Page 62 of The High Island

‘The hooded guy?’ Jo said.

‘I would think so,’ Erling said.

She knew that the cistern handle and the toilet seat would be good for collectingDNA. The urine itself, not so much.

‘We’ll have a forensic team in first thing,’ Erling said. ‘They’ll collect everything they can in here. Plus the security footage.’

They withdrew then and, with a final glance round the room, Erling closed and locked the door.

When they arrived back at reception, they found Gail waiting there with a middle-aged man.

‘This is Derek Taylor, the night porter,’ she said. ‘It’s my finish time.’

Erling thanked her and explained that a forensic team would arrive in the morning to examine Rachael’s room. Plus they would remove the security recordings for further study.

‘In the meantime, both the bedroom and the security room must remain locked and no one, I repeat no one, should enter either room,’ he told Taylor, handing over his card. ‘Should Ms Everett return, however, I’d like you to contact me immediately, regardless of the hour.’

Seemingly assured by the night porter’s positive response to this, Erling led the way back outside, where he now subjected Jo to close scrutiny, before saying, ‘Have you eaten yet, Detective Sergeant?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ she admitted.

‘Right,’ he told her firmly. ‘It’s time for a fish supper. My treat and no arguments.’

29

Darkness was falling as he made his way home, although a full moon lit up the now calm waters of Scapa Flow. On reaching Langwell, Erling found himself remaining in the car rather than heading inside. Mainly because he needed to think over what had just happened, and he knew he couldn’t do that lying next to Rory.

He kept thinking of his sergeant’s face when she’d got out of her vehicle to greet him. She’d sounded embarrassed on the phone and had looked equally uncomfortable when he’d appeared in the flesh. And he wondered why.

Her discomfort during the phone call, he could understand. She’d known it was perhaps the only free time he might have with Rory over the weekend. But why the unease when he’d arrived at Stromness? She’d done the right thing in getting in touch about the possibility of Rachael going missing and he’d stressed that, even when she’d phoned.

No. There was something else bothering her, and she wasn’t ready to voice it yet.

He was still getting to know Jo Green as an officer, and she hadn’t spoken of her life outside of the job. He knew on her arrival in Orkney she’d briefly dated a young farmer from Birsay, although he’d never learned his name. And now it seemed she liked Leo Strachan. He recalled her laughter when he’d come across them together on the street pastor’s visit to the station.

For some reason he’d been wary of that possible link-up, but wasn’t sure why. The religious angle maybe? Jo, the daughter of a minister, had made disparaging jokes about that aspect of herprevious life. In fact, she’d given him the idea that she’d left Caithness to distance herself from all of that.

But she’d done the right thing tonight. Had she not gone to Stromness to check on Rachael, they wouldn’t have discovered her disappearance so swiftly.

Instinct more than anything had told him that the hooded female, seen leaving by the front entrance, was Rachael. Probably because he’d been in Rachael’s presence, both when she was upset and when she was confident and assured, as she had been this morning at the lawyer’s office. In the brief moments when the security camera had captured her, had she been frightened or self-assured? If he could answer that question, then he would know whether to be afraid for her safety or not.

And what about the male with her? He’d never met Kris in the flesh. He’d taken note of the young dark-haired male behind him at the funeral, who’d attracted angry looks from the coffin bearers, but hadn’t seen him after that. All he really had to go on was a photograph. This thought made him take out his mobile to study the image Rory had taken on the Flotta shore.

For a few moments, he allowed himself the hope that this was Kris Mowat and that he had come back to Stromness for Rachael. The hope was fleeting and soon replaced by a darker scenario.

The one in which Kris would prove to be the burnt body on the beach at Lyrawa Bay and therefore couldn’t have been the male seen with Rachael on the steps of the Stromness Hotel.

He realized that this was why he’d chosen not to tell Jo about Rory’s possible sighting of Kris on a Flotta beach. It was a hope too far.

He must have dozed off after that, because he was wakened by the first rays of the rising sun through the windscreen at four o’clock.Dragging himself out of the car, he undressed in the living room, then padded quietly into the dark bedroom and slipped into bed.

When he woke a little later than usual, because of the blackout blind, he found Rory already gone from the bed. And, in fact, from the house. A note by the coffee machine told him what he already knew. Rory had left for their planned dive at the sunken wrecks that clustered round the north shores of Cava. Without him.

See you when I see you, Rory had added with a flourish.

Erling, already dressed, now contemplated whether to have breakfast or just get going. Deciding almost immediately that there was no time to be wasted, he checked his mobile to find no missed messages overnight, then rang the Stromness Hotel for an update.

It was the night porter who picked up.