Serrailler put Sam on the ferry and went across to the pub. It was just after six and the bar was empty. Iain was changing the optics.
‘If you’re wanting the snug again, that’s fine – Tuesday’s always quiet. Can I get you a dram? On the house. It might be for all the wrong reasons but you’ve brought a few folk in, and when they’re parched after talking to you, they’ve come through here.’
‘Not just now, thanks … I’ll maybe take it from you another day. I’m glad you’re empty, Iain. There’s something I need to ask you.’
Iain looked at Simon oddly. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I’ve only a rifle and it’s fully licensed, and in any case, when do I ever get the time to go shooting?’
‘That wasn’t what I was going to ask. Though she could have been shot with a rifle of course.’
‘That makes no sense. You know what a person looks like after that. Whoever found her … whoever saw her first … they wouldnae have been in any doubt. But you hear me, Simon
… I’m very sorry for it. Maybe some out there in the world deserve it, but not her. Not Sandy.’ He had wiped the bar counter clean but still went on pushing the cloth to and fro. ‘And you’re no further forward? You’ve no one in mind?’
‘I’ve just been asking questions – and getting some useful answers.’
‘In what way do you mean useful?’ Iain turned and took a double malt. ‘Your health,’ he said, and downed it. Simon was surprised. He had never seen Iain take more than a few sips from a pint, kept on the side of the bar and lasting him all evening.
‘Did you ever have any thoughts of your own about Sandy? Where she came from, her life before here?’
‘Who didn’t? We’ve all got a past. People learn not to ask too many questions. You’ll know that yourself.’
No, Simon thought. They didn’t ask newcomers direct questions because they did their best to find out in other ways. They watched and listened and talked among themselves and put two and two together. But so far as he knew, no one had made five out of this one – or even the correct four.
‘You never noticed anything about her? Didn’t you once think she was, I don’t know, a bit different?’
‘Well, of course she was different. You met her, talked to her … she wasnae like anyone else on the island because she wasn’t an islander. But she was always willing to lend to hand. She came in here several times a week, she helped with the unloading, she’d give anyone a day’s work who needed it, and never accepted anything but a joint of lamb for the freezer or a homemade cake, maybe. She’d talk to anyone in here, friend or stranger, she’d have a joke, she’d have a dram, she’d come to the ceilidh and she’d come to the quiz. She never went to the chapel but she’d dance at a wedding and wet a baby’s head. She was as near one of us as can be without being one of us. I tell you, Simon, I’m as upset about what happened as I would be if it had been one of my family. And it’s not just that she’s dead. It’s knowing she was shot. That’s what’s shaken me. Shot dead.’
It was the longest speech Simon had ever heard the man make.
And now he was going to shake Iain again.
‘You should keep this to yourself for now.’
Iain stopped what he was doing and looked across the bar and there was something in his look Serrailler couldn’t interpret … a challenge, a defiance? Why would that be?
The wind was getting up again, blowing against the side of the building, the west wind that would rise and rise and might not die down for a week or more. They both listened to it. But Iain was watching his face.
In four words, Simon told him.