by Ann Cleeves
‘Vicki found it.’ He turned to Vicki, who put the belt in its evidence bag on the desk in front of them. ‘We were wondering, possible murder weapon. If the marks in the leather match the marks on the dead woman’s neck.’
‘I wish we had a name for her.’ Perez was almost shouting. He was angrier than Sandy had known him for months. He was like a teenager having a tantrum about something he couldn’t control. ‘I hate calling her “the woman” or “the victim”.’
‘I thought she was Alissandra Sechrest.’
‘Apparently not,’ Willow said. ‘Alissandra Sechrest is a publisher in New York City and she’s very much alive.’
Sandy wanted to ask questions about that, about the letter they’d found and the fact that a woman of that name had travelled into Shetland. But he could see that Jimmy Perez wasn’t in the frame of mind when he would welcome questions, so he kept quiet.
‘I wondered if there might still be fingerprints on the belt.’ Vicki had perched on the edge of the desk because they’d run out of chairs. They’ll be degraded after being out in the weather, but I found the belt in the shelter of the wall and some might still be intact. We might find prints that don’t belong to the woman in Tain. Her prints will be in the house, of course. I assume you’ve tried to identify her from those?’
‘Of course.’ Perez hardly looked up. ‘And James Grieve took prints from the body. They match most of those in the house, but they’re not on record.’
‘Were there other prints in the house?’
‘Some, but the damp and the silt had turned everything in the place to sludge. I’m not convinced we’ll get anything we can use.’
There was a silence. A sudden gust blew rain against the windowpane. Outside a driver hit his horn.
‘So what do we do next?’ This was Willow, cheerful, practical. ‘We’ll get the belt down to Aberdeen, of course. But what can we do here to trace our dark-haired woman?’
Sandy thought Perez would like that. The fact that Willow was trying to make the victim sound more human. And for the first time the inspector seemed to engage with the conversation.
‘It’s hard to tell of course, but according to Jane Hay and Angie Henderson, there was no evidence of a break-in to Tain. So how did our impostor get keys?’ Perez leaned forward across the desk. ‘We need to go to the solicitors’ and see if she went there, pretending to be the real Alissandra.’
‘Magnus Tait had a set,’ Willow said. She gave a quick look at Sandy and gave him what might have been a wink. See how I can handle him!
‘Magnus was in hospital when the woman arrived into Shetland.’
‘But I’m guessing his house was hardly Fort Knox,’ Willow said. ‘I’m assuming that Tain was properly locked, because the lawyers had responsibility for it. An old man in a croft with little to steal suddenly disappears to hospital, I assume it wouldn’t be hard to find a way into his house.’
‘Hillhead is just up the bank from me.’ Perez almost sounded enthusiastic. ‘I’ll take a look this evening.’
‘I’d like to go back to the scene tomorrow.’ Vicki slid off the desk. ‘There’s still masses of stuff in the garden, and I haven’t moved inside the house yet.’
‘Do you want me to do the solicitors’, Jimmy? Play the senior officer card?’ Willow was standing up too.
Sandy looked at his watch and thought he’d have plenty of time to change, before he needed to meet Louisa in Scalloway. For a moment, here in Jimmy Perez’s office, he’d forgotten about her, but now thoughts of her were filling his mind again. He heard Perez arranging to take Vicki to check into the B&B, and Willow asking if she might go with the inspector to Magnus Tait’s old house in Ravenswick, but he didn’t take any of it in. He was anxious. He seldom got things right first time, but he couldn’t afford to make a mistake with Louisa.
Sandy got to the Scalloway Hotel before her. She’d planned to spend the afternoon in Lerwick and then visit an old school friend on the island of Burra. Her mother was getting some respite care these days and would spend the weekend in the care home in Yell. Burra was linked by bridge to the mainland at Scalloway, so it had made sense for them to meet in the hotel, but now, as he waited, Sandy wished he’d arranged something different. He didn’t want to drink too much; Louisa wasn’t a woman for boozing and getting wild and silly. Sipping his pint at the bar while the Saturday-night crowd swirled around him, he felt quite separate from them. It was as if he was waiting for an interview, when a party was going on in the same building.
Then he saw her in the hall that led from the street. It must have started to rain more heavily, because she took off her coat and shook it and there were drops of water on her hair. He walked towards her and stumbled over the foot of an elderly woman sitting close to the door. The woman gave a little scream of pain and it seemed as if the whole room was staring at him. As he was apologizing, Louisa seemed to disappear and he had a moment of panic. Was he so clumsy and stupid that she’d given up on him completely? Then she appeared again at the door of the bar and he saw that she was carrying the coat, folded now, so that the lining faced outside.
‘I wondered if there was anywhere I could put this to dry.’
‘I’ve booked a room,’ he said. ‘You could hang it up there.’
He saw the surprise in her face and realized he hadn’t told her about the room. Was that a mistake? They’d spent the night together before, but perhaps he shouldn’t have assumed that it was a good plan. He should have asked her first.
She frowned. ‘Oh, Sandy!’ She stood on her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘What a splendid idea. What a treat!’
He could feel himself blushing. The people who’d watched him step on the old woman’s toes were still staring.
‘I have the key,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you up.’
They ate late, when the restaurant was quiet. They had a table in the window. Perhaps because of the rain, the street outside was empty and there was no traffic. The lights of the accommodation ships were muted by the downpour and the vessels blurred into the background, so they seemed less oppressive. Sandy let his mind empty. They were sharing a bottle of wine and he felt relaxed, that he could say whatever came into his head without seeming stupid. Louisa was wearing a dress he hadn’t seen before. It came to him that she’d bought it just for the occasion and that made him smile.
‘What are you thinking about?’ She must have seen the smile.
Usually he hated that question. Women liked deep and intense conversations, and his thoughts were usually about his next meal or not screwing up at work. He didn’t have the imagination to dream up a response that would satisfy them. Today the reply was easy. ‘I’m just thinking how happy you make me.’
‘You’re a flatterer, Sandy Wilson.’ But he could tell she was pleased.
The waiter brought them coffee and little pieces of Shetland tablet. Even the bar was emptying now. Perhaps the rain had eased a little, because people were gathering on the pavement to say goodbye to their friends or for a last cigarette. It was impossible to make out the conversations through the glass but they could hear car doors slamming. The door from the restaurant to the bar was open and Sandy could see that only two couples were left inside. One couple was elderly: the white-haired woman whose foot he’d trodden on and a weather-beaten man, who reminded Sandy a little of the man in the photo he’d found in the box in Tain. Sandy thought if they’d been drinking since he’d first arrived in the hotel, they’d both be unsteady on their feet, and he hoped they had somebody to make sure they got home safely.
The other couple had been tucked into a corner, but now they stood up and began to make their way towards the corridor that led outside. They had to wait for a moment, because the older couple had decided to move too and had blocked the doorway. Sandy got a good look at the man and he was immediately familiar: squat and muscular, with the build of a boxer. His photo was often in The Shetland Times, taken at civic occasions. Councillor Tom Rogerson, the solici
tor whose firm had managed Minnie Laurenson’s will and had taken possession of the keys to Tain.
Sandy didn’t recognize the woman with Tom, but he knew she wasn’t his wife. Mavis sometimes volunteered in the Red Cross shop in the street. She was comfortable and well padded and she wore hand-knitted yoked cardigans with slacks or tweed skirts. This woman was in her thirties, as tall as Tom, and tonight she seemed even taller because she was wearing heels that must make walking tricky. She wore a tight black dress that clung to her body like polythene around fresh meat in Tesco’s. Her hair was blonde and very straight.
Louisa must have noticed him staring because she gave Sandy a playful thump on the shoulder. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t interested, not in that way at all. That she was the only woman he wanted to stare at. But he knew Jimmy Perez would be interested in the blonde, who was now following the councillor out of the bar. For a moment he was torn. He could pretend he hadn’t noticed Tom Rogerson. He could turn back to Louisa and not spoil her evening by worrying about work.
‘What is it?’ Louisa didn’t sound angry, only intrigued.
‘It’s work. I should see where they go.’
‘Well, hurry away then. Just leave me your tablet. I could use another coffee.’
He looked at her. He wondered if she was angry or being sarcastic, but she seemed very easy, sitting with her coffee, staring out at the street and the water beyond.
He stood in the entrance to the hotel. The elderly couple were walking away from him, arm-in-arm, apparently quite sure-footed on the narrow pavement. Rogerson was standing in the small car park on the other side of the street from Sandy, still in conversation with the younger woman. They were speaking quietly, and Sandy couldn’t make out what was being said. He didn’t want to get any closer. It didn’t seem to him that this was a romantic farewell. From the body language, it looked more as if a deal was being closed – some business wrapped up after an evening of negotiation. Eventually the woman got into a small hire car. Sandy made a mental note of the company and scrabbled in his pocket for a pencil to write down the registration number. But he’d changed into his smart suit and had nothing with him to write with. Before she drove off, Rogerson approached the woman and she wound down her window. Now he did raise his voice, so Sandy could hear the words. ‘So you’re clear then. You’ll do as we agreed?’
Her response was to put her foot on the pedal and to drive away as quickly as the little Fiat would let her. Rogerson stood for a moment staring after her and then got into his own car and drove back towards Lerwick.
Chapter Thirteen
Perez and Willow walked from Fran’s house, the house where Perez now lived with her daughter, to Magnus Tait’s old croft at Hillhead. It wasn’t far and despite the weather they both felt the need for fresh air and exercise. The landslide had started close to the Hillhead boundary, and Magnus’s croft was undamaged. There was traffic below them, headlights sweeping occasionally across the hill like spotlights, but the cars moved slowly through the single-lane stretch of the road and there was little noise. A stony track led up towards Magnus’s house. Perez shone his torch down at the path so that Willow could follow it, but occasionally she missed her footing and he could hear her swearing under her breath.
The house had been whitewashed only a couple of months before Magnus had suffered the stroke, and it gleamed as they approached it, a beacon to aim for through the darkness. Perez had joined the small group of local people who had volunteered to help paint it. Guilt at their previous hostility towards the old man had led to the formation of the work party. Perez thought he would have resented the sudden shift in relationship; he’d have found the visits, the delivery of home-bakes, the offers of help patronizing, but Magnus had enjoyed every minute of the day that the house had been whitewashed. He’d flirted gently with the women and joked with the men. It had been a fine evening and, when the work was done, someone had suggested an impromptu barbecue. Perez hadn’t stayed long. He’d found himself swamped with self-pity; he’d thought suddenly how much Fran would have enjoyed the event. He’d carried Cassie back to their house on his shoulders, and even when he’d got her to bed and sat alone in the late-evening sunshine, he’d fancied he could hear the laughter outside and he felt sorry for himself all over again.
Now the drizzle seeped through his jeans and Perez forced himself back to the present. The last few years he’d lived too much in the past. They’d reached the house. There was the bench made from driftwood where Magnus had sat watching the painters at work, and again in his head Perez was back on that sunny afternoon. Magnus had wanted to help but they’d told him to relax, and he’d done as he was told, just grateful for the company. He’d turned to Perez at one point: ‘It’s as though the old place has woken up after years asleep.’ No bitterness at the years of isolation, only joy for the present.
Now it felt as if the old place was sleeping again. There were no sheep on the in-bye land and the grass was brown and overgrown. No smell of peat smoke or tobacco coming from the house. Willow joined Perez on the flagstone doorstep. ‘Well, is it open?’
He tried the door. There was a simple latch and it opened immediately. The wood was a little warped and it stuck for a moment against the stone floor, but another push and they were inside. Perez felt on the rough wall for a light switch and suddenly the room was illuminated by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The place was much as he remembered. The scrubbed table under the window, the Shetland chair with its uneven drawer under the seat, the sheepskin rugs on the stone floor. It felt cold – Magnus had lit a fire every evening, even in the summer – and there was a layer of dust on the furniture.
‘Did you know him well?’ Willow moved to the ledge over the fire. The round-faced clock had stopped. Perez remembered its ticking as a background to the uncomfortable conversations he’d had with the man. The two of them sitting, face-to-face, discussing the disappearance of a child. That had been winter too, but the weather had been unusually still and there’d been snow on the ground.
‘I arrested him once.’
Perhaps something in his voice told her that the idea still disturbed him, or perhaps she knew all about that case, because she didn’t follow it up with a further question.
‘So we’re assuming that Magnus must have had the keys to Tain and we want to know if they’re still here.’ Her voice was brisk and cheerful. He wondered if she’d ever been sad – so sad that nothing in the world outside her head mattered. Then he thought he was being self-indulgent; what his first wife Sarah had called emotionally incontinent. Perhaps Willow was just better at handling grief. She was a stronger and more balanced individual.
‘I think so. He was a very trusting soul. He’d have given up the keys to anyone with a reasonable explanation for wanting them. And of course he’d never met Alissandra Sechrest, so it’d be easy enough for someone to take him in.’ Perez began opening the painted wooden cupboards. Magnus had very few possessions: some pans and pots, a couple of cups, saucers and plates, sufficient cutlery for two people in a handmade wooden box. Perez thought there’d been more clutter when he’d first visited, remnants of the old man’s childhood, his mother’s belongings. Perez remembered that Magnus had donated some items to the jumble stall at the Ravenswick Sunday teas. Perhaps that had been his way of coming to terms with the past. Or maybe he’d just thought they were ugly and gathering dust and he’d wanted shot of them.
‘He’d heard Alissandra Sechrest speak, though,’ Willow said. ‘Anyone coming to see him, to collect the keys, would have had to use an American accent to be convincing.’
Perez shrugged. He thought any accent that wasn’t Shetland would have seemed strange to Magnus. And if the mysterious dark-haired woman had come here, she’d have charmed him. Magnus had remained single all his life, but he’d always had an eye for a pretty woman. ‘Anyone who watches TV from the US would probably have done well enough to fool Magnus.’
Perez moved on round the room. Willow seemed
to realize this was more than a routine investigation, that Perez had a personal connection with the place, because she stood quite still and let him continue the search unhindered.
Under the sink was a galvanized bucket, a scrubbing brush, washing powder and pegs. On the other side of the room stood a large Victorian sideboard. Dark wood, engraved with florid flowers and leaves, lush vegetation that would never have grown in the islands. A prized family possession. In the drawers were the records of Magnus’s life, personal and business. Receipts for lambs sent to the slaughterhouse, the details of sales, in a sprawling hand. A savings book showing a balance of £2,500 with the Orkney and Shetland building society. Cheque books going back decades, neatly folded and fastened with elastic bands. Nothing had been removed. The distant relatives from the south who had come to bury the old man had taken the ferry back to Aberdeen on the evening of the landslide, anxious that they might be trapped in the islands by another act of nature. Shetland must have seemed a very hostile place to them. Perez had spoken to them briefly. They’d said they would come back when the weather was better, to sort out the estate. One was a businessman and one a university lecturer, and the only sense they had of the place where their grandparents had been born came from stories and legends.
In the sideboard there were Christmas cards, saved in a shoebox. Minnie Laurenson had obviously sent one each year. The subject matter was always religious and the message, carefully written in black ink, always the same: Season’s greetings from your very good friend. Two single people who were neighbours and friends. Perez wondered if there’d ever been a romantic connection, and thought that even if there had been, Magnus’s mother would probably have discouraged it. Then he came across a handmade card. The image on the front a child’s handprint in green paint, turned by an adult into a fat Christmas tree. Inside the message: To Magnus, merry Christmas from Cassie and Fran. Two kisses, sprawling and drawn by the toddler that Cassie must have been then. Perez put the lid back on the shoebox, shoved it back into the ugly sideboard and moved into the other room.
