing’s a secret on this island. Except the things they definitely don’t want you to know
about,’ he added with a shake of his head.

He handed her a plate of scrambled eggs. This time Rhona didn’t mention his cooking skills, but ate them gratefully, along with a mug of strong coffee.

After breakfast they both went round the back of the cottage to try for a signal. The sound of messages arriving in quick succession was partially drowned out by bird calls. Rhona glanced
through the list to find Magnus’s name as the most recent.

‘Magnus wants us to go over to Sam’s. He thinks he may have found something,’ she told McNab.

McNab was staring at his mobile screen.

‘What is it?’ Rhona said.

‘I asked Ollie in the Tech department to run a check on my mobile history. See if he could discover where that text message about Sam came from.’

‘And?’ Rhona said.

‘It was sent from Sanday, from a mobile belonging to Hege Aaker.’ He looked put out by this.

‘You know her?’ Rhona said.

‘She’s Norwegian. Working here for a year. She served me coffee and cake at the community centre. And she was in the band that night at the pub.’

‘Why didn’t she speak to you if she knew something?’

McNab shrugged. ‘I’ve given up trying to figure out how folk in this place work.’

‘She’s not a local,’ Rhona reminded him.

‘Well, she’s into secrets like the rest of them.’

If there had been a summons from Erling, McNab never mentioned it.

Magnus looks as though he’s had about as much sleep as we have
, Rhona thought as he led them into the small living room. The laptop from the study now stood on the
table. A tin box lay open beside it, with a selection of old photographs and what looked like children’s drawings and postcards spread out alongside. An email was open on the screen.

‘I went through all our emails again and anything I thought might have a connection to Sanday during the war, or the cold case.’ Magnus looked to McNab. ‘Your guys no doubt
would do a more thorough job.’

‘What did you find?’ McNab said.

Magnus indicated they should read the open email.

McNab’s face clouded over as he did so. ‘What has this got to do with anything?’

‘Last night, Inga’s mother never mentioned this picture, although in the email he said he was planning to show it to her.’

‘So?’

‘I just thought that odd,’ Magnus said, sounding almost apologetic. ‘Also, you mentioned the brooch? The tin box held a lot of memorabilia, his mother’s I believe. I
wondered if he might have got the brooch from there.’

McNab still wasn’t impressed.

Magnus kept trying. ‘Then the initials. Sam’s half-brother was called Eric. He would have been a teenager during the war. His initials were EF. The young woman who Mr Cutts named as
going missing was called Beth Haddow. EF and BH?’

At last he’d generated a spark of interest.

‘Sam’s brother was in the RAF?’ McNab said.

Rhona intervened. ‘Sam said the brooches were fairly common currency, even if you weren’t a serviceman.’

‘There’s one more thing.’ Magnus looked a little put out by what he was about to say, while McNab waited impatiently.

‘You saw the photograph of Jamie Drever as a young man with the family?’ He extracted it from the pile and laid it on the keyboard. ‘That’s Eric and his father, Geordie.
They look very much alike, don’t you think?’ He pointed at the third man. ‘That’s Jamie.’

McNab peered at the picture.

Rhona knew what Magnus was hinting at almost immediately, having studied Sam Flett recently and at close quarters. She looked to McNab.

‘What?’ he said.

‘We can compare the DNA samples from both bodies,’ she told Magnus, while waiting for the penny to drop with McNab.

It finally did. ‘You think Sam Flett was Jock Drever’s son?’

‘I think there’s a strong possibility he was,’ Magnus said. ‘Once Sam saw this photo, I believe he may have come to the same conclusion. He mentioned in our
correspondence that his mother had developed dementia prior to her death and talked a lot about the past. Apparently Eric never wrote to her after he left Sanday and, according to Sam, his mother
kept returning in her mind to one summer in particular, which seemed to have given her both great joy and a terrible sadness. It was the summer she discovered she was expecting Sam. The summer Eric
left home. And Jamie Drever went south. Possibly the summer the young woman died.’