Chapter Thirty-nine
In the house by the shore his father was asleep in his chair by the fire. He jerked awake when Perez came in, looked around him for a moment as if he weren’t exactly sure where he was.
‘Duncan phoned,’ he said. ‘Cassie wants to see you.’
Perez lay awake for most of the night thinking about that. He’d agreed to meet the girl of course. Just now he’d have done anything for her. But it was the last thing he wanted. Surely she would blame him for her mother’s death. He didn’t think he could face that. Or the little twisted smile, that was just like Fran’s. The voice. A bit of Shetland in it after a couple of years at school, but still using Fran’s words. Words from the south that sometimes they had to explain to him.
They arranged to meet in Lerwick in the Olive Tree, the cafe in the Tollclock Centre, because it was neutral territory and Fran had liked it there. It had been more her sort of place than his. Fancy salads and an arty clientele. She’d said the coffee was to die for.
Perez’s relationship with her ex-husband Duncan Hunter was awkward. They’d been friends at school, good friends, despite the difference in their backgrounds. Duncan’s family came from big Shetland landowners, the closest thing to aristocracy there was in the islands, and he still lived in the big house on the shore at Brae. They’d fallen out before Perez had taken up with Fran and since then had maintained an uneasy truce for Cassie’s sake. Perez worried sometimes when the girl stayed with her father. Duncan drank too much, had a chaotic life of parties and diverse and sometimes dubious business interests. More skeletons in his cupboard than a professor of medicine. Fran had said Cassie needed contact with her father. ‘You’re not jealous Jimmy, surely?’ That twisted grin again. And Perez had admitted that maybe he was jealous, just a bit. He’d be proud to be considered Cassie’s father and there were times when he’d wished Duncan lived anywhere other than Shetland, so the three of them could form their own family.
Today Perez arrived at the cafe half an hour early. The least he could do. He wouldn’t want Cassie to have to wait for him. He bought coffee. He didn’t recognize any of the patrons. They were probably visitors waiting for the ferry to start boarding: the terminal was just down the road. Lifting the cup to his lips he found his hands were shaking. He got up to leave. He couldn’t face Cassie after all. Duncan would surely understand and make his excuses. He was standing there, poised to make his escape, when Dougie Barr came in, obviously on his way to the ferry too. He had an enormous rucksack on his back and was strung about with optical equipment.
The birdwatcher saw Perez immediately and stood blocking the door, flushed with embarrassment, not wanting to intrude, but feeling it would be rude just to walk away. Perez couldn’t bear his discomfort and gave a little wave to put him at his ease. He heard Fran’s voice in his head:
What is it with you, Jimmy Perez? Are you some sort of saint?
Reassured, Dougie approached; he said nothing, but he held out his hand.
‘Tell me,’ Perez said. ‘Did you know Fowler was a killer?’ The question had been bothering him. He’d pondered it in the middle of the night. How widely could he spread responsibility?
‘No!’ Dougie was horrified. ‘I’d have said. Honest. I didn’t guess about the curlew. I believed the stories Angela made up about Fowler being a stringer. She fooled me too.’ He paused. ‘I thought it was Hugh. I could tell she didn’t like him, that maybe she was even scared of him. Wishful thinking. I couldn’t stand the guy.’
He reached out again and touched Perez’s shoulder, then turned and left the cafe. He’d find somewhere else to eat before he boarded the boat.
That was when Perez saw Cassie, walking through the shopping arcade. Not holding Duncan’s hand, but close to him. Six years old. Small for her age, stocky, brown hair cut in a fringe over her eyes. Enormous eyes like a bush baby’s, made even bigger because she’d been crying. She saw Perez and rushed towards him and he swung her into his arms as he always did. Now he clung on to her as if she were saving
him.
He was aware of a couple at a nearby table staring and realized there were tears on his cheeks. The people turned awkwardly away, almost affronted by the emotion.
Duncan bought coffee for himself, juice and chocolate cake for Cassie. Fran had never liked Cassie eating too much junk, but Perez swept the thought away. Let the girl have whatever she wanted.
‘I want to go home,’ Cassie said.
‘I’ve explained it’s kind of difficult.’ Duncan looked at Perez. ‘We have to sort things out.’
‘I want to go to school. I have to go to school.’ One way of coping, Perez supposed. Hadn’t he gone into work to watch Sandy interview the witnesses? Though now, a couple of days on, he couldn’t understand how it had seemed important.
‘Miss Frazer will understand,’ Perez said. Miss Frazer was the head teacher at Ravenswick, had only been there for a couple of years. She and Fran had become friends.
‘I’m in the play,’ Cassie said patiently. ‘I’ve learned my words.’ Then: ‘Jessie will be missing me.’ Jessie, her best friend, granddaughter of Geordie, who took the visitors out to Mousa in his small boat.
‘Could you move into the Ravenswick house for a while?’ Perez talked to Duncan but was aware all the time that Cassie was listening. ‘It would probably be good to have things back to normal. I mean as normal as we can make them.’ He was still crying, wiped his face with his napkin, hoping that Cassie hadn’t noticed.
‘Sure.’ But there was some uncertainty in Duncan’s voice. He travelled a lot for work, didn’t really like to be tied down.
‘I’ll help,’ Perez said. ‘Any way I can.’
‘Fran’s parents are coming up,’ Duncan said. ‘Things will be easier then.’
But only for a while, Perez thought. It occurred to him that they might want to take Cassie with them back to London. They weren’t so old after all and Cassie was very fond of them. Perhaps that would be a solution. He knew they wouldn’t want to live in the islands. They were city people. But then might he lose contact with the girl altogether?
That evening, back at his small house right by the water in Lerwick, he drank whisky with his father and worried about Cassie. James was still there. Perez had half-heartedly tried a few times to send him home and was always relieved when the older man refused. ‘It’ll be good for the crew to manage without me.’ There was something comforting about the dourness of his father, the solidness of his body and his lack of imagination. Perez had given up his bed to him and slept on the sofa in the living room. It would have been impossible for him, anyway, to sleep in the bed he’d shared with Fran on occasion. He suspected his father knew that. Perhaps he had some imagination after all.
The next day Rhona Laing, the Fiscal, called Perez to see her. As always when he walked into her office, he felt as though he had mud on his boots, that in some way he was contaminating her clean and elegant space. ‘We have to discuss the case, Jimmy. I know it’ll be hard but it has to be done.’ No mention of Fran, no soft and easy words. He was grateful for that. ‘Perhaps you’re interested anyway.’
‘No,’ he said. It came to him that he hadn’t tendered his resignation yet and that he should do it soon. If he were any sort of cop he’d have protected Fran; he couldn’t be in a position again where he put another life at risk.
‘John Fowler confessed.’ It was as if she hadn’t heard the negative. She smelled faintly of citrus. Expensive citrus. She’d done something different to her hair. Perhaps she had a new man. There were always rumours of the Fiscal’s men. ‘He was happy to talk but we found a confession on his laptop too. At least, more a series of excuses than a confession.’
‘He had no choice,’ Perez said. ‘Besides, that was what he wanted all the time. To tell his story.’
‘You knew it was him?’ She’d ordered a pot of coffee and poured him a cup.
‘A gut feeling at the beginning maybe,’ Perez admitted. He looked up and gave the first flash of a smile. He knew what lawyers made of gut feelings. ‘He seemed so uptight. A little strange. And there was the name of his bookshop.’
Rhona looked up sharply. ‘Which was?’
‘Numenius Books. It seemed a strange sort of name. I looked it up. Numenius is the scientific name for curlew. But it could have been a coincidence and we had no evidence, no motive until the DNA analysis of the feathers. Then I spoke to a few people and found out that Fowler had been travelling in the former Soviet Union at around the same time as Angela. Stella Monkton’s confession on her daughter’s behalf that Angela had stolen Fowler’s research confirmed it, of course. Angela wrote to her about it after asking if they could meet up.’
Rhona leaned back in her chair. ‘Why don’t you tell me, Jimmy? In your own way.’
Perez was tempted to get up and walk out.
You know already. Sandy will have done a report. Although the spelling and the grammar will be crap, he’ll have set out the details.
But he stayed. This was his last case. Might as well see it through for one more time.
‘John Fowler was a writer and journalist. Respected. A freelancer, but he did OK at it and made a good living. It seemed unlikely that he didn’t know Angela Moore. They’re all obsessive, these birdwatchers, and the scientists even more so. Look at Ben Catchpole. They come across an area of research and dig away at it.’ Perez found himself feeling his way into the skin of the murderer despite himself. He’d spoken to Fowler’s former colleagues; sitting in the kitchen in Springfield there’d been long telephone conversations about the man’s state of mind. This was Fran’s killer, but Perez had never really believed in monsters. To dismiss Fowler as a monster would be to let him off the hook. It was better to understand him and force him to take responsibility.
‘After Angela published the work on the slender-billed curlew everything went wrong for him,’ Perez went on. ‘He lost his credibility. He tried to persuade a few people that the find was his, but who would believe him? Angela was young and attractive, a publisher’s dream. It would be much harder to promote a middle-aged man, with a reputation for claiming rare birds that had never existed. Everyone had a vested interest in dismissing his claims. He gave up work as a journalist and set up the bookshop. He told everyone he needed to de-stress.’
‘Did he see a psychiatrist?’ The Fiscal looked up sharply from the paper where she was making notes. ‘Is he fit to plead?’
Perez shrugged. It seemed to him that anyone who had killed three women could be considered insane. He blamed himself.
I knew. I should have stopped it.
‘He came to Fair Isle with the intention of killing Angela Moore,’ Rhona Laing went on. ‘It was premeditated. Planned. He didn’t lash out in a jealous rage. Not manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. They can’t go for that.’
But jealousy had been at the heart of it, Perez thought. A slow-burning fury that had consumed Fowler, taking over his thoughts and his dreams, destroying him. Destroying the women who had stood in his way. Was that illness? Luckily it wasn’t for Perez to decide.
‘Go on, Jimmy,’ the Fiscal said, making some effort to control her impatience. ‘Let’s hear the rest of the story.’
He looked up and for a moment he wanted to hit out at the smooth, expensively made-up face. This was just work to her. Work and ambition. She’d take his words and use them to make herself seem clever. ‘Why? You know already. What am I? Your performing monkey?’
The outburst shocked her. ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy. Is this too soon? Do you want to stop?’
He shook his head fiercely. He couldn’t bear her pity.
‘So, it was all about a bird,’ Perez continued as if the exchange between them had never occurred. ‘Slender-billed curlew. Some scientists thought it was extinct. You wouldn’t think it could generate so much passion. But I watched the birdwatchers come into Fair Isle for an American swan and I saw how mad they could be. Some of them almost in tears when they realized they could have missed it. And for Fowler it wasn’t just a hobby. It was his work. It was about respect, proving himself worthy of his job in journalism.’
‘So he found this curlew before Angela Moore did, but she claimed the credit.’ Rhona looked at her watch. Her sympathy hadn’t lasted for long. Perez thought the Fiscal just wanted the facts; she’d never been much interested in the background.
That’s what social workers were invented for, Jimmy.
‘He worked out where he thought the birds might be breeding,’ said Perez. ‘Something to do with the insects they feed on. He looked at the maps, sought out likely search areas. They call it ground-truthing.’ Perez had liked the idea of ground-truthing when he’d heard about it, thought it was a useful concept in policing. It was about testing theories, keeping it real. Now he wondered how it could have excited him; it was an irrelevance.
‘It must have been galling for him to miss out on the credit,’ Laing said, showing some understanding at last. She would understand about professional jealousy. Perez had never met anyone quite so ambitious. ‘The woman became a real celebrity as a result of that book.’
‘Of course.’ Perez imagined Fowler trying to keep his business afloat, but everywhere he was hearing of Angela Moore’s success, while he scratched a living taking orders for books over the Internet, meeting up with the occasional eccentric in his shop. ‘Angela was on the television every five minutes, warden of Fair Isle, the most prestigious field centre in the UK. Of course it ate away at him. That should have been him. He woke up thinking about it and he dreamed about it at night.’
