by Ann Cleeves
‘I’m not sure.’ Willow looked at her watch. It was already eight o’clock. ‘Do you fancy something to eat? It seems a long time since that egg sandwich with the Moncrieff kids. My treat. I’ll drive, if you fancy going somewhere out of town.’ She couldn’t face going back to the B&B, where Rosie and John would be playing happy families with their baby. And the phase of needing to sleep for twelve hours a day seemed to have passed.
‘Why not? If you’re paying.’
Willow looked at him for a moment, suspecting pity, then she decided she didn’t care anyway. She needed company.
They ended up in Fjara, a cafe bar still in Lerwick but a little way out of the town centre and close to the water. The place was unusually quiet. A group of women, dressed up for a night out without their kids, were squabbling cheerfully about the bill, each insisting on paying. Willow and Sandy found a table close to the window. The mist shifted for a moment and there was a view of two seals hauled up on rocks staring back at them, so close they could see the detail of whiskers and eyelashes, before everything was grey again.
‘Just as well Jimmy’s booked on the ferry,’ Sandy said. ‘I don’t think there’ll be planes any time soon.’
The women trooped out in a cloud of laughter and perfume, and Willow and Sandy had the place to themselves. A waiter brought the menu. They ordered.
‘What do you want to do about Margaret Riddell?’ Sandy was drinking fancy lager from a bottle with a piece of lime in the neck.
‘We’ll talk to her tomorrow. I want to go back to Deltaness anyway; that’s where this all started. And she’s got a sister. Let’s have a word with her too.’ She stopped talking as the waiter brought their food. ‘I haven’t met the adult Moncrieffs yet.’
‘Have you heard from Jimmy? How’s he getting on in Orkney?’
‘He’s keeping me posted by email.’ Her voice was light. She felt like a parent in a loveless marriage, putting on a brave face for the children. ‘He’s spoken to Emma’s brother David and her friend Claire, to some of the professionals involved with the family. He has a sense that they were all keen to get Emma away from Orkney, that the case was badly handled and she hadn’t been given the support she needed.’
‘I can’t see how that could have anything to do with her murder so many years later.’ Sandy was eating lamb shank and some of the sauce had dripped onto his chin. Willow took her napkin and wiped it away and then felt awkward. She wasn’t actually his mother after all. He seemed unbothered.
‘Unless Emma had suddenly decided to sue them for negligence, or go to the press about the way she’d been treated,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Daniel Fleming gave her the idea.’
He grinned. ‘I can’t imagine a posse of teachers and social workers coming north to stop her talking.’
‘Nah, it does seem a tad unlikely.’ Willow gave a little laugh. ‘Emma’s social worker suspected she was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Odd that Moncrieff didn’t pick up that she might have been affected by the violence she witnessed when she was younger.’
‘I think Robert was just happy to have someone take the kids off his hands,’ Sandy said. ‘Like Martha said, the whole happy-family image seems to have been a bit of a sham. I’m not sure he would have noticed.’
The cafe staff were starting to clear up around them. Chairs were being put onto tables. It wasn’t so much a hint it was time for them to leave that it had become rude, but Willow got the message. Some of the employees might live out of town and the drive home wouldn’t be much fun in this weather.
‘Shall we have an early start?’ she said. ‘I’ll pick you up.’ She got to her feet and Sandy followed.
‘We could get Jimmy from the ferry on the way,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ Because she was an adult and what else was there to say?
Outside the streets were empty. Each street light was an orange blur and the buildings were only shadows. There was nothing substantial. She dropped Sandy off at his flat and parked at the top of the lane as close as she could get to the Sheriff’s House. She was glad the place was already in darkness and she could make her way to her room without speaking to the owners. In her room, Willow checked to see if there was an email or a text from Jimmy Perez, but there was nothing and she went to bed. The moan of a foghorn in the distance drifted in and out of her dreams.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Helena Fleming watched Margaret Riddell stamp out into the fog and felt murderous. How dare the woman come here, spitting her bile, revelling in every accusation. How dare she suppose that Helena would be glad to hear it.
Daniel appeared from the door of his office. ‘Who was that?’
Helena directed her anger at her husband. ‘Couldn’t you tell? You must have heard her. Classic that you hid away in there, leaving me to deal with her.’
He blinked and for a moment she thought he was going to cry again. She wondered what had happened to the strong, fun, energetic man she’d married. The one who’d stayed up all night with her, planning their future together, bursting with ideas about design and art and shared adventures. How had he turned into this grey, cowardly shadow?
But I was different then too. I admired him and shared his ideals and promised to work with him to make things happen. I wasn’t obsessed with my own work, my own life, my strange kids.
‘I didn’t think it would help,’ he said. ‘I knew I would only wind her up. You seemed to have it covered. And honestly, I didn’t hear any of the detail.’
‘She claims that you and Emma had an affair. She thought I should know that everyone is talking about it. She seemed to think she was doing me a favour by telling me.’
Unbidden, Helena had a picture of her and Daniel on holiday soon after they’d married. Not a honeymoon. Honeymoons were clichés and everyone had one. They’d told themselves and their friends that this was different, just an escape from London after a long, cold spring. They’d found themselves on an island in Greece. Unplanned and a moment of madness. After scraping together money for the flights and the ferries, they’d found an elderly woman willing to let them use a room in her house, which was surrounded by olive trees and birdsong. In the end it had probably cost more than a hotel, but they’d loved it. The heat and the light, the dreaminess that came with little sleep and too much rough Greek wine. Now she wondered if they could rebuild their marriage by running away again.
‘I told you the truth,’ Daniel said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘About Emma. We knew there would probably be gossip.’
‘Do you think we can stick it out here?’ she said. ‘Make a go of it, after all that’s happened?’ And the long, dark winters and the fog. People spreading rumours just for the thrill of it.
They looked at each other in silence.
‘Yes,’ he said in the end, ‘if you want to. I couldn’t do it on my own, though. You were always the strong one. Let’s show them, shall we, that we won’t be intimidated? Let’s face it out.’
She wondered if Daniel knew what he was asking of her. She would be seen as the wronged wife, the woman standing by her man, even as he was being suspected of murder. She would be pitied and humiliated. She thought it might be easier to be considered a killer. ‘I need a drink,’ she said. ‘Let’s open that bottle of champagne we were saving for a special occasion.’
‘Is this a special occasion?’ He closed his office door and came towards her, stroked the back of her neck with his thumb.
‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s a muddle. But perhaps that’s what grown-up life is like and we have to get used to it.’
‘So, that’s what we’re drinking to? Muddle?’ He seemed to understand.
‘Perhaps to life not being perfect. And to coming to terms with that.’ The dream of the perfect holiday in the sun was slipping away from her. She remembered now that they’d argued on that holiday in Greece too.
In the kitchen, she watched him open the wine while she got the glasses. The room seemed to have retained the heat of the pr
evious days. She thought of winter days here, the house being battered by wind, the four of them safe and warm inside. Wondered if that was a dream of the perfect too. She took a glass from him, enjoyed the feeling of bubbles on her tongue, pushed away the memory of Margaret Riddell, of Emma Shearer in this house, somehow persuading her husband that she was special.
Daniel raised his glass to her. ‘To muddle and confusion,’ he said. ‘And coming through it stronger in the end.’ She touched her glass against his, but didn’t speak. She thought that was easy enough to say. It would be much harder to do.
Chapter Thirty
Sandy woke early and spoke to Louisa. He imagined her lying in bed in the bungalow in Yell that she shared with her mother. She’d be propped up on her elbow, drinking tea from a big yellow cup. It was the bed she’d had as a teenager – she’d had a great teaching job in the south and had only come back to the islands when her mother was diagnosed with dementia. Sometimes he stayed overnight with her, and it was a terrible squeeze in the single bed. Each time they giggled about it and said they’d have to get something bigger, but they never did. Perhaps they knew that Mavis was getting more and more ill and, even with regular carers, a time might come when she’d have to move into a home. Or that she’d die. Then Louisa would need to come to a decision about where she wanted to live and work. Sandy wasn’t sure what would happen then. He didn’t like to presume that he’d be part of Louisa’s plans.
Willow was waiting for him when he arrived at the end of the lane, close to her B&B. She was standing on the pavement and drops of moisture from the mist clung to her long, tangled hair. She could have waited in her car, but seemed happy enough outside.
‘Listen to that!’ She turned her face to him and it seemed full of wonder, a child’s face.
He was suddenly aware of the blast of birdsong. There were trees and bushes in the sheltered town gardens, home to garden birds that were more scattered elsewhere on the islands. The sound lifted his spirits and made him optimistic. He thought they would find the killer of Emma Shearer, Willow and Perez would become friends again, and he and Louisa would marry and build a family.
‘What’s so funny?’ Willow must have seen him grinning.
‘Nothing. I’ve just got a good feeling about today.’
They arrived at the terminal in time to see the ferry pull in. Because of the cancelled flights there were lots of passengers, but Jimmy Perez was one of the first people off. He seemed preoccupied, but not quite as tense as when Sandy had last seen him. These days Sandy was tuned into the man’s moods. Perez nodded to Willow, a kind of acknowledgement at least.
‘So, what have you got organized?’
‘I’d like Sandy to talk to Moncrieff,’ she said. She turned to him. ‘I’ve left a message saying you’ll be there to talk to him before morning surgery. That starts at nine, so we’ll drop you off on the way through.’
‘You’re sure you want me to do it?’ Sandy disliked the man. Perhaps, he thought now, that was because the doctor scared him. He’d always been intimidated by men like Moncrieff. Educated people who used long words and made references that Sandy didn’t understand. He’d even been frightened of Louisa when they’d first met. ‘Wouldn’t he be better talking to you or Jimmy?’
‘Not at all. He’ll be more cautious with either of us. Folk always underestimate you, Sandy. That’s a strength, not a weakness. Talk to him about Emma again. Why didn’t he see that she was suffering from PTSD? Did the doctor in Orkney warn him of the extent of the trauma she’d been through? Had any of the professionals there contacted him to see how she’d settled? Don’t let him bully you.’
Sandy remembered that Perez had told him exactly the same thing. Did everyone think he was such an easy target?
The surgery was in a small, modern health centre close to the school and the community centre. All three buildings would have gone up when oil was flowing into the terminal at Sullom Voe, not very far to the south. That had been a time of affluence and optimism, but the atmosphere in the islands had changed as the oil had dried up and interest rates had fallen. Shetlanders had become used to getting just what they wanted for their community, and some were struggling to come to terms with the new reality. It was hardly austerity, but the easy access to cash and good public services was over.
Sandy watched Willow drive away and walked inside. The place seemed empty, apart from a cleaner mopping a corridor floor in the distance and a woman behind the desk in reception. With some relief, Sandy recognized the receptionist as Nettie Gill, a friend of his mother’s. She wasn’t a Whalsay woman, but they’d been at the high school together and remained good pals.
‘I’m afraid you might have a bit of a wait. Robert doesn’t usually get here until fifteen minutes before surgery starts. Will you take some tea? Come into my office and I’ll put on the kettle.’
He sat on one side of a clear, uncluttered desk, drinking tea while she looked at her computer. When it seemed that she’d finished dealing with overnight emails, he began to talk again.
‘You must have known Emma Shearer. She’d have come into the surgery from time to time.’
‘Oh, she wasn’t a patient,’ Nettie said. ‘Robert’s the only GP based here and maybe he’d have thought it might be awkward for her. A young lassie wouldn’t want her boss to know everything about her. She came to the dentist and picked up prescriptions from the pharmacy sometimes.’
‘Of course.’ Sandy was quiet for a moment, thinking. ‘Did Robert ever talk about her?’
Nettie looked up at him. ‘Are you asking me to gossip about my boss, Sandy Wilson?’
‘I want to feel that I know her,’ he said. ‘At the moment she’s like a shadow. I can’t get any sort of hold on her.’ He paused and it felt as if it was his mother sitting opposite him, Nettie was so easy to speak to. ‘It seems so sad, a young woman like that, and it’s as if no one’s missing her. The bairns don’t seem bothered. The Moncrieffs miss her as a worker, but not as a person. Maybe Magnie Riddell is upset that she’s gone, but I can’t find anyone else who was friendly with her.’
‘You know there are rumours flying around the place.’ Nettie held his gaze. ‘I hear all sorts in here. It’s as if I’m not a person, sitting behind the desk. Folk just ignore me.’
‘What sort of rumours?’
‘That Emma wasn’t a very . . .’ Nettie hesitated, ‘nice young woman. That she was cold and hard with the bairns, that she set her cap at the men with money and power.’
‘Like Robert Moncrieff? Was the gossip that she set her cap at him?’
‘Some folk said that. I can’t believe it was true. Certainly not that she succeeded, even if she did have designs on him. Seemed to me that he wanted her for a skivvy. I never saw any evidence that he had feelings for her.’
‘What about Daniel Fleming?’
She didn’t seem surprised by the question. ‘Ah, you’ve heard those rumours too. Margaret Riddell’s telling anyone who’ll listen that they were having an affair.’
‘You don’t think it was true?’
A silence. The sound of a vacuum cleaner in the distance. ‘I know that I saw Emma and Magnie on the beach one night after youth club in the hall. Magnie staring at her as if she was the answer to all his prayers. As if he was besotted. Margaret wouldn’t have liked that. He’s all she’s got, after her man left her for a younger woman in Lerwick. She’d have preferred to believe that Emma was a scarlet woman chasing after Mr Fleming.’
Sandy thought he wasn’t learning much new here, but it was good to have confirmation of the things they’d already been told. ‘Is Margaret a patient?’
‘Aye, most of Deltaness come here.’
He was trying to put together the words to ask about the woman’s state of mind, when they heard footsteps crossing the reception area and Robert Moncrieff’s voice. ‘Nettie? Where are you?’ Impatient. Sandy thought the man could have been calling a wayward dog. Nettie rolled her eyes. It seemed there was little love lost
between her and the doctor. She got to her feet slowly. ‘I’m in here. There’s a detective wanting to speak to you. Sandy Wilson.’
The man paused a beat. He hadn’t realized he’d been overheard and his voice became more conciliatory, more polite.
‘Ah yes, I got his message. Send him into my room, would you, Nettie? I’ll see him before I start surgery. I’m sure it won’t take long.’
Sandy sat in an orange chair on the other side of the doctor’s desk and felt as he had as a small boy, dragged along by his mother to see the doctor in Lerwick. Nervous and awe-struck, as if he was in the presence of the Almighty. ‘Emma Shearer wasn’t one of your patients?’
‘No. I suggested she register with the GP in Brae and she followed my advice. If you need information about her medical history, you can check with the practice there.’
‘Emma’s social worker thought she was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,’ Sandy said. ‘Does that make any sort of sense to you?’
Moncrieff made a noise that was a cross between a sneer and a laugh. ‘I never saw any evidence of it. She always seemed a remarkably stable young woman to me. Of course social workers have no medical training. Really, I wouldn’t take an amateur’s opinion too seriously.’
‘The doctor in Orkney didn’t mention anything of that sort?’
‘No,’ Moncrieff said, ‘and I’m sure he would have done, if he’d had any suspicions of PTSD. He knew Emma would be working with vulnerable children.’
‘Did he get in touch with you to find out how Emma was settling in?’
‘Really there was no need for him to do that.’ Now Moncrieff was becoming impatient. ‘He knew we’d look after her. It was in our interests to make sure she was happy.’
Sandy thought of the young woman who’d spent most of her spare time alone in the attic room in Ness House, making old-fashioned clothes, dreaming that she lived in the past. That wasn’t his idea of happiness. He said nothing.
