Текст книги "White Nights"

Автор книги: Ann Cleeves

Соавторы: Ann Cleeves
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Chapter Twelve

Roy Taylor was head of the Inverness team. He’d be the senior investigating officer once he arrived. Perez had worked with him before and they’d become friends of a sort. Not close friends. Perez knew nothing about his private life, didn’t even know if he was married. But they’d come to an understanding about the case they were working on.

Now, listening to Taylor’s impatience, Perez was irritated. He didn’t need telling that the priority was to get an ID on the victim. He’d only officially been a victim for half an hour, for Christ’s sake. Sandy should have arrived in Lerwick now. He’d be on the phone, chatting to the lasses in the NorthLink office at Holmsgarth, checking with Loganair on the BA bookings. It was the sort of work Sandy liked and was good at, routine and not too demanding. Perez was confident they’d have a name by the end of the day. At this point there was little else they could do. He knew that Taylor’s impatience had little to do with his handling of the case. He’d be frustrated because he was still in Inverness, because he hadn’t set out for Aberdeen the minute he got the call. If the weather had changed just a little earlier, if they hadn’t banked on getting the last plane into Sumburgh, they’d have been able to reach the ferry before it sailed and at least they’d be in Lerwick at seven the next morning. Taylor was a man who liked to be in control. Perez could imagine him, angry with himself and taking it out on the rest of the team.

Perez was hungry now too. Fran had woken when he got up, made mumbled offers of toast and fruit, but he was already late for work by then. He was tempted to head back for town, thought of bacon sandwiches, fish and chips. Something warm and greasy and filling. But for completeness’ sake he thought he should talk to Peter Wilding, the Englishman who had taken on Willy Jamieson’s house. He could tell Taylor that he’d spoken to everyone who lived in Biddista then. Taylor wouldn’t be able to pull him up on that.

Wilding was sitting in the upstairs window, looking out, just as Martin had described. The fog had made the day so gloomy that he’d switched on a light in the room. Perez could only see him when he reached the end of the terrace and even then the view wasn’t so good. He thought the man had been watching him all along, from the moment he’d pulled up in his car. He’d have watched Perez go to Skoles and to the Manse, seen him in the shop and in Aggie’s house. It seemed odd to him that a man should take so much interest in the trivia of everyday life. In Perez’s experience, women were the nosy ones. Why would this Englishman care what the people of Biddista got up to? But Wilding’s curiosity might be useful. There was a real possibility that he’d seen the stranger.

The writer must just have seen Perez as a silhouette coming out of the mist. Why is he still sitting there, Perez thought, when there’s nothing to see? As soon as he knocked on the door, Wilding left his place at the window. Perez heard footsteps on wooden floorboards, a key turning in the lock. The door must have warped because it stuck against the frame. Did the locked door mean the man hadn’t been out yet that day? Or that security was a habit brought up from the south?

He recognized Wilding as soon as he came to the door as the dark man who’d been talking to Fran at the gallery. He was tall, rather good-looking, Perez saw now. He was wearing a striped collarless cotton shirt and jeans, canvas shoes. The writer smiled. He didn’t speak but waited for his visitor to explain himself. Perez found the silence disconcerting.

Perez supposed he should show his warrant card, but couldn’t quite remember what he’d done with it and introduced himself instead. ‘I wonder if I could ask you a few questions.’

‘Oh, please do. Any excuse to stop staring at a blank laptop screen.’ It was a rich voice, as if he was constantly amused by a private joke. Perez had imagined a writer with a deadline to meet as brooding, self-absorbed, but now there was no hint of that. The man stood aside. ‘I noticed that there’s been some activity on the jetty. Is it about that, I wonder?’ Perez remained silent. ‘Oh well,’ Wilding went on. ‘No doubt you’ll tell me when you’re ready.’ His eyes were so blue that Perez wondered if he was wearing coloured contact lenses. It pleased him to think of Wilding as vain.

Willy Jamieson had been born in this house and lived in it until he’d moved into sheltered housing. He’d scratched a living from fishing and, when he was younger, from odd bits of work for the council. Perez could remember seeing him by the side of the road sometimes, helping the contractors lay new tarmac. He’d never married, and when he’d moved out the house was in much the same state as the day his parents had moved in. Perez supposed that he’d bought it from the council. Wilding must be the owner now, or be renting it privately. He was hardly a normal council tenant.

Inside the house, Perez could see across a passageway into a small kitchen which held a deep sink with one tap and a Calor gas stove. The table, folded against one wall, looked as if it had been left behind by Willy. There were no fitted cupboards, no washing machine. The only additions were a small fridge, balanced on the workbench, and a coffee grinder. The place had an air of impermanence. A squat. It was as if Wilding were camping out here.

Wilding seemed untroubled that Perez could see the primitive nature of his domestic arrangements and gave another of his smiles. ‘Let’s go upstairs. It’s more civilized there. Can I make you tea? I’m sure Aggie will have offered you tea earlier, but I expect you could use another by now. Or coffee perhaps? Coffee is one of my few luxuries here. I grind the beans every time.’ He spoke slowly and Perez had the sense that he was considering the effect of every word. But perhaps it was just that he’d spent too long on his own in his upstairs room and conversation no longer came easily.

Perez was tempted by the coffee. It would be a long day and he would need something to keep awake and alert.

‘Coffee would be fine.’ He paused. ‘One of my luxuries too.’

‘Ah! Another addict! I can recognize the signs. Splendid. Go in and make yourself at home. The room at the front. I’ll not keep you waiting long.’

He had followed Perez halfway up the stairs, but now he turned and went back to the kitchen, moving very lightly for such a tall man. All his movements were easy and unhurried. It was as if he’d expected a visitor and had planned in advance the words he would use and the way he would move.

As Wilding had said, the workroom was more civilized. The bare, unvarnished floorboards were hidden by a woven rug in the middle of the room. The desk was old, leather-topped and obviously his own. He’d made some makeshift shelves from bricks and planks and they were crammed with books. There was a CD player and a rack of discs. A large unframed canvas hung on one wall. It was of a field of hay, which had been cut and piled into untidy heaps, under a fierce yellow light. Perez thought it might be by Bella Sinclair and felt ridiculously pleased with himself when he approached and saw the signature. He would tell Fran later. He was still staring at it when Wilding came in, pushing the door open with his foot. He was carrying a cafetiere and two mugs on a tray, a box of shop-bought cakes. He had learned the convention of island entertaining. It was considered impossibly rude not to offer a guest something sweet to eat.

‘I don’t have any milk,’ he said, in no way apologetic. ‘But I could run to the shop if you’re desperate.’

‘I drink it black.’

‘Splendid.’ A favourite word. ‘You have the chair, inspector. I’m quite happy on the floor.’ And he lounged, legs outstretched, still managing to dominate the room.

Perez would have liked a cake, but it seemed they were just there for show. He couldn’t ask for one without seeming greedy. ‘Martin says you’re a writer.’ Perez was interested in the man, his profession. Every witness statement and confession was part fiction, but he couldn’t imagine conjuring a whole story from thin air, couldn’t see where you would start. ‘Do you write under your own name?’

Wilding laughed. ‘Oh yes, inspector, but don’t worry if you’ve never heard of me. Few people have. I write fantasy, an acquired taste.’ He seemed rather pleased that he was unknown. ‘Fortunately I do quite well in the States and Japan.’

Perez thought some comment of congratulation was expected, but wasn’t sure what to say. Instead he sipped his coffee, took a moment to enjoy it.

‘Have you had any visitors recently, Mr Wilding? Friends from the south, perhaps?’

‘No, inspector. I moved here to escape distractions. The last thing I need is people under my feet.’

‘There was an Englishman in Biddista yesterday. You might have seen him.’

‘Nobody came to the house and I was in all day.’

‘But not in the evening. Then you were at the exhibition at the Herring House. As was the Englishman.’

‘And so were you! Of course, I recognize you now. You were there with the attractive young artist. Ms Hunter. A great new talent. Art, I must confess, is another of my luxuries. I love Bella’s work. It was she who inspired my first visit to Shetland. And so I was delighted to receive an invitation to the opening. There were fewer people than I was expecting. I suppose I’d thought it was going to be more of a local event.’

‘People are very busy in the summer.’ Perez wondered why he felt so defensive. It wasn’t the time to explain that the event had been the subject of a practical joke, but he didn’t want the man thinking there was no interest in Shetland in Fran’s work. ‘Do you remember the man who became a little emotional?’

‘The guy in black? Of course.’ Wilding paused, for the first time dropped the light, affected tone. ‘I felt sorry for him. I’ve suffered from mental-health problems too. I understood his desperation.’

‘You thought his distress was genuine?’

‘Oh I think so, don’t you? It seemed real enough to me.’

Perez didn’t answer.

‘What happened to the man?’ Perez thought Wilding seemed unnaturally concerned about a stranger. ‘Has he been admitted to hospital? Sometimes, for a short while, it’s the only solution with depression.’

‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ Perez said.

Wilding turned his head away. When he looked back, he’d regained some control, but his voice was still unsteady. ‘The poor man.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t know him, Mr Wilding?’

‘Quite sure, inspector. But it seems a terrible waste. Suicide. The worst sort of tragedy.’

‘We don’t think the man killed himself. We believe he was murdered.’

There was a silence. ‘When I moved here,’ Wilding said at last, ‘I thought I’d escaped mindless violence.’

Oh, we can do mindless violence, Perez thought. Scraps in bars, fuelled by drink and frustration. But this death wasn’t like that at all.

‘What time did you leave the Herring House?’ he asked.

‘Soon after you. The heart seemed to go out of the party when the man made that scene.’

‘Did you come straight back here?’

‘I walked along the beach for a while. It was such a lovely evening. Just as far as the rocks and back. Then I came inside.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I made coffee, brought it here to the window.’

‘Did you see anyone? You have a good view of the jetty from here.’

‘No. It was surprisingly quiet. I think the last people must have left the Herring House when I was walking. I didn’t notice anything when I was on the beach. I was thinking about my book. There’s this sticky patch with the plot. It’s been troubling me for a few days. I was concentrating on that.’

‘But you were here, with your coffee, by eleven o’clock?’

‘I can’t remember looking at my watch. But yes, I must have been. I hadn’t been out so long.’

‘Roddy Sinclair and Martin Williamson left the gallery at about eleven. Did you notice them?’

‘No,’ Wilding said. ‘But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.’

‘Apparently Roddy became rather rowdy.’

‘All the same I didn’t notice them. My mind was still elsewhere, inspector.’

‘On your book?’

‘Yes, the book. Of course.’

Standing in the road outside the house, Perez tried to decide what he made of Wilding. What had really brought him here? He couldn’t see Shetland as a natural home for the man. Did he have no friends or family to keep him in the south? There was something unsettling about the intensity of his gaze and the voyeuristic pleasure he took in watching his neighbours.

Chapter Thirteen

In her office at the top of the converted textile mill in Denby Dale, West Yorkshire, Martha Tyler was putting together the rehearsal schedule for the week. This show was about bullying. The next would be around racism. Schools didn’t seem interested in hiring the Interact theatre-in-education group to entertain their pupils; there always had to be a message. The young actors with their new degrees in performance rolled their eyes when they saw the scripts, clunky with politically correct jargon, but it was work. They might dream of the Royal Shakespeare Company or a lucrative television ad, but Interact work counted towards their Equity card and the pay kept them in beer.

The company shared the mill with other small businesses – there was a decent wine merchant in the basement, a middle-aged woman who made silver jewellery, and an acupuncturist – but Interact had the whole of the top floor. One big space for rehearsals, a couple of offices and a small room with a microwave and a kettle where they took their breaks. This wasn’t one of the smart conversions that had taken place in other parts of Kirklees. The mill was a rackety jumble of stairways and levels. The floors were uneven and the windows leaked.

Two of the actors had already arrived. Martha could hear them in the tea room, sharing stories of a nightmare tour of Hull which had become apocryphal – the teacher who’d had a breakdown in the middle of a performance, kids pulling knives, a pregnant fourteen-year-old who claimed to have gone into labour. All exaggeration. That was the trouble with people in the theatre business. They began to believe their own fictions. You could never tell where the acting stopped. That made her think of Jeremy. If you believed all his stories, he’d travelled the world, acted with Olivier and made love to at least half a dozen minor Hollywood film stars. She didn’t believe a word, of course. Why would anyone like that end up running a crummy theatre-in-education company in West Yorkshire?

Martha checked her mobile phone. Still no call from him. What had started out as mild irritation had changed to anger and now to concern. Jeremy was an arrogant prat and a congenital liar, but he made his living from Interact and he cared about its reputation. Martha was at the company as part of a higher apprenticeship in arts management. After taking a good degree in drama from Bristol, the apprenticeship seemed a better option than an MA. There was a modest bursary and the chance for hands-on experience. Jeremy was taking the piss, of course. Her placement at Interact wasn’t supposed to provide him with an unpaid skivvy, yet it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for a couple of days, leaving her in charge.

‘It’s great practice, love. Think how it’ll look on your CV.’

But he’d been away for four days now and she hadn’t heard anything. She’d tried his mobile, but it seemed to be switched off.

She tried to remember exactly what he’d said this time. They’d been in the pub the week before, the end of a debrief on the drugs-awareness tour of the Midlands. For once he’d been almost generous, had bought a couple of rounds for the actors. There’d been a suppressed excitement about him. She’d come in from Huddersfield on the train, so she’d been drinking too. Somehow she’d found herself sitting at a small table next to him. The rest of the group had been drinking all afternoon and were singing some dreadful song from the show. She’d had a struggle to make out what Jeremy had been saying.

‘Something’s come up, love. A great chance. You can cope on your own for a bit, can’t you? A girl with your talents. I’ll pay you, make it worth your while.’

She’d thought perhaps it was an audition. She’d worked around actors enough to recognize the excitement that came out of the possibility of a part, the part that would change a career. Even actors as old as Jeremy fell under the magic, lost all their reason. She couldn’t understand it herself. She’d never been bitten by the acting bug. Jeremy told everyone that performance was his first love. He’d set up Interact to pay the bills and because the rent on the mill was subsidized for the first year, but made it clear that if the right offer came his way he’d wind up the company like a shot. There were always deals in the offing. A friend who worked for Granada was planning a soap which had a part just right for him. He’d bumped into a script editor who thought he was perfect for the lead in a ninety-minute drama. None of these possibilities ever came to anything.

Martha had never seen Jeremy act, but she had watched him lead rehearsals. She thought he probably was a bit better than the average jobbing actor. He held her attention, and anyone who could bring those dreadful lines to life must have some skill. But theatre was all about luck and if it hadn’t happened for Jeremy by now, she thought it was hardly likely to. If he’d been to an audition, even in London, he should have been home days ago. If he’d set his heart on a part, failed to get it and been drowning his sorrows, he should be back by now. If by some remote chance he’d been given the part, he’d want to tell them all. So where was he?

There were footsteps on the bare wooden stairs. She looked out through the open office door, hoping to see Jeremy leaping up, two steps at a time. For someone who drank so much he was remarkably fit. But it was Ellie, another of the actors. Martha looked at her watch. Ten more minutes and she’d have to start the rehearsal without him.

By late afternoon she knew she wouldn’t get any more out of the team. She’d always wanted to direct. A natural bossiness, her friends said. But even in university, working on small student productions, direction had been more rewarding than this. Only one of the actors had done more than glance at the script. There was little scope for characterization. At least by now she’d blocked in the moves and helped them put some meaning into the words. There wasn’t much else she could do until they’d learned the lines. She sent them home with threats and bribes. In the office she checked her mobile again. Still no message.

She wasn’t sure what she could do, who she should tell about Jeremy’s disappearance. He lived alone. She had an idea that he might have been married once, but he didn’t talk about children. He lived in Denby Dale in a little terraced house close to the mill. Everyone in the village knew him, but she didn’t think he had any close friends. The regulars in the Fleece chatted to him most evenings, but she doubted they had any more idea about his private life or background than she did.

It didn’t occur to her to go to the police. Jeremy wouldn’t want anyone prying into the business. She thought he probably sailed very close to the wind when it came to VAT and health and safety. She knew he paid some of the actors cash in hand. Besides, it was ridiculous. He’d said he’d be away for a few days. He hadn’t yet been gone for a week. All the same she hated the feeling of helplessness. She wished he would phone her.

The actors had gone back to the digs in the village where they stayed when they were rehearsing. None of them was local. Jeremy employed different actors for each tour. Martha locked up the office and on the keyring saw the spare key to Jeremy’s house. He’d given it to her when he’d asked her to stay there one morning to let in the plumber – the sort of work experience not set out in the apprenticeship job description. She’d offered it back to him, but he’d told her to hang on to it.

She thought it wouldn’t do any harm to go in and look. It would set her mind at rest. Perhaps he’d returned from wherever he’d been and been taken ill.

The house was a traditional weaver’s cottage, part of a terrace close to the viaduct, backing on to the River Dearne. The first floor had a row of windows to let in the light to make working the loom easier for the textile workers. It was very narrow. A kitchen and small living room on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. She’d had a quick snoop round while she’d been waiting for the plumber.

She unlocked the front door, which led straight from the pavement, struggling for a moment with the unfamiliar key. The door stuck when she pushed it. There was a pile of mail inside. She picked it up and put it on the table.

‘Jeremy!’ Not shouting. She didn’t really think he was there. Jeremy wasn’t the sort to get ill – at least not without an audience. It seemed very hot and airless, as if the cottage had been shut up for a long time. Now she felt foolish, imagined neighbours watching her. But she couldn’t just leave without checking upstairs. She closed the door behind her and opened a window. A train rattled over the viaduct and she imagined she could feel the vibration of it under her feet.

In the tiny kitchen there was a sweet, unpleasant smell. The gas cooker was covered in grease and there was a layer of white fat on the bottom of the grill pan, but she didn’t think the smell came from that. Even if it did, she wasn’t going to clean up for him. She wanted a good report on her placement but there were some things she wouldn’t do to get one. She wondered what would happen to her if Jeremy never came back. Would they pass her work experience anyway?

On impulse she opened the fridge and the smell got a lot worse. There was half a packet of sausages which must have been well past their sell-by date before he left and were now revolting. She lifted them into a carrier bag, opened the back door into the yard and dumped them in the bin, thinking that Jeremy owed her bigtime.

In the main bedroom there were signs that he’d left very quickly. One of the drawers was open and clothes spilled out. The bed was unmade, though she thought that didn’t mean much. She’d never yet met a man who made a bed when he got up. It was hard to judge how much he’d packed. She looked in the wardrobe. His favourite black linen jacket, the one he thought made him look cool, even when it was crumpled and grubby, was missing. The small suitcase he used when he went for overnight trips to check on a performance was there, propped against the wall in a corner. She didn’t see a bigger bag. Did that mean he’d been planning to be away for longer all the time? That he hadn’t told her because he thought she’d refuse to take charge while he was swanning off on holiday? Too right, she thought. What sort of mug do you think I am?

Perhaps she should phone the Arts Council officer who was supervising her placement. Drop Jeremy Booth right in the shit. But she knew she wouldn’t do it. She’d developed an affection for the man. He made her laugh. But when he finally got home, he’d owe her. She’d stand over him in his office and dictate the report she wanted, wait until he’d signed it and post it off herself.

The small bedroom was at the back of the cottage. It had a view of the yard and the dustbin, then to the river and the bigger houses beyond, their trees and gardens. It was set up like an office with a desk and PC, a filing cabinet and bookcase. On the wall was a cork pin-board. It had notes about rehearsals, things-to-do lists, scraps of reviews cut from small regional newspapers, a few faded photos which looked as if they’d travelled with him.

One was of a youngish man. She thought it must be of Jeremy, though it was hard to tell. The man in the photograph had hair and a beard. He was wearing a jersey and jeans. She couldn’t imagine Jeremy looking so casual. But the features were the same, the long straight nose, the fine cheekbones. He was sitting on an upturned boat on a beach. The second photograph was of an older man, wearing navy overalls. He had crinkly grey hair and he was beaming into the camera. He stood between a small boy and a pretty young woman with a serious face. Then the same woman with a man a little older, who stood with his arm around her shoulder.

On the way downstairs, Martha was shocked by the sound of the phone ringing. She found it on the living-room wall, picked it up before the answerphone cut in.

‘Hello. Jeremy Booth’s phone.’

There was a silence.

‘Hello?’

‘Is Jeremy there?’ A young woman’s voice.

‘No, I’m sorry, he’s away at the moment.’

The phone went dead.