Shetland 05: Dead Water (6 page)

‘She’s a loner.’ Again it seemed weird to be standing up for the Fiscal. ‘No friends. Not here, at least. She seems confident enough at work. And when she’s schmoozing with councillors and politicians. But perhaps she finds it hard to have people in her house.’

‘Aye,’ Willow said. ‘Maybe that’s all it is.’ But she still sounded uncertain, and Sandy wondered what was going on in her mind.

There was no mobile reception in Voe, but once they joined the main road that led from Lerwick to the north he had a flurry of messages on his phone indicating missed calls. He was driving, so he pulled into the end of a track to listen. Where the track met the road there were two figures made of straw-filled pillowcases and clothes stuffed with rags. Where the face should be, life-size photos of the faces of the bride and groom-to-be had been stuck on. Sandy thought he’d seen the man around, but he didn’t recognize the girl. This was a tradition before a wedding. They looked kind of spooky. If ever he got married, he wouldn’t want a scarecrow figure of him at the gate of his parents’ croft in Whalsay.

‘They’ve found Markham’s car,’ he said. ‘It was a call from Davy Cooper.’

‘Where?’

‘Near the museum at Vatnagarth.’ He saw that she was none the wiser. ‘It’s a croft-house,’ he said. ‘Hasn’t changed in years. Tourists go there to see what life was like in the old days. Volunteers dress up in old-fashioned clothes and pretend that they live there.’ He paused. To him, it seemed an odd way to carry on. ‘They have old farming tools. Peat-cutters and kishies for carrying the peats. We got taken there once from school and we got to try ploughing by hand.’

‘And where exactly is this place?’

He could tell that Willow was impatient, not interested in tales of his schooldays. ‘It’s not so far from here.’

As they drove, Willow was looking around her, taking in all the details of the island. He turned off the main road and into a sheltered valley, with a copse of sycamores and beyond into open land and a view west towards the sea. Stacks of rock formed giant sculptures offshore and her attention was caught by those, so for a while she didn’t notice the low croft with its roof thatched with peat and straw, the barn and the byre, and the kiln where the corn had been dried. Everything made of rough grey stone. Last time Sandy had been here it had been a bright summer’s day and he’d been eleven. He’d lived in Shetland for most of the intervening years, but had thought of the museum as a place for tourists, not for him. He slowed down as he approached the museum and pulled into the car park behind the buildings.

Davy Cooper was there already. There’d been a piece on the Radio Shetland news that morning asking for information about the Alfa Romeo, he said, and a postie delivering to the museum had called in to say that she’d seen it. The car was in a space furthest away from the entrance of the museum and he’d taped it off, stringing the tape between fence posts.

Willow gave him a smile when she saw what he’d done. ‘Quite right,’ she said. ‘It could be our murder scene after all. Is Ms Hewitt on her way?’

Davy nodded. ‘And the key-holder of the museum. This time of year it’s not open much.’

As they waited, another vehicle pulled up. Sandy recognized Reg Gilbert, the editor of the
Shetland Times
, and his old VW camper van. Rhona Laing had asked Sandy to be discreet, but it would be impossible to keep the identity of the murder victim secret now. Sandy wondered how Reg had got hold of the news – presumably the postie hadn’t talked only to the police. There was nothing Reg liked better than a big story that he could pass on to former colleagues in the south. He’d taken early retirement from an English regional paper so that he could spend more time with his new young wife. But his woman had run off with her salsa teacher, and Reg had come to the islands to lick his wounds. He’d never been in Shetland before and had only taken the editor’s job because it was the first one he’d seen advertised. None of this was a secret. Reg took up residence in the bar of the Grand Hotel every evening after work and told the story to anyone who would listen. He said that Shetland was about as far away as he could get from the cheating cow.

‘Isn’t that young Jerry Markham’s car?’ The journalist had a narrow face that made Sandy think of a rat. Thinning hair and enormous eyebrows. A long, red boozer’s nose.

He put the question to Sandy, but Willow answered.

‘You know Mr Markham?’

‘I
knew
him, my dear. His body’s in a bag and on its way to the ferry, so Jimmy Grieve can cut him open in the morning. I spoke to Annie Goudie, our funeral director, and she’s just confirmed it. We must definitely speak of the Golden Boy of journalism in the past tense, wouldn’t you say?’

‘When did you last see him?’ Willow obviously wasn’t going to allow herself to be provoked.

‘On Thursday evening. He offered to buy me dinner in the Ravenswick Hotel restaurant. Not as generous as that might sound, because his parents own the place and I’m sure he didn’t intend to pick up the bill. All the same, I wasn’t going to turn down an offer like that.’ Reg leaned against the camper van. Rumour had it that he was so short of cash when he moved to the islands that it had been his home for the summer. He lived in it, in the harbour car park in town. The windows at the back had grubby net curtains, so Sandy couldn’t see inside.

‘And what was the subject of your discussion?’ Willow’s voice was still frosty.

‘He was planning a big piece for his newspaper and he was a bit cagey. He knew I still had contacts in the London papers and was worried that I might follow it up on my own. Not that he said as much, but I could tell what he was thinking. And he thought right. I’d have been there like a shot, if I’d had the chance.’

Until now the day had been bright, with a gusty westerly blowing cloud shadows over the water. Suddenly everything was grey and Sandy felt the first drop of rain.

‘But if Markham was buying you dinner – even at his parents’ expense – he must have tried to get some information from you,’ Willow said.

‘Quite right.’ Sandy saw that Reg had been going to add another ‘my dear’, but thought better of it just in time. ‘No such thing as a free supper, in our business. That was my thought exactly.’

‘So?’ Willow showed that she was losing patience.

But Reg refused to be intimidated. ‘I’m local,’ he said. ‘I have contacts. I can help you in all sorts of ways.’

‘So?’

‘So, if I help you, you make sure that I get the story before the big sharks who, at this very moment, will be on the plane from Aberdeen.’

Sandy thought Willow would lose her temper at that. Even Jimmy Perez would have put Reg in his place and talked about obstructing the course of justice. But Willow just gave a little laugh. ‘I don’t play games, Mr Gilbert. And I don’t do deals. Now, if that’s all, I have work to do and I’ll have to ask you to move on. This is a potential crime scene.’

‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you what we talked about.’ Reg had a whining voice. He always spoke through his nose, as if he had a cold. ‘I’m more than happy to help the police.’ He was inquisitive, Sandy thought. He’d come into journalism because he liked to gossip. It would be torture for him to drive away at this point without talking about his meeting with Jerry Markham.

‘Then sit with my sergeant in his car and tell him what you know.’ Willow was disdainful. ‘And if I ever need the support of the
Shetland Times
, I’ll be in touch.’ Sandy couldn’t help smiling at that.

Reg and Sandy sat in the front of the car. It had started to rain properly now, but the inspector seemed unbothered by the weather. She just pulled her hood over the tangled hair and zipped up her jacket. Then, as it began to pour, she and Davy Cooper got into his vehicle. Sandy felt a twinge of jealousy. He wouldn’t want her sharing her ideas with Davy instead of him.

‘So what did Jerry Markham want from you?’ he asked.

Reg Gilbert sniffed. ‘Background,’ he said. ‘It had been a long time since he’d worked here, and his time with the paper was never more than work experience. He needed a local hack’s feel for what was going on.’

‘Be more specific! Or you can do what the inspector said, and piss off.’

‘She’s an inspector, is she?’ Reg seemed impressed. ‘She’d look all right if she tidied herself up. The bodywork’s sound enough.’

‘What did you talk about over dinner in the Ravenswick Hotel on Thursday night?’ Sandy refused to be distracted and kept his voice firm.

‘I’m not sure what he was after,’ Reg said. ‘He was playing things very close to his chest. At first it was all gossip, a chat about friends. I thought he’d lost his edge. Then he let on he was interested in the green industries – the big new wind farm and the tidal-energy project that’s planned in the Sound. I said it wasn’t like him to be saving the planet, and he just grinned. “That’s where the future lies, Reggie and we’ll all have to change.” I told him I hadn’t heard anything interesting about those developments. He asked about a couple of Nimbys who’ve been making a fuss about the tidal project, but I said there’d be no story for him there. The council’s always been supportive in attracting new industry.’

‘You’d have pushed for more information, though.’ Through the rain-spattered windows Sandy saw a police car arrive and Vicki Hewitt get out of the passenger door. ‘You’d have tried to find out what
he’d
heard. You wouldn’t want a story like that on your doorstep and not be part of it.’

‘Of course I wanted more.’ Reg Gilbert sniffed. ‘I wanted to know what he was doing here, snooping around on my patch.’

Sandy thought Willow Reeves would have liked to know that too. He felt as if he’d let her down by getting so little out of the interview.

Chapter Nine

Jimmy Perez was counting the hours to Sunday night and Cassie’s return. Literally counting the chunks of time, aware of every minute. He hated the empty house and he couldn’t settle to anything. When Cassie was around, there were distractions, obligations. Some days she irritated him so that he wanted to scream, but when she was here he couldn’t give in to the self-pity that was always on the edge of his mind, waiting to take him over. He’d not fallen asleep until the early hours, but on Saturday morning he still woke at six. Radio Shetland news ran a piece about the dead man in the racing yoal at Aith. Still no identification, which was odd. There weren’t many tourists in the islands this early in the season, and Sandy and the team would surely manage to put a name to a local within minutes. Maybe they hadn’t passed on the news to the relatives yet, and that was the reason for the secrecy. Jimmy thought perhaps he’d made a mistake not going with Sandy to Aith the night before. That too would have been a distraction. But everything seemed to take so much effort these days. The doctor said it was depression; Perez saw it more as a kind of idleness.

Reg Gilbert phoned him at around midday. Jimmy had made the bed and washed up last night’s pots, but he hadn’t done much more. The ringing phone shocked him and he looked at it for a couple of seconds before answering.

‘Yes.’ This was progress of a sort. For the first months after Fran’s death he’d just let it ring.

‘What do you think of the Markham murder then, Jimmy?’ No introduction. No need for one. Reg’s nasal Midlands accent was immediately identifiable.

‘I’m not at work this weekend. I can’t help you.’ The words came out as a growl and he was about to replace the phone when a stab of curiosity prevented him. Peter and Maria Markham were friends of a kind. He couldn’t find an emotional response to the news. Nothing much moved him any more. But there was an intellectual interest that prompted a question. ‘Which of them was killed?’

‘It’s not either of the parents,’ Reg said. ‘It’s Jerry, the son. If you remember, he went to London, blagged a job on one of the broadsheets.’ Reg sounded dismissive. In his often-stated opinion, regional reporters were the heroes of journalism, not the glory-boys from London. ‘They’ve sent in a team from Inverness.’

‘Of course,’ Perez said sharply. ‘They would. That always happens in a murder investigation.’ He remembered the excitement of an inquiry, Sandy running around in circles, and the Fiscal watching at a distance for them to make a mistake. The conversations with witnesses and the slow unravelling of the mystery. For an instant he felt regret that he wasn’t with the others at Aith, drinking tea from a flask and passing round the chocolate biscuits. But the moment soon passed. He couldn’t find the energy, and he didn’t want to get involved.

‘They’ve put a woman in charge,’ Reg went on.

‘Then you’re best talking to her.’ Perez refused to give in to the nostalgia that made him think of murder as a kind of entertainment. After all that had happened on Fair Isle, that was sick. ‘Like I said, I’m not working this weekend.’

‘I wonder what the Fiscal will make of a woman heading up the inquiry,’ Reg said. It was as if Perez hadn’t spoken. ‘Our Rhona’s always considered herself Queen Bee.’

Perez was going to say that he didn’t care what the Fiscal thought; instead he just replaced the receiver.

From his kitchen window he looked down towards the Ravenswick Hotel. A sharp squall came in from the south and rain blew slantwise across the glass. He realized that he felt hungry. The sensation was so unusual – he had to force himself to eat these days – that at first he didn’t recognize it. He thought a bowl of home-made soup in the bar of the Ravenswick Hotel wouldn’t go amiss. They always baked their own bread there and served it with Shetland butter. Imported butter never tasted as good. His mouth was watering. He decided that he’d walk down. The shower would pass through quite quickly and, who knows, he might fancy a pint or two while he was in the bar.

By the time he’d put on his shoes and his coat the rain had stopped. The sun had broken through the clouds and shone, like theatre spotlights, on the water. He pulled the door shut behind him and began the walk down the bank.

Stuart Brodie was on duty behind the desk at reception. ‘Peter and Maria say they don’t want to speak to anyone,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure it’s okay for you to go up. You’ll be here about their boy. Shall I ring through to them and tell them you’re in the hotel?’