Stromness was a long town, traversed by a narrow street that weaved its way along the shoreline. On the seaward edge, fisher houses stood side on, each with their own small jetty. On the northern side, the ground rose steeply. Ancient narrow flagstone lanes with intriguing names like Khyber Pass divided front-facing houses, leading you to the top of a sizeable hill. Sheltered from the main force of the Atlantic winds, Stromness, also known by its older name of Hamnavoe, offered a safe haven for its inhabitants, and for the main ferry service that ploughed its way between here and Scrabster on the mainland.
Although Magnus admired the bigger town of Kirkwall with its splendid St Magnus Cathedral, Hamnavoe was by far his favourite. With less room to spread out, it had retained its fisher town character. The main street was open to cars travelling in both directions, despite being single track, and you could still park your car in the wider bits. On this occasion, Magnus chose to leave the car down by the harbour. The MV Hamnavoe was already berthed, having made her last trip to and from the mainland for the day.
The Stromness Hotel was a tall building facing the harbour, its main door reached by a set of wide steps. On the left, at street level, was the wee bar he was headed for. Jack was already inside, a locally brewed beer before him.
‘What are you having?’ he offered.
‘The same,’ Magnus said.
They took time to savour the beer, before Jack suggested they head to one of the outside tables. He had something to show Magnus. The sun wouldn’t drop below the horizon for three hours at least, before it swiftly came back up. It was a perfect night to sit outside, still and mild, though not exactly warm.
When they’d settled down, Jack produced a map and spread it out on the table. It was a map of Scotland and its islands, but not one Magnus had seen before. The most prominent features were not the major cities and routes in between, but Neolithic sites. Jack had drawn a series of straight lines connecting a number of these together.
Jack began his explanation. ‘We don’t know for certain why stone rings like Brodgar were built, or why they were built in specific places. But there is no doubt that those who built them chose their location carefully.
‘The sun was an important part of their worship,’ he continued. ‘You probably already know about the rays of the midsummer and midwinter sun and the entrance to Maeshowe?’
Magnus nodded.
‘As to whether human sacrifice was part of any ritual, we don’t know. So I can’t help you on the spiked hands and the stone in the mouth. As for the direction of the hands, that, I must admit, intrigued me. Have you heard of ley lines?’
‘My father used to douse to find field drains on the farm,’ Magnus told him.
‘Dousing locates disturbed ground. It’s used to locate buried bodies, or underground water courses. Ley lines are similar. They appear to suggest an energy change in the earth’s surface. You use the same method to locate them. Two L-shaped metal rods will do. When you cross a ley line, the rods move towards one another and cross, just like in dousing. Marker stones such as the one on the drive leading to the house we use at the Ness are on them. These lines appear to link Neolithic sites. The physics of dousing and ley lines is unexplained, so scientists tend to dismiss them. Non-scientists like your father just use them in a practical way, because they work.’
Magnus nodded in agreement. Plenty of scientists didn’t believe in psychology either.
Jack pointed at the Ring of Brodgar’s position on the map. There were three prominent lines radiating from it. One due south, one south-west, the third south-east. Jack ran his finger along the south-west line. Magnus knew where it was headed before Jack got there.
‘Callanish,’ he said.
‘You’d spotted that already?’
Magnus nodded.
‘The south-east one looks as though it might run through what was once a triangle of three stones at Skelmuir Hill in Aberdeenshire. There’s only one stone still standing there, as far as I’m aware.’
‘And the hands at Cathkin Braes?’
‘You’ll need an exact compass reading to check them out.’
‘R2S, the forensic team, are mapping an accurate layout.’
Jack nodded and lifted his pint. He took a long swallow while Magnus continued to study the mesh of lines criss-crossing the map. There were scores of marked sites, many of them clustered near the lines. And no way they could determine an exact fit.
‘Another one?’ Jack offered.
Magnus rose. ‘I’ll get it.’
There were only a couple of people in the tiny bar, the clientele taking advantage of one of the few summer evenings they could sit outside. Magnus headed for the Gents, while the barman poured his order. As he entered the empty toilet, he was conscious of someone coming in behind him and the door shutting. He turned to find a hooded man barring the doorway. He fired Magnus an expectant look, and held out his hand.
Magnus had never encountered a beggar in Orkney, and his surprise resulted in silence. The guy produced a small sachet from his pocket and waved it at Magnus.
Now Magnus understood. ‘How much?’
‘Twenty.’
Magnus handed over a note and received the bag. As the man opened the door, Magnus used his bigger bulk to push it shut again.
‘I need some information.’
The guy shook his head. ‘No questions,’ he said in a thick accent. Magnus took a guess and repeated his request in his limited Polish.
The man’s eyes registered surprise. He muttered what sounded like a curse, and pulled a metal object from his pocket. With an ominous clicking sound, a blade appeared. Short and sharp. He used it to wave Magnus away from the door.
Magnus immediately obliged and in seconds the man was gone.
Magnus stood, his need to use the urinal surpassed by the surreal nature of the encounter. Eventually he pocketed the cannabis, used the facilities and went to collect the beers.
Jack was watching for him. ‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ he said.
Magnus, keeping his voice low, gave a brief résumé of the encounter. ‘How did he know who I was, and where I’d be? I never gave my name when I called Tanya,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t take a cop to work that one out. You and I talk. I ask the team for a contact, obviously on your behalf. We come here for a pint tonight.’ Jack shrugged.
‘There’s no chance one of your lot knows who the victim is, and is keeping quiet about it?’ Magnus said.
‘They told the police they didn’t. I have to believe that.’
Magnus let it go, accepting Jack’s need to protect his team. The cannabis connection had always been a tenuous one. Even if the elusive Tanya knew the victim, she was unlikely to reveal it to Magnus, or the police.
‘So,’ Jack said. ‘What next for our investigation?’
‘We await developments.’
Jack, looking disappointed, began to fold the map.
‘Can I hold on to that for the moment?’ Magnus said. ‘At least until R2S come up with the compass readings.’
‘Okay,’ Jack replied reluctantly.
After his strange visitor, Magnus had decided to lock the house when he’d set out for Stromness. That fact irritated him now, as he searched for his key. He eventually found it in a rarely used pocket and slipped it in the lock.
The silence on entry seemed profound. It was a silence rarely experienced in Orkney, or at his flat in Glasgow. Here, the wind and sea were in perpetual motion. In Glasgow it was the traffic. Magnus stood for a moment in the hall, subconsciously scenting the air, registering the fact that no one had been there since he’d left.
Although it was late, he had no desire for sleep. The midnight sun had reset his internal clock as it always did. Insomnia was the price you paid for long summer days this far north.
Magnus headed for his study and opened the window a little. Now the silence was broken by the soft lapping of water against the jetty. Across the Flow, the humpback of Hoy loomed inky black against a red and purple sky.
He located the bottle of Highland Park he kept on the bookcase and poured himself a shot, then spread the map out on the table near the window. The map bothered Magnus in ways he could not yet put into words.
His job as a profiler was to try and interpret the signature of a killer. To build up a picture of the person who committed such an act. Everything was done for a reason, which may have no rationale to the observer, but nonetheless was clear to the perpetrator.
The perpetrator had a reason for positioning the hands. A reason for the stone in the mouth. A reason for the number on the stone. What the hell was it?
Magnus drank down the whisky and poured himself another.
He knew he should stop thinking now, and try to get some sleep, but he couldn’t get the questions out of his head. It was always like this. The crime followed by a fog. Then a deluge of thoughts. A bombardment of ideas. A maze of possible paths. The majority of them leading to a dead end.
And doubt. Doubt that the psychological theories were valid. Doubt that he could apply them correctly. Doubt that he believed the stories he told himself.
McNab, on the other hand, operated in reality. He wasn’t interested in playing with psychology. McNab had to take ultimate responsibility for his every move.
That was why McNab doubted and questioned. To a detective, everyone was capable of lying. Everyone was lying, until proved otherwise.
Magnus confronted the next uncomfortable thought, that there was a distinct possibility they were being set up. By the layout of the body, by the manner of death, by the symbolic nature of it. A possibility that the perpetrator was playing with them. That they were the pawns in his game.
The light had finally faded, rendering the room full of long and ominous shadows.
Magnus felt suddenly chilled, inside and out. He closed the window and carried the whisky up to his room. Tomorrow he would contact Erling and find out whether the link between the two deaths was officially established. Then he would plan his journey south.