by Ann Cleeves
‘What’s all this about?’ Michael had turned to Sandy. There was something aggressive in the voice, which could have been the result of nervousness. Or just because he was a teenager and that was his way of speaking to everyone.
‘There was another dead body found close to your house.’
‘Whose?’ The question immediate, demanding a swift response.
‘A guy called Tom Rogerson. Do you know him?’
‘I know of him.’
‘A friend of your parents?’
Michael had shrugged. ‘Not as far as I know. I’ve never seen him in the house.’
‘Where were you last night?’
‘At home. I stayed at Gemma’s, my girlfriend’s place, on Saturday night and she came to ours for lunch yesterday. We usually spend the weekends together.’
‘Did Gemma stay over last night?’
‘Nah, she works, and it’s a bit of a trek from Ravenswick to town on a Monday morning. Besides, I had stuff to do for school. I’d be happy enough to leave and start work with my dad, but my mum has a thing about sitting Highers.’ He’d pulled a face and given Sandy a look that suggested he realized the man hadn’t cared much for school work, either.
‘Did you notice anything unusual?’
Michael had shaken his head. ‘I didn’t leave the house much yesterday. It was dreadful weather. More a day for being indoors.’
‘What about when you came down from Lerwick with your girlfriend on Sunday morning? Did you see any cars you didn’t recognize?’
‘I didn’t notice.’ And Michael had stared out of the car window, closing down any further conversation.
Now, in Jimmy Perez’s house, Sandy tried to answer the question. ‘When I told Michael there was a dead man on the beach, he wanted to know who that was. Once I told him, he didn’t seem much bothered.’
‘He’d have worried that it might have been his father.’ Willow pushed away her plate. ‘So close to their house, he’d have assumed it’d be someone he knew.’
‘Maybe.’ Sandy paused. ‘He didn’t seem to me to have much imagination. More one for action than dreaming, I’d say.’
‘Has any of the family come to the attention of the police?’ Willow had swivelled round in her chair so that her feet were facing the fire. When the light went, the temperature had dropped. There’d be another sharp frost.
Perez looked up. ‘No. I did check, but there was nothing. They’ve always seemed like a close and loving family. I didn’t think there’d been any trouble.’
‘Did you know that Jane’s a recovering alcoholic?’
‘I’d heard she was a bit wild in her youth. When Kevin brought her back to the islands, after they were married. You could say the same about lots of young people at the time. The oil was pouring money into the place. Some weekends the whole of Lerwick was like one big party.’
‘She still goes to AA.’
‘Do you think that’s relevant?’ Perez seemed defensive now.
‘Ah, Jimmy, you know enough about murder investigations to realize that everything’s relevant. Until we decide that it’s not.’
There was an awkward silence. Jimmy got to his feet to make coffee.
‘Do you think one of the Hays could be a killer?’ Sandy felt the need to speak. Really he didn’t know what he thought about the family.
‘Both bodies were found right on their doorstep,’ Willow said. ‘It’s an odd coincidence.’
‘Is it at all possible that someone might be trying to implicate them?’ Jimmy brought a coffee pot and mugs to the table.
‘That seems a bit elaborate.’ Willow pulled a mug towards her. ‘I just think there’s more going on in the family than they’re admitting. Someone’s keeping secrets.’
‘The whole case seems elaborate,’ Perez said. ‘Why would Alison take a false identity, for example? It’s not as if she’s a household name any more. And there are strange coincidences and connections. These are victims linked by a chance meeting years ago: an actress who was hiding away and the man who recognized her. If the letter we found at Tain was from Rogerson, they must have kept in touch.’
‘What did Rogerson’s wife say?’ Willow looked up from her coffee. ‘If there was a relationship between Alison and Rogerson, then Mavis Rogerson has the strongest possible motive.’
‘Jealousy, you mean? If Mavis was going to kill Rogerson and the women he’d slept with, James Grieve’s mortuary would be full.’
‘Maybe it was different with Alison Teal,’ Willow said. ‘Perhaps he brought her here and set her up in the cottage at Tain. Perhaps he intended to leave his wife for her. What do you think?’
‘I wish I knew what had brought on the crisis that took Alison Teal to the Befriending Shetland offices. If we understood that, we might understand why she was killed.’ Perez paused for a moment. ‘Have we tracked down her medical records yet? It would be useful to know whether she still suffered from depression or anxiety.’
‘Perhaps the crisis had nothing to do with her mental health.’ Willow was speaking almost to herself now. ‘If there was a relationship with Tom Rogerson and it had lasted since they first met in the islands all those years ago, any problem between them might have provoked some kind of meltdown.’
‘She’d changed her mind, you think? Decided she didn’t want to stay here after all? And perhaps Rogerson threatened her, scared her?’ Perez seemed suddenly to come to life. ‘I can see that he might have been controlling.’
‘You think Rogerson killed Alison?’ Sandy had been watching the exchange between the senior officers with growing confusion. All this speculation gave him a kind of dizzy feeling. The fire had made the small room very warm. He wanted to take off his jersey, but he wasn’t sure what sort of state his T-shirt was in.
Willow and Perez stared at him. Perhaps they’d even forgotten he was in the room. Sandy was used to being overlooked.
‘I suppose it’s a possibility.’ Willow spoke slowly. ‘Alison was dressed to impress, wasn’t she, when she was killed. We’d always assumed that she was entertaining some man. Perhaps there was an argument that got out of hand. There’d have been no danger of the body being discovered before Craig Henderson moved into Tain, and Rogerson knew about the arrangement with Sandy Sechrest. He’d have realized he’d have time to dispose of her body when it was convenient for him. Easy enough to carry it to the cliff and tip it into the sea at high tide. Even if it had been washed up again, I doubt enough of her would have been left to make an identification. It was only the landslide that got in the way of his plans.’
‘Then who killed Tom Rogerson?’ Sandy realized his voice might be a bit loud, because Perez looked at the door into the bedroom where Cassie was sleeping. But he couldn’t believe this scenario: two different killers in the south end of Shetland.
Willow gave one of her lovely smiles. ‘What do you think, Sandy?’
‘I think this is all nonsense. I can’t see that we could have two killers.’
‘We’re telling stories here, Sandy. Dreaming things up, just to see if we can make some sense of the situation. So if Tom Rogerson killed Alison, who might have killed him?’
This felt like a kind of test to Sandy. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘I just don’t see it.’ Sandy felt as he had when he’d been put on the spot at school: that any intelligent idea had seeped out of his brain, like water leaching from a rock pool at low water. It didn’t help that all day he’d been distracted by thoughts of Louisa. ‘Perhaps she had another man – someone who murdered Rogerson in revenge for her death.’
‘Maybe.’
Perez leaned back in his chair. ‘This is all fantasy,’ he said. ‘Like you said, it’s storytelling. We have no real evidence that Alison was having any relationship. Never mind that there were two men scrapping over her.’
‘Well, we know she had contact with two men.’ Sandy forgot his reserve for a moment. ‘The guy who picked her up from the Brae Co-op. He was most likely Rogerson, because o
f the Shetland-flag bumper sticker. And the different man in Mareel. And she must have been buying the champagne to drink with one of them.’
‘We can dream up as many theories as we like,’ Perez said. ‘But at the moment it’s all fairy tales. And the one person who might have given us hard information is dead.’
He gathered together the mugs and carried them to the sink. Sandy took that as a sign that Perez was ready for them to leave, but Willow didn’t move. ‘So what are the plans for tomorrow?’
Perez turned back from the sink to face her. ‘We need to find out where Tom Rogerson went, after leaving his car at the airport. Sandy, you go back to Brae and show your pal Peter some photos of our possible suspects. Let’s see if we can identify the man who was drinking with Alison in Mareel. And I’d like to get a handle on what she’d been up to recently. Who’d been paying for the smart clothes and the executive cabin on the NorthLink, if her agent says she hadn’t been working. Can we see if there have been any unexpected payments from Rogerson’s bank account?’ He turned to Willow. ‘Anything else, Ma’am?’
She grinned at him. ‘I think you’ve got it covered, Inspector.’
Now Sandy did get up. He had his own car outside and he was starting to feel that he was in the way. The sense that he’d been intruding into a private conversation, when he’d arrived at the house, had returned. But as he made his way out, Willow joined him. And when they left together to walk down the bank to the road, there was no physical contact between her and Jimmy Perez. She just gave a friendly wave before he shut the door on them both.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Willow parked in the street at the top of the lane. A group of English men spilled out of the Chinese restaurant opposite the library and walked away towards the pier, shouting and laughing. Willow supposed they were heading for one of the floatels moored in the harbour. The barges looked like prisons and she thought it must be an odd, unnatural life, cooped up with the people you also worked with. She took the narrow path that led down to her B&B. There was a thin slice of moon and the lane was already icy. The house was separated from the path by a stone wall, with an arched wooden gate that led into a garden sufficiently sheltered to allow sycamores to grow. The bare branches of the trees were covered in hoar frost.
There was a light in the basement kitchen and she saw the couple who ran the place inside. The woman was sitting by the Aga with her feet on a low stool, her hands on her swollen belly. The man was ironing. There seemed to be a snatch of conversation between them, because the man laughed. Willow shouted down to them, so that they would know she was in, and then made her way up the stairs to her room. She couldn’t face sitting with her hosts, even though she would have liked a cup of tea and knew that they’d be great company.
There was a window in the roof that sloped almost to the floor on the longest side of her bedroom. She pulled up the blind and saw the lights of Lerwick below her, and the late ferry on its way back from Bressay. She supposed she should be thinking about the investigation, worrying over the details of alibis and motivation. But she was too distracted. Before Sandy had burst into Perez’s house, there’d been a strange moment of intimacy between her and Jimmy. It had started with a domestic crisis. She’d arrived earlier than he’d expected and she’d caught him pulling damp washing out of the machine.
‘Sorry, I’m not really ready for you.’ He’d grinned. ‘The tumble dryer’s bust. I’ll have to stick this stuff on a clothes horse by the fire. Not exactly attractive, with guests in the house, but Cassie’ll have nothing to wear for school . . .’
‘Sandy and I aren’t real guests!’
‘All the same . . .’
‘Turn off the big light and stick some candles on the table,’ she’d said. ‘Then we’ll not notice.’ He’d done as she’d suggested. ‘There you are,’ she’d said, ‘we could be having a romantic dinner now.’
There’d been a long silence before he’d spoken. ‘Perhaps we should do that one day.’
It had seemed so out of character that she hadn’t been sure she’d heard properly at first. But he’d been staring at her: all the intensity that was usually focused on work directed at her. She’d moved towards him, so she was close enough to smell the washing powder on his hands as well as the peat on the fire. ‘I’d like that,’ she’d said. ‘I’d really like that.’
‘Maybe when Cassie’s at her father’s. I’ll make sure there’s no washing in the room.’
She’d been about to say that she wouldn’t care at all about that, when they’d heard Sandy stomping up the path outside and the door had opened.
Now, she wondered if she’d misinterpreted the situation. Perhaps Jimmy Perez had been joking and when she’d taken him up on his offer, he was just being kind, to go along with it. She’d never met a man who could do kind as well as him. While she was undressing and cleaning her teeth, and when she was lying in the soft bed, she dreamed of the dark-haired man, haunted by him.
Willow woke the next morning full of energy and oddly content. The space in the loft bedroom seemed perfect for yoga and she allowed her mind to calm while she stretched and held the poses. Perez intruded only occasionally. It was too early to wake the rest of the house, but there was Wi-Fi in the room and she started in motion the bureaucracy that would enable her to access Tom Rogerson’s bank accounts. When she heard someone moving around in the room below, she went downstairs for breakfast. The man was there, and already there was the smell of coffee.
‘Only me this morning.’ John was setting cereals and fruit on the long scrubbed table. ‘Rosie had a bad night.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘Fine. It’s just a bit uncomfortable, now she’s so big, so I said she should have a lie-in. I can manage scrambled eggs, if you’d like some. My signature dish when I was a student.’
‘When’s the baby due?’
‘Not for a week. And first babies are always late, aren’t they? That’s what everyone says.’
Willow found herself hoping that the child would arrive while she was still staying with the family. She was curious to see a newborn; thought she might take a vicarious pleasure in the warmth and the strange routines. At the breakfast table, she pondered the rest of her day and decided she didn’t want to go straight to the police station. Perez might feel a bit awkward to see her, after his invitation of the previous evening. She poured herself more coffee and sent him a text:
I’m going to talk to Simon Agnew in the manse at Ravenswick. Not sure Sandy asked all the right questions. If Agnew is Jane’s friend, he might be able to throw some light on what’s going on with the Hay family.
There was an answering text almost immediately:
Sounds like a good plan. I’ll send Sandy up to Brae to chat to his contact in the Co-op. Good luck with Agnew!
She read the message several times and found herself grinning like some sort of lovesick schoolgirl. It didn’t sound as if Jimmy was offended; indeed, the tone was almost cheery. She ate the landlord’s perfectly adequate (though rather dry) scrambled eggs and left the house.
Willow drove south into sunlight. The ice on the roads was melting where the gritting lorry had passed through, but it was still very cold outside. The hire car she was using had a temperamental heating system and she shivered all the way to Ravenswick. As she passed Perez’s house she could tell that he’d already left for Lerwick; there was no vehicle parked outside. The old manse where Agnew lived formed part of the scattered settlement of Ravenswick that spread out towards the southern headland that circled the bay. It was a square grey building tucked into the bank, close to a small loch. The kirk where Mavis and Kathryn had come to morning service stood next to it. Its nearest neighbour was Gilsetter, where the Hays farmed.
Willow hadn’t phoned in advance; the decision to visit had been made on impulse and she hoped it was still sufficiently early for Agnew to be at home. There was a garage by the side of the house, but a red VW was parked on the flat grass by the front door. Willow
stopped beside it, stepped out of the car and rang the bell.
The door was opened almost immediately. Willow was taller than most men, but she had to look up at Simon Agnew.
‘Can I help you?’ Easy, confident. Her father had been like that before the commune had disintegrated in acrimony and his dreams of saving the world had faded.
Willow introduced herself.
‘Another representative of Police Scotland. I’m honoured.’ Not sarcastic, but playful. ‘Come in. I’ve just made some coffee.’
‘I know you’ve spoken to my colleagues, but I’m afraid I have more questions.
‘Of course, these dreadful murders.’
He led her inside. From the outside it looked like a traditional Scottish manse, but he’d knocked through two rooms, so the kitchen was lit by three sash windows facing the loch. There was a lot of light wood and sunshine. He must have sensed her admiration. ‘I got a local guy to build the units for me.’ He poured coffee and they sat at the table.
‘Looks like a good room for a party.’
‘Well, there’ve been quite a few of those.’
‘Did Tom Rogerson come along to any of them?’
He paused for a moment. ‘Once or twice. He was here just after Christmas with his family.’ He looked up. ‘You know his daughter’s the teacher here.’
Willow nodded.
‘Kathryn’s a lovely young woman.’
‘I wanted to ask you about Jane and Kevin Hay. Both victims were found close to their land.’
‘Close to my land too, if it comes to that.’ He got up and poured himself more coffee. She thought he’d be a person who found it hard to be still. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but Kevin and Jane are good friends. Generally I love to gossip, but I get a bit squeamish when it comes to chatting about my friends’ problems to the police.’
‘Do they have problems?’
