by Ann Cleeves
‘Did any of you keep in touch with your father when he was in prison?’
‘My mother visited him! After all he’d done to her, she’d make the trek south to see him.’ Even now that his mother was dead, David sounded furious.
‘But she didn’t take you or the others?’
The man thought for a moment. ‘I think Emma might have gone once.’
The silence settled again, like dust.
‘Did Emma talk to you much about her life in Shetland?’
‘We spoke on the phone once a week, but that was a kind of duty thing. More pretence. Playing happy families. She’d talk about what the kids she was looking after were up to. I’d tell her about what I was cooking. But there was nothing real, nothing important.’
Perez thought about these three siblings, still very young and very lonely. Isolated by geography and the experience that might have brought them together.
‘Are you closer to Adam?’
‘Yeah, I guess so. When he phones, he’s usually kind of desperate. Or pissed. But at least I know what he’s really feeling. It was impossible to tell with Emma. All she could do was the big-sister thing. Concerned for us, but not willing to talk about herself or her own problems.’
‘So you wouldn’t have been able to tell,’ Perez said, ‘if she was especially worried or anxious recently?’
‘No. She phoned the week before she died. Sunday night. That was the usual time, because she had Sunday off and the restaurant’s closed after the lunchtime service. We talked about the usual stuff. She was banging on about a fancy new handbag. She was thrilled about that. I didn’t notice anything else different about her mood, though.’
Perez thought the shiny patent-leather handbag seemed to take on a greater significance, to become a symbol of the perfect, glittering image that Emma had tried to create for herself. He told himself he was being fanciful again. Since he’d landed in Kirkwall his perspective had become warped. He was losing his grip.
David continued speaking, his voice bitter. ‘When she didn’t phone this Sunday, I was relieved. For myself, because it was always an effort thinking of something to say to her. But for her, too. I thought finally she might be getting a life of her own. But of course she wasn’t. She was already dead.’
‘She had a friend when she was still living in Orkney,’ Perez said. ‘Claire somebody. She went to stay with Emma once in Shetland. Any idea who that might have been?’
‘Claire Bain? Yeah, I think they were good mates at one time.’ He paused again and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘If Emma ever really did have a mate. I’m not sure she actually trusted anyone. I can’t.’
‘Is Claire still in Orkney?’
‘She went away to art school, but she’s back now. She works in a gallery in Stromness. Local paintings and crafts. It’s right on the harbour, close to the library.’ Perez shot a look at Milne, who nodded to show that he knew the place.
They drove straight to Stromness. The small town had a carnival air. There was a huge cruise ship moored in the harbour, and Perez watched passengers flooding the narrow streets in waves as the tenders brought them ashore.
‘What did you make of David Shearer?’
Willie shrugged. ‘Pretty screwed up. Very sad.’
When they arrived at the gallery, the place was packed with elderly Americans, who were admiring the textiles and the glass, standing in front of the paintings, talking. Perez recognized Claire Bain as soon as he walked into the gallery. She was just as Belle Moncrieff had described her – red-haired and full of laughter.
The three of them sat in a quieter upstairs room, looking over the water.
‘Had you heard that Emma was dead?’ Perez suddenly caught sight of one of Fran’s paintings on the wall and was distracted. He was pleased that she was still selling – the price seemed extortionate – but it was a shock, like finding a piece of her handwriting or hearing a recording of her voice. It made her seem alive again. Reincarnated. Another bizarre moment in this strange day. He forced himself to look back at Claire.
‘Of course. She was Orcadian. The news was the first item on the local radio. It seems so unfair.’ Claire paused. ‘As if violence was following her around. Stalking her.’
‘You knew her well? Before she headed north to Shetland.’
‘We lived close to each other. Her parents kept the shop in Stenness and my folks have a small hotel there. There weren’t so many other children around. We went to the primary school together, before moving on to Kirkwall when we were eleven.’
‘Did you have any idea what was going on in the Shearer family?’ Perez wasn’t sure how this was relevant, but he was curious. How could such violence take place without the rest of a tight community knowing, or at least guessing? ‘Before Shearer was arrested, I mean.’
‘Not at all, not until the police came to take him away. Then, though my parents tried to protect me from what had happened, of course I heard all about it. From other kids at school. Listening in to the staff in the hotel. But I was only thirteen when that happened, a very young thirteen. Sheltered, an only child, doted on.’ She looked up at them. ‘In a way, we all enjoyed the drama. Do you know what I mean?’
Perez nodded. In a place where nothing very much happened, Shearer’s arrest would have seemed like a grand form of entertainment.
Claire was still talking. ‘I knew Kenneth was strict with Emma and the boys, and he had the reputation of having a temper. There were never any fights, nothing like that. He was considered very respectable. Upright. But he’d come into the bar of my parents’ hotel sometimes and the regulars would keep a distance. When we were young, Emma would always come to my place to play. I was hardly ever invited there, and even when once I was, my mother made some excuse. She said later there was something about him that scared her.’
‘And Emma never told you what was happening at home?’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘She was often very quiet, and some mornings she was so tired that she’d fall asleep in the bus on the way to school, but I had no idea what that was about. Later, she told me she was too frightened to tell anyone. Her father had threatened that he’d kill them all, if she told what was happening at home.’
‘Did she get any help when her father was arrested?’ Perez was wondering what that would do to you. Carrying such a huge secret around would be like having a heavy weight strapped to the shoulders. It would drag you down and stop you functioning properly.
‘You mean counselling or something?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘The family had a social worker,’ Claire said. ‘Some bloke. But soon after her dad was sent away, her mother got ill and Emma ended up having to look after the boys. They were younger than her, still in primary school. People offered their support, but she said she wanted to do it.’ Claire gave a little laugh. ‘I just didn’t get it. I mean the boys were quite cute, but it can’t have been a barrel of fun, clearing up after them. And there were times I could tell Emma resented it. Resented them. The fact that, because they were younger, they didn’t have the same responsibility.’ She paused. ‘I didn’t see so much of her then. She stopped coming to school after the standard-grade exams, and I was into fun. Big-style. Boys and partying. And my art.’
‘But she asked you to go and stay with her in Shetland?’
‘Yeah. We’d got together on Facebook, started texting and emailing. And suddenly I got this invitation out of the blue. I was home from college and it was easy enough to get the ferry up. I’d never been to Shetland, which is bonkers.’ Claire leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Outside the window one of the cruise ship’s tenders was carrying a group of passengers back to the boat. ‘It seemed like an excuse to see the place.’
‘How did it go?’
‘Well, it was a bit weird. That big house and the mad kids, and the parents taking no notice of them and leaving it all to Emma. I couldn’t imagine why she stayed.’
‘Did she seem happy?’ Perez wa
ited for an answer. Hoped it would be positive.
‘Yeah. Yeah, she did, I suppose. I mean, I think it was what she wanted. Her own space. No one on her back. The parents let her get on with the job and never interfered. Maybe that was what she needed. I was surprised she stuck it out for so long, though.’
‘You just went once?’ Perez said.
‘Yeah, she never invited me back, and I never asked to go. I’m still not quite sure why she wanted me to go. Perhaps to prove that she did have a friend, that she wasn’t some odd loner. I saw her a couple of times when she came back to Orkney when her mother was dying. My parents still run the hotel in Stenness. We didn’t have much to talk about. I was so crap at keeping in touch – I still had a head full of my own life, my friends and my work. I did go to Caroline’s funeral. Emma had all that to organize. There were no other relatives to help out. Folk in Stenness turned out to pay their respects, but nobody else.’
Perez wondered who would organize Emma’s funeral and where it would be held. Orkney or Shetland? He wanted to ask Claire if she would turn out for that too, if she would be a mourner at Emma’s funeral. But another group of tourists came into the gallery and Claire said she would have to go.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Willow sat in the BBC Shetland studio opposite the presenter, a microphone on the table in front of her, and forced herself to leave thoughts of Perez behind and to concentrate on the matter in hand. Of course she’d give no details of the little drawings that Helena had received. That way they could check the authenticity of any information that came through as a result of her appeal. Helena and Daniel were adamant that they’d told nobody about the hangman cartoons. And she’d try to make it clear that the person who’d sent them wasn’t necessarily a suspect in the murder investigation. She’d simply ask anyone who had any information about messages delivered to the Fleming family to come forward in confidence. She would be bland, prosaic, boring even. The last thing she needed was to generate more hysteria.
In contrast, the journalist opposite seemed determined to bring as much excitement as he could to the interview. He looked very young. Very ambitious. The drama of the young woman’s death seemed to be feeding him, raising his energy level until she thought he might explode. He fidgeted like a hyperactive child on a diet of brightly coloured sweeties while he checked her sound level. Willow could tell he was itching to ask her if Emma had been sexually assaulted.
It seemed very hot and airless in the small room and there was no natural light. Willow felt a moment of claustrophobia and panic. The presenter looked at the producer in the corner and gave a little nod, to show he’d got the message that they were ready to go. ‘I understand that you’d like to read us a statement, Chief Inspector, about the Deltaness murder. I wonder if I could ask you some questions before you begin.’
Willow smiled and took a breath. At times of stress the yoga exercises she’d been forced to learn as a child came in useful.
‘Why don’t you wait until you hear what I have to say, John? Then your questions might be relevant.’
He seemed so taken aback that he failed to reply – perhaps most people who appeared opposite him in the studio were more easily intimidated – and in the moment of silence she began to read from the sheet of paper that she’d already placed on the table in front of her:
During our investigation into the death of Emma Shearer, it has come to our notice that three messages were delivered to Hesti, the house in Deltaness where the body was discovered, shortly before her death. We would ask that the person responsible for these messages – or anyone who knows anything at all about them – should contact us immediately. I’d like to stress that this person has committed no crime and we’re not linking the messages to the murder of Emma Shearer, but we think the writer might have valuable information. Thank you.
With the last two words, Willow smiled. She’d once been sent on a media course and had been told by the tutor that a smile could be communicated even by radio. The tutor had said a lot of other stuff that Willow had considered ballocks and had immediately forgotten, but for some reason that piece of advice had stuck. She hoped she’d sounded sufficiently warm and welcoming for the anonymous sender of the hangman messages to contact her.
She folded the sheet of paper and smiled at the interviewer too. ‘Now, John, do you have any questions about my statement? I’m afraid it’s impossible for me to discuss other aspects of our inquiry any further at this early stage, though of course if any of your listeners saw anything unusual in the vicinity of Deltaness, late on Saturday night or on Sunday morning, I would ask them to come forward. They can talk either to me or to one of the officers based in Shetland, who might be more familiar to them.’
While John was still forming any possible question in his mind, she continued: ‘No? Then thank you very much for letting me come to speak to you today. We are all very grateful for your assistance.’ She stood up, nodded towards the producer and left the studio.
Outside, the weather had changed. There was little wind, but the sun was filtered by a mist that seemed to get thicker, even as Willow walked up the lane to the street that led to the police station. There was no warmth in it now – any breeze that there was came from the north – and Willow was tempted to return to the B&B for a thicker sweater or a coat. But she just walked more quickly and ran up the steps to the police station, suddenly feeling more energetic than she had for months. Sandy was still in the ops room, on the phone. He gave her a little wave and she switched on the kettle and dropped a camomile teabag into a mug. When she turned back, he’d finished the call.
‘Did Jimmy get off OK?’ She was worried that the mist might have stopped the flight.
‘Yeah, fine. It’s clear at Sumburgh. The forecast’s not great, though.’ He looked at her. ‘Are you two alright?’
‘Of course,’ she said and then, thinking he deserved more than that, ‘just a couple of things we need to sort out. Sorry, it must be awkward for you.’
‘He’s not an easy man,’ Sandy said. There was a long pause that he clearly hoped she’d fill with more information. When none was forthcoming, he added, ‘But if anyone can handle him, it’s you.’ Another pause. ‘You brought him back to us, after that business with Fran. I’ll always be grateful for that.’ He turned away from her, suddenly embarrassed by the intimacy of the comment. Only the beetroot tinge to the back of his neck stopped her from becoming emotional herself. But seeing his awkwardness, it was a struggle not to laugh.
‘Did you get anywhere tracking down Emma’s bag?’ she asked and he faced her again, apparently glad that the moment was over.
‘They don’t sell it anywhere in Shetland. Not even the classy new place in Commercial Street that I thought might stock it.’ Sandy looked down at his notes. ‘The woman was helpful, though. She thought there were a couple of sites you might get it online and have delivered to the islands. I’ve written them down.’
‘Maybe get the techies in Inverness to work on that one.’ Willow thought she wouldn’t know where to start finding a real person to answer their questions. ‘What next, do you think, Sandy? You’ve met most of the people involved with both families. Anything we’ve missed?’
‘I think it would be worth talking to the Moncrieff kids,’ he said. ‘The older ones, Martha and Charlie. Emma was closer in age to them than she was to the parents. We know, from Magnie Riddell, that Emma and Martha used to hang out socially on occasions.’
‘How would we go about that? Go back to Deltaness and catch them after school tonight?’
‘I was thinking a more . . .’ he paused, struggling to find the right word, ‘unorthodox approach. If I know anything about teenagers, they’re not going to tell us what they were really getting up to at the community hall, or at their parties at the beach, with the parents listening in.’
‘What are you suggesting then, Sandy? Go and see them at the school?’
He shook his head. ‘Then the teachers would feel obliged to
contact the parents. And even if we could persuade the school that Robert or Belle didn’t need to sit in, they’d want to be involved.’
‘So?’ She loved Sandy to bits, but sometimes it took him hours to get to the point.
‘They don’t come across to me as swotty kids. Not the kind to stay in school in their lunch break, eating the healthy choice in the canteen, followed by a trip to the library to make a start on their homework . . .’
‘Where would they go then?’ She was starting to follow his drift.
‘There’s a caff not far from the school. It was there even in my day, and it was where all the older guys went. They did brilliant saucermeat sandwiches. And cheap. The kids would come in waves. And the owner had the food all prepared, wrapped up in serviettes, ready to take away, so you didn’t have to wait hours. There wasn’t much room inside and we’d sit on the wall, looking down towards the water. Weather like this, you’d be glad of a nice warm car to sit in, if you just happened to meet a grown-up – someone you knew – who also fancied a saucermeat sandwich.’
‘Shame that I’m veggie,’ she said. ‘I think this is something for you, Sandy. You’re more their age anyway. And they know you.’
He looked suddenly horrified. ‘I was thinking we should both go. It’d look bit dodgy if it got out: one male officer in a car with two kids.’ A pause. ‘And I wouldn’t know what to say to them. They might have been born and brought up here, but they’re not really island bairns. Do you know what I mean?’
