Shetland 05: Dead Water (30 page)

‘Was Evie quite herself?’ Perez persisted. ‘Only I heard that she got very drunk, and I wouldn’t have thought that was in character.’

‘It was a pub-crawl,’ the woman said. ‘Of course she got drunk!’

‘But she organized it.’ Perez’s voice was reasonable. ‘I’d have thought she’d have paced it so that she didn’t overdo things. Or had someone thought it would be funny to spike her drinks?’

And that was when Jen started talking, the words spilling out despite herself, as if they’d been building up for days and now some kind of dam had burst. A mixture of relief to be sharing the worry, and guilt that she was betraying her friend. ‘I don’t know what came over her. I think she’d been drinking in the afternoon. I asked if she’d been out with her mates at the office, but she said not. She was wild. I’d never seen her like that before, and I’ve known her for years. She was drinking vodka and she never usually touches spirits. The others thought it was funny. Evie’s usually the one telling us to slow down. But I didn’t like it. I stopped drinking after a bit, so that I could look after her.’

‘Why do you think she was behaving so unusually?’ Perez gave an encouraging smile. ‘Last-minute nerves, do you think, before the wedding?’

Jen shook her head. ‘She’d been besotted with that man from the first date. She’s always wanted to marry him. No second thoughts there. And who could blame her? He was a lovely man.’

‘Any idea then? You must have asked her.’

‘Well, it wasn’t exactly an ideal situation for a heart-to-heart. A bunch of lasses singing filthy songs in the back of the bus, and Evie threatening to throw up every five minutes.’

‘But maybe you had some idea?’

‘Jerry Markham was back,’ Jen said. ‘That was what had really freaked her out.’ She looked at them. ‘You know he got her pregnant when she was a kid?’

‘Had she met him?’ Perez asked. ‘Is that why she was so upset? Had he tracked her down at work? Bumped into her by chance?’

The woman shook her head. ‘I have no idea! By the time I’d got that much out of her she was so drunk that she was making no sense at all. I mean, slurring her words and hardly able to stand. You asked if anyone was spiking her drinks. It was the other way round. I was buying her tonic water and telling her there was vodka in it.’

‘So what exactly did Evie say about Jerry,’ Perez asked. ‘If you could remember word-for-word, Mrs Belshaw, it would be brilliant.’ That smile again, which made the recipient feel as if they were the most important person in the world.

‘Oh, I can remember word-for-word.’ Jen gave an embarrassed, little laugh. ‘“Fucking Jerry Markham!” That’s what she said – over and over again. I’d never heard her swear before. It was shocking. Like hearing your grandma cursing. Or the minister.’

‘But no more detail?’ Perez said. ‘Nothing more than that?’

Jen shook her head.

‘Can I take you back to the events of that evening then,’ he said, as if Evie’s state of mind was of minor importance and he wanted to return to the main reason for their being there. ‘Where did you head for after the Busta House? And it would be very helpful, please, if you could give us the timings for that.’ Sandy thought he sounded like the person at headquarters who checked their expense sheets, a very boring little man called Eric, who only cared about the detail. Perez made Sandy write everything down and then read it back to Jen. He asked more than once about the red Alfa Romeo.

‘I’ve already told you that I didn’t see it,’ she said. ‘I know it ended up in the car park at Vatnagarth, but beyond that, I know nothing about it. We were in the bars for a lot of the time. It could have driven down the road while we were inside and we would never have noticed.’

An electronic bell rang then, and it was so loud that it made Sandy jump in his seat. They heard the children running out into the playground for their break.

‘My God, is that the time?’ Jen got to her feet. Sandy thought she was glad of an excuse to get away from them, and he couldn’t blame her. ‘I’ll never get that pie cooked by dinnertime if I don’t go now.’ And she ran out of the room, leaving them to find their own way to the car park.

They sat in the car outside the school for what seemed like an age – Jimmy Perez staring ahead, although there was nothing to see except a brick wall. Sandy shuffled in his seat. Maybe he should just drive off back to Lerwick. He didn’t like to disturb Perez when he was lost in thought. At last he couldn’t bear the silence any longer and was forced to speak.

‘Which way then, boss?’

And Perez turned slowly to look at him, kind of surprised, like some sort of animal waking up after hibernation. A bear, Sandy thought. With all that shaggy black hair, he could be a bear.

‘Let’s head up towards Sullom Voe,’ Perez said. ‘I’ve had a bit of an idea and I want to get a feel for the lie of the land again. But we’ll stop at the Old Schoolhouse on the way through, just in case the Fiscal’s at home.’

Rhona Laing’s car was still not parked outside her house, but Perez asked Sandy to pull in anyway. Sandy waited in the vehicle while Perez went up to the front door. He banged hard, but there was obviously no reply. Perez walked round the garden, looking through all the downstairs windows, and at last emerged from the other side of the house and came back to the car. ‘It all looks tidy enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll give her a ring at work when we get back to the station.’

Just as he was about to drive off Sandy looked back towards the house. For a moment he thought he saw a shadow at an upstairs window, a curtain moving. But the window was open, and it must have been the breeze blowing the fine cloth. He was imagining things. He didn’t say anything. The inspector thought he was stupid enough as it was.

They drove through Brae and took the road that ran along the side of Sullom Voe and would eventually end up at Toft and the North Isles ferry. Before they reached the terminal Perez asked him to turn off towards Scatsta Airport. Sandy had never driven down here before; all the traffic at Scatsta was oil-related, so there was no reason to. A helicopter took off and hovered for a moment before heading out towards the North Sea and the rigs. They seemed very close to the aircraft and surrounded by the noise. Sandy thought he could feel the power of the rotor blades rocking the car.

‘Down there.’

It was a track and beside it an old sign, reading ‘Authorized vehicles only’. There was no gate blocking the way, though, and it led to the end of a low headland that jutted out into the water. The area was covered with flat sheets of concrete, so it looked as if buildings had once been there and only the floors were left. Now the concrete was cracked, and weeds and even little bushes had pushed their way through. Sandy parked so that they were facing north.

‘I think this was a military station during the war. Air-force, I suppose.’ Still Perez sat, looking across the water to the oil terminal, the tanks and the flare, and to the lorries that carried rock over the newly constructed road to the gas plant. ‘I suppose they flattened it when there was no further use for it.’

‘Weren’t they going to develop it as a business park at one time?’ Sandy thought he had heard that or read it in the
Shetland Times
.

Perez didn’t answer. He climbed out of the car and Sandy joined him. ‘Imagine that you’re Jerry Markham,’ Perez said. ‘You’ve just visited the oil terminal and had a meeting with Andy Belshaw. Routine stuff, if Andy is telling it how it was. Maybe the meeting was just to provide an excuse for Jerry to be at this end of the island. You decide that you want to meet John Henderson. We don’t know why at this point. To apologize for the way you treated Evie? To wish him luck for his marriage? Or to warn him off, because you’ve decided that after all you want Evie for yourself? And all your life, you’ve had exactly what you wanted. Whatever the reason, you phone him while he’s at work. We know from Sinclair that Henderson took a call. Where would you arrange to meet?’

‘Here?’ It seemed to Sandy that this was the answer that was expected. He thought with satisfaction that Perez was back to his old form, focused and sharp.

‘That makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Perez stared out to sea, but continued talking. ‘It’s not overlooked. There are cars here occasionally – it’s a place where kids come to practise driving before their parents let them out onto the roads. So a couple of vehicles wouldn’t particularly attract notice.’

‘
My
car might,’ Sandy said. ‘I mean, if I’m still pretending to be Jerry Markham.’

‘The red Alfa Romeo. So it would.’ And Perez smiled, so Sandy felt as if he’d passed some sort of test.

Perez strolled down the track towards the runway and the airport buildings. There was a new air-traffic control tower that looked like something from a science-fiction film. Long steel spider’s legs and a glass body. In the lounge a group of men were drinking coffee in polystyrene beakers. They all looked rough, as if they’d been out drinking the night before, celebrating a last night of freedom before a new shift on the rigs. A dark man in uniform stood behind the checkin. The track from the main road was visible through plate-glass windows.

Perez introduced himself. The oil workers, all half-asleep, slumped over the chairs, took no notice.

‘Last Friday,’ Perez said. ‘The day the body was found in Aith. Were you on duty?’

‘It was a nightmare,’ the man said. ‘The fog came down late afternoon and there was no movement for hours.’

‘Just before the fog,’ Perez said. ‘Did you notice any cars up at the old military site?’

‘You mean the red Alfa, the one that was in the news?’ The man looked up from his computer screen. ‘I was talking about that to the wife, wondering if I should mention it to you. Then she said they’d found it in the crofting museum, so there didn’t seem much point.’

Perez turned to Sandy and rolled his eyes in disbelief, and again Sandy thought this was just like old times.

‘Was that the only car up there?’

‘No.’ The man was still preoccupied and fiddled about on his keyboard. ‘John Henderson was up there too. You know him? The pilot? I waved at him as he drove past, but he didn’t seem to notice.’ He put his hands on the desk and looked up at Sandy and Perez, his face grey with shock, realizing for the first time the implication of his words. ‘And now both men are dead!’ A pause. ‘Seems a weird coincidence, huh?’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Willow found Rhona in her office. It didn’t take her long to get there: the court and the police station were in the same building, though the Fiscal’s office was grander than any of the rooms used by the police. Rhona Laing was sitting behind a large desk, reading a pile of papers. The room was brown. Brown wood, brown carpet and a brown leather armchair in one corner. On the wall a large painting of the sea in moonlight, an oil.

‘Inspector. What are you doing here?’ Laing sounded surprised to see Willow, although her receptionist must have warned her that the detective was on her way.

‘I was wondering if you might help me.’

‘Of course, if I can.’ She took off her expensive designer spectacles and Willow thought how tired and strained she looked. The woman was controlling herself, but with such an effort that it was impossible for her to relax for a moment. Again Willow thought that Rhona must be involved in this case. She was too tense to be just a witness who had strayed upon a body by coincidence. Perez and Sandy had described the Fiscal as an honest and honourable woman, but Willow could sense her fear and her desperation, like a smell. She thought it wasn’t time yet to put Rhona under too much pressure. The woman still had fight in her and Willow was worried that she might run away. She had money and it would be easy enough for her to hop on a plane and fly south. She’d have friends in high places to protect her, once she was away from the islands.

‘I’d like to update you on the investigation, of course.’ Willow made her voice polite, but not grovelling. That would only make Rhona suspicious.

‘No need for that, Inspector. I have no official status in the case.’

Willow continued as if the Fiscal hadn’t spoken. ‘And it seems that someone you know has a peripheral link to the inquiry. I’d value your opinion.’

‘Oh?’ Rhona Laing was hooked now. She looked up from the papers and seemed to give Willow her full attention for the first time.

Willow smiled and looked around the room, making a pantomime of taking in its grandeur, the wood panelling, the heavy door. ‘I wonder if I could buy you coffee? I’m not used to sitting at a desk for a whole day, and I imagine you find it tricky too. Everyone tells me what a great sailor you are.’ She paused for a beat and glanced at the painting. ‘This must seem like a prison.’

‘Coffee? Why not?’ Rhona making it clear that she wouldn’t be so easily intimidated. She stood up, took a coat from the stand in the corner and followed Willow out of the building.

Willow had chosen her destination carefully. The Islesburgh Community Centre was in a building a short walk from the Fiscal’s office. All these streets, named after Norwegian kings and princes, were rather grand. Grey, granite houses that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a prosperous Aberdeen suburb, looking out over a well-tended park. But the Islesburgh was more democratic. It housed youth and community groups, meetings for young mothers, teenagers playing pool. Sandy had brought her here for lunch one day. ‘It’s fine,’ he’d said, ‘if you don’t mind something cheap and cheerful.’

The cafe was self-service, there was a smell of chips, and toddlers were playing noisily in the small area reserved for them. Willow thought that here Rhona would be well outside her comfort zone. But it was anonymous too. Surrounded by steam from the coffee machine and with a background of chat, nobody would take any notice of two women sitting in a corner, away from everyone else. The other customers might have them down as social workers needing some privacy to discuss their clients.

Willow settled Rhona at a table and queued at the counter. She returned with coffee, to find the Fiscal clearing crumbs from the table with a paper napkin. Grinned to herself, but said nothing.