Cold Earth

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘Sure.’ Mavis took a mobile from her bag, searched for the number and handed the phone to Willow, who copied the number into her own contact list. She pressed Call just in case, but there was no ring tone anywhere in the house.

  ‘Did you phone him on Saturday morning when he was waiting for his flight?’

  ‘No.’ A pause. ‘I didn’t call him much. He didn’t always answer, and then I’d start imagining what he might be up to.’

  ‘Why did you stay with him for all that time, when he treated you so badly?’ Willow couldn’t help asking the question. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be in a relationship with someone it was impossible to trust.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I don’t think sex is that important?’ Another pause. ‘And I liked all the things that came with being his wife. This house. Nice holidays. Social events. And his company. He was such good company.’ She turned away from Willow to make instant coffee. ‘Sometimes I thought the sex was an illness. Like an addiction. That maybe if he got help, he could stop. Then other times I thought it wasn’t about the sex at all, but it was the admiration he needed. That there were things he needed that I couldn’t give.’

  ‘It was never your fault.’ Willow took a mug of coffee and blew across the surface.

  ‘Aye, maybe.’ Not really believing it.

  They sat for a moment in silence.

  ‘Do you know the Hays at Gilsetter?’

  ‘Kevin and Jane?’ Mavis split a couple of scones and buttered them, passed a plate to Willow. They were still warm and the butter began to melt. ‘I’ve met them a few times, but we’re not pals. I know the boy better.’

  ‘Which boy?’ Willow kept her voice even, but in her head she was Sandy, dancing around the room in anticipation.

  ‘Andy, the oldest one. He was at the house a few times when Kathryn was at school and in college.’

  ‘But she’d be older than him.’

  ‘Six or seven years, maybe.’ Mavis was eating a scone with intense concentration.

  ‘That’s a big gap between friends when you’re a teenager.’

  ‘They weren’t friends exactly.’ Mavis put down the scone and tried to find the words she needed. ‘Andy was more like a pet.’

  ‘A pet?’

  ‘Kathryn took up with him when he started at the Youth Theatre. He was the youngest there and she was one of the oldest. Maybe “pet” is the wrong word. He was more like a mascot. He played up to the big ones, showing off and making them laugh. Tom liked having the young people around.’ She paused. ‘Maybe it made him feel not quite so old. Or perhaps he just enjoyed staring at the bonnie lasses. Sometimes they held informal rehearsals here; sometimes they just came back for supper afterwards.’

  ‘When did you last see Andy?’ Willow thought this was another connection, another colour for the mind-map on the board.

  ‘Just before Christmas. He’d dropped out of uni and wanted to ask Kathryn’s advice. He was thinking about applying to drama school and wondered what Kathryn thought of the idea.’ Mavis smiled. ‘I hadn’t seen him since he was about twelve years old and I hardly recognized him. He’s got so skinny, and those dreadful piercings on his face.’

  ‘Was Tom here then?’

  ‘I think he was out at a meeting and came in just as the boy was leaving.’

  ‘They had a row in the street, the week before Tom died.’ Willow resisted the temptation to take another scone. ‘Any idea what that might have been about?’

  Mavis shook her head. ‘Tom didn’t really do confrontation. He wanted everyone to like him. If there was an argument, the boy will have provoked it.’

  Willow tried to think through the implication of Andy’s friendship with Kathryn Rogerson. Did it really have any significance? In a place like Shetland perhaps there were always going to be unexpected connections. She stood up. ‘Thanks for the number. If you come across the phone, just give me a shout.’

  ‘It was good of you to come.’ Mavis followed Willow out into the dark hall. ‘You seem to understand. Everyone thinks of Tom as a monster. Or a bit of a joke. It’s hard to grieve for him when everyone thought so badly of him. There’s nobody to talk to.’

  ‘There’s always Kathryn,’ Willow said. ‘She seems to have loved him.’

  There was a moment of silence. ‘Ah yes, Kathryn.’ There was a pause. ‘She’s very much her father’s daughter.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Jane stood at the kitchen window watching out for Jimmy Perez and Cassie. She was already regretting the impulse that had made her invite them back to the house. What was the point, when she’d already decided it was too soon to tell Jimmy that she was anxious about her son? Beyond the polytunnel she could see the lights on Kevin’s tractor. This was his new project: he was digging a drainage ditch to save them from the water that he was convinced would soon sweep down the valley again. He’d been at it all day, but the light was fading and Jane thought he’d surely stop soon. She hoped he’d be in before Perez and Cassie arrived. He had an easy way with children and she would feel less awkward if he was around.

  She was thinking again that Kevin would make a brilliant grandfather when there was a tap on the door. It had started raining again, a soft misty drizzle that had been invisible from the house. Perez and the child stood hand-in-hand, hoods up.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘You’ll catch your deaths. We’ll give you a lift up the bank when you’ve had some tea.’ Sounding, she thought, almost normal.

  Perez took off Cassie’s jacket and hung it up, before removing his own. ‘You’re on your own today?’

  ‘Kevin will be in soon,’ she said, ‘and Michael’s staying in Lerwick with his girlfriend tonight.’

  ‘What about Andy?’

  She gave a little laugh that she knew was unconvincing. ‘Ah, we never know where Andy is these days.’ She switched on the kettle. ‘Would you rather tea or coffee, Jimmy? And I have orange juice, if Cassie would like it.’

  She didn’t hear his answer first time round, because she was suddenly lost in her own thoughts. ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy, what did you say?’ Feeling foolish – the socially incompetent woman with the dirt ingrained into her fingers.

  ‘Are you OK, Jane?’

  She’d found Cassie a box of toys that had belonged to the boys when they were little. The girl was on the floor building a Lego monster. Perez was sitting opposite Jane at the table, very still, very serious; more like a priest, she thought, than a detective. ‘We’re all under stress,’ she said at last. ‘How can we relax when there’s a killer out there?’ She nodded towards the darkness. ‘When will it all be over?’

  He hesitated too. ‘Soon,’ he said. ‘Very soon.’

  She wondered if that meant the police were close to an arrest. If so, why was Jimmy Perez sitting at her table, drinking tea? She pushed away the idea that they must somehow be implicated. Her head was full of questions, but she knew he’d tell her nothing further. The silence was broken only by the click of Cassie’s bricks as she created her own brand of villain.

  ‘How has Andy settled home?’ Perez asked. ‘It must be hard coming back once you’ve made the break. Well, I know how hard it is. I did it too – came back to the islands after working in Aberdeen.’

  She shrugged. Andy was the last person she wanted to talk about. ‘It’s not so unusual these days. Kids go south for adventure, only to find that it’s pretty tough out there in the big, wide world. We have it easy in Shetland in lots of ways.’

  ‘I understand Andy was pals with Kathryn Rogerson. Have they hooked up since he came back?’

  Jane felt a moment of panic. How could the police know the trivial details of a weird friendship that had happened when Andy was still a boy? It occurred to her that they were probably digging around in her past too. She felt herself blushing as she wondered what they might come up with. Tales of her exhibitionism in the more rowdy bars in town. Her one-night stands.

  ‘I don’t know. That was a long time ago. I do
ubt they have much in common now.’

  ‘Apparently he went to see her before Christmas. Asking for career advice, according to her mother.’

  ‘Why ask the question then, Jimmy? If you already know the answer.’ She was angry but didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t want to upset the child and she’d never enjoyed a scene. Not sober.

  Suddenly he smiled. ‘Sorry. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of cop-mode. We turn every conversation into an interrogation. Forgive me.’ He finished his coffee. ‘Now we should go.’

  ‘No!’ The last thing she wanted was to be alone in the house, listening to the rain running down the gutters. ‘Kevin won’t be long. Wait until he gets in and he’ll give you a lift. I shouldn’t be so sensitive. You have your job to do.’

  ‘It just seems an unusual relationship.’ Despite his earlier apology, it seemed he couldn’t let the subject go. ‘A young lad and an older girl. What could she get out of it?’

  ‘Admiration,’ Jane said. What harm was there in discussing it, after all? ‘Andy was devoted to her.’

  ‘Did she ever come here?’

  ‘A few times, one summer. Not so much to spend time with Andy, but to talk to the old folk in Ravenswick. Minnie Laurenson and Kevin’s parents. She was doing a history project at the start of her Highers. Something about local agriculture and the changes there’d been. I think Andy might just have been a way in. She lived in town and didn’t have much access to the crofting communities.’

  ‘So she was using Andy; his friendship was just an excuse for her to get her project finished?’

  ‘Maybe that’s a bit harsh.’ Jane remembered the girl’s visits. Andy hadn’t hidden his excitement on the days she’d been expected. There’d been nothing cool about his approach to the girl. He’d run up the track to be at the stop long before the bus from Lerwick was due and then they’d walked together back to Gilsetter. They’d made an odd pair: the lanky, hyperactive boy and the girl who’d been confident even then. Kathryn had looked strangely old-fashioned. Long hair in plaits, wearing a hand-knitted gansey before they’d come back into fashion. She might only have been sixteen, but there’d been nothing shy or awkward in the way she’d talked to the old people. Jane had sat in on a couple of the chats and had seen that Kevin’s parents had felt totally at ease with her. Looking back, it had been one of those golden Shetland summers, fog-free and mild. She saw that Perez was waiting for her to continue. ‘Kathryn helped Andy too.’

  ‘With his acting?’

  She nodded. ‘We always said she’d be a teacher, because she was so good with the young ones.’

  ‘It was a bit of a coincidence that she ended up teaching here in Ravenswick.’

  ‘Maybe, but it was always her plan to come home as soon as she could find a job here. She loves Shetland.’ Jane found herself lost in thought again. Kathryn and Andy. She’d thought the relationship had ended when the girl had gone south to university; now she thought they must have kept in touch. She felt strangely hurt that Andy had kept the friendship a secret. She stood up and began to put home-made biscuits in a tin for Jimmy Perez to take away. There was the sound of the tractor in the yard, and then of Kevin stamping his boots on the concrete to get off the worst of the mud. She opened the door into the hall to catch her husband before he took off his waterproofs.

  ‘Jimmy and Cassie are here. They walked up from the school. Would you be able to give them a lift home?’

  He raised his eyebrows: a silent question to ask if there’d been more to the visit than she could say in the detective’s hearing. She shook her head.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. His voice was loud enough for the pair in the kitchen to hear him and there was something of a performance in it. ‘They certainly wouldn’t want to be out in the dark on a night like this. Such dreadful weather!’ Cassie stuck her head round the door. ‘Now, young lady, are you going to sit beside me in the Land Rover?’

  There was a flurry of activity while Jimmy and Cassie hurried to put on their outdoor clothes and then the house was quiet again, except for the sound of water running down the drain in the yard. Jane gathered up the mugs and coffee cups and felt a little lost. Aimless. It had been good to have a child in the house again. Caring for children gave you some sort of purpose. She’d made a shepherd’s pie for tea and it was ready to go into the oven, so there was nothing more to do in the house. She was thinking that it might be worth talking to Kathryn. It would be right to pass on her condolences, and the teacher might have some idea what was troubling her son.

  Her mobile was lying on the table. She stared at it, planning in her head what she might say to the teacher, when it rang. The noise seemed very loud and startled her. She picked up the phone.

  ‘Mum.’ The voice was strained and sounded very young. ‘Mum, it’s me. Andy. I need to talk to you.’

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Back in the police station, Willow was on the phone to Rogerson’s mobile service provider. ‘I need a call record list for this number. The past month. Immediately.’ The knowledge that she’d cocked up, by not asking them to check it sooner, was making her aggressive.

  At the end of the line there was a young man who managed to be patronizing and unhelpful at the same time.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Any calls made into or out of that number last Sunday. You should be able to give me that now.’

  ‘I’m really sorry.’ Not sounding sorry at all. ‘It won’t be possible. Certainly not immediately.’

  At that point Willow lost her temper, demanded to speak to his manager and was eventually promised the information she needed by email within the hour. She was seldom angry and hated the lack of control; she ended the encounter shaking and it took a moment before she was ready to speak to Perez. It was already mid-afternoon and she had the sense of time slipping away. He answered his phone straight away, but the line was crackly. ‘Anything?’

  ‘I’ve just walked down to collect Cassie from school. Getting stir-crazy in the house.’

  ‘It seems Kathryn Rogerson and Andy Hay were close at one time.’ Willow tried to explain the relationship between the young people, as Mavis had described it to her.

  He didn’t answer immediately and she thought his phone might have lost reception altogether. In the end, when he did speak, it was just one word. ‘Interesting.’ Then the connection was lost and the line was dead.

  Sandy seemed to have picked up Willow’s restlessness, because he couldn’t settle, either. He kept sticking his head round her door to see if they’d heard from Rogerson’s mobile provider. He was still triumphant after finding the witness in the airport, and he had a stake in the information. In the end she sent him to make tea, though she was awash with the stuff. All the time she was looking at her watch or staring at the white plastic clock on the office wall. She could hear the minutes tick. Despite the yoga and the mindfulness, she’d never been much good at waiting. She was just about to call the phone company again and was building herself up for another confrontation, when the email came through. Sandy came in with the two mugs of tea and she swivelled the screen so that he could read it at the same time as her.

  ‘What do you think?’

  She thought Sandy must have spent too long in Perez’s company, because he gave the same one-word answer as his boss had done half an hour before. ‘Interesting.’

  Willow was on her feet, staring at the mind-map, which was still on the whiteboard. The pattern that had seemed fuzzy and inexplicable now made perfect sense.

  ‘I need to talk to Alison Teal’s brother in prison. Can you phone them, Sandy? See if you can sort it out?’ Because words and ideas were tumbling through her head and she needed to concentrate to make sense of them. She didn’t need distractions. Besides, Sandy would be good at a task like that. Persistent but polite. She was so wired that she worried she might end up shouting again. ‘I don’t need a video-link this time. Just a phone call will do.’

  He nodded and left the room, bewildered, but knowing better t
han to ask for more details.

  He bounded back a quarter of an hour later, grinning. ‘All sorted. If you ring this number in ten minutes, Teal will be in the governor’s office ready to talk to you.’

  ‘Sandy Wilson, you’re a bloody miracle-worker!’ She could feel the case moving forward now. It was physical, like a rumble beneath her feet, like the soil sliding down the hill during the landslip. Unstoppable.

  ‘No problem.’ But Sandy was blushing, as delighted as she was. It seemed the assistant governor was a birdwatcher. Obsessed. A regular visitor to Shetland. He’d been happy to help in any way he could, glad of another, informal link to the islands. ‘I’ve promised to take him out for a beer next time he’s up.’

  ‘I’ll tape the conversation,’ Willow said, ‘so I can play it back to you as soon as we’re done, but I don’t want an audience when I’m talking to him, Sandy. Is that OK? I need to be able to focus.’ She paused. ‘My performance has to be just for Teal.’

  Sandy left the room without comment. If he was disappointed, Willow didn’t notice. She was making notes on a scrap of paper on the desk in front of her.

  She looked at her watch again, took a deep breath, made the call. The man who answered had an educated southern accent. Warm, interested. He sounded more like an old-fashioned schoolmaster than someone who worked with offenders. Willow created a back-story for him in her head as he introduced himself: he’d be someone who’d been brought up to take responsibility for people less fortunate than himself. His father was a priest, maybe. Or a socialist intellectual. She wondered what his colleagues made of him and hoped he wouldn’t become hardened and cynical. She forced herself to listen to his words.

  ‘I wish I were in the islands with you.’ His voice was wistful. ‘It’s my favourite place in the world.’ Then he dragged himself back to the present. ‘I have Jonathan with me. I’ll put him on the line.’

  Teal sounded even younger than he had on the video-link. Perhaps he had no idea why he’d been dragged to the governor’s office and was scared. Willow took the interview slowly, felt the rhythm of it like a poem and pulled him with her, so eventually he felt the need to answer as he would join in the chorus of a song.