THERE WAS ONLY ROOM FOR ONE AT MY FRIEND'S CRAMPED desk so Helen took the chair and I lowered myself on to a straw bale and leaned against the stone wall of the tack room. I didn't think I'd ever been on a less comfortable seat, but I knew I could be asleep in seconds if I allowed my eyes to close. From the saddlebag I retrieved Dana's copy of The Woman in White. As I did so, several folded sheets of A4 paper fell out of it.
At the desk Helen broke off typing to cough and then spit into her hand. She caught me looking at her.
'Bloody Maltesers are covered in hairs,' she grumbled before resuming typing.
'Dog hairs if you're lucky, horse hairs if you're not,' I muttered.
"Scuse me?' she said, her fingers still tapping away.
'Something my dad used to say at mealtimes,' I said. 'I grew up on a farm. With horses. Food hygiene wasn't something we worried too much about.'
'If I find another I'll pass it your way. What are you doing?'
'Staring vacantly at a sheet of paper, hoping the words might come into focus some time before dawn,' I answered.
'You should sleep,' she said. 'You should probably still be in hospital.' She leaned to one side and spat again, less delicately this time. 'Shit, what is this?'
'You eat a pound of muck before you die,' I said.
This time she let her hands fall on to her lap and turned round to me. 'What?'
'Dad again. He got it from his dad. It's called a Wiltshire Wisdom. When I was young, I took it literally – you know, imagined that when I'd eaten exactly my pound of muck, that would be it – curtains – even if I was only seven and healthy as a horse. It terrified me for a while. I used to scrub fruit till I bruised it. One time I even tried to use bleach on a biscuit I dropped on the floor.'
Helen was staring at me. I dropped my eyes to the floor, feeling ridiculous.
'Are you OK?' she asked tentatively, as though not too sure she could deal with an honest answer.
I nodded without looking up.
'You're allowed to have a good howl. I did.'
I bit my lip, took a deep breath. 'Not sure I'd be able to stop,' I managed after a second or two. Helen said nothing but I could feel her staring at me. 'Duncan's leaving me,' I said. 'He's met someone else. I suppose I should be thankful, really, given everything that's…'
Helen started to push herself up from the desk to come towards me.
'When can you phone for a helicopter?' I asked.
She said nothing for a second, then sat back down. 'An hour or so. Not too long.'
I forced myself to concentrate on the papers in front of me. After a minute or two, I was able to blink away the tears and read them.
Right at the start of Dana's investigation I'd given her a print-out of births on the islands. She'd transferred it all on to her laptop but had kept my original and I was looking at it now. She'd gone over several entries with a pink highlighter pen. The four highlighted entries were all births that had taken place on Tronal between March and August 2005. I'd done exactly the same thing some hours previously.
Again, I noticed the initials KT. Seven entries. What had Gifford said they abbreviated: Keloid Trauma? It had made a certain sort of sense the way he'd explained it but it wasn't a term I'd come across before. Wondering if the entries had anything else in common, I checked the timing and found nothing; they were spread fairly evenly over the six-month period. Next I checked locality; three had been born at the Franklin Stone, another elsewhere in Lerwick, one on Yell, one on Bressay and one on Papa Stour. The weights of the infants varied but all were within the normal range, if anything slightly on the heavy side. A couple had been Caesareans but the rest were normal vaginal deliveries. They were all boys. I checked again. Not a single girl among them. Race of males.
I'd had it. I settled myself down on the straw and drew my jacket up around me. My consciousness closed down just about the same moment my eyes did.
'Tora.'
Didn't want to wake up. Knew I had to.
'Tora!' Firmer this time. Like Mum on a school day. Had to be done. I pushed myself up.
Helen was standing over me. The door to the tack room was open and it was light outside. Helen had packed both bags and had one slung over each shoulder.
'We have to leave,' she said. 'Can you walk a mile?'
I stood up. Speaking seemed like too much effort so I didn't try. I drank some water, scribbled a note to my friend and then walked out into the sunlight. Helen locked up behind me and replaced the key. I glanced over to where Charles and Henry were grazing and felt as though I was leaving my children behind. Helen set off towards the yard gate and I followed. She held it open for me.
We started to walk down the road towards the tiny town of Voe. My shoulder blades felt as though someone had put a knife in between them and my legs were shaking. I was light-headed again, but this time with exhaustion and lack of food rather than panic. I hadn't the energy left to panic.
'Where are we going?' I asked. I looked at my watch. Five-thirty a.m.
Tub at the bottom,' Helen replied. 'There's a car park. Chopper can land there.'
In spite of everything I was impressed. She was going to get us out of here. I'd be safe. I could rest. We could work it all out. Or maybe I'd let someone else do it. Maybe I didn't really care too much any more.
We heard the chopper when we were still about a quarter-mile from the pub and I had to fight an urge to run and hide.
'Helen, what if it's not your people? What if it's them? What if they tracked your phone call?'
'Calm down. If that sort of technology even exists outside the movies, it's certainly not in common use.'
The noise of the chopper was getting louder. Helen took my arm and frogmarched me across the street and into the car park. The helicopter was overhead now. It started to circle.
I looked round. There was no one in sight but it was only a matter of minutes before the noise of the helicopter's engines would draw the curious. Someone would phone the local police. They would come and check.
Slowly, the helicopter began its descent. It continued to circle around the car park, getting lower with each circuit. In the street a delivery van had pulled over. A woman walking two lurchers approached. The dogs started to bark but instead of moving them away from the noise she stopped and watched, shading her eyes against the early sun.
The helicopter – small, black and yellow, not unlike the one the medical team used to get around the islands in emergencies – was about fifty feet above us now and the wind from the blades whipped my hair up around my head. Helen's, still plaited, stayed put. A car had pulled over now and two men jumped out to watch. One of them was speaking into a mobile.
Come on.
Finally the chopper touched down. The pilot signalled to Helen, she took my arm and we ran towards it. Helen opened the door, I jumped into the back seat and she followed, closing the door behind her. We were in the air before either of us could even locate our seatbelts, let alone fasten them.
Helen yelled something at the pilot that I didn't catch; he shouted back and then swung the chopper round. We were heading south, back over Shetland. I really didn't care, just as long as when we put down again we were off the islands.
Helen smiled at me, patted my hand and then raised her eyebrows and nodded her head in an everything all right? sort of gesture. Speech was just about impossible so I nodded. She settled back in her seat and closed her eyes.
The helicopter bounced around as it sped south. Neither Helen nor I had been offered headphones and the engines were painfully loud. I started to feel nauseous and looked around for a sick-bag. Saliva gathered in my mouth and I closed my eyes.
Helen had said nothing but I guessed we were going to Dundee, where she was based. On her own patch she would have the best use of resources and be better able to look after me if (or rather when) Dunn and his gang came after me.
After a while the nausea faded and I risked opening my eyes again. Another ten, fifteen minutes passed and I was feeling well enough to watch the coastline go by. In the early sun the sea sparkled and the white of the foam had turned to silver.
The first time I saw Duncan had been at the coast. He'd been surfing and was walking out of the water, board tucked under one arm, his wet hair gleaming black, eyes bluer than the sky. I hadn't dared approach, thinking him way out of my league, but later that night he'd found me. I'd thought myself the luckiest girl in the world. So what did that make me now? There were a dozen questions that I really didn't want answers to, but I just couldn't get them out of my head. How deep did Duncan's involvement go? Had he known about Melissa? Had we bought the house so that he could keep an eye on the place, make sure nothing disturbed the anonymous grave on the hillside? I couldn't believe it, would not believe it, but…
Soon Dundee drew nearer and I prepared myself for the stomach- sinking, ear-popping descent. Instead, the pilot banked sharp right and headed west. We left Dundee behind us and started to gain altitude. A minute later I glanced down and realized why. The Grampian mountains were directly below.
I've probably made it clear already that I'm not a great fan of Scotland, particularly the north-eastern corner of it. But even I have to admit that if there's anywhere on earth more beautiful than the Scottish Highlands, I have yet to see it. I watched those peaks sail below us, some capped with snow, some with heather, I saw glinting sapphires of lochs, and forests so deep and thick you might expect to find dragons in them, and I started to feel better. The pain between my shoulders became an ache and when I looked down my hands were no longer shaking. When we could see the sea again the helicopter at last started to go down.
Helen opened her eyes when we were twenty feet from the ground. We put down on a football field. Fifty yards away sat a blue and white police car. My heart started to thud but Helen didn't bat an eyelid. She yelled something at the pilot and then jumped out. I followed and we ran to the police car. The constable in the driving seat started the engine.
'Morning, Nigel,' said Helen.
'Morning, ma'am,' he replied. 'Where to first?'
'The harbour, please,' replied Helen.
We drove through a small, grey-stone town that looked vaguely familiar. When we arrived at the harbour I realized where we were. A few years ago Duncan and I had taken part in a flotilla cruise of the Highlands' whisky distilleries. The week-long junket had begun in this town and I remembered a drunken, wonderful evening. It felt like a very long time ago.
Helen gave the driver some directions and we drove along the harbour front, stopping just short of the pier, for no reason I could see. We got out. Helen led me to one of the small stalls that line the front of most seaside towns.
'Do you like seafood?' she asked.
'Not usually for breakfast,' I replied.
'Trust me. Do you like seafood?'
'I guess,' I said, thinking what the hell, a good chuck-up will at least get rid of the nausea.
Helen pointed out a bench overlooking the sea and I sat down. I could smell the sour, slightly rancid aroma of sun-dried seaweed and the leftovers of yesterday's catch. And something wonderful. Helen sat down beside me, handing me a large cardboard mug of coffee, several white paper napkins and a grease-stained paper bag.
'Lobster bap,' she said smugly. 'Fresh caught this morning.'
It was an incredible breakfast: the bitter, rich strength of the coffee worked like medicine; the softness of the fresh white bread, dripping with salty, warm butter and coating my lips with flour like fine talcum powder. And the lobster, rich and sweet, every mouthful a feast in itself. Helen and I ate as though we were racing, and by a fraction of a second I won.
I'd have given anything to have stayed there, drinking coffee as the sun rose in the sky and the sea turned from silver to a rich, deep blue; watching the tide go out and the fishing boats come in. But the clock was ticking. The world was waking up and I knew Helen hadn't brought me to Oban just for breakfast.
As though reading my mind, she looked at her watch. 'Seven forty-five,' she said. 'I'd say that's a respectable enough time for house-calls.' She stood up, brushed herself down and held out her hand for my empties.
Back in the car she turned to me. 'OK, listen good, because we'll be there in a minute. While you were in the land of nod last night, I had another look at Gair, Carter, Gow's bank accounts, to see if I could find anything else out of the ordinary. There are six client accounts in total. I found references to your husband's firm, to the hospital where you work and to Tronal. But Dana hadn't cross- referenced anything else and there was nothing to compare with the amounts of money supposedly being moved around by Shiller Drilling. Are you with me?'
'Yep. So far.' We'd left the harbour and were winding our way through Oban's residential streets. Nigel, the driver, pulled over to check a street-map.
'That's not to say there's nothing there. Just that it needs more digging than I had time for last night.'
'OK.' We were on the move again.
'Then I started going through the commercial account statements. Again, nothing really stood out. Cheques and cash are banked most days, but there's no real detail on where the money is coming from. We'd need to go through their books to find that. There's a fairly large payroll that goes out monthly and various direct debits to the utility companies. Money also comes in monthly from a few clients who have the firm on retainer.'
'All things you might expect?' The car had slowed down. We turned into a cul de sac of newish detached houses. Nigel was peering at house numbers.
'Right. But when I was going through Gair, Carter, Gow's Oban account – which I left till last, by the way – something did stand out.'
'Here we are, ma'am,' said Nigel. 'Number fourteen.'
'Thanks, give us a minute,' said Helen. 'Three payments from the Oban commercial account to something called the Cathy Morton Trust. I noticed them partly because of their size – they amounted to half a million in sterling in total. And this wasn't a client account, remember, this was coming from Gair, Carter, Gow's own money. The other thing that got my attention was the timing.'
Over Helen's shoulder I could see curtains moving. A small face was watching us from a downstairs window of number four- teen.
'Three payments, in September and October 2004. The second of them on the sixth of October 2004.'
I said nothing, just looked back at her, waiting for the punch line. Helen looked disappointed; I'd obviously missed something. 'So then I got back on the Internet and called up a national police register. Only one record of a Cathy Morton in Oban and this was her last known address. Come on, they've seen us. You too, Nigel, please. You'll need your notebook.'
We got out of the car and walked up the drive to the front door. Helen knocked. The door was opened quickly by a man in his late thirties, dressed in a suit that needed pressing and a blue shirt open at the neck. A small boy in Spider-Man pyjamas peered at us from around the door frame.
Helen flashed her badge and introduced Nigel and me. The man glared at us both.
'Mr Mark Salter?' asked Helen.
His head jerked forwards.
'We need to talk to you and your wife. May we come in?'
Salter didn't move. 'She's in bed,' he said. Another child, a girl this time, had joined her brother. They watched us with the unabashed curiosity of the extremely young.
'Please ask her to join us,' said Helen, moving forward. Salter had a choice: step back or go nose to nose with a senior police officer. He made the sensible decision and we were inside.
Salter muttered something about getting his wife up and disappeared upstairs. We went into the living room. The TV was tuned into CBeebies. The kids, aged about seven and three, seemed mesmerized by us.
'Hi!' said Helen, addressing the boy. 'You must be Jamie.' The boy said nothing. Helen tried the girl. 'Hello, Kirsty.'
Kirsty, a cute little thing with porcelain skin and bright-red hair, turned and ran from the room. We heard footsteps on the stairs as Mark Salter and his wife returned. Kirsty ran in behind them. The woman had obviously dressed in a hurry, pulling on jogging pants and a crumpled T-shirt. Over one shoulder she held a small baby, about four weeks old.
'I'm Caroline Salter,' she said, as Kirsty clung to her legs.
'I have to be at work in fifteen minutes,' said Mark Salter.
'You'll find being questioned by the police counts as a pretty good excuse,' said Helen. She glanced at the children and lowered her voice as she looked at Caroline Salter. 'I need to talk to you about your sister.'
The woman reached down and pulled Kirsty firmly away from her legs. She spoke to the boy and her voice brooked no argument. 'Come on, you two, breakfast.' She looked at her husband and he led the children from the room, switching off the TV as he went and closing the door behind him.
Caroline adjusted the baby and wrapped her hands more closely around him.
'My sister is dead,' she said, lowering herself on to one of the sofas.
Helen had been expecting that. She nodded. 'I know, I'm very sorry.' She looked round at the other sofa behind us and raised her arm in a may we? gesture. The Salter woman nodded and Helen and I sat down. Nigel perched on a chair by the window. There was no sign of his notebook.
'How are the children doing?' asked Helen.
Something in the woman's face softened. 'OK,' she said. 'They still have their bad days. It's harder for Jamie. Kirsty barely remembers her mum.'
Helen gestured towards the baby. 'This one is yours,' she said.
Caroline nodded.
'He's gorgeous,' said Helen. Then she turned to me. 'Miss Hamilton here is an obstetrician. Brings little ones like that into the world all the time.'
Caroline sat up straighter in the chair and the wariness in her face gave way, just a fraction, to interest.
I made myself smile. 'How are you getting on?' I asked.
She shrugged. 'OK, I guess. It's tough. I mean, I'm used to kids, but babies are a whole new ball game.'
'Tell me about it,' I said, a tick of impatience starting to build in my head.
The door opened. Mark Salter came back into the room and sat next to his wife. Beside me, Helen straightened herself up. Female empathy time was over.
'When did your sister become ill?' asked Helen. Over at the window, Nigel had started scribbling. Caroline looked at her husband. He made a thinking face.
'She had a breast tumour removed about five years ago,' he said. 'Christmas time. Jamie was just a toddler. Then she was OK for a while.'
'But the cancer came back?'
Mark nodded. 'Doesn't it always?'
'When, exactly?'
'Early in 2004,' said Caroline. 'Cathy was pregnant with Kirsty so she wouldn't have chemotherapy. By the time Kirsty was born it had spread too much.'
'The doctors weren't able to remove it?' I asked.
Caroline's eyes were looking moist. 'They tried,' she said. 'She had an operation but it wasn't successful.' An open-and-shut case. 'She had chemo and radiotherapy, but in the end just pain relief.'
'She lived here with you?' asked Helen.
Caroline nodded. 'She couldn't manage the children. She couldn't do anything at the end. She was just in so much pain…'
Caroline started to cry and the baby squawked in protest. Mark Salter took the opportunity to play the annoyed husband.
'Oh great! We really don't need this right now. Are you through yet?' He didn't do it terribly well. He looked more afraid than angry.
'Not quite, sir,' said Helen, who hadn't been convinced either. 'I want to ask you about the Cathy Morton Trust. I assume you're both trustees.'
Mark nodded. 'Yes, us two and our solicitor,' he replied.
'And that would be Mr Gair?'
'Yes, that's right. Should I be speaking to him about this?'
'I doubt you'd be able to get hold of him right now. When did Cathy meet Stephen Gair?'
Husband and wife looked at each other.
'I want to know what this is about,' he began.
'I think you know already, Mr Salter. It's about the money your sister-in-law received from Mr Gair.'
'It's not our money,' said Caroline. 'We can't spend any of it. It's for the kids.'
Mark Salter stood up. Behind him, Nigel did too.
'We've got nothing more to say. I'd like you to leave, please.'
Helen stood up. Assuming we were going, I did too.
'Mr Salter, at this moment I have no reason to suspect you or your wife of any wrongdoing. But I can and will arrest you for obstruction of justice if you don't start cooperating.'
There was silence for a moment. Then Helen sat down again. Feeling a bit daft, I did too. Salter hovered for a second, then lowered himself back down beside his frightened wife. Baby Salter was seriously creating now. Caroline fumbled under her sweatshirt and released a large breast. She lowered the baby and he started rooting towards the large, cracked nipple.
Salter shot a black look at his wife. 'You tell them,' he spat. 'You were there.'
Caroline looked down at the baby. Her lip started to shake.
'Did Cathy make a will?' asked Helen.
Caroline nodded, still staring down at the sucking baby. 'In June. She knew by then she wasn't going to be around for too long.'
'And Stephen Gair drew it up for her?'
'Yes. She'd met him about a year earlier. When she sold her house. He wasn't based in Oban but he agreed to act for her. I think they even went out for a while. When she was still well. You know, dinner when he was in town, a couple of weekends away. She didn't tell us much about it because he… well
'He was married,' said Helen.
Caroline looked up quickly, guiltily, as though she were the one who'd been dating a married man. She nodded.
'Then what happened?'
She dropped her head again. The baby had detached itself and was sleeping. Christ, it was like pulling teeth. I wanted to scream at her to get on with it, tell us what she knew.
'What happened in September 2004? He came to see her, didn't he?'
'She was very ill. In bed all the time.' Caroline looked at her husband and there was precious little affection in her face. 'Mark thought she needed to be in a hospice.'
He stiffened. 'It was bad for the kids, seeing their mum like that.'
'They knocked on the door one day. Asked to see her. They said they knew she was ill but it was important.'
'They?' asked Helen.
'Stephen Gair and the other man. He talked like a doctor.'
'What was his name?' asked Helen, as my heartbeat went into overdrive.
Caroline shook her head. 'I never knew.'
'What did he look like?' I asked. Helen shot me a will you let me handle this? look.
Caroline turned to me. 'Tall,' she said. 'Very tall; big shoulders, fair hair. Apart from that I can't remember'
'It's OK,' said Helen. 'We can come back to that. Tell me what happened.'
'I took them up to see her. It was hard for her, talking to anyone, but she made a big effort.'
'What did they talk about?'
'They made her an offer.' This time Mark was talking. 'It was between them. We told her she didn't need to do it, that we would take care of the kids.'
Oh, for God's sake, how could Helen stay so patient?
'What was the offer?'
'That she would take part in some trials of a new cancer drug. She would have to go away, to a hospital on the Shetlands where the trial was taking place. They said there was no guarantee that she'd respond to the drug but that it had been developed for the advanced stages of cancer and there was always a chance.'
And in return?'
'In return the drug company would set up a trust fund for the children. Entirely for their benefit. The money is completely controlled. It's released monthly for things like school uniforms for Jamie and childcare for Kirsty. We get none of it.'
I looked around the room, at the immaculate leather sofas, the stereo equipment, the widescreen TV. I remembered the new people-carrier in the driveway.
'And Cathy agreed to this?'
'She didn't have to,' insisted Mark.
'Yes,' said Caroline, 'she agreed. It was the worst thing for her, worrying about the kids, about what would happen to them. They had no one, apart from us, and she knew we didn't have a lot of money. She felt it was the only thing she could still do for them.'
'I do understand,' said Helen. 'What happened next?'
'Stephen Gair set up the trust fund, making Mark and me trustees. We signed the papers the next day and the first instalment of money was paid. They came for her a couple of days later.'
'Who came?'
'That man, the doctor, in an ambulance. And a nurse. They told her she was going in a helicopter. He said we could visit once she was settled.'
'When did you see her again?'
Caroline shook her head. 'We didn't. She died just over a week later. I had to tell Jamie. He thought his mummy was going away to get better.'
'Where was the funeral?'
Caroline's face took on an angry look.
'There wasn't one,' said Mark. 'Gair came to see us; said it had been part of the arrangement. Cathy's body would be used for research, donated to medical science, he said.'
'So you never saw her again?'
'No. She was just gone.'
'Did you talk to her?'
'We didn't even have a number,' said Mark. 'Stephen Gair phoned us most evenings with a report. Kept saying she was comfortable but very drowsy with the drugs. Not able to talk on the phone.'
'Can you remember the date she died?' asked Helen.
'The sixth of October,' said Caroline.
Helen was looking at me, to see if I'd finally got it. I had. The sixth of October was the day Melissa – Melissa number one, that is – was supposed to have died.
'We weren't happy,' said Mark. 'We weren't happy at all that she could just disappear like that. We wanted to talk to her doctors, find out about her last days. We kept phoning Stephen Gair but he wouldn't take our calls.'
'Did you try calling the hospital?' I asked.
'Yes,' said Caroline. 'I rang the Franklin Stone in Lerwick but they had no record of a Cathy Morton. I panicked a bit then, went down to Stephen Gair's offices in town. He wasn't there, but I made quite a fuss. Then, the next day, that doctor bloke came round. At least, the one we'd thought was a doctor.'
'Go on.'
'Well, I was on my own in the house and he pretty much threatened me. Said we had to stop pestering Mr Gair, Cathy hadn't been harmed by the drugs and would have died anyway, that she was taken very good care of and that we should let it rest now. He implied that if we wanted to keep the money we'd have to keep quiet.'
'We had to think about the kids,' said Mark. 'Nothing was going to bring Cathy back. We had to think about their future.'
'I wasn't happy, though,' repeated Caroline. 'I threatened to call the police.'
'What did he say?'
'He said he was the police.'
No one spoke for a few moments. Helen appeared to be thinking hard. Then she turned once more to Caroline. 'Do you have a photograph of your sister, Mrs Salter?'
Caroline got up with the baby still clutched to her chest. She crossed the room and opened the top drawer of a dresser. As she fumbled inside, the rest of us looked at the carpet. Then Caroline returned to Helen and gave her something. Helen looked at it for just a second and then handed the photograph to me. It had been taken at a beach on a bright, windy day. Stephen Gair, a couple of years younger and a whole lot happier than when I'd seen him, laughed at the camera. His arms were round a very pretty young woman in a green sweater. They say men often go for the same physical type and it was certainly true in Gair's case. You'd never have mistaken the two women for twins but the likeness between Melissa and Cathy was close enough: similar age and build; long red hair, although Cathy's had been straight; fair skin, fine, small features.
There'd been a semblance after all.