by Ann Cleeves
‘They had nothing else in common,’ he said. ‘It must be some madman, mustn’t it? Some stranger who enjoys strangling women.’
Willow didn’t answer. She couldn’t see that the case was as easy as that. There’d been no stranger in Deltaness. And she thought there must be some logic to the killings, in the mind of the murderer at least. ‘What will you do?’ she asked. ‘Will you go to stay with your father for a while?’
The man shook his head. ‘I’ll tell him what happened, before he hears from someone else. But this is my home. If you need me again, this is where you’ll find me.’
As Willow was leaving the house she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Sandy.
‘We’ve got cover here until the prof. arrives later this afternoon.’ Sandy sounded breathless, as if he was walking into the breeze. ‘What would you like me to do now?’
‘Meet me at the Flemings’ house,’ she said. ‘Daniel spends a lot of his time filming the wildlife close to where we found Margaret. And Hesti is the nearest house to the body. I can’t help feeling that the family is involved.’ Whatever Jimmy Perez thinks.
As she opened her car door she looked up and saw that Magnie was closing his bedroom curtains. Again he was doing what he always did when he arrived home, after being away all night. She wasn’t so sure that she would sleep so easily if her mother had been murdered, even if she was as tired as he was.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Helena and Daniel had just sat down to a late lunch when the two detectives arrived at Hesti. Belle had stayed, chatting in the studio, for more than an hour. Helena hadn’t been quite sure what she’d wanted in the end. Perhaps to get out of the big, untidy house, which must still hold the ghost of Emma Shearer for her. Or perhaps she’d arranged the visit because she was as curious as everyone else in Deltaness about Emma’s death. Belle had certainly been listening to gossip, because at one point she’d asked, as if she was genuinely concerned, ‘Is Daniel very upset about what’s happened? I had the impression that he and Emma were great friends.’
‘We’re all very upset,’ Helena had said, her voice flat. She still thought that had been an inadequate response and wished she’d had the courage to tell Belle to ignore the gossipmongers and mind her own business.
The reply must have disappointed Belle, because soon afterwards the doctor’s wife had made an excuse and left.
Now Willow Reeves and Sandy Wilson stood in the kitchen, insisting that Helena and Daniel continue eating. The woman detective seemed brighter today, but there was still something feral and unkempt about her; it was the tangled hair and the charity-shop clothes. Helena thought it must take courage for a senior police officer to dress like that. She wished Jimmy Perez had turned up on their doorstep instead. He would be easier to talk to, easier to convince.
‘We can explain why we’re here while you finish your lunch, and then we can ask you some questions afterwards.’
But Helena leapt up to fetch plates and cutlery. There was only cheese and salad and bread from the Walls Bakery, she said, but there was plenty to go round. She hated the idea of eating with the two strangers standing and watching. As if she and Daniel were animals in a zoo at feeding time. Besides, the officers were hungry. When they’d first come in, she’d seen the envy in their eyes when they’d seen the meal laid out on the table. She wondered when they’d last eaten.
So now they were all sitting together and Sandy was hacking at the bread, which Helena knew would drive Daniel crazy. Daniel was pleased by symmetry and order – that was what made him a fine architect, his attention to detail and his love of clean lines. Sometimes Helena wondered if he was on the autistic spectrum like Christopher, but not diagnosed. Although she didn’t want more bread, she took the loaf next and cut a slice to tidy it up. Daniel shot a grateful glance across the table at her.
Willow Reeves explained why they were there, before she started eating. ‘There’s been another murder. Margaret Riddell. She was strangled too and left on the bench by the loch on the other side of the hill.’
She reached out for a tomato. They were very sweet and small. Helena had called in at the Hays’ farm shop to buy them, when she was in Ravenswick to talk to Jimmy Perez. That seemed a very long time ago.
‘Why was Margaret here?’ the detective asked. ‘Was it a social occasion? I didn’t have the impression you were that close.’
‘We didn’t invite her,’ Helena said. She was imagining Margaret Riddell as a supper guest, at the same table as Robert and Belle Moncrieff, and couldn’t help smiling. The idea was ridiculous. Then she thought what a snobbish cow she must seem and tried to explain. ‘Margaret turned up out of the blue, out of the fog. She said everyone in Deltaness was talking about Daniel and Emma, saying they’d been having an affair. She thought I should know. Of course that was nonsense. She just wanted to spread her poison.’
‘What time was that?’
Helena looked at Daniel. ‘Can you remember? The fog made it seem much later than it probably was. It seemed late for a social call. She didn’t stay long. I didn’t invite her in.’
‘Had she driven here?’
‘I didn’t see a car, and that was odd too. I’ve never seen Margaret walk anywhere. She even drove down to the community hall for teas and meetings and that’s no distance from her house.’
‘Perhaps,’ Sandy said, ‘someone gave her a lift to the bottom of the track. Or she left her car there. Did you notice headlights? Before or after?’
Helena shook her head. ‘But I wouldn’t have done. The fog was so thick and the house doesn’t look out that way.’
‘How did she seem?’ Willow was focused on spreading butter on an oatcake and only looked up at Helena when the question had been asked.
‘Agitated. Very wound up. I’m not sure what she wanted from me. Gratitude, perhaps, or company. I had the sense that she’d expected to be made welcome. But she disgusted me. The way she wanted always to see the worst in people. There was no kindness or understanding.’
‘Don’t you think that made her sad?’ Willow asked. ‘The fact that she’d made herself so unpopular.’
It seemed such a strange thing for a police officer to say that Helena was shocked into silence, and it was Daniel who took up the conversation.
‘It was hard for us to feel sorry for Mrs Riddell,’ he said. ‘She made life very difficult for us. From the moment we moved in, it was clear that she resented us. After the old man killed himself she was even more unpleasant.’
‘She’d loved Dennis Gear when she was a girl.’ Willow brushed crumbs from her fingers and then, almost without pausing, she continued speaking. ‘We’ve found evidence that Margaret was the person who was sending you the little drawings of gallows and hanged men.’
‘I suppose it had to be her.’ Helena wondered why everyone hadn’t come to that conclusion before. ‘I can’t think of anyone in Deltaness who would be quite so spiteful.’
‘Now she’s dead, you won’t be bothered by them again.’
Helena felt as if Willow had slapped her very hard on the face. ‘You can’t think we’re pleased that she’s dead.’
‘I’m pleased,’ Daniel said, and again Helena thought how like Christopher he was, saying whatever came into his head, not worrying what other people would make of it. ‘Now that she’s gone, it might be possible for us to settle here and become a real part of the community.’ He turned calmly towards Willow. ‘I didn’t kill her, though, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I didn’t hate her as much as that, and I wouldn’t risk all that we have here. A court case. Prison.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘You’re familiar with the bench where Margaret’s body was found. It was dedicated to Dennis Gear.’ Willow wasn’t asking a question of Daniel, but he answered as if it was one.
‘Yes, it’s one of my favourite places. I love photographing the otters on the beach and the waders in the pool.’ He paused. ‘But the last time I was there was when Helena and
I went for a walk over the hill, and that was the morning after Christopher found Emma’s body. I didn’t leave the house last night. We were all in together.’
‘We were!’ Helena turned to the detective, desperate to be believed.
‘And early this morning?’ Willow asked. ‘Did either of you leave the house then?’
In her mind, Helena ran through the events of the morning. Daniel had been up before her – he’d said he wanted to continue planning his new project. She hadn’t seen him until after she’d taken the kids to school, but she was sure he’d been working in his office.
‘I walked the children to school,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, neither of us left the house.’ She looked towards Daniel, who just nodded his agreement.
‘I think that’s all for now.’ Willow was on her feet, walking towards the door. ‘Thanks for lunch.’
Helena walked outside with the detectives. For the first time in two days she could see all the way down to Deltaness and in the other direction to the hill, with the beacon stark on the skyline. There was the smell of salt, cut grass and wildflowers. The air seemed clearer. She thought again of the night before, Daniel and herself drinking champagne, toasting muddle and compromise. With Margaret no longer stirring up trouble for them, perhaps Daniel was right and life here would be easier. The dreams they’d had for the place no longer seemed quite so impossible.
In the school playground that afternoon, the talk was all about Margaret Riddell. Helena could tell there was no real information. People knew that the woman was dead, but the rest was speculation; there were wild stories of a dark stranger who’d been arrested as he boarded a plane in Sumburgh. The police had been at Lottie Marshall’s house for hours and had taken Magnie away for interview, but he was back at home now. Helena found herself listening and even joining in the conversation. She had concrete information to pass on, after all.
‘Margaret was strangled,’ she said. ‘Just like Emma.’
‘How do you know?’ The parents gathered around her, heads forward. Geese pecking at grain.
‘The police were at ours this afternoon. We gave them lunch.’ She added the last sentence because somehow it proved their innocence. The police surely wouldn’t eat with anyone they suspected of murder. She became aware of Belle Moncrieff, on the edge of her sight-line, running late as always, joining the other parents.
‘Did the lovely Jimmy Perez have lunch with you?’ someone asked. Even here in the playground, the atmosphere seemed lighter and more frivolous. Helena no longer felt intimidated.
‘No, only the woman and Sandy Wilson, the guy from Whalsay.’
Another voice from the crowd joined in. ‘Jimmy’s been in Orkney. My man’s pals with Duncan Hunter, and he’s looking after the peerie lassie. You know, Fran Hunter’s daughter. Jimmy couldn’t get back until last night’s ferry because Sumburgh’s fog-bound.’
‘What was he doing there? Do they think the killer’s from south?’
‘He’s surely been looking into Emma Shearer’s background. That’s where she came from, isn’t it?’ The speaker was an older woman, a grandmother, not a mother. She turned to Belle. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Mrs Moncrieff? Emma came to you from Orkney?’
‘Yes.’ Belle, who was usually so comfortable being the centre of attention, seemed awkward. When the bell rang and the children started running out, she took the opportunity to move away from the group.
Helena waved to Ellie and then waited for Christopher and the support worker to emerge. She thought of what Willow had said at lunch. Nobody in the playground had expressed any regret at Margaret’s death. Rather, they were revelling in it as a source of entertainment and drama. Willow had been right; it was rather sad that the woman had nobody to mourn for her, that she was as lonely in death as she had been in life. But Helena still found it impossible to grieve for her.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Magnie Riddell lay on his bed. The curtains were thin and the light came through. There was more than enough light to read the numbers on his phone and for him to get through to his father’s mobile. He’d be at work, but usually his father answered and he did so immediately today.
‘Magnus.’
‘Dad, something’s happened.’
Silence. In the past, when they were all living together in the big house in Voe, there would have been angry questions: What have you done this time? What bother are you causing us now? But Neil Riddell no longer saw himself as a saint. He was a sinner like the rest of the world, and he was enjoying the benefits of his new status. He was more tolerant, kinder. ‘What is it, Son?’
‘Mum’s dead.’
‘How?’ His father wasn’t a man to waste words.
‘The police were here when I got back from work. They say she was murdered.’
‘Are you alright, Son? Would you like to come and stay here with me and Krista?
‘I’ll be fine.’ Because the last thing Magnie needed was to be around his father and Krista. They still radiated happiness and romance. Neil floated through the flat with a constant smile on his face, and Krista fluttered around him like a moth drawn to a flame, all light kisses and touches. His mother had said the woman must be faking it. ‘She wants a British passport. After Brexit, she’s worried she’ll be sent home. What could she see in Neil Riddell?’
Magnie could feel that the affection was genuine, though. In their company, his relationship with Emma had always seemed half-hearted and unsatisfactory.
‘I told the police I was with you and Krista last night, Dad. I don’t have any kind of alibi, and they seemed to think I was a suspect. First Emma, and then my mother. The two women in my life, the detective said.’
There was a silence at the other end of the line and Magnie waited for the old recriminations.
‘Did you kill her, Son?’
‘No!’ Because what else could Magnie say?
‘Then when they ask, we’ll tell them you were with us. And you know when you’re ready to talk to us, we’re here.’
Magnie switched off his phone. He lay back on the bed and tried to sleep, but images of the bonfire on the beach returned. The flames wild and untamed, the young people drinking and jeering. The poor Fleming boy screaming, with his hands over his ears. Emma beside him, watchful and unmoved. And his mother, who must have scrambled onto the shingle bank, standing there, looking down at them all, judging them.
Magnie wondered again if he should tell Willow Reeves about that night; she might find out anyway and then how would it look? He felt more ashamed of how they’d all behaved, sneering and screeching like gulls around a piece of leftover food, than he did about the worse things he’d done. The image of his mother, staring down at him, drifted in and out of his dreams all night.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The next day in Lerwick, the sun was shining. The cloud had rolled back over the sea and hovered there, a warning that it would return. They met early in the station; Willow had suggested a discussion there before they headed back to the scene at Deltaness. A cruise ship was anchored in Bressay Sound, waiting to disgorge its passengers, but now the town was quiet, catching its breath before another busy day.
In the ops room there was a smell of coffee. Willow had arrived first and was looking at a pile of paper. Sandy had been standing at the window looking out towards the town hall, but now he joined them.
‘This is James’s post-mortem report on Emma Shearer,’ Willow said. ‘We didn’t have the chance to discuss it properly yesterday.’
‘James told me about the untreated injuries.’ Perez had been thinking about that ever since he’d heard about them. What would it do to a child, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally? A father should protect his children, not terrify them. Not hurt them so badly they would carry the scars for the rest of their lives.
Sandy looked up from his coffee. ‘It made me want to weep.’
Willow continued talking. ‘It seems your theory about Emma being killed in her car still hol
ds up. She was strangled from behind.’
‘It would take some nerve,’ Perez said, ‘to kill the woman, drive her to Hesti, string her up in the byre and then return the car to Ness House.’ He paused. ‘Nerve or desperation.’ He thought the murderer must have been desperate. Killing Emma had been more important to them than getting away with the crime; they’d considered it a risk worth taking.
Willow set the post-mortem report aside. ‘I spoke to Neil Riddell. He confirms that Magnie was with them the night Margaret disappeared.’
‘Magnie told me he was out with friends.’
‘According to Neil, he had a few drinks with his pals, decided he wasn’t fit to drive home and turned up at their place at about midnight. Magnie was a bit awkward about it because, according to the court order, he wasn’t supposed to be spending time in the town centre.’
Perez supposed that might be true. ‘I’d like to find some other witnesses to confirm that.’
‘I’ve found out how Emma got hold of her designer handbag.’ Sandy had been itching to pass on the information. He looked at them, eager for approval, a schoolboy who’d completed his homework without being prompted.
‘And?’ Perez thought it seemed like a long time since they’d found the bag in the boatshed on the shore at Hesti.
‘She paid for it herself, bought it from a specialist site on the Internet.’
‘Something like eBay?’
Perhaps the bag had been a bargain buy; that might explain the purchase and Emma’s glee in owning it.
‘No! She bought it from the designer and paid full price. Five hundred quid. Seems we should take up childminding, eh, Jimmy? I couldn’t afford something like that for Louisa.’
‘Have we checked out Emma’s bank account? Any unexplained payments?’
‘What are you thinking?’ Willow said. ‘Blackmail?’
‘Maybe.’ Or, Perez thought, perhaps it was subtler than that: professionals in Orkney with a conscience, thinking Emma deserved compensation because her case had been so badly handled. He wasn’t sure how that would have worked, though, unless they’d helped her to access some charitable funding. ‘Of course she could have won the lottery, or got a handout from a wealthy relative.’
