by Ann Cleeves
‘What do you mean?’ Big James’s face was dark and impassive. No reaction other than a slight frown.
‘Did you show much self-control when it came to Angela Moore?’
His father stopped suddenly in the road. What had Perez been expecting? Bluster and denial? A plausible explanation, which would make him seem ridiculous? Certainly not this stillness. He stopped too, waited for a moment for some response, then looked into the man’s face. James was struggling to compose himself. There was no sign now of the fluent preacher, the spiritual leader of the island. James could find nothing to say.
Perez waited. All his life he’d been scared of this man and now his father was stuttering like a child caught in some petty mischief.
‘You were having an affair,’ Perez said at last.
‘No!’
‘You slept with her.’
‘Once,’ James said, his voice high-pitched with stress. Then, more controlled: ‘Yes, I slept with her once, but there was no sort of relationship.’
‘You gave her presents. Jewellery.’
‘I fancied myself in love with her.’ The man paused. ‘But it was lust. I see that now.’ He began walking very quickly down the road. Perez followed until they were marching in step.
‘And what did my mother make of that? She was happy, was she, that it was only lust?’
James stopped abruptly. ‘You have no right to pry into another man’s marriage.’
‘I have every right!’ Perez realized he was yelling so loudly that the back of his throat hurt. ‘I’m investigating a murder and you’re a witness. You’ve corrupted a crime scene!’
‘Always the detective, aren’t you, Jimmy? Can’t you leave the police out of this for once?’
They stood for a moment, staring at each other, the hostility sparking between them.
‘All right then,’ Perez said eventually. ‘Let’s leave the investigation out of it. For a while at least. Let’s keep it personal. All my life you’ve given me the morality lecture, the guilt trip. Tell me how you justify sleeping with another woman. How can you live with yourself after that?’
‘With my head I knew it was a shameful, stupid thing, but it was that woman.’
‘So you’re blaming her? She forced you to have sex with her, did she?’ Perez felt the anger returning. He couldn’t bear to see his father so cowed, so pathetic. The least he could do was take responsibility for what had happened.
‘It was after a do at the North Light,’ James said. ‘About this time last year after all the visitors had left. A bit of a party, music. Jane put on a magnificent spread – a real sit-down supper. It was to thank the island for its support over the season. Angela claimed it was her idea, but I think Jane and Maurice hatched it up between them.’
‘Go on.’
‘There were a few drams before the meal and wine with it. I’m not really used to wine.’
Perez said nothing. Let his father make his excuses.
‘She took me into the bird room, made a big show of locking the door behind her. I . . .’
‘Mother was still in the building!’ Perez interrupted because he couldn’t face hearing the details of his father and Angela Moore having sex. That was more information than he needed. But still he imagined it. The smell of wood and birds, the hard desk, the excitement and the urgency, the need to have it over before they were missed.
‘And that was the only time?’ Perez asked. He supposed his father was right. One hurried encounter hardly counted as an affair. Fran and her London friends would probably dismiss it as a trivial mistake.
‘I dreamed about it happening again,’ James said. ‘I wanted it to. But it never did.’
‘You tried to persuade her?’
‘I made a fool of myself. I see that now.’ He looked at Perez. ‘We’d chatted at parties before it happened, flirted a bit. I hadn’t thought she would do that with me if she didn’t care for me.’
Perez saw for the first time that his father was an unworldly man. Throughout his childhood he’d thought of James as having great knowledge and experience. But of course his father had never lived away from the Isle. He’d been too young for National Service, had never been to university. Angela would have found him an easy target.
Perez found his anger was already starting to fade, replaced by the inevitable understanding. He didn’t want to understand – that was for social workers, for weak indecisive people who made excuses for criminal behaviour. But he could never quite find it in him to condemn. Perez saw that as a failure, a kind of cowardice. Now he began to see how his father had been tempted. A long marriage. A life of routine – the rhythm of the croft, the boat, the kirk. And along had come a young woman, sexy and famous, appearing to find his father attractive. Of course he’d deluded himself.
James continued: ‘She was all games. This was a boring place for her. She needed more excitement in her life. I told her I loved her, bought her presents. I suppose it was a kind of amusement for her. Maybe she was flattered by it.’
‘Did she ever talk about her other men?’
Silence.
‘You must have known there were others.’
‘It seems that I knew nothing about her.’ James paused, turned to Perez again, his face scarlet. ‘I told her I’d leave my wife for her.’
Just like Maurice, Perez thought. He’d said all those things too. Had he come to his senses finally? Had he decided he could no longer live with a woman who made a fool of him?
‘And what did my mother make of all this?’ Perez asked, keeping his voice cold and hard, because Mary had been tempted in the past too but had never betrayed his father.
‘She forgave me,’ James said. ‘She said it might even have brought us closer together. We’ll get over it in the end.’
Perez wondered how his mother could do that. James had made a fool of her. Surely no woman could forgive that. She’ll live with you and even be happy with you. But she’ll never forget what you did.
Chapter Thirty
Driving north with the Fowlers after the church service, Fran found herself intrigued by the middle-aged couple. John was full of questions, about her family and Perez and why she’d decided to make her life on Shetland. And about her art. She was flattered that he’d seen her work and could talk about it with such knowledge and enthusiasm, but found it odd to be the object of his attention.
‘Why all the questions?’ she asked at last, laughing. ‘Are you planning to write a book?’
‘You never know. Perhaps one day I will. I’m interested in the nature of celebrity.’
Despite herself she felt a thrill that he considered her famous.
It was only when she was on her way home after dropping them off at the lighthouse that Fran realized Fowler’s wife had hardly spoken at all. Fran had female friends who were much the same age as Sarah, but she could have belonged to a different generation. Fran’s middle-aged London friends dressed flamboyantly, held strong opinions, laughed a lot. There was something almost Victorian about Sarah Fowler’s dependence on her husband, in her anxiety and her timidity.
After lunch Fran and Perez went out for a walk. An island Sunday ritual, it seemed, because on their way north they met other families promenading in the sunshine. A middle-aged couple, arm in arm. Then a child with a bicycle, wobbling, the stabilizers off for the first time, and a girl pushing a doll’s pram, followed by their parents, all still dressed for church.
Fran could tell that something had happened between Perez and James, but Perez wouldn’t talk about it. Fran’s parents were liberal, generous, easygoing. There’d been times as a teenager when she’d wished there’d been more rules – boundaries to batter against when she wanted to rebel and to hold her up when she was floundering. She thought Perez’s childhood had all been about rules – James’s rules – and wondered what had happened now to shift the balance of power. Over lunch James had seemed subdued, almost penitent.
Earlier she’d had a long telephone conversation
with Cassie: ‘Not long now, sweetie. Only two more days till I’m back.’ Fran had decided she’d go out on Tuesday’s boat as planned whether the investigation was over or not. ‘I do miss you.’ She worried occasionally about whether she’d got the balance right in bringing up Cassie. Too many rules or too few? Duncan let her get away with murder.
The walk ended up back at the North Light, as Fran had known it would. Perez would want to talk to Sandy; he couldn’t take a whole day away from the investigation. The place was quiet, the common room empty. In the kitchen they found Sarah Fowler, scrubbing away at a roasting tin too grubby and too big for the dishwasher. She stood at the big sink, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, again wearing one of Jane’s aprons. There were soapsuds on one cheek. When she heard them behind her she turned round, anxious for a moment.
What is it with that woman? Fran thought. Does she enjoy playing the martyr? The pathetic little wifey? Then she thought: Of course they’ll all be jumpy. If I were staying here, I’d be just the same.
Sarah gave a little smile. ‘Your colleague’s in the bird room.’
Perez nodded but stayed where he was. ‘How’s everything going?’
‘Fine.’ Satisfied at last that the roasting tin was clean, she set it upside down on the draining board. ‘Actually, it’s a dreadful thing to say, but it seems more relaxed here without Angela and Poppy.’ She frowned. ‘I miss Jane though.’
‘Did you get a chance to talk to her much?’ Perez leaned against the workbench. Inviting confidence. If I were a murderer I’d confess to him, Fran thought. I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I’d want so much to please him.
‘A bit,’ Sarah said. ‘She was a great listener. She didn’t give away a lot about herself.’
‘You had no impression that Jane felt scared, threatened?’
Sarah gave herself time to think, squeezed out the dishcloth and hung it over the long tap.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing like that.’
In the bird room Sandy was talking on his mobile. Fran could tell it wasn’t work. Some woman, she thought, confirmed when he began to blush. There was always some woman.
‘Rushed off your feet, Sandy?’ Perez said. ‘What have you got for me?’
Sandy kicked his legs off the desk and gulped the tea remaining in the mug in his left hand. ‘Not much. I’ve talked to all the field centre residents now. Nobody admits to seeing Jane Latimer once she left the lighthouse on the day she died.’
‘Someone’s lying then. Because one of them slashed her with a knife and left her bleeding.’
‘Could it not be one of the islanders? I mean this bunch, they all seem kind of civilized.’
Watching Perez, Fran saw him jump in to reject the idea immediately, then reconsider.
‘Someone staying in the field centre killed Angela Moore,’ he said. ‘But you’re right. It’s important to keep an open mind. Anyone on the Isle could have murdered Jane. Is there anything from the search team yet? They haven’t found the knife?’
Sandy shook his head. ‘But then they wouldn’t, would they? You’d just walk a hundred yards and throw it over the nearest cliff.’
‘Who knew Angela kept the Pund as a love nest?’
‘Ben Catchpole and Dougie Barr.’
‘Not Hugh Shaw?’
‘He claims not. He admits he had sex with Angela Moore, but says it was either in the Land Rover or here in the centre.’
Fran tried to think herself inside the head of the dead warden. It had been Angela’s dream to run this place and she’d achieved her lifetime ambition before she was thirty. What was left for her? A marriage of convenience and the adoration of young men flattered by her attention and attracted by her celebrity. She must have been bored witless. Had she decided it was time to move on? She was sufficiently ruthless to walk away, leaving Maurice and the other centre staff to make the best of it. It would have been different if she’d had a child, Fran thought. Everything would have been much more complicated then.
Perez was still speaking. Fran thought both detectives had forgotten she was there. Usually Perez was careful about what he said in front of her: he knew she would never betray a confidence but it was about sticking to the rules. Doing the right thing.
‘I wonder if I’ve been looking too hard for a motive. Maybe after all this is just a man who likes to kill women.’
‘Strong, competent women.’ It wasn’t Fran’s business, but she’d never been much good at being seen but not heard. ‘Women who subvert the stereotype of femininity. Jane was a lesbian and Angela a sexual predator.’
‘So they were both women who could appear threatening to men.’ At least Perez was taking her seriously.
Sandy just looked confused. ‘Come off it! You can’t have any of the guys here as a psychopath.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ve read the case histories and the profiles; psychopaths are loners. They’re all poorly educated weirdos. These people have degrees, wives, proper jobs.’
Perez gave a tight little grin. ‘Not all of them and maybe only the stupid ones get caught. We don’t get to know about the bright ones. They get away with it.’ He looked down at Sandy. ‘Have you found out what Angela was doing in Lerwick on her day off the Isle?’
‘Well, she didn’t go to see her dentist. Nor any of the others in town.’
‘Have you checked the banks?’
Sandy grinned. ‘You do know it’s the weekend and they’re all closed?’
‘But I know you have contacts, Sandy. Like that red-headed lass that serves behind the counter of Maurice Parry and Angela Moore’s bank. The one you brought to the staff party in the summer.’
‘Angela went into the Royal Bank of Scotland in the street and withdrew three thousand pounds in cash from the joint account.’
‘We know that! Give me something useful.’
Sandy shook his head. ‘It was lunchtime. The place was busy and there was a queue. There was no time to chat. She took most of the money in fifty-pound notes – almost cleared the bank of big denominations. She folded them in half and put them into a pocket in her rucksack.’ He looked up at Perez. ‘You did check all the pockets?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Then she walked out.’
‘She came home on the afternoon plane,’ Perez said. ‘Where did she spend more than two thousand five hundred pounds in a couple of hours?’
‘Maybe she didn’t spend it,’ Fran said. ‘Maybe she had her own account with another bank and she put it into that. Cheques can take ages to clear. If she wanted the money to cover a cheque she’d already written, cash would have been more efficient.’
Perez turned back to Sandy. ‘Can you check that out in the morning?’
‘Angela was seen again that day,’ Sandy said. ‘About two in the afternoon, in the street. Coming out of Boots.’
‘Who saw her?’
‘Just an old school friend of mine. That was her I was talking to on the phone when you came in.’ He grinned again.
Fran wanted to put off their return to the south of the island and Perez’s parents. She couldn’t face Sunday tea, Sunday television, bland and boring conversation. She and Perez stood outside the centre, preparing for the walk back down the island, when she found a possible distraction.
‘Have you ever been up the lighthouse tower?’
‘Once,’ Perez said, ‘when I was a bairn. They had an open day and showed everyone round.’
‘Any chance we could have a look, do you think? There’d be an amazing view from the top.’
She saw he was considering the matter. There were times when she wanted to scream at him. Don’t you ever do anything on impulse, Jimmy? What is it with the caution? If I hadn’t proposed to you I’d still be waiting. But it seemed that he too was in no hurry to rush home.
‘Sure, if it’s open. I know Bill Murray from the Koolin has a key. He holds it for the Northern Lighthouse Board. They come once a year to paint it and service the light.
’
‘Won’t Maurice have access to it? In case of emergencies?’
‘Let’s check if it’s locked before we trouble him.’ She felt he was indulging her as he might have done Cassie. There was a small arched door at the foot of the tower. The handle was stiff but eventually it turned. Inside, a stone staircase spiralled around the outer wall. There was no light, except from the door that Perez had propped open – and that grew fainter as they climbed – and then from a small window further up. Fran felt the muscles in the backs of her legs strain and stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Ahead of her Perez seemed not to feel the exertion. He continued and must have reached the top and opened a door into the lens room because suddenly the shaft of the tower was flooded with light. She followed him.
She’d been right. The view was astounding and the island was spread out beneath them like a three-dimensional map. The jagged forks of cliff made sense, the road twisted past the northernmost crofts, which she could now recognize by name. Even if we never come to live here, she thought, this is always going to be a special place for me. I kind of belong. She saw the Land Rover being used by the search team making its way back to the field centre. Then, turning to the west, she saw Sheep Rock again, from a different and arresting perspective. She took a sketchpad from her bag and began to draw, very quickly, her forehead pressed against the glass.
‘You don’t mind the height then?’ Perez said. ‘After the plane I thought you might have a problem with vertigo.’
She turned briefly to smile. ‘In the plane I thought I was going to die. A reasonable fear in the circumstances.’
Perez looked briefly over the island but soon turned his attention to the north and west. ‘You can see the lighthouse at Sumburgh Head and the Foula cliffs.’ Fran was so focused on her sketch that she hardly heard him.
When she saw him again, conscious of a silence, a lack of movement, he was peering under the wooden bench that ran round the room, under the windows. He must have sensed her looking at him. ‘What do you think that is?’
‘Don’t know. A bit of rag.’ Her head was still full of the painting she was planning. She thought it might be her best work ever. Would it be possible to exhibit it before she gave it to James and Mary?
