Chapter 13
Now on the passenger ferry, Jo watched as her boss’s car headed away from the pier and onto the road to Lyness.
Erling had decided that she should take the passenger ferry to Stromness and speak to Rachael, as she seems happy to talk to you. Also, she should check the harbour area for the rental vehicle, since Kris had chosen not to take it to Hoy. After which, Erling would pick her up.
It being late May, there were definitely tourists about, Jo noted.
The young and hardy outdoor kind, who, by the looks of the trio nearby in the lounge, had trudged their way across Hoy.
And had definitely enjoyed it, judging by their conversation, which was peppered with descriptions of Rackwick Bay and the famous sea stack known as the Old Man of Hoy.
Plus the previous night’s hill blaze, which thankfully had been nowhere near their own campsite, although the smell of the burning had been strong in the air.
Listening in, Jo decided it might be worthwhile asking if they’d spotted Kris anywhere on their travels.
Intrigued at being talked to by a police officer, the two males and one female were keen to help if they could. When Jo produced Kris’s photograph, the men took a swift look, then, shrugging, seemed disappointed not to be able to report a sighting.
The female took a fair bit longer before giving her answer.
‘There was a guy who might have been him,’ she said. ‘He was ahead of us walking south, at the point where we took the old road to Rackwick.’
‘When was that?’ Jo asked.
‘Yesterday morning around ten thirty.’
‘Did he cross on the ferry with you?’ Jo tried.
‘If he did, I didn’t register him. But it was busy,’ she apologized.
Jo thanked her and gave the girl her card. ‘If you think of anything else, please give me a call,’ she said.
‘The fire last night was the area where he was heading,’ the girl said, looking worried. ‘There’s no chance he might have been caught up in it?’
‘We don’t think so,’ Jo fibbed, although it was still at the back of her mind as a possibility, which would only recede once Willie Halcro got back in touch to tell them so.
The girl looked relieved.
‘I wanted to visit the grave of Betty Corrigall, but the guys’ – she gave a sideways nod to her male companions – ‘weren’t to be persuaded. Otherwise, we might have been down that way ourselves when the fire started.’
‘The fire didn’t reach the grave,’ Jo found herself saying.
‘I’m glad.’ The girl smiled in response.
Now back on dry land, Jo checked out the cars in and around the harbour area for the hired vehicle Kris had picked up at the airport. The Stromness Hotel, she knew, had only five designated parking places behind the building and, according to Rachael, the car wasn’t in any of them.
Rachael had assumed that Kris had gone for a drive around Mainland to clear his head. As it turned out, they now had proof that he’d taken the passenger ferry to Hoy and was believed to still be there. So where was the hired car?
At the foot of the steps that led up to the hotel entrance, Jo made a call to the station and asked that an APB be put out on the missing vehicle. After which she called Rachael’s mobile to warn of her arrival.
When she emerged from the lift, the girl was waiting at the open door of the room, her expression a mixture of hope and fear.
She thinks he might be dead, Jo realized, so she began with the positive news that Kris had been sighted crossing on the pedestrian ferry to Hoy, and was, they believed, still on the island somewhere.
This news brought some light into Rachael’s eyes, before a sudden memory seemed to replace it.
‘There was a big fire over there last night near to the Mowat croft . . .’ She stopped there and sent Jo an anguished look. ‘Kris couldn’t have been caught up in the wildfire?’
‘I don’t believe so,’ Jo said, praying again that she was right. ‘I’ve just come from the fire site myself.’
Rachael was studying her closely and Jo knew the girl was intuitive enough to recognize her misgivings.
‘How do you know for certain that Kris is still on Hoy?’ she said quietly.
Jo explained. ‘We have no sighting of him leaving by any ferry route.’
Rachael seemed to consider this. ‘Then he’s hiding out until tomorrow, when the will is read.’
‘Why would he feel the need to do that?’ Jo said.
The girl gave a shrug of what looked like despair.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t even know he had a family.
I didn’t know his family lived in Orkney until recently, when he mentioned his great-grandfather, Ivor.
That’s when he asked me to come here with him.
On family business, he said. Then we arrived to find Ivor had died.
’ She halted there, fear filling her face.
‘Kris thinks the family found out he was coming here and killed Ivor before they could meet.’
At this moment, Jo’s mobile rang out, startling both of them. Glancing at the caller’s name, Jo answered.
‘Boss?’ she said.
‘I’m on the ferry and will be with you in half an hour. Any developments at your end?’ Erling added.
‘I’m just chatting with Rachael now,’ Jo hedged, then told him she’d put out an APB on the hired vehicle, because there had been no sighting of it in the immediate area round the hotel.
‘Good idea,’ was the response. ‘See you shortly.’
‘That was DI Flett,’ Jo said to the girl.
‘He’s on the ferry from Lyness and will be here soon.
’ She halted there, but only briefly, before saying, ‘I think there’s more you can tell me.
In particular about the will and what Kris suspects or knows is in there.
Also, why he took the pregnancy news so badly.
’ She rose at this point and, picking up the kettle, went to fill it.
‘Tea or coffee?’ she called from the bathroom.
‘Tea,’ Rachael responded.
Jo set about making the drinks, aware of the silent deliberations going on behind her.
At the same time, she was replaying a similar decision she too had had to make regarding a pregnancy.
A decision that had eventually brought her here to Orkney and a new life, away from the waves it had caused with both her immediate family and her previous partner.
Now handing Rachael her requested tea, and taking her own coffee to the table at the window, she sat down and waited.
The girl appeared to be marshalling herself. Jo could almost hear the internal monologue that eventually led to the admission she’d already anticipated.
‘Kris didn’t act badly because I was pregnant. In fact, he was pleased,’ she said in a surprised tone, ‘until . . .’
‘You told him you were thinking about having an abortion,’ Jo finished for her.
‘How did you know?’ Rachael said.
‘As I said before, experience,’ Jo said, before urging her to continue.
Rachael gathered herself. ‘I don’t really know Kris.
Not properly. He hadn’t told me much about this place or his mother, Betty, until we got here.
Now I know that she left Hoy when she was only seventeen and pregnant with him.
Or she was made to leave. When I went across to Hoy, I saw the grave on the hill for the other Betty.
It made me sad. When I came back on the ferry, Kris was waiting for me on the jetty.
’ She shook her head in remembrance of that image.
‘He looked so young standing there. Too young to be a father.’
Rachael was looking to her now. As though waiting for an explanation as to how Jo was familiar with such a decision herself. Something Jo was unwilling to divulge.
Instead, she said firmly, ‘Tell me everything you do know about Kris and Ivor and the rest of the Mowat family.’
‘Well,’ she began, ‘Kris was really shocked when we arrived in Kirkwall to discover that Ivor had died, and that his funeral was imminent. He went mad about it. Cursing the family for not getting in touch about his great-grandfather’s passing.’
‘But if Ivor was communicating with Kris in secret . . .’ Jo tried.
‘It wasn’t a secret,’ Rachael said. ‘Ivor told Kris he’d informed Hugh, his eldest, that he’d located Betty’s son and was bringing him back to Orkney.’
‘Did he tell Kris about selling the land at the old croft?’ Jo checked.
‘Yes. Kris said Ivor even laughed about it. Told Kris it was a poke in the eye for his sons. Show them who was still in charge . . .’ She halted there, hesitating about saying more.
‘What?’ Jo urged her on.
‘Kris also said the old man had told him that the new eco-house would never be built. That the old Mowat place was cursed.’
‘Ivor knew about the buried bodies?’
‘Kris thinks so,’ Rachael said. Then almost to herself she added, ‘Three generations of pregnant women, all deserted by their lovers. One buried on the hillside above the place. One driven away. And one buried with her child next to the house.’ She looked at Jo. ‘Does that not sound cursed to you?’