Shetland 05: Dead Water (9 page)

Sandy nodded. He seemed half-asleep in his chair. ‘No problem. I’ll get on to it first thing. I’m surprised we haven’t heard more about the car already. Folk will know that we’d be interested.’

‘From what you’ve told me, that’s the odd thing about this case.’ It came to Perez that this was astonishing. Different from any other investigation he’d ever known. ‘Nobody saw anything. Not the car turning up at Vatnagarth or the body being put in the yoal. It’s as if the killer was invisible.’ He looked at them to make sure they understood. ‘You know what it’s like here. You think that Shetland’s a big and empty place, but cut a peat bank five miles from the road and someone will have seen you do it. This murderer is clever. Or very lucky.’

‘There was a thick fog in North Mainland,’ Sandy said. ‘The sort of fog you’d lose your way in. That’s why nothing was seen.’

‘Lucky then,’ Perez said. But he wasn’t sure he believed in that sort of luck after all.

Willow said they’d make their own way back to the station. ‘The exercise will do us good, and it’ll help me get a feel for the place. I don’t really understand a street map until I’ve walked it.’

When they’d gone the house seemed very quiet. Perez took the mugs into the kitchen and boiled a kettle so there was hot water to wash them up. He opened the window in the living room to let some air into the place. It soon smelled damp when it wasn’t lived in. Then he ran over in his mind what Willow had said about the Fiscal. Rhona Laing wasn’t an easy woman, he had to admit that. But surely she was honest. He’d have bet his last pound on her integrity. It was two strong women marking out their territory, he thought. That was what was going on there.

Driving back to Ravenswick, he realized that the wind had dropped. He stopped in the supermarket on the edge of town to buy food, and the surface of Clickimin Loch was still. His new hunger felt like a betrayal, but he found that he was ravenous again and stocked up on bread, fruit and eggs, plus a big vacuum packet of ground coffee. Then he remembered that Cassie would be home the next afternoon and he went round the shelves again for treats for her. Healthy treats of which Fran would have approved. Duncan, her father, always filled her with junk when she was staying at the Haa. He didn’t want to care for her full-time, but bought her affection with sweets and presents when he did see her.

At home the light on his phone was flashing to show that he had a message. It was from Peter Markham, asking if there was any news on the investigation. ‘Please get in touch if you hear anything.’

Perez played the message a couple of times, disturbed by the tone and the edge of desperation in the voice. Of course Peter would want to know what had happened to his son. But why did he sound quite so scared?

Chapter Twelve

Sandy walked Willow Reeves to her hotel before he went home to his flat. It was already dark and the public bar was noisy. They had to walk past the open door to get to reception and he felt he should apologize for the loud men, swearing and joking, out drinking on a Saturday night, but she seemed unbothered. The hotel Morag had picked was right on the water, not far from Perez’s house. From the bedrooms it was sometimes possible to see killer whales in the Sound. Sandy told her that, aware again that he sounded like a tour leader.

‘Sleep well,’ he said. He’d waited until she’d checked in. He’d been brought up to be well mannered where women were concerned. Part of him still found it a little strange that a woman should head up the Serious Crime Squad or be Procurator Fiscal. He didn’t think it was wrong, but it would take him a while to get used to it.

‘No worries about that,’ she said. ‘I always sleep well.’ And she disappeared up the dark staircase, her heavy holdall on her shoulder. He’d offered to carry it in to the hotel for her, but she’d stared at him as if he were mad.

The next morning she was in the police station before he was. She’d tied back her hair, but it still looked untidy and she was wearing the same shapeless jumper. She looked up from the desk they’d found for her in the small office that Perez had once used. A mug full of something that smelled herbal and looked like piss stood on her desk.

‘I’ve tracked down Markham’s mobile-phone provider,’ she said. ‘I got his number from his parents. There seems to be some problem – maybe he recently got a new number – but they’re trying to find it for me. It’s too early for news from Aberdeen on the postmortem.’

‘I’m going to head out to Vatnagarth,’ Sandy said. ‘I checked the council website and the museum’s open this morning.’ He always preferred to be out of the office. Here, he had the sense that people were looking over his shoulder, judging his work.

‘Sure,’ Willow said. ‘Whatever you think.’ Her attention had already been caught again by the screen in front of her.

In the copse of sycamores there seemed to be birds everywhere and the sun was bright as he approached the museum. A people-carrier was parked outside, but Markham’s car had been removed. It would be taken south to Aberdeen on the ferry. The crime-scene tape had disappeared too and there was no sign that the police had ever been interested in the place.

There was smoke coming out of the chimney, so everything smelled of peat. The door was open and he walked into the tiny space that separated the but-end of the house from the ben. To his left another door led into a living room. The window was so small and the walls were so thick that there was very little light. He struggled to make out if anyone was there. Then he saw a large woman wearing a skirt that looked like sackcloth and a knitted jacket. The sort of clothes he’d seen in photos in his grandmother’s house, so he wasn’t sure for a moment if she was real or a kind of manikin. She was sitting on a Shetland chair close to the range. He felt that he was stepping back in time, into one of his grandmother’s photos. Then the woman moved; she was feeding carded fleece into a spinning wheel.

‘Welcome,’ the woman said. ‘Come in.’ He had the sense that he’d seen her before, very recently, but he couldn’t quite remember where. ‘Look around at whatever you like and give me a shout if you have any questions. There’s a booklet on the table.’

‘I’m not a tourist.’ He was offended. ‘I’m investigating Jerry Markham’s murder. His car was found parked outside the museum yesterday.’

She paused in her spinning and set down the fleece. ‘I heard. What a dreadful thing!’

‘And you are?’

‘Jennifer Belshaw. Jen.’

Then he remembered where he’d seen her. She’d been one of the women in the hennie bus on Friday night. They’d been talking about her in the bar in Voe when he and Willow had stopped there for lunch the day before. The name rang another bell. ‘Any relation of Andy Belshaw?’

‘Aye,’ she said. ‘He’s my husband. Why?’

Jerry Markham visited him at Sullom Voe just before he was killed.’

‘Well, I’ve never met Mr Markham,’ she said frostily. ‘As far as I’m aware. I certainly had nothing to do with his death.’

‘But his car was found outside the place where you work.’

She laughed. ‘I don’t work here. I’m a volunteer. I do this for fun. And I’m only in this morning because my friend was delayed. I’ll be away to cook Sunday lunch for my family once she turns up.’

‘Would anyone have been here on Friday evening?’ He thought it was a long shot. He could think of more exciting places to be on a Friday night than a damp croft-house miles from anywhere.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There were people here all day. We hire out the barn to community groups. In the morning a readers’ group, in the late afternoon a tea dance for the over-60s’ club.’ She looked up at him. ‘I play the fiddle, and I was here for that. Then in the evening a meeting to discuss the new tidal-energy scheme at Hvidahus.’

‘You weren’t here for the meeting?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not my kind of thing. Besides, it was my friend’s hennie. I couldn’t miss that.’

‘What about your husband?’

She laughed again. ‘No way! He works in Sullom and sees renewable energy as a sort of witchcraft. He was in Brae at the sports centre. He runs a kids’ football team.’ She’d started spinning again and seemed completely relaxed.

‘Can you give me contact details for the tidal-energy group?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Talk to Joe Sinclair and he’ll tell you who was there.’ She jotted down a number on a scrap of paper.

Returning to his car, he felt he’d conducted the interview poorly and that when she’d started laughing, she’d been laughing at him.

Everyone in Shetland knew Joe Sinclair. He was born and bred a Shetlander, but had gone to sea and worked his way up to being master of a giant container ship, sailing out of Singapore. Then he’d come home and for the last ten years he’d been harbour master at Sullom Voe. Sinclair had fingers in many pies and friends in high places. Sandy phoned him at home. One of his daughters answered, and when he came to the phone Sinclair sounded rested and relaxed. A man in late middle age enjoying a weekend with his family.

‘I wasn’t at Vatnagarth,’ he said. ‘I’m involved with Power of Water, on the steering group, but that would have been the opposition meeting last night and they’d certainly not have invited me along.’ He gave a little chuckle.

‘The opposition?’ Sandy was already out of his depth.

‘A small band of busybodies. They think we’ll ruin the environment around Hvidahus by having a substation there to collect the power. Most of them are incomers, though Francis Watt stirs them up from time to time with his talk of corruption and conspiracies. You’ll have seen his column in the
Shetland Times.
’ In the background Sandy could hear Sinclair’s teenage daughters laughing.

‘Who would have been at the meeting on Friday?’

‘A guy called Mark Walsh would have set it up. He worked as an accountant for some multinational in the south before taking early retirement and heading here for the good life. They bought the big house in Hvidahus and he sees the tidal-energy scheme as a threat to his investment. The wife’s pleasant enough, but there’s nothing Walsh likes better than causing mischief. I’m not sure that the good life suits him after all.’

Mark and Sue Walsh lived in a whitewashed house at the end of a track right by the pier at Hvidahus. It seemed to Sandy to be very grand. There were pictures on the walls and books everywhere and the garden was landscaped with flowers. The couple welcomed him into the kitchen, as if they didn’t get many visitors and were pleased to see him. The woman chatted while the husband made coffee. They’d visited Shetland on holiday since they were students and had decided to move north when her husband took early retirement. They’d fallen in love with the house and its views as soon as they’d seen it. It was too big for them, but they’d decided it would make a classy B&B. This would be their first season as a business and already they were fully booked for July and August. She smiled. ‘My husband doesn’t really do retirement.’

Sandy drank the coffee, which was a bit strong for his taste.

‘I understand that you were at Vatnagarth on Friday evening. A meeting?’

‘The Save Hvidahus Action Group,’ Mark Walsh said. ‘We moved to Shetland because it’s so unspoilt. The last wilderness in the UK. Of course we believe in green energy, but not at the expense of the natural environment. Look at the dreadful new wind farm! It’s time to call a halt to these major developments.’

Sandy didn’t ask Walsh to explain further. He thought anything that would provide Shetland with cheaper fuel would be a good thing. ‘Did either of you see a red Alfa Romeo in the car park when you left?’

‘No, and we would certainly have noticed. There were only six of us and the place was empty when we left.’

‘What time was that?’ Sandy stirred more sugar into his coffee.

‘Early. About eight o’clock. There didn’t seem much point continuing, when Jerry Markham didn’t turn up.’ Walsh looked up. ‘I was furious at the time, but of course I realize now that he was dead.’

‘You were expecting Jerry Markham to be at your meeting?’ Sandy tried not to sound too surprised.

‘Of course. I thought that was why you were here this morning.’ Walsh continued talking very slowly, as if to a small child or a foreigner. Sandy, who had already taken an intense dislike to the man, felt like hitting him. ‘I wrote to Markham, suggesting that this was a story worth investigating. As he was a Shetlander. He said he was planning to visit his parents anyway, so he’d come along to the meeting. Of course he didn’t show.’

‘I saw Jerry Markham on Friday,’ Sue Walsh interrupted. ‘At about eleven in the morning.’ She looked at her husband. ‘You’d looked him up on the Internet, so I recognized him from his photo.’

‘You didn’t tell me you’d seen him.’ Mark sounded affronted.

‘No? It must have slipped my mind.’

‘Where did you see Markham?’ Sandy sensed the beginning of an argument.

‘In the coffee shop of the Bonhoga Gallery. We’d like original Shetland art in the guest bedrooms and there was an exhibition of student work. I thought I might pick up one or two pieces cheaply.’

Sandy thought about that. The Bonhoga Gallery was in Weisdale on the west side of the island. What had Markham been doing there?

‘He was with someone,’ Sue went on. ‘The place was quiet. The sun appeared briefly and I took my coffee to one of the tables outside, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. But it looked as if they were having an argument. Or if not an argument, then a disagreement.’

‘Can you describe his companion?’ Sandy asked.

‘It was a woman. Slim. Well dressed. I’d guess she was middle-aged, but she had her back to me, so I couldn’t see her face.’

‘A local?’

‘I didn’t hear her speak.’ Sue stood up and stared out of the window.

‘Would you know her if I showed you a photo?’

‘I don’t think I would. As I said, I only saw her from behind.’

Sandy called into the Bonhoga Gallery on his way to Lerwick. It was a bit of a detour, but a pretty drive and he could get a bowl of soup and a sandwich there. The coffee shop was busier than the exhibition space above and he had to wait in a queue. A toddler in a high chair was screaming, so it was hard to think straight. Two lasses were serving. He thought he might have seen them about, but they were too young for them to be in his circle of friends. Then the family with the noisy child left and there was space for him to sit down. The soup was thick and good, and by the time he’d finished his meal and ordered a pot of tea the place was quieter.