White Nights (32 page)
Authors: Ann Cleeves
‘We can show the photo to the theatre management,’ Taylor said. ‘Perhaps they can identify the other people there. We can chase that up, confirm Booth’s presence.’
‘That’s definitely Wilding.’ Perez pointed to the dark-haired man. ‘He hasn’t changed as much as Booth.’
‘So Bella Sinclair’s been lying?’
Perez shrugged. ‘Or she’d genuinely forgotten. She didn’t have to tell Fran about that summer. Why would she if she has things to hide?’
‘
He
would remember though,’ Taylor said. ‘I can go along with Bella forgetting a house guest who turned up briefly with a load of other people. But to travel to Shetland and spend days in the company of an artist you admire
. . .
No way did that just slip out of Wilding’s mind.’
His voice rose. Perez imagined Cassie stumbling into the room, woken by the noise.
They continued the conversation outside, the food on the white bench between them, fresh mugs of coffee at their feet. It was still chill and they sat huddled in their coats.
‘So what happened that summer?’ Taylor demanded. ‘Why have two people died?’
‘There was a murder.’ Perez was quite certain about that. ‘The bones at the bottom of the Pit. It would be good if we could date them. Any chance, do you think?’
‘Not sure. We should get an ID eventually. A DNA match from a relative maybe. And the teeth will help.’
‘Oh I think I know who it was,’ Perez said. ‘Lawrence Thomson disappeared that summer. He told Bella he was leaving the islands, but he’s never been heard of since. If you listen to Kenny you’d think his big brother was a saint, but he had a record of fighting.’ He’d checked that too.
‘What are you thinking? Too much drink and a brawl that got out of hand and they tipped the body down the Pit? Then they all agreed to keep quiet about it?’
‘Perhaps.’ Perez could see that might have happened. It would be a heady mix. An unusually warm summer. The excitement of new and exotic strangers in the community. All the men showing off for Bella. The tribal hostility between incomer and outsider. Then a pact of silence.
‘So what’s changed? They’d got away with it. Even if those bones had been found now, people would have thought they’d been washed in from the sea. Some old dead sailor. Without the other deaths we wouldn’t have given them a thought.’
‘Perhaps someone got greedy,’ Perez said.
‘Blackmail?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I can see Jeremy Booth trying it on. He was a bit
of a chancer. But again, why now? He’d always had money problems, but I’ve had a look at the company figures. It was solvent. Just. He’d recently found his daughter again. Why risk all that? And I can’t believe Roddy Sinclair was short of a few bob. He’d not need to resort to blackmail.’
‘Perhaps Wilding coming back triggered the series of events,’ Perez said. ‘His arrival’s the one thing that’s changed in Biddista recently.’
‘You’re right. And he was at the opening of the exhibition at the Herring House, when Booth played his stunt.’ He paused. ‘What was that about anyway? A warning? A threat? Did the flyer he was handing around talking about a death in the family refer to the poor sod we found in the pit? Only Lawrence wasn’t family, was he?’
‘Not quite.’ Perez paused. ‘Roddy’s father died later that summer. He was Bella’s brother. It would be a death in the family. But he had cancer. We know there was nothing suspicious about his death. We’ve seen where the body was buried in the graveyard just up the coast from the Herring House. My father was a kind of relative and went off Fair Isle to the funeral.’ He’d only just remembered that. His father in his black suit, flying out with Loganair. Some memories did stay hidden and it just took a trigger to resurrect them. He felt more at ease with Taylor than he had since he’d collected him from the plane in Sumburgh. Perhaps that’s why he said, out of the blue, ‘I was quite glad to see him go for a few days. It gave us a bit of peace. Strange how things were always calmer at home when he wasn’t around.’
‘My dad was an awkward old sod too.’ There was a moment of silence, of shared experience.
‘So what do we do now?’ Taylor stood up. It was four in the morning, yet Perez could see he was eager to be thumping on doors, shouting down phone lines, making things happen. But despite the flash of energy, it was obvious the man was so tired he could hardly stand.
‘We sleep,’ Perez said. ‘You can’t drive back to the hotel. Stay on the sofa. Fran won’t mind.’ He’d built a few bridges this evening. He and Fran understood each other better too. ‘Later we’ll talk to Wilding, find out why he lied to us.’
‘You talk to Wilding,’ Taylor said. ‘We don’t want to go in too heavy. That’s what you’re good at, making people believe you’re a friend. People like you.’
Not Wilding, Perez thought. He doesn’t like me. But he nodded. He was glad of the chance to talk to Wilding alone.
Perez phoned Wilding in the morning to arrange a visit. He thought a formal appointment might increase the pressure on the man. It might give the writer time to prepare a story, but while he was waiting for Perez to arrive, surely he would be becoming more anxious. He’d have heard by now about the bones in the hole. Even if he hadn’t picked up on the Biddista gossip, a press release had been issued that morning. It was bland and unspecific, but if Wilding had already known there was a body in the Pit, by the time Perez called he’d be quite sure that it had been found.
Taylor had gone out before Perez and Fran woke up. He’d collapsed on the sofa after Perez had forced him inside from the cold dawn. By then they were both shivering but exhilarated. Things were right between them again. Taylor had fallen asleep immediately: Perez had heard the gentle snoring while he was cleaning his teeth. Fran hardly stirred as he climbed in beside her. He didn’t like to wake her. There was an excitement lying next to her, knowing that he wouldn’t touch her and the thought of that, the anticipation, kept him awake for a while. Sexy images spinning in his head as the light behind the blind
changed colour from grey to a milky yellow. Then he slept too.
Taylor must have left very quietly, because none of them heard him go. He’d left a note on the kitchen table.
Thanks. Good luck.
Wilding answered the phone very quickly.
‘Yes?’ As if he’d been expecting a call.
‘It’s Inspector Perez. I wondered if I might come round. There are a few questions
. . .
’
There was a moment of silence. This obviously wasn’t the call Wilding had been expecting.
‘I’m afraid it won’t be convenient today, inspector. I’m just on my way out. I’ve bought a property in Buness. I’m on my way over there with a builder to see what needs to be done before it’s habitable.’
‘I can meet you there,’ Perez said. ‘I know the place you mean.’
‘Of course you do, inspector. I should have realized. There are no secrets on Shetland.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘Very well, I’ll see you in my new house. You’ll be my first real visitor. But give me an hour or so to talk to the builder and the plumber. I don’t need the news getting out that I’m being questioned by the police.’ He waited for a response from Perez, an answering laugh perhaps, or a reassurance that of course he wasn’t a suspect, this was just a matter of routine. Perez said nothing. ‘Well,’ Wilding continued awkwardly. ‘I’ll see you there in a little while.’
As Perez replaced the phone Fran came in after dropping Cassie to school. She was flushed from walking up the hill.
‘I’m glad you’re still here,’ she said. ‘I thought you
might have gone. I bumped into Magnus at Hillhead and you know how hard it is to get away from him.’
He kissed her to stop her talking and led her back to bed.
Later he made coffee and took it to her. ‘What are your plans for the day?’
‘Work,’ she said. ‘Yours?’
‘Work.’ He considered how much he should tell her. ‘I’m off to see Wilding in his new house.’
‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘He’s kind of creepy. An obsessive, I think. One of those people who’ve never quite grown up, can’t do real relationships, only teenage crushes.’
‘Did he have a crush on you?’
‘On me. On Bella. Maybe on any woman who fits in with his fantasy of the time. I was almost tempted to work on his house, though. It’s a lovely place.’
Driving down the island, Perez tried to separate his prejudice from what he knew about Wilding. He was definitely a writer. Perez had checked on Amazon. Fantasy novels, quirky, funny but with a dark edge. He’d read some of the reviews. And he’d checked other things too. Wilding had spent a short time in the psychiatric unit of his local general hospital after his girlfriend had left him. He’d made a nuisance of himself, had become obsessed with her. Never violent though. Taylor had talked with the officers who’d taken the complaints. The woman hadn’t been frightened by him, just irritated and annoyed. They’d
thought him weak and ineffectual, had never believed he’d cause her harm.
Usually that sort of history would have made Perez sympathetic. In his previous job he’d been famous for being soft on nutters. But he couldn’t like Wilding. Perhaps it was the money that repelled him. It was hard to feel sorry for a man who was very rich. One of the articles he’d tracked down on the internet had named the sum paid to Wilding as an advance on his last book. He certainly wouldn’t need to resort to blackmail.
Perez turned off the main road south, crossed the cattle grid and drove along the side of the thin loch that led towards the sea. It was another lovely day. Perhaps it would continue to be a hot dry summer. His thoughts turned to the photo of the group in the Manse garden, the men in smart clothes, Bella in her slinky red dress. Behind them a perfect sky. It had been hot then too. For the first time it hit him that Bella was the only woman in the picture. Of course he’d seen that, but he’d accepted it as natural. In most gatherings, even now that she was older, Bella was surrounded by men.
A white van came down the road in the opposite direction. Perez pulled in to the verge to let it past, waved at the driver. Davy Clouston, the builder Wilding must be using to do up the house. A good choice. Clouston was a fine workman. Not cheap, but reliable. Perez wondered how Wilding had persuaded him out at such short notice.
The writer would be alone in his new house now, ready to greet visitors. He could have arranged to see Perez later in the day at Biddista, but perhaps he’d wanted to show off the impressive building.
The wrought-iron gates had been pushed open so Perez could pull on to the drive. The gravel was so pierced by weeds and flowers that it looked like an alpine garden. He parked in front of the house and saw Wilding standing at the front step. Like an English laird, Perez thought. And he was wearing corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket to complete the picture. The man was beaming. If he had any anxiety about the interview he was hiding it well.
‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I’m so excited that this place is mine. I fell in love with it the minute I saw it. I know it’s dreadful to feel like this when other people are grieving, but I’ve dreamed of having my own place on Shetland since I first saw Bella’s paintings. I never thought I’d get somewhere so delicious.’ He opened the double doors and let Perez into a wide hall. Specks of dust twisted in the sunlight. ‘I’ve brought the essentials,’ he said. ‘Coffee and biscuits, and I’ve arranged for the electricity to be switched on.’
He led Perez into a room, which was empty except for an unidentifiable item of furniture shrouded by a dust-sheet. It wasn’t such a big house, Perez saw now. Two living rooms facing the sea, with a kitchen and bathroom at the back. Probably three bedrooms upstairs. Smaller certainly than the Manse. Wilding was bent over a kettle, which he’d plugged into an ancient socket close to the floor. He spooned coffee into a jug, added the water carefully. ‘You do have it black, don’t you, inspector? You see, I remembered.’ He polished a mug on his shirt and poured the coffee through a fine strainer. ‘The best I can do in the circumstances, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Shall we take it outside, make the most of the weather?’
They sat on a drystone wall looking down over the beach and the flat island at the mouth of the bay.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been to Biddista before?’ Perez looked at the horizon.
‘I’m not sure that you asked.’
‘You didn’t tell Bella that you’d met before, that you’d been a guest in her house?’
‘Well, I thought that might be a little ungallant.’ Wilding turned to Perez and smiled. ‘It might imply that her memory was failing her. Or that I should mean more to her than I obviously do. I thought too that she might prefer to forget that summer.’
‘Why would she want to do that?’
‘It was a rather wild time. Frantic. We all have a little more dignity these days.’
‘How did you come to be there?’
‘She invited me. We met on a train. The sleeper which went then from London to Aberdeen. Perhaps it still does. I was on my way to Dundee to talk at a literary lunch and she was going home. Neither of us had berths booked and we sat up all night drinking and talking. One of those memorable, strange encounters that can change your life. “Come and stay. I love creative people.” She was, still is, so charismatic, don’t you think? I was bewitched. So after the gig in Dundee I went on to Aberdeen and got the ferry north, took her at her word. The old
St Clare
: oilmen boozing in the bar and kids dossing on deck in sleeping bags. When I turned up at the Manse I’m not entirely sure she knew who I was even then. She’d had a lot to drink in the train. I’d imagined a love affair, that she’d invited me because we were in some way kindred spirits, but the house was full of people.’
He turned to Perez and smiled. ‘It was a little humiliating. I turned up on the doorstep with champagne and chocolates and there was a blank stare before she welcomed me in. You can see why I didn’t want to repeat that experience a second time. If she wasn’t going to know me after two days, she was hardly likely to remember after nearly fifteen years.’
‘Who else was staying that summer?’
‘I’m not sure. A couple of young men, art students from Glasgow.’
‘Jeremy Booth,’ Perez said. ‘He was there.’
‘The man who died at the Biddista jetty?’ Wilding seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Was he?’
‘You don’t remember him?’
‘No.’
Perez laid the photograph of Bella’s party on the wall between them. ‘Perhaps this will jog your memory.’
Wilding looked at the photograph. ‘Good God, I can’t even remember this being taken. I don’t think I ever saw it. Doesn’t Bella look wonderful? But rather unhappy, I fancy.’
‘That’s you, I think.’ Perez pointed to the dark man, standing in line.
‘So it is, of course. That’s still how I remember myself. It’s always a shock when I look in the mirror.’
‘What were the masks about?’
‘A whim of Bella’s. Her idea of a sophisticated evening.’
Perez pointed again. ‘We think that’s Jeremy Booth. Do you recognize him?’
Wilding considered. ‘Perhaps I do. You know, the name seemed familiar when you first told me it. He
was an actor, just as you said, and he was there that summer. Not for long though. I was obsessed and I couldn’t leave until everyone else did, but he was only there for a few days. He arrived right at the end of my stay. Bella had picked him up in much the same way as she’d collected me from the train. I think he had the same expectation as me of romance, a sexual encounter at least, and was similarly disappointed. He followed her round like a lovesick puppy, but nobody could take him seriously. He looked very different then from his picture in the paper and the man who caused the scene in the Herring House. He had long hair. Jem, he called himself. We got on rather well. I can’t believe that Bella remembered him. She had so many admirers.’
‘She had this photograph. Something triggered her memory.’
‘It was taken at the farewell dinner,’ Wilding said. ‘We told each other we didn’t want to go and yet most of us seemed relieved it was over.’
‘You came back, though, after fifteen years. The place must have held some importance to you.’
‘Ah, this time I was in Shetland with quite different expectations. I wanted peace and an escape from my girlfriend. At least an escape from my obsession with my girlfriend. I met Helen soon after my stay at the Manse. She’s very different from Bella. Frail, rather shy. Though she haunted me too.’
‘You don’t look very haunted.’ It was an unprofessional comment but Wilding, with confidence and his precise, arrogant words, sitting on the wall with a chocolate biscuit in one hand and his coffee in the other, seemed incapable of such sensibility.
‘I’ve had to toughen up, inspector. I’ve learned it’s the only way to survive.’
‘Why Biddista? You could have gone anywhere in Shetland.’
‘I think I explained that before. I did still love the paintings. Bella’s work got better, much stronger, as she got older, and I renewed my contact with her by email. I hoped of course that she’d recognize my name but she didn’t. When I said I wanted a break in Shetland, she offered me the house in Biddista to rent.’
They sat for a moment in silence.
Perez spoke first. ‘You went to visit Willy in the care home. Did you talk about that summer?’
‘Of course not, inspector. Willy can’t remember what happened last week. I enjoy hearing his stories, that’s all.’
‘What happened that night fifteen years ago? The night the photograph was taken?’
‘Really, inspector, can it have any relevance to your present investigation?’
‘I think it can. It might tell us why Jeremy Booth came back.’
‘We all drank too much and made fools of ourselves.’ He paused. ‘At one point Bella was weeping. I’d never seen her lose control in that way before. The tears were rolling down her cheeks, her face was all red and blotchy. She was ugly. It was horrible. It was that image I think that persuaded me to leave with the others. I didn’t want to know that she was human.’
‘Why was she crying?’
‘I don’t know. Someone said something to offend her, perhaps. She could take offence very quickly.’
‘Was there a row? An argument?’
‘No. We were all too drunk and stoned to fight.’ He paused. ‘We didn’t see her the next day. She stayed in bed. We joked that she must have a massive hangover, but really I think she was embarrassed that we’d seen her like that. We went without saying goodbye.’
‘Nobody thought to check that she wasn’t ill?’
‘The boy, Roddy, was there. I suppose he’d stayed all night, gone to bed before the festivities started. Or perhaps his parents dropped him off in the middle of the morning. I don’t remember. He spent a lot of time in the Manse that summer. He was quite young then, but a bright little thing. We sent him into Bella’s bedroom to see how she was. How cowardly we all were! We couldn’t face her. He came back to the kitchen where we were all sitting. “Auntie says, ‘Piss off the lot of you!’” It was so much the sort of thing that Bella would have said that we went with a clear conscience. We always did what she told us.’
‘Booth left with you too?’
‘Not exactly the same time. Willy gave him a lift to Lerwick in his van. I’d been in Willy’s van before. There were no real seats in the back. I remember the bruises. I decided to leave Biddista in style and ordered a taxi from Lerwick.’
‘We’ve found another body in the Pit o’ Biddista.’
Wilding turned sharply. ‘I heard you’d found bones. Couldn’t they have been there for generations?’
‘You have no idea who it could be?’
‘Of course not!’
‘And you’re quite sure you didn’t recognize Booth when he made the scene at the Herring House?’
‘Would you remember someone you’d seen briefly fifteen years ago? And he’d changed so much.’
‘Did he get in touch with you? You’re pretty famous now and you’ve written about the move to Shetland on your website. An email perhaps.
I’ll be in Shetland, can we meet to talk about old times?
We know he intended to catch up with friends when he was here.’
‘Not me, inspector.’
Perez thought Wilding would stick to whatever story he’d created. Perhaps he even believed it. Perhaps it was true. He stood up. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Wilding. If you remember anything, please get in touch.’
‘Of course.’ Wilding was playing the good-natured host once more. He took Perez’s mug, walked with him back to the car. There he stood for a moment and gave a malicious grin. ‘I’ve asked Fran Hunter to manage the interior design of the house for me. I can’t think of anyone better, can you?’
‘No,’ Perez said. ‘I don’t think I can.’
