SARAH SAT ON THE EDGE OF HER CHAIR. SHE HAD THE look in her eye: angry, ashamed, impatient; the one that would increase in intensity month by month, anger gradually giving way to despair as the arrival of each menstrual period signalled a fresh failure. Of course, it could also disappear, completely and for ever, the second she knew she was pregnant. I knew that look so well. I saw it all the time. And not just on the faces of patients.
Robert's expression, on the other hand, I couldn't read. He had still to look me in the eye.
Although this was their first meeting with me, Sarah and Robert Tully had already run the gauntlet of tests, examinations and interviews with counsellors. They were running out of patience. He wanted the pats on the back down the local and the weekends browsing through model-train brochures. She wanted her feet up in stirrups and a good dose of artificial hormone coursing round her veins.
'We were hoping you'd put us on the IVF programme,' she said. 'We know there's a waiting list for NHS treatment but we have some money saved up. We want to start right away.'
I nodded. 'Of course. I understand.' Oh, how well did I understand: Get me pregnant. I don't care how you do it. I don't even want to think about everything that comes after – the nausea, exhaustion, backache, stretch marks, total lack of privacy, and then pain beyond anything I could ever have imagined. Just wave your magical, medical wand and make it OK for me too.
What I was about to suggest they would find incredibly hard to accept; patience and the biological urge to reproduce don't make comfortable bedfellows. 'There is another way forward that I'd like you to think about.'
'We've been trying for three years.' With something between a hiccup and a sob she started to cry. Robert glared at me as though their failure to conceive was entirely my doing and gave his wife the handkerchief he'd had ready in his hand.
I decided to give them a moment. I stood and walked to the window.
It had been raining as I'd driven into Lerwick that morning and the clouds above were low and heavy, the town dark and damp.
Lerwick is a grey stone town on the eastern coast of the main island, a short channel hop from the island of Bressay. Like the rest of the islands' townships, it isn't noted for its architecture: the buildings are simple and functional but rarely beautiful. The traditional choice of building material is local granite with a slate roof. For the most part, two storeys are thought ample by the practical islanders – maybe they worry about high winds blowing roofs away – but in the older parts of town and around the harbour a few three-storey, even four-storey houses can be seen. They seem to represent a rare flash of ambition, or defiance, on the part of the islanders.
Gazing at a rain-washed Lerwick did nothing to improve my mood.
I found myself stifling a yawn. I hadn't slept well. Even when I hadn't been fully awake and out of bed, I'd been restless, my head full of the woman I'd found. I'd seen her, touched her, knew some- thing of what had happened to her. It was appalling… I should be appalled, and I was… but I was angry too. Because I'd wanted to plant snowdrops on Jamie's grave to remind me of the time he tried to eat some. I'd gone out one evening to call him in and found a tiny white flower sticking out of his mouth. He'd looked like an equine flamenco dancer. But now I'd never be able to do that because some sick bastard had chosen our land to bury his dirty work on. And Jamie had been carted off to the knackers' yard.
There was a movement behind me; a fidget. Sarah had stopped crying. I sat down again and turned to her.
'You're only thirty-one. You have a long way to go before you need worry about time running out.' I, on the other hand, was thirty- three. 'There's no guarantee of a baby using IVF. The clinic I'd refer you to has an average success rate of 27 per cent per treatment and, frankly, you're likely to have a below-average expectation of success.'
'Why?' said Robert.
I glanced down at the file again, although I already knew what it said.
'Between you, you're dealing with sub-quality sperm and highly irregular periods. The tests you had on your last visit and the life- style questionnaire you filled in suggest some reasons why that might be.'
Both looked defensive, as though I was about to tell them it was their fault. Well, in a way it was.
'Go on,' said Robert.
'Both of you show deficiencies in certain minerals that are very useful to conception. Sarah, your levels of zinc, selenium and magnesium are very low. You also have a lot of aluminium in your body. Robert, you have low zinc levels too, but what worries me more is a very high level of cadmium.' I paused. 'That's a toxin present in tobacco smoke. You smoke about twenty cigarettes a day. And you drink alcohol most days. You too, Sarah.'
'My father smoked forty a day and drank whisky just about every day of his adult life,' said Robert. 'He had five kids before he was thirty.'
I was losing this couple; but I wasn't about to compromise every- thing I believed in just to give them some false hope today. On the other hand, they might just get pregnant on their first IVF attempt. It was a huge lottery and I could be doing them a great disservice by persuading them to wait.
'What I'd like to suggest is that you forget all about getting pregnant for the next six months and concentrate on becoming as healthy as you possibly can.' I could see Robert about to interrupt. 'Healthy people have the best chance of conceiving, Robert. I'd like to see you give up smoking and both of you to cut out alcohol completely.'
Robert shook his head, as though despairing of my idiocy.
'I know it will be hard,' I went on, 'but if you want a baby, you'll try. Even cutting down will help. Also, I'm going to prescribe a course of supplements to eliminate the various deficiencies you have and I want you both to be tested for a number of infections.'
They weren't going to buy it. They'd come here for sophisticated medical intervention and I was offering them vitamin C.
'Do you really think just that will make much difference?' asked Sarah.
I nodded. 'Yes, I do. I've written everything down.' I handed over a typed sheet to Sarah. 'If you follow this plan, at the end of six months, you'll be much healthier than you are now and the chances of IVF being successful will have substantially increased.' I tried to smile. 'Who knows, you may not even need IVF.'
They stood up, sullenly, like children denied a treat. I wondered if they'd try the plan or just travel to a clinic on the Scottish mainland, where they'd almost certainly be guaranteed a more sympathetic response. Not everyone shared my conviction about the importance of health and nutrition when trying to conceive.
Sarah turned at the door. 'I know you mean well,' she said, 'but we just want a baby so much.'
The sound of their footsteps along the corridor faded away. I opened my top drawer and took out an orange file. The first sheet was the result of a sperm test taken in London twelve months earlier.
Total number of spermatozoa present: 60 million per ml – normal Percentage of sperm alive at one hour: 65% – normal Morphology level: 55% – normal Antibody levels: 22% – normal
And so on, down to the bottom of the page. Everything normal. The name on the top was Duncan Guthrie, my totally normal husband. It was the third test he'd had. The results of the previous two were practically identical. Whatever our problem, it didn't lie with him.
My own notes were underneath. FSH, LH, oestrogen and progesterone levels were all well within the normal ranges. My hormones were OK and, as far as I could tell via a slightly awkward self-examination, everything appeared to be in place.
The Tullys had been my last appointment but I had a ward round in twenty minutes. Immediately afterwards I had to drive north and catch a ferry to the island of Yell for my monthly visit. I'd meet with the island's midwife and hold a clinic for the eight women currently pregnant there.
Getting up, I wandered back over to my office window. The car park was immediately below. Without really thinking I found myself searching for Gifford's silver BMW. Let it go now, he'd said, let the police do their job. He was right, of course. But I still had eighteen minutes to kill.
Back at my desk I accessed the hospital's intranet site. I clicked on a few icons, thought a bit, then clicked on a couple more. For a hospital website it was surprisingly easy to navigate. It wasn't long before I had the file I wanted: a list of every baby born on the islands since records had been computerized.
Stephen Renney believed the woman in my field had been dead for around two years, meaning her baby had to have been born sometime during 2005. If he was right about the strawberry seeds, the birth would most likely have taken place in summer. I high- lighted the section between March and August and pressed print, then collected five printed sheets of A4 and spread them out on my desk.
If she was a local woman and if her labour had been medically managed, then my friend from the field was one of the names in front of me. It would just be a matter of going through the list, checking if each woman were still alive and well.
A normal year on Shetland sees between 200 and 250 births and 2005 had been pretty typical with 227. Of these, 140 had been delivered between March and August. I turned back to my screen and opened up a few individual files, looking for a Caucasian woman between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age. Just about every file I opened fitted the bill. There were a few teenage mothers, one or two older ones who could probably be discounted, two Indian women and one Chinese. Most of the women I was looking at would remain potentials until the patient graft of someone like DS Tulloch proved otherwise.
I wondered how she was getting on. Before leaving home that morning, I'd caught a few minutes of the Scottish news on TV. There had been no mention of my discovery. On Shetland, one hears frequent grumbles about events on the islands not being considered important enough to make the national Scottish news. I'd always thought it more likely to be a matter of economics than any- thing else; it would be expensive to fly a TV crew out to Shetland. Even so, you'd think they'd make a bit more effort for a murder.
I stared up and down the list: 140 women, 140 babies.
My mind started wandering, in the way minds do when they come up against a brick wall and are not quite sure how to get around it. Out of nowhere, I heard Duncan talking about more babies being available for adoption on Shetland than in other parts of the UK. I thought for a moment, wondering how I could check quickly. What sort of mother typically puts her baby up for adoption? Almost invariably, it's the young, unmarried ones.
I left the hospital's intranet site and accessed the Internet, typing 'General Register Office for Scotland' into the search engine. The site appeared immediately and I called up the latest annual report. Table 3.3 offered details of live births outside marriage, together with the age of the mother, in Scotland. I'm not great with stats, but even for me it was pretty clear. Teenage pregnancy rates were quite low on the islands. In fact, for the year I was looking at, they had been nearly 40 per cent lower than in the rest of Scotland. Wherever Duncan's glut of babies was coming from, it wasn't from our teenage mothers.
I went back to my list of 2005 babies. How could 140 names be narrowed down? If DS Tulloch's theory about the body being a local woman was correct – on the grounds that no sensible murderer would transport a body across water just to bury her on my land – then our friend had probably gone into labour here at the Franklin Stone Hospital.
Unfortunately, that didn't help much. Most Shetlanders live on the main island and consequently most births take place here at the hospital. As I went down the list, I saw the occasional appearance of one or other of the smaller islands – Yell, Unst, Bressay, Fair Isle, Tronal, Unst again, Papa Stour. Too few for ruling them out to make a real difference.
Tronal? Now that was a new one on me. All the other islands I knew. They all had medical centres, resident midwives and regular antenatal clinics, presided over by yours truly. But Tronal I'd never even heard of, let alone visited. And yet it seemed to play host to several deliveries each year. I counted. Tronal appeared four times. That probably meant between six and eight births a year, more than some of the other smaller islands. I made a mental note to find out about Tronal as soon as I could.
Forcing myself back to the task in hand, I looked at the list again. It was giving me the name and age of the mother; the date, time and place of delivery; the sex, weight and condition (i.e. live or still birth) of the baby. And something else. The initials KT appeared at the end of one entry. I tried to think of any condition or obstetric outcome that might be abbreviated to KT and couldn't. I glanced up and down the list. There it was again. KT, at the end of an entry recording the birth of a baby boy born in May on Yell. And again; a home birth here in Lerwick in July.
I glanced at my watch. Time up. I was gathering up my things when there was a knock on the door.
'Yes, hello!' I called out. The door opened and I looked up to see Bossy Tulloch. Her trouser suit was slate-grey in a crisp, smooth fabric. Not a crease in sight.
'Good morning,' she said, giving me the once-over and making me feel grubby, at least two seasons out of fashion and as oversized as a carthorse next to a prize-winning Arabian filly. 'Got a minute?' she added, still waiting in the doorway.
'I have a ward round,' I said. 'But we're supposed to run at least ten minutes late.'
She raised her eyebrows. I was starting to hate it when she did that.
'It's written into our contract,' I went on. 'Creates the impression of being busy and important; gives the patients a sense of proportion; stops them getting too demanding.'
She didn't smile.
'I understand my field will be cleared today after all,' I said.
'Yes, I understand that too,' she replied, walking over to my desk. She picked up the list. I strode over, meaning to take it back, even if it made me look childish.
'I came for this,' she said.
I held out my hand. 'I can't just hand over patient information. I have to ask you to put it down.'
She looked at me, put the papers back down on my desk, tucked her hands behind her back and carried on reading them. I reached out. She held up a hand to stop me.
'From what I've seen already, most of this is a matter of public record. I can get it elsewhere. It just seemed quicker to come to you. I thought you might want to help.'
Well, she had a point. Personal dislikes aside, she and I were supposed to be on the same side. I picked up the list anyway. We stood, looking at each other. She was a good four inches shorter than I but, somehow, I didn't think height alone was going to intimidate her.
'How many?' she asked.
'Hundred and forty,' I replied.
'All of them healthy Caucasian women in their twenties and thirties?'
'Pretty much.'
'No big deal. It's what we do all the time. Should only take a few days. But if you make me go elsewhere or get a court order, it could waste a day or more.'
'I really should check before I-'
'Tora,' she said, using my name for the first time. 'I've spent ten years in the police force, a good part of that in the inner cities. But nothing could have prepared me for what we saw on the autopsy table last night. I want to go back to my office and get my team making phone calls to check these women are alive and busy looking after their two-year-old children. And I really want to do that now.'
I handed her the list. Something in her face softened as she took it from me.
'You can discount the ones who had Caesarean sections,' I said, wondering why I hadn't thought of it before. 'She didn't have a scar.' Well, not that sort of scar anyway.
'Anything else?' she asked.
I shook my head. 'Not immediately. Have the Inverness pathologists finished yet?'
She didn't reply and I looked pointedly at the list in her hand.
'Pretty much,' she said. 'We've also spoken to some experts on the impact of peat on organic material like linen. Dr Renney was spot on about spring or summer 2005 being the time she died. This list is important.'
She thanked me and made for the door. 'Can I pop round to your house later?' she asked, glancing back. 'I need to see your runes.'
I suppressed a smile and nodded. I told her I'd be home about six and she left. I was logging off my computer when I noticed I had new mail. It was from Kenn Gifford.
To all staff.
Following the commencement of the murder inquiry by the Northern Constabulary, all staff are reminded not to give interviews to either police or media, or to release any hospital information without prior approval from me.
In the words of the immortal bard – oh shit.
My ward rounds were soon over and I collected my coat and grabbed a sandwich from the cafeteria. On the way to the lift I sensed someone behind me and turned. It was Kenn Gifford. He nodded at me but didn't speak. The lift arrived and we walked in. The doors closed. Still he said nothing.
There are some people, I've noticed, who are totally un-self conscious, able to remain silent in company without showing the slightest sign of embarrassment. Gifford was one of them. He didn't even look at me as the lift went down, just gazed at the lift buttons, seemingly lost in thought. It was one of the big, hospital lifts, designed to take trolleys, but there were just the two of us inside. Now, I get nervous in confined spaces with just one other person; I feel the need to make conversation, even with a perfect stranger. Three people is fine, I can leave the other two to talk, but when it's just me and one other I have to say something. Which is probably why I chose that moment to 'fess up.
'I gave DS Tulloch some information this morning. Before I got your email.'
He didn't turn. 'I know. Try not to do it again. Do you get head- aches a lot?'
Oh great, we were off again.
'A few,' I admitted. 'It was a list of births here on the islands,' I went on. 'Women who were delivered during spring and summer 2005. She said it was all a matter of public record anyway'
The moment I said that I regretted it. It sounded like I was making excuses. He turned to look at me. 'Is that why you did it?' God, what colour were those eyes? Gunmetal?
'No. I gave her the information because I wanted to help.'
He moved closer. 'Thought so. What did we talk about last night?'
That annoyed me. He was my boss, not my father.
'Umm, Ivanhoe, sailing…' The lift door opened. '… child sex abuse on the Orkneys and the difficulties of washing breasts,' I said, considerably louder than necessary, as we walked out and two house officers moved in to take our place. Both doctors shot curious glances, first at me, then at Gifford.
I risked one myself. He was smiling.
'You're ridiculously tense in theatre,' he said. 'Have you tried yoga? Or tai chi?'
I thought about telling him I wasn't nearly so tense when he wasn't breathing down my neck but it didn't seem a good idea. Or entirely true. He was right, I was tense in theatre, but being told so, even by my boss, seemed patronizing. And I had a feeling he was laughing at me.
'Why do you and my husband dislike each other?'
His smile didn't falter. 'Does he dislike me? Poor Duncan.'
He held the outer door open and I walked outside, feeling very relieved to have somewhere else to go.
My clinic on Yell overran and there was a queue for the return ferry. When I finally arrived home, several hours later, Dana Tulloch's sports car was parked in my yard. I'd totally forgotten she was coming. I glanced at my watch. If she'd been on time, I'd kept her waiting for nearly three hours. Damn! After rudeness of that magnitude, I was going to have to be nice. I got out of the car just as she climbed out of hers.
'I'm so sorry,' I said, 'I should have phoned. Have you been here all this time?'
'Course not,' she said. 'When you didn't arrive at six I started making phone calls. I came back about ten minutes ago.'
I was starving and desperate for a coffee but didn't think I could keep her waiting any longer. She followed me inside and we went straight to the cellar, accessed via eight stone steps leading down from the kitchen.
'Good lord,' she said, as we reached the bottom and I turned on the solitary and completely inadequate light bulb. 'You'd never dream all this was beneath your house, would you?' She pulled a torch out of her bag and walked forward, shining it all around.
Our cellar is probably the single most interesting feature of our property. It's older than the house, for a start. In places it shows the remains of fire damage so we can only surmise that the original house was destroyed some time ago. It's also much larger than the house, indicating the previous building to have been considerably grander than our own. Divided into low rooms, accessible by stone archways, it looks like a smaller version of the cavernous wine cellars you see beneath French chateaux. I led Dana into the biggest room and stopped just in front of the north-facing wall.
'A fireplace?' she said. 'In a cellar?'
It had puzzled us too, but there it was. A fully functional fireplace with stone grate and chimney flue leading up to our chimney stack on the roof. A stone lintel had been fixed into the wall above the hearth and it was on this that the runes had been carved. Five symbols. None of which I recognized.
'All different,' she said, more to herself than to me. With a small digital camera she took several photographs.
'Did you phone my father-in-law?' I asked.
She shook her head. 'Haven't needed to yet,' she replied. 'Found a book.'
She finished her photographs and looked towards the stone arch- way that led to the rest of the cellars.
'Mind if I look around?' she asked.
'Be my guest,' I said. 'Mind if I go and get something to eat?'
She shook her head and turned away. I made for the steps. On the second one, I called after her.
'Oh, Sergeant, if you find anything… organic, don't tell me about it tonight. I'm all done in!'
She didn't reply. I already suspected she found me childish.
When she appeared ten minutes later, I was tucking into a micro- waved portion of pasta with cream and ham. I pointed to the chair opposite mine. 'I made you a cup of tea.' Guessing she hadn't eaten either, I'd put some local shortbread on the table. I wanted her to tell me about the runes.
She glanced at the biscuits, then at her watch; looked uncertain for a second and then sat down. She picked up the tea, cradling it with one hand, and then gulped down a piece of shortbread in two bites. I continued eating, silently. The tactics worked; she spoke first.
'What do you know about the history of this property?'
I shrugged. 'Very little. My husband handled the purchase. I really wasn't that interested.'
'When does he get home?'
I shrugged again. 'I never really know these days.'
Her face clouded over.
'We can phone him,' I added, in a belated attempt to seem helpful.
She shook her head. 'I'd like to bring a team down here tomorrow, though. It can't be coincidence that similar runes appear both in your house and on a body found on your property.'
'Guess not,' I agreed, not sure where she was going but definitely not liking the implications. 'You mean she was probably killed in the house? Maybe the cellar?'
Now it was her turn to shrug. 'We do need to find out who owned this house before you.'
'I thought Duncan brought the deeds over to the station this morning.'
'He did. But they don't tell us much. Some sort of church or religious building used to be here but it was derelict for years before it was demolished to make way for this house. There were trustees named on the document but, so far, most of them seem to be dead.'
'Dead?'
She shook her head. 'Old age, nothing significant.'
I finished my supper. I was no longer starving but hardly satisfied; it hadn't exactly been a relaxing meal. I stood up and took the plate and cutlery to the dishwasher.
'So what about the runes?' I asked.
She looked at me, bit on another piece of shortbread, seemed to make up her mind. She leaned down and pulled her camera, a notebook and a small, blue leather-bound book from her bag. There was a runic script printed in gold ink on the front of the book and, although she'd laid it upside-down, I could read the title, Runes and Viking Script. The print was too small for me to make out the name of the author.
'You say your husband's father is into all this?' she asked.
I nodded. 'Very much so. I doubt there are many people who know more about the history of these islands than he does.'
She turned the book round for me. On the inside front cover were pictured twenty-five runes: each a simple, mainly angular symbol. They all had descriptive names, like Disruption, Standstill, Gate- way, but when Richard, my father-in-law, had referred to them, he'd used their Viking names.
'I don't get it,' she said. 'There are only twenty-five. Each one appears to have a distinct meaning of its own. How can it form any sort of alphabet and make words? There just aren't enough characters.'
I started to flip through the book. 'I think it works a bit like the Chinese alphabet,' I said. 'Each character has a principal meaning but also several sub-meanings. And when you use two or more together, each one impacts slightly upon the others to create a meaning unique to that combination: a bit like a word. Does that make any sort of sense?'
'Yes,' she said. 'But I think there are over two thousand Chinese characters.'
'Maybe the Vikings didn't talk much.'
She opened her notebook and turned it to face me. The page I was looking at had a reproduction of the three runes we'd seen in the morgue the day before. 'So what we have here,' she went on, 'are the runes for Separation, Breakthrough and Constraint, inscribed on the body of our victim. What's that all about then?'
I looked from her notes to the textbook. On the next page the runes were reproduced again, this time with their Viking names. The fish-like symbol was called Othila, meaning Separation; the kite-bow was Dagaz, meaning Breakthrough, and the diagonal, sword-like rune was Nauthiz, meaning Constraint. I looked up at her. She was watching me carefully.
'What about the sub-meanings?' I asked.
'Go ahead,' she encouraged.
On the page opposite, lesser meanings for each rune were listed. Othila also meant Property or Inherited Possessions, Native Land and Home; Dagaz meant Day, God's Light, Prosperity and Fruitfulness; Nauthiz meant Need, Necessity, Cause of Human Sorrow, Lessons, Hardship.
'Separation of significant internal organ from rest of body?' I suggested, not entirely seriously. She gave me an encouraging nod. I looked down at the book. 'Breakthrough… umm, breaking through the chest wall to reach the heart? Constraint… well, she was constrained, wasn't she? The bruises around her ankles and wrists… And she certainly suffered hardship…' I tailed off and looked at Dana.
'Seem good enough to you?' she asked.
I shook my head. 'No,' I said. 'Seems like bollocks.'
'Like meaningless doodles?' she suggested.
'Much more elegant way of putting it,' I agreed. 'What about the ones downstairs?'
She pressed a button on her camera and pulled up the photo- graph she'd taken just ten minutes ago. There were five symbols inscribed along the lintel.
'An arrow pointing upwards,' I said.
Dana flicked to the back page of the book. 'Teiwaz,' she said, 'meaning Warrior and Victory in battle.'
I looked at her. We both made mystified faces.
'Next up looks like a slanted letter F.' I reached over and indicated it on the page. 'There, what does it say?'
'Ansuz,' she replied, 'meaning Signals, God and River Mouth.'
'Our third symbol of the evening is a flash of lightning.'
'Sowelu. Wholeness, the Sun.' She looked up again.
'This is just more bo- meaningless doodles,' I said.
'Certainly looks that way,' she agreed. 'What about the last two?'
'We have an upturned table called Perth, meaning… aah!'
'What?'
'Initiation.'
She frowned. 'I always worry when I hear that word.'
'Know what you mean. And, finally, a crooked letter H, called Hagalaz, meaning Disruption and Natural Forces.'
'Warrior, Signals, Wholeness, Initiation and Disruption,' Dana summarized.
I held up my hands. 'Meaningless-'
'Bollocks,' she said. And smiled. It was a pretty smile.
I laughed. 'You need to talk to Duncan's dad. Maybe it's a question of context.'
'Who needs to talk to my dad?' said a voice from the doorway. Duncan had crept up on us. He stood there, grinning, looking from Dana to me, and I felt my stomach tensing the way it always did when Duncan was in the presence of a pretty woman who wasn't me. They had a way of softening, somehow, around him: their skin would blush, eyes shine, bodies instinctively lean towards him. I braced myself for Dana to respond in the time-honoured way and, to my surprise, she didn't. Dana, that night, gave me the totally new experience of watching my gorgeous husband and an equally gorgeous babe and feeling no jealousy whatsoever. They exchanged a few pleasantries, she ascertained that he knew nothing more about runes than I did, and then she left. She didn't promise to keep in touch.