Death rears its ugly head on the Lerwick waterfront. And this time it’s for real

A week later, on midsummer’s eve, there had been something of a development in the case.

It was a Friday and The Shetland Times had just been published, bearing the front page headline “How to get a head” above a photograph of the fake face, half-out of its bag, apparently taken by someone with access to the police station, wi-fi and a smartphone. The individual most suspected was the station cleaner, Jean Montgomery-Trump, a vivacious Mancunian incomer with special constable fantasies and a liking for WKD Blue, with some less than smart money on PC Alwyn Jeffries, who had contacts at the paper as its shinty correspondent. “Hoax ‘just a bit of pointed fun’ says teacher responsible” ran the subheading.

The development was a major one, not to say earth-shattering and for Mary, potentially career-forming or destroying. Because now Feargal Birkadale really was dead. And violently. The call had come direct to her at home, from one of her occasional jogging partners, who had been out running at the godless hour of 5.30am and had phoned Mary in hysterics, still running, her breath coming over the mobile network in great gloopy gasps. Her name was Evangeline Goodright-Smith, she was one of Shetland’s 37 arts officers (a specialist in dance-as-conflict -resolution and therapeutic face painting) and she was currently at the Gilbert Bain Hospital being given tea and diazepam.

“I think, on the whole,” said McKinstry, “we can assume that Birkadale is really and truly deceased this time.”

“I think, Peter, that’s a fairly safe leap of what passes for logic at this time of the morning, actually,” said Mary. It was now just after six, and to his credit, McKinstry was present, summoned by text, and even appeared to have showered. He smelled faintly of Drakkar Noir. “And that doesn’t look like latex to me.”

Mary had always liked Laureen Johnson’s poem ‘Rhythms’, which captured in urgent Shetland dialect the activities of the fishwives, who had populated Lerwick’s waterfront during the herring seasons a century or so ago. This had once been one of Europe’s great fish landing sites, a so-called herringopolis. Before the fish had been eaten to the edge of extinction by Russians. The poem was inscribed onto the ends of 10 barrels piled into a pyramid on Lerwick’s North Ness, just along the harbourside from the Museum at Hay’s Dock, in a small estate of offices and workshops built to resemble the old corrugated iron sheds that had once accommodated the gutters and filleters. One was even called The Gutter’s Hut. Which now seemed sickeningly appropriate

Feargal Birkadale’s now very pale face regarded them solemnly from the top of the pile of casks. Which were meant to represent herring barrels but were in fact small whisky butts. Nobody but mad Norwegians intent on producing surstrōmming, the rotted fish beloved by Scandinavians partial to a roasted puffin or two, used wooden barrels to pickle herring these days.

The head was pale because it was bloodless, and it was bloodless because it had been neatly removed from the rest of his body. He looked less like the crude model found in the museum, thought Mary, than, for some reason, Basil Brush. Ginger hair, thick and beginning to fade to that late middle age pepper and salt. And that beard, she thought. It had always been ill-advised. The midlife crisis jazz goatee. But there had always been a certain foxiness to Feargal.

Most of the rest of him was missing. However, one barrel had been daubed with apparently random splotches of blood and two severed, ringless hands, presumably the Birkadale’s, had been attached to it with butcher’s hooks. They swung gently, dripping gore.

“So many inconsistencies,” said Mary. “Butcher’s hooks and fish gutting. Whisky casks when it should be herring barrels.”

“That’s just two,” said McKinstry. “Consistent with the poem, though. Especially the lines on that particular barrel.”

Mary read them aloud: “‘In. Rive. Gut. Haand. Basket, Nixt?’”

“It means…”

“I know what it means, Peter. She’s describing the process of gutting a fish.” She sighed. “It’s that ‘nixt’ that bothers me. What now? Another victim? A mask first? Presumably that was some sort of warning?”

“Or another bit of the partial Birkadale? Do you think we’ll find the brucks of him gutted like a haddock?”

“Or a herring. Filleted. Boneless. Sometimes they’re left whole, aren’t they, guts intact? I believe in Japan they’re eaten like that.”

“That strikes me as a little extreme,” said McKinstry. “Though don’t they eat blowfish, there, with the constant risk of dying from the toxins?”

“It’s the same here whenever we get one of those pre-packed salads from the supermarket. The folk who harvest them in Spain have no toilets or washing facilities, so they shite among the lettuce. Seriously. You know how it says ‘washed and ready to eat?” They rinse them with hoses and that hardly deals with the filth, does it? That’s why hundreds of vegetarians die every year in Lerwick alone.”

McKinstry, whose eldest daughter, Joanna, had just announced that she would no longer eat meat, regarded Mary gravely.

“I will pass that observation on to my daughter, Sergeant. She will doubtless be fascinated.”

“Do. Now, better get hold of Sharon. She’s back from Paris. No lumber, but I think she had quite a few croissants. And croques monsieurs. And this time the Great Hyphenated Inspectorate will go completely demented. We’ll definitely have to call in the Teuchters.” She sniffed the air. “Difficult to tell with all these stray blood products, but I can’t detect any fog in the air. Let’s get the crime scene secured and hand this over to the sooth bigwigs as soon as we can.”

“One thing,” said McKinstry. “On that barrel. The final line from Laureen’s poem. ‘Aald hands awful fast.’

“I know,” said Mary Lou. ‘Experienced gutters can rip fish apart very quickly. We may have an accelerating situation.”

“Let’s hope things don’t get out of hand,” said McKinstry.”Or haand.” He’d hesitated. “You ken Louise is an ex-gutter herself?”

“Let’s say it had occurred to me.”

As McKinstry lifted his mobile from one Dickies denim pocket, Mary thought back to the conversation she’d had with Birkadale at Hay’s dock. No, he had received no direct threats up to this point. He had met Louise Finlayson previously, of course. But he thought they had a fairly professional, if combative relationship. Mary Lou wondered about that. There had been scurrilous and unlikely rumours of a sexual relationship, albeit brief, during the last Lerwick Up Helly Aa, but the thought was unappetising in the extreme. Particularly as Birkadale had been in a squad of guizers dressed as contestants in Ru Paul’s Drag Race. On the other hand…she shook the idea away.

“Now sergeant,” Birkadale had concluded. “I will email you a formal statement, if you like. But for now I must away to continue the fight for clean, sustainable energy.” Hmm…

Former fishwife Miss Louise Finlayson (herring a speciality?) had cheerfully admitted the bouncy rubber head prank and been charged with a not-particularly-punitive breach of the peace, as well as littering and several minor environmental health infringements. Since then, she had not returned Mary’s calls. A visit to her wooden chalet in Voe had proved it to be empty, and according to the school secretary Miss (not Mizz) Finalyson had gone to the Fair Isle Bird Observatory, taking a few days leave of absence in order to recover from her “considerable upsettedness”. While the inter-island air taxi service had confirmed her presence aboard the flight to Fair Isle, calls to the island were impossible due to severed cables, an absence of mobile phone signals due to sparrow and sea-eagle infestation, and the Sumburgh semaphore station being out of service. The elusive Miss Finlayson would have some questions to answer now. Rubber heads stuffed with sponge were one thing. Decapitated communications officers quite another. If the pair had engaged in subsequently-regretted Up Helly Aa-related sexual activity, that was really not much of an excuse. She had flown to Fair Isle yesterday morning, though, and surely someone would have noticed The Head of Birkadale (it sounded like a coastal cliff face) yesterday, if Louise had been responsible?

“Tricky business to get your head around,” muttered McKinstry.

Mary nodded.

To be continued…