by Ann Cleeves
Lottie shook her head. ‘I think it was just the way she was born. And our parents probably made it worse. They indulged her because they couldn’t stand her tantrums. She was bright too. Perhaps they saw a great future for her, away from the islands.’
‘We know she was sending notes to the Fleming family at Hesti.’ Willow spoke so softly now that Perez had to struggle to hear. ‘Could she have been sending anonymous letters to other people in the community?’
There was silence for a moment. A group of oystercatchers flew, calling into the mud at the edge of the loch.
‘She sent one to Emma.’ This was Magnie. ‘Anonymous, but we knew it must be from my mother. Who else would it be?’
‘You didn’t mention it before.’ Willow managed not to make it sound like an accusation.
‘She was my mother.’ He stared out towards the shore.
‘What did it say?’
‘Not much that made any sense. Nothing specific. Something like: “I know what goes on in that big house when Belle Moncrieff is away. You’re a dangerous woman.”’
‘Did Emma keep the letter?’
‘No. It arrived the day we built the bonfire on the beach. The day that lad from Hesti turned up and started screaming. Emma threw it onto the fire.’ Magnie shifted his feet.
‘Did anything else happen that night?’ Perez thought there was still something Magnie was keeping to himself about the time Christopher Fleming gatecrashed the teenagers’ beach party, but the man only shook his head.
‘And Margaret never sent notes to anyone else?’ It seemed Willow hadn’t noticed the man’s reluctance to talk about that night or she wasn’t prepared to push it.
‘Not as far as I know,’ Magnie said.
‘Was there anyone she disliked enough?’
This time Lottie answered: ‘She never had a good word to say about Robert Moncrieff. She went to the surgery once, asking for a sick note when she was feeling poorly, and he sent her away with a flea in her ear.’ She paused. ‘But then there were very few people she did have a good word for, so you shouldn’t read too much into that.’
They were walking back to the car when Willow asked another question. She was in front with Magnie. He’d probably thought their business was done, that he’d satisfied his aunt’s request. He walked like a man who’d been let off the hook.
‘What did Emma make of the Moncrieff women?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Belle and Martha. They’re very striking individuals. Strong characters. Three women in the same house – sometimes that’s like cats in a bag. They all come out spitting.’
Magnie stopped in his tracks. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I suppose I’m asking if the three of them got on.’
‘Oh.’ Perez thought Magnie sounded relieved. ‘I don’t think there were any problems. Emma kept her own company when she wasn’t working. And it’s a big enough house that they wouldn’t be on top of each other.’
‘So, all happy families then?’ Willow had stopped too and was looking back at him.
‘Happy families? Aye, I suppose so.’
Perez thought that would be the very last way he’d describe the relationships in Ness House.
Chapter Forty-Five
Helena woke again to bright sunshine. She thought her friends in the south would never believe there could be weather like this in Shetland. Any other time she’d have posted Facebook images of their perfect life, the wildflowers and the empty beaches, the children looking brown and healthy, but now she didn’t feel very much like gloating.
They’d survived Sunday without any major dramas. Daniel had worked in his office for most of the morning, firming up his pitch for the eco-hotel in Lerwick. She’d felt resentful – after all, she’d stopped working on Sundays so they could have more family time together – but had said nothing. She’d told herself it was better to have her husband fulfilled and relaxed than depressed and obsessed with a younger woman. Deltaness had been quiet. It had seemed empty after the invasion of police officers and forensic workers. A tense, anxious quiet, as if the whole community was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. The sultry lull before a thunderstorm. Sunshine before the land was covered with fog again.
Now she left Daniel sleeping in bed and went to the kitchen to make tea. It was still early, but Christopher took a lot of waking after a weekend without routine, and this weekend she thought he’d scarcely slept. She’d heard him pacing in the early hours of the morning and had gone into him, held him very tight in the way that he liked when he was upset.
‘Are you still a bit freaked out about finding those shoes?’
He’d nodded so quickly that she thought that hadn’t been the real problem, but when she’d asked him what else was the matter, he’d shaken his head and refused to speak.
Now she went up to his room to give him a first call and found him already awake, staring out of the window onto the shingle beach. ‘You’re up early!’ Her voice bright and false.
‘I didn’t sleep.’
‘Don’t be daft, you can’t have been awake all night.’
He didn’t answer, as if it wasn’t worth the bother.
When she got to the kitchen, Ellie was already there, still in her pyjamas. She’d helped herself to cereal and it was all over the floor and the table. Helena cleared it up without a word, telling herself it wasn’t the time to nag. Daniel appeared, looking rested and fit, bare-chested. Since Emma’s death he’d been like a different man. He made coffee and handed a mug to her and kissed the top of her head.
What’s going on here? It’s only a week since the woman you professed to love was killed.
‘Want me to do the school run?’ he asked.
‘No, I’ll do it.’ Sometimes, she knew, she made herself into a martyr. The female means of aggression. But today she had her own reasons for wanting the walk to school. ‘You get on with your pitch for the hotel.’
He seemed not to notice the bite in her words. ‘Oh, thanks, Helly. You’re a star.’ And he wandered off to shower in peace, leaving her to prepare the kids for school and make their lunches. She didn’t see him again before it was time to leave. She shouted goodbye to him, but he must have been preoccupied with his plans because there was no reply.
In the yard, everyone was still talking about the murders, but attention was no longer focused solely on the family at Hesti. Margaret Riddell’s death seemed to have dissipated that. Helena didn’t feel the other parents’ eyes on her the moment she appeared, didn’t sense their greed for news. Perhaps, because they’d lost one of their own, the police investigation didn’t feel like entertainment any more. The community had had enough of being in the spotlight and wanted the whole thing over. A week had been long enough. Ellie ran off to play with friends and Christopher lolled against the boundary wall. Belle Moncrieff appeared with her two youngest, saw Helena and immediately joined her.
‘The police took Martha and Charlie to the station for questioning yesterday.’ The words were whispered and Belle had looked round to check that nobody else was within earshot before she spoke. ‘Would you believe it? They’re only kids.’
‘No!’ Helena was shocked of course, but she began to understand the pleasure that the playground mums took in gossip.
‘It was all about those shoes. The police seem certain they belonged to Emma, but I’m not convinced. Robert says we should just have left them on the beach for some other bugger to find.’
‘Surely that would have looked even more suspicious,’ Helena said. ‘The detectives would have found out that we’d been to Burra.’ She heard the school bell ring, but she was still thinking about Martha and Charlie being dragged in to answer questions. Perhaps that had been her fault; after all, she’d suggested to Perez that the teenagers had dreamed up a practical joke to spook the adults. She wanted to ask Belle what had happened at the police station. Had Martha and Charlie admitted anything?
‘I suppose they
would,’ Belle said. She’d taken a make-up bag out of her handbag and was putting on lipstick, checking her face in a small mirror. ‘I’m heading into Lerwick for a decent coffee and some time away. Fancy it?’
Helena was tempted for a moment. Perhaps on the way to Lerwick she’d find out more about what had happened at the police station – it seemed she wasn’t immune to the pull of gossip herself – but she shook her head. ‘I should do some work.’ She looked round and saw that the playground was already empty. The kids were all in school. ‘Have a coffee for me, though.’
When she got back there was no sign of Daniel, except for a note left on the kitchen table: Gone for a walk to clear my head. Won’t be long.
She thought that was typical – she’d turned down the offer of a day in town with Belle to spend some time with her husband and he’d just pissed off, without thinking she might like to join him on his walk. She knew that was unfair – work had been in her mind, not a day out with Daniel – and that for some reason she was taking pleasure in the sense of being wronged. She stuck the breakfast plates in the dishwasher and went into her studio. Finally she found she could concentrate and began to lose herself in her work.
She’d switched her phone to silent when she’d come into the studio and didn’t notice the missed calls, until she decided to stop for an early lunch. She hadn’t heard Daniel return, but she assumed he’d be back at his desk in the house. There had been three missed calls from the school and a voicemail asking her to call back: ‘It’s rather urgent.’ She was annoyed rather than anxious. Messages from school were always about Christopher’s behaviour and were always rather urgent. She’d known he’d be scratchy and short-tempered because he’d had so little sleep. She wondered which child he’d bitten or kicked this time and hoped that the parents would be understanding. She didn’t return the call until she was in the kitchen.
‘Mrs Fleming. Oh, thank goodness.’ It was the head teacher, not Becky, Christopher’s support teacher. The head came from the south, but had lived in Shetland long enough to pick up a bit of an accent. A pleasant enough woman, but given to drama. ‘I’ve tried phoning your husband but he’s not replying, either.’
‘What’s Christopher done this time?’
‘Nothing. Well, not exactly.’ The woman paused. ‘He’s disappeared.’
‘What do you mean he’s disappeared? I brought him to school myself.’ Though I didn’t watch him go in. A moment of guilt. Helena wondered if guilt haunted all parents as it did her, and if it ever went away.
‘Oh, he was certainly here for registration. Of course we’d have called at once if he hadn’t been there for that. You’re so good about letting us know if he has to be absent for any reason. We think he must have gone during morning break. But nobody noticed until half an hour ago. His class teacher thought he was with Becky, but Becky was working with another child.’ Her voice tailed off.
‘Had anything happened to upset him?’ In London after an argument with a teacher, Christopher had once run away to a nearby park and climbed the biggest tree he could find. It had taken Helena an hour to coax him down.
‘No! Really nothing. He seemed a bit tired, apparently. Quiet. Not quite his normal self. We’ve searched everywhere we can think of. I suppose he’s not with you? That was why I’ve been calling. In case he just made his way home and we’ve been worrying for nothing. We don’t want to call the police unless we need to.’
‘I’ve been working in my studio and my husband’s out. Let me go upstairs and check. I’ll call you back.’ Interrupting the flow, because otherwise the teacher would continue talking, making her excuses.
Upstairs everything was quiet. As Helena approached Christopher’s bedroom she listened for sounds from his computer, but there was nothing. She told herself he’d be wearing headphones and there’d be nothing to hear, but now the anxiety was kicking in. She opened the door and saw that the room was empty. She could see no change from when she’d come up to rouse him hours earlier. She didn’t see how he could have been here. She began going through the paper on his desk, in case he’d left a note, and came across a photo he must have printed out from the computer. The Moncrieff family with Emma, in the Hesti garden. Helena recognized the event – a barbecue. It was one of the few times all the doctor’s family had come along to the house. Usually Martha and Charlie made excuses and stayed away. Here they were sitting on the terrace, on the white wooden sun loungers that Helena thought more suited to a liner cruising the Med. Their legs were stretched out and their feet were facing the camera. The younger children stood on each side of them, with Emma sitting very elegantly on the floor to one side. Belle and Robert stood behind them. Belle’s attention seemed to have been caught by something off-camera.
Helena wondered why Christopher had printed out that particular photograph, then saw that Emma was wearing the dress she’d worn when he’d found her in the barn. And the yellow shoes. Perhaps he’d spent all night staring at them.
There was a noise downstairs, the front door opening and shutting. She put the photo back on the desk and opened the door.
‘Christopher, is that you?’ She’d run to the top of the stairs and was looking down to the space below, felt a rush of relief, which she knew would turn to anger as soon as she saw he was safe.
But it was Daniel there, just returned from his walk, pulling the camera strap over his head. In his jeans and T-shirt, he looked as if he was on holiday. The anger that Helena had planned to direct at Christopher was focused on her husband. ‘Where have you been? Christopher’s gone missing. The school tried to phone you.’
‘You know what it’s like on the hill. No reception.’ His calm infuriated her.
‘There have been two murders and our son has disappeared,’ she said. ‘And you’ve been out all morning taking photos of otters.’ She ran down the stairs towards him. She might have hit him, but he took her in his arms and held her as tightly as she did Christopher when he was having an attack. She realized she was crying.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He made no excuses, but kept repeating the words. She saw now that he was as distressed as she was.
She broke away from him. ‘Can you phone the school, tell them he’s not here? I said I’d call back.’
‘Sure, what are you going to do?’
‘I’m phoning the police. Jimmy Perez.’ Because she knew that Jimmy would take her seriously. She heard Daniel’s muttered conversation with the school and walked outside with her phone, staring down the track, praying to a God she’d never believed in that she’d see her son walking towards her.
Perez answered almost immediately. ‘Helena.’
‘It’s Christopher. He’s missing.’ She tried to steady her voice as she explained what had happened.
‘How long has he been gone?
She tried to work that out. The morning break was at ten-fifteen. She’d spoken to the head teacher at midday. ‘Two hours.’
‘I’ll try to drum up a search team. Then I’ll be there.’
Chapter Forty-Six
When Perez got there, Helena was at Hesti, waiting outside her studio to meet him. She seemed to look through him when he approached her. He thought she’d shut down, closed off all her emotions. That would be her way of coping. During the case that had brought him into contact with Fran, Cassie had been snatched during the Up Helly Aa procession and had been missing for an evening. Perez remembered Fran’s frozen panic and his own sense of helplessness. He’d felt guilty that night too. Now he thought that throughout their relationship he’d done nothing but cause her harm.
Daniel was standing beside his wife and he was the person who went through the details with Perez; he explained that Christopher had gone to school as normal, but had disappeared during the morning, probably while the kids were playing at break.
Perez checked his watch. Nearly three o’clock. ‘What time do they finish school?’
‘Three-fifteen. I was just going to drive down to collect Ellie. We thought
it made more sense to leave her there while all this was going on. Besides, we hoped Christopher might have turned up by the time she got home.’ Daniel seemed unnaturally calm, but perhaps shock had frozen him too.
Another car was coming up the drive, so fast that pebbles scattered and bounced. Sandy was driving and Willow was in the passenger seat. Bloody fool, Perez thought. He could kill her, going at that speed down these small roads.
He turned back to Daniel. ‘I’ll come down to the school with you. We can chat to the kids as they come out and to the parents. Everyone knows Christopher. A place like Deltaness, someone will have seen him.’ The words sounded more reassuring than he felt.
Willow was already climbing out of Sandy’s car. Her long hair was tied back, but bushed out from the elastic band that held it, so it looked like a witch’s broom. There were sandals on her feet. She looked like no other police officer he’d ever met, more eco-warrior than detective. It came to him, the thought unbidden, that Fran had always been stylish and neat.
‘Are you OK to stop with Helena?’ Perez explained that he wanted to go with Daniel to the school.
‘Sure,’ Willow said. ‘Sure.’ She put her arm around Helena’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’
Helena was walking with her into the house. She must have heard Daniel start his car’s engine, because she turned back and stood for a moment, watching as they drove down the track.
In the school playground, Perez walked with Daniel from one adult to another. ‘We’re looking for this man’s son. He’s called Christopher. You know who we mean. Has anyone seen him?’
The people listened, shocked, but nobody came up with useful information. The school was hidden from most of the houses by the community hall, which was closer to the road. A mother who lived close by said, ‘I always know when it’s playtime because of the noise in the yard, but I can’t see anything from my place.’ Her neighbour agreed. Perez couldn’t find anyone who’d noticed the boy or had been aware of any strange cars.
