Shetland 05: Dead Water (28 page)

Sandy remembered Jimmy Perez, the old Jimmy Perez, relaxed and patient, telling him that the most important skill a detective could possess was observation. Perez wouldn’t drive away while that meeting was going on. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘The inspector told me to see you both safely onto the plane. I’m happy to wait until you’re ready to go.’

It was mid-morning and the hotel was quiet. Business people were at work and the tourists were out enjoying the islands. A young woman, dusting the bannisters of the grand staircase, hummed a tune very quietly under her breath. Maria and Peter were in the lobby waiting, putting on a united front. Maria looked tense, like a cat when another animal has come into the house. Bristling – was that the word? Sandy stood back, pretending he wasn’t even there, and let the four of them get on with it.

‘Richard Grey.’ The man stepped forward, his arm outstretched. ‘Please accept our condolences. Such a terrible tragedy!’

Peter took his hand gratefully. He seemed pleased that Annabel’s father was there.

‘I’ve ordered coffee to be served in the library,’ Maria said.

Sandy remembered the woman when he was a kid, at some of the wild Whalsay weddings. Laughing. Dancing like a demon with anyone who’d take her onto the floor. Drinking so much that she could hardly stand. And here she was behaving like the lady of the manor in some old English film. He supposed folk changed. Jimmy Perez had changed. And, if Annabel were to be believed, Jerry Markham had changed too.

The library was on the first floor, a long thin room with a window at the narrow end looking over the walled garden and then towards the water. Leather sofas and chairs. The walls lined with books that nobody ever read. In one corner a computer screen with free Wi-Fi so that guests could check their emails. There was a fire in the grate, which Sandy thought had been lit specially for the occasion, but still the room felt damp and unused. A woman brought in a tray with coffee pots, sugar and cream. A plate of home-made shortbread. Only four cups and saucers – they hadn’t expected Sandy to be there. She wasn’t a waitress, but was smartly dressed in a grey suit. One of the managers, Sandy thought. Wheeled in to impress.

‘Thank you, Barbara. Could you bring another cup, please?’ Maria again, imperious. Still Peter Markham hadn’t spoken. But he couldn’t take his eyes off Annabel Grey, Sandy saw that. What was it? Lust? Or was he envious? Of her youth and the life she still had ahead of her. Richard stood for a moment looking down at the water, before taking a seat in a big armchair. If he’d noticed Peter staring at his daughter he gave no indication.

They sat in silence until the fifth cup had been delivered. Maria poured coffee, handed round biscuits. They all waited for someone to speak. In the end Annabel Grey took the lead. That southern confidence, Sandy thought.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me. I know it must have been a shock. And coming on top of Jerry’s death . . . ’

‘We knew nothing about you.’ Maria setting down her marker.
I don’t believe my boy loved you, lady.

‘He wanted to wait until he was ready to tell you. I think he planned to do it before he returned to London.’

‘Jerry was here for a full day before he died! We had breakfast together the morning he arrived. We talked. Why wouldn’t he say something? If your friendship was really as important as you make out.’ Maria almost spat out the words towards the younger woman. Sandy expected Richard Grey to intervene, but he sat, watchful, his eyes moving between Maria and his daughter.

Annabel didn’t react immediately and, when she did speak, her voice was calm. ‘It was more than friendship. We planned to marry.’

‘He would have told us.’ The words came out as a scream. Then: ‘He would have told
me
. Why would he wait?’

‘I think there were things he wanted to do first,’ Annabel said. ‘It’s so sad that he never had the chance to tell you.’

At last Peter did speak. ‘You must forgive my wife. She and Jerry were very close. She’s upset.’

There was another silence.

‘He was happy with me,’ Annabel said. ‘Peaceful. You should be pleased about that. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize the change in him. You saw that, didn’t you, Dad? You saw how Jerry was so much calmer when we were together.’ She looked directly at Markham’s parents, a challenge. ‘Didn’t he seem different when he arrived this time? Wasn’t he more content?’

The couple looked at each other. Sandy couldn’t tell what they made of that. Were they embarrassed because they hadn’t noticed the transformation of their son?

‘That was why he came home: to set things straight so that we could start a new life together. That was what he wanted. I think that’s why he died.’ Annabel looked directly at Sandy to check that he’d got the message.

‘And what exactly do you think he wanted to set straight?’ Peter Markham’s voice was icily polite. Still he had Annabel fixed in his gaze.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I thought you might be able to tell us. Jerry said he had something to settle before he committed to me. He wouldn’t tell me what it was and I didn’t ask. Not my business, if he didn’t want me to know. It was rooted in the past, I think. Something he felt guilty about.’ Now she looked at both parents. ‘You can’t help me then? You don’t know what killed the man I loved?’

Sandy watched Maria frown. He thought she might answer Annabel, make some suggestion, but Peter got in before his wife could speak. ‘Really, I think you must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, my dear. It’s always tempting to look for explanations, don’t you think, after a tragedy like this? Usually there are none. Nothing that makes sense, at least. Violence can be mindless and inexplicable. We all have to accept that.’ He looked at Richard Grey, enlisting his support.

‘Peter’s right, sweetheart,’ Grey said. ‘Sometimes there’s no explanation. Nothing that we can understand.’

Annabel looked at him. Perhaps she was disappointed that he’d agreed with Peter Markham, that he hadn’t stood up for her. ‘Could I spend a little time alone in the garden, Mr Markham? Jerry talked about it a lot when he described the hotel to me.’

‘Of course.’ Peter opened the door for her and seemed about to follow her out.

‘I can find my own way,’ she said.

‘Shall I come with you?’ Her father was already on his feet.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Stay there.’ It sounded like a command.

They watched her from the long window. She sat on a white wrought-iron bench by a small pond and seemed lost in contemplation, hardly moving at all.

‘I don’t believe her,’ Maria said suddenly. ‘She’s not the type of girl Jerry would have gone for.’ But Sandy thought that she was trying to persuade herself and not them. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Grey, but she must have deluded herself that there was more to the relationship than there actually was.’

‘My daughter’s not deluded,’ Grey said. ‘And she doesn’t lie. I saw the way your son looked at her. He adored her.’

The atmosphere in the room was so tense that Sandy felt like walking away. He would have preferred to wait for them in the car. But he stayed where he was.

In the garden Annabel stood up and shook out her hair. She didn’t look up at the window, but she must have known that they’d be looking at her. Peter Markham watched her hungrily, but said nothing.

They arrived at the airport too early for their rescheduled flight. Sandy went in with them. He carried Annabel’s bag again, sat the couple at a table and offered to buy them tea. He jotted down the names and contact details of the people in London who would have known Jerry – the vicar of the church where they’d met, other members of the congregation. The Greys seemed quite happy to pass on the information and didn’t question why he needed to know.

‘It must feel as if you had a wasted journey,’ he said.

‘Oh no, not at all.’ Annabel looked straight at him. ‘I expected Jerry’s parents to find it hard to acknowledge me. This must be dreadful for them. He said they had no faith, no comfort in their lives.’ She gave a little smile. ‘Only alcohol, and the search for more money than they could ever need.’

‘And I’m glad to be here to support my daughter during this terrible time.’ Richard Grey smiled. His mobile phone was on the table beside him. The red light flashed to show that he had messages, but he made a point of ignoring it.

Sandy was thinking that alcohol and money would do well enough for him.

A group of men came in. Sandy recognized them as boys who worked for Shetland Catch, the fish factory. They piled up to the checkin desk, jostling and laughing, excited about a trip south. A stag do, by the look of it. Catching sight of the beautiful Annabel, there was more good-natured sniggering and pointing. They were behaving like six-year-olds. Sandy took no notice of them, but he felt himself flushing. He didn’t want the Greys to think all Shetlanders were ignorant morons. Then the flight was announced and Sandy walked with them to security. He reached out his hand and Annabel took it into both of hers, held it for a moment.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For everything. We do appreciate it.’

She turned away, but Richard Grey paused for a moment before joining her.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Is Rhona Laing still the Fiscal here?’

‘Aye.’ Sandy tried not to look too surprised.

‘Ah, a wonderful woman,’ Grey said. ‘She was a junior member of our chambers, you know, when she was younger. She didn’t stay long. Too impatient and too ambitious. She soon moved on. Send her my best wishes, Sergeant. Tell her that Dickie Grey was asking after her.’

Then he too disappeared and Sandy was left with his mouth open, gawping like a fish on a hook.

Sandy arrived at the station before Willow and Perez got back from their trip north. He began phoning the contact details given to him by Annabel. His first call was to the vicar of the church that had hosted the advent course, the man who presumably had watched over Jerry Markham’s spiritual journey. In the background Sandy could hear the sound of noisy children and occasionally the man seemed distracted by them. Once he shouted away from the phone in the middle of the conversation: ‘Sal, will you tell the kids to shut up.’ There was no anger in his voice, though. It was as if he thrived on the chaos of the family.

Sandy explained who he was and what he wanted.

‘Ah, Jerry. A troubled man.’

‘Was he?’

‘He seemed that way to me.’ A pause. ‘He’d never been into a church in his adult life and I don’t think he’d have ventured into one at all if he hadn’t been at a low ebb.’

‘Could you tell me about his relationship with Annabel Grey?’

‘Annabel is a stalwart member of our church. Richard Grey doesn’t attend himself, but he’s been generous to us. He’s a wealthy man. I suspect he’d inherited a private income. And of course he’s had a successful career at the Bar. But those with money aren’t always the most generous.’

Sandy wondered where this was leading.

The clergyman continued. ‘Annabel took to Jerry immediately. There’s something romantic perhaps about a dissolute man in need of rescue and reformation, and from the beginning Jerry was honest about his past failings.’

Another pause.

‘And what did Annabel’s father make of the . . .’ Sandy struggled to find the right word ‘. . . attachment?’ In his dealings with the Greys he hadn’t been quite sure what Richard’s opinion of Jerry had been.

‘Ah . . .’ The vicar hesitated once more. Sandy had the sense that he was choosing his words carefully. ‘Richard was less impressed by Jerry’s charms than Annabel was. I don’t think he considered Jerry a suitable companion. You must understand, Sergeant, that father and daughter were very close. Annabel’s mother left when she was very young, and she has no siblings.’

‘Yet her father came with her to Shetland.’

On the other end of the line a door banged and the children’s voices faded into the background. Sandy imagined that they’d been shooed into the garden so that their father might continue his conversation in peace. He pictured somewhere sunny and overgrown, with a swing hanging from a tree. ‘Of course!’ the vicar said at last. ‘He’ll do all that he can to help her come to terms with Jerry’s death.’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure I should be telling you this, Sergeant. It’s just my opinion, you understand. But I’m not sure that Richard trusted Jerry’s reformation. His conversion. Richard asked me to persuade Annabel to take things more slowly and gave me the impression that he wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect of the marriage. I said that Annabel was an intelligent young woman and that Richard should trust her judgement to do the right thing.’

‘You thought it was a mistake then for Annabel to take up with Markham? You weren’t convinced, either, that he was a changed man?’

This time the silence went on for so long that Sandy wondered if the line had been cut. Eventually the man answered, ‘I don’t know, Sergeant. Really, even now I’m not sure.’

Chapter Thirty-Five

Late afternoon and they were back in the briefing room in the police station. Outside the rain was coming down in sheets, bouncing from the pavements, spilling from the gutters. There was a meeting in the town hall and they watched people running up the steps, their hoods covering their faces. Willow, standing at the front of the room, seemed to Perez to have lost her confidence. She’d thought the murder of John Henderson, and then the arrival of Annabel Grey, would provide a breakthrough in the case and it hadn’t. It only had left them with more questions.

‘Sandy,’ she said. Her voice was brittle with tiredness and a sort of desperation. Perez wanted suddenly to look after her, to give her small treats, in the way that he spoiled Cassie when she’d hurt herself or after she’d had a bad day at school. ‘What have you got for me?’

Sandy had made notes in a book that looked like a school jotter. He stood up and read from them. Again Perez felt a rush of tenderness. Sandy tried so hard to get things right.

‘Richard and Annabel Grey had arranged to meet the Markhams at Ravenswick on her way south to the airport,’ he said. ‘I went in with them and sat in on the meeting. I hope that was all right.’ He looked up at his boss.