Текст книги "White Nights"

Автор книги: Ann Cleeves

Соавторы: Ann Cleeves
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Chapter Fourteen

When Jimmy Perez woke the next morning it was still to thick fog. His house was in Lerwick, close to the pier. It backed on to the sea and the outside walls were green to the high-tide mark. The fog made the light different. There was no reflection from the water; it was like waking in winter. His first thought was of Fran and the second was of the investigation.

He’d wanted to visit Fran the night before, but it had been late by the time he’d finished work. He’d phoned to explain, had been too eager in his apologies, he realized now, had assumed too much. Perhaps she’d had no expectations of a visit. She was from the south, sophisticated. There, they would do things differently. He looked at the clock by the bed. Seven: she would be awake now. Her daughter was an early riser. Fran had laughed about that, said she had fond memories of life before motherhood, long lie-ins with the Sunday papers, coffee and croissants which left crumbs in the bed. The memories of his youth had been very different. His parents had always found work for him on the Fair Isle croft. He thought it would be good to lie in with Fran on the Sunday mornings when Cassie was with her father. He would like to take her breakfast in bed.

He put the kettle on for coffee and went into the shower. Back in the kitchen, which was as narrow as a ship’s galley, he switched on the radio. A blast of music from SIBC, then a five-minute news slot and the first report of the stranger’s death.

‘A tourist was found dead in suspicious circumstances yesterday in Biddista. The police are anxious to identify him.’ Then a brief description and a request that anyone who might recognize the dead man should phone the incident room.

It struck him that the tone would be very different if the dead man were a Shetlander. The fact that he was described immediately as a tourist took any sense of panic from the news. It was as if the reporter was describing an incident that had occurred elsewhere. A visitor’s death was almost a source of entertainment.

While he made coffee and stuck two slices of bread into the toaster he listened for the weather forecast. The fog should clear around midday. Perhaps Taylor and his team from Inverness would get in after all today on the plane. Taylor would be pleased. Thirteen hours on the ferry would be purgatory to him. He would be like a tiger caged for transport. Perez imagined him, lying straight and stiff on the bunk in the dark cabin, trying to relax and to sleep. When they’d worked together previously he’d thought Taylor the most restless man he’d ever met.

As he left home, he saw that the cruise ship was still moored at the dock. Usually the huge liners spent very little time in Lerwick. The passengers disembarked, caught the complimentary bus to the town centre, had a trip round the tourist and information centre, the Shetland Times bookshop and the gift shops, then went back to the luxury of the ship. Sometimes he would bump into a group of them in Commercial Street. Most were from the United States. They stared around them at the tiny shops, the passing people. He felt like an animal in a zoo.

In his office he phoned the harbourmaster. When was the Island Belle due to sail? Could Patrick arrange a visit for him before she left?

‘You’ll have to be quick. She’s scheduled to leave on the midday tide.’

‘I’ll go now,’ Perez said. ‘As soon as you can fix it.’

He drove down to Morrison’s Dock, parked facing the water and was distracted for a moment by a seal lifting its soft face out of the water. When he was a boy he’d used the Fair Isle seals for target practice with his father’s shotgun until his mother had found out.

‘What harm did they ever do to you?’

‘William says they take fish and that’s why the catch is so poor now.’ William was an older lad, at that time the fount of all wisdom and knowledge.

‘Nonsense. The catch is so poor because we’ve been over-fishing the North Sea for years.’ His mother, who had been a member of Greenpeace when she was a student, still had theories about the environment that his father found dangerous and extreme.

To be honest, Jimmy had been glad of an excuse not to shoot the seals any more. He’d hated the slick of blood which floated on the water when he’d hit the target. Sometimes he’d tried to miss, but William’s ridicule had been hard to face too.

Patrick must have warned the cruise ship that he was coming because it seemed they were expecting him. He was shown at once into the purser’s office. After The Good Shepherd, the mail boat which ran from Grutness to Fair Isle, the NorthLink ferries had seemed enormous. But this was monstrous, a towering white skyscraper of a ship, taller than any of the buildings in Lerwick. The purser was a lowland Scot. It seemed Shetland wasn’t his favourite stop on the tour.

‘You’ll have heard that a tourist was killed yesterday in Biddista?’ Perez asked him.

‘No.’ Implying, Why would I care?

‘Have any of your passengers explored the island that far west?’

‘Look, inspector, we don’t usually spend this long in Lerwick. It’s a bit of a dead loss. They come expecting something scenic and it’s not exactly pretty, is it? Grey little houses. We do the seabird tour and the silverworks then everyone heaves a sigh of relief and we’re off to Orkney. St Magnus’ Cathedral – now that is a building worth taking a photo of. And the Highland Park distillery.’ The thought of malt whisky seemed to cheer him immediately.

Perez had an urge to defend Shetland, to say it had a beauty of its own, that there were visitors who loved the low horizons and big skies, the huge bare hills, but he could tell that the purser would never be a convert. ‘Why are you here so long this trip?’

‘A problem with one of the engines. It’s fixed now, thank the Lord, and we can be on our way.’

‘You’re not missing any of your passengers then?’

‘No one’s reported one missing. Have you any evidence to suggest your dead man is one of ours?’

‘There was nothing to identify him at all.’

The purser seemed relieved. He stood up.

‘They could leave the ship if they wanted to?’ Perez said. ‘I mean you don’t lock them in?’

‘Of course not. But most of our passengers are elderly. They prefer to stick to the organized trips.’ He sat down again. ‘Look, if they wanted adventure they wouldn’t choose a cruise with a bunch of geriatrics.’

‘Where did you take your passengers the day before yesterday?’

‘They had a free morning to look round the town and in the afternoon we took them on a bus trip, down to the RSPB reserve at Sumburgh Head for puffins. Tea in Scalloway.’

‘I’m surprised the exhibition at the Herring House wasn’t on the schedule. Bella Sinclair’s a big name. I’d have thought some of your customers would have enjoyed meeting the artist.’

‘A couple of them mentioned it. When we had to stay the extra night I considered fixing up transport for them to go, but in the end it was cancelled, wasn’t it?’ He gave the impression he was pleased he’d avoided the bother.

‘Who told you it was cancelled?’

‘Nobody told me. Not the people organizing the exhibition, at least. But there was a guy handing out flyers at the gangplank when they went down for the trip into town.’

‘Did you see him?’ Perez demanded.

‘No, I wasn’t on duty just then.’

‘Could I get to talk to someone who did?’

The purser looked at his watch and sighed.

Perez sat where he was and said nothing.

The purser stood up and gestured for Perez to follow him. An elderly couple leaned against the rail on the upper deck looking out at the town. The mist was already starting to clear, so at least there was something to look at. They were thin and brown and they were holding hands.

‘Honeymooners,’ the purser said as they approached. ‘You’d think at their age they’d have more sense.’ His tone changed when they were within earshot. ‘Come and meet Dr and Mrs Halliday, inspector. I think they might be able to help you.’ For the first time since Perez had entered his office he smiled.

Perez found the sudden transformation in his attitude and body language disturbing. But this was the man doing his job. It was all about playing a role.

The Hallidays were from Phoenix, Arizona. They were collectors of contemporary art. They even owned a small Bella Sinclair. ‘We were so disappointed that the exhibition opening was cancelled, inspector. George here had fixed up a taxi to take us and bring us back.’

‘Can you describe the man who gave you the flyer?’

The couple looked at each other. ‘It would be helpful,’ Perez said. He wondered why they hesitated.

‘I guess it’s hard to say,’ the man said, ‘because of the fancy dress. That was all I noticed.’

‘Fancy dress?’

‘Well, yes. He was dressed like a clown. Not the sort with a red nose and bright clothes. This one was all in black and white. Classy, you know. Like something from the commedia dell’arte.’

‘Was he wearing a mask?’

‘That’s right. A mask. I remember because our kids always used to find them kind of scary.’

By the time Perez reached the police station, the sun was shining. Taylor had been on the telephone to say that they were already at the airport at Dyce and scheduled on the first available flight out. ‘You’ll meet me and take me straight to the scene.’ No question.

In his office Perez looked at his watch. He only had half an hour before he’d have to set off for Sumburgh. He wandered into the incident room. Sandy was on the phone and didn’t notice him. It was clear that this was a personal conversation with one of Sandy’s Whalsay friends. There were arrangements to meet for drinks, gossip about some woman. Perez reached over and cut the connection. Sandy began to splutter indignantly, then stopped.

‘Not enough work, Sandy? That’s fine then, because there’s something I’d like you to do for me. A guy dressed as a clown was handing out flyers at Morrison’s Dock the day before yesterday to all the passengers coming off the cruise ship. Someone else must have seen him. Go and talk to anyone who was working there. Did anyone chat to him? Find out who he was and where he was staying.’

‘You think he’s our victim?’

‘Two strange men dressed as clowns in Shetland on the same day? A bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you think?’

Sandy looked sheepish and grinned. ‘Someone phoned for you,’ he said. ‘Kenny Thomson.’

‘What did he want?’

‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t speak to me. Nothing that won’t wait. He said it wasn’t urgent.’

So Perez left without phoning Kenny back, allowing more time than he needed for the drive south, thinking he could make the call from his mobile while he was hanging round at the airport. He had to drive right past Fran’s house on the way to Sumburgh. He saw her silhouette in the window of the bedroom she used as a studio. She was working. He imagined her standing in front of her easel, frowning, oblivious of everything going on around her. She said her work was all about concentration. Sometimes she spent all day on a piece, not even stopping to eat. He admired her passion, but he didn’t quite understand it. He couldn’t concentrate for more than twenty minutes at a time without wanting coffee, contact, the feedback of other people.

He speeded up and carried on down the road. Sumburgh was crowded with people who’d been trapped in Shetland by the fog. There was competition for places on the first plane south and some of the passengers were irritable. There was an English family: a man and a woman, a toddler in a buggy, a baby in a sling. ‘What sort of place is this?’ the woman said. Her voice was too loud, she needed other people to hear her. ‘A bit of mist and everything grinds to a stop. If this is your idea of an adventurous holiday, Charles, you can keep it. Next year we’re going back to Tuscany.’

As she set down a piece of charcoal, Fran caught a glimpse of Perez’s car driving past. She paused for a moment, half expecting him to stop, but he drove on. She watched with relief as he continued down the hill. The thought of him had been at the back of her mind all morning, but she didn’t want to dwell on it now. She had so little time to work. The school day was short and there were only a few more hours before she would need to collect Cassie from class. She turned back to the sketch, an idea for a larger piece, her head full of colour and shape. Perez was forgotten.

Chapter Fifteen

Edith had taken a day off work. Kenny was delighted. He liked nothing better than having her at home all day. This was how things had been arranged when his parents had been living here – his mother had never gone out to work. And it had been like this when his own children were young. Even when he was working outside it made him happy to know that she was in the house.

Because Edith wasn’t in a rush to get off to work, they had breakfast a little later than normal. Edith made the coffee she liked, spooning the grounds into the cafetiere, which she put on the Rayburn to keep warm, and pouring in the water from the kettle slowly and carefully. Kenny thought that later in the afternoon, when he’d finished the neeps and they’d walked on the hill together to look at the sheep, they would make love.

Looking at her standing with her back to him, reaching into the cupboard to fetch down her mug, he thought he would like to take her back to bed with him now. Her hair was still pinned up from her shower, so her neck was bare. She wore jeans which fitted well around her backside. He liked her in jeans so much better than in the smart work clothes. Even in middle age her body was firm.

He went up to her and stroked her neck with fingers which he knew were rough. She turned round and smiled at him, knowing just what he was thinking.

‘Not now,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to wait.’

And of course he would have to wait, because in these things women always got their way. They held all the cards. You couldn’t force them. He supposed that was how it should be but sometimes he thought it a little unfair.

At the table he watched her eat toast. Wholemeal now, always. She bought the bread from a bakery in Scalloway. She put lots of butter on and it had melted. Some had dripped on to her fingers and she licked them. At first she had been quite unselfconscious, then she saw him watching her. She smiled again and licked the fingers on her other hand very slowly. A game. Now he was quite content to wait until later before he took her to bed. She would play the game for him all day and the anticipation would be better than getting what he wanted straight away. The thought of that made him feel a little faint and he didn’t catch immediately what she was saying.

‘It seems wrong keeping that dead man in the hut for a whole day.’

‘The fog kept the police from Inverness from getting in.’ The evening before, he’d gone to the bar in Middleton and everyone was talking about it. He’d only stayed for one pint. The pleasure the people took in having a dead body close by seemed unnatural to him. If it was someone they knew they’d have behaved differently, but some people were even telling jokes.

‘I thought it was suicide. It seems a lot of fuss about a suicide.’

Kenny didn’t know what to say. He thought of the body swinging from the rafter. When he’d told Edith about the dead man she’d been so kind to him and had understood immediately what a shock it had been.

‘Oh my dear, you shouldn’t have had to see that.’

People died occasionally at the care centre. She said she’d never got used to it, but it seemed to him she took everything in her stride.

‘Aggie Watt came here yesterday,’ he said now. ‘She asked if the body could be Lawrence.’

‘It couldn’t be,’ Edith said. Then, ‘Or could it? Surely you’d have recognized your own brother.’

‘I’m pretty sure it’s not Lawrence, but I’d like to see the man again without the mask. I’ve been thinking about it.’ He’d lain awake a long time in the night, worrying about how Lawrence might have changed over the years, whether he might have made a terrible mistake. He’d thought Edith was awake, but he hadn’t told her about his fears, hadn’t felt able to tell her before about Aggie’s visit. He’d needed to sort out in his own mind what he thought before discussing it with her. ‘I wondered if I should ask that Fair Isle man, Jimmy Perez. Would they let me look at him again?’

She thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think you should ask him. I don’t think for a moment it is Lawrence, but it might set your mind at rest.’

Kenny thought he would phone Perez. He wouldn’t wait until the policeman was back at the jetty. He didn’t want to see the dead man again there. Lying out in a mortuary somewhere, the mask taken from his face, that would be different. More dignified.

All morning while he was working in the field he caught glimpses of Edith. She’d done a pile of washing and once the fog lifted she came to hang it out on the line behind the house. He stopped for a moment and watched her, so deft, lifting the sheets from the basket, folding and stretching them and pinning them on the line. He waited for her to turn and wave to him, but she didn’t seem to notice he was there. When he went down for his coffee, she had just finished washing the kitchen floor. She was on her hands and knees on a folded towel, wiping the last corner with a cloth. He stood in the porch in his stockinged feet. Again she must have heard him come in, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence until she’d finished. Then she turned and smiled at him.

‘Just wait for a minute until it dries.’ She was still kneeling at his feet and had to tilt her head to look up at him.

‘Why don’t we walk down to the Herring House?’ he said. ‘Get one of Martin’s posh coffees there. He’ll surely be open now.’

‘I can’t go looking like this.’ But he could tell she was pleased by the suggestion.

‘Why not? You look lovely. You always look lovely.’

They walked down the track together, hand in hand. Kenny felt as if he was on holiday too. He took a quick look towards the jetty. There was a police car there and tape stretched right across the entrance, but nothing much seemed to be happening. He guessed that the police from Inverness hadn’t arrived yet.

The café at the Herring House let in all the light whatever time of day it was. Extra windows had been built into the wall facing the water.

There were more people there than you’d usually get on a weekday morning, and Kenny recognized some of them. A couple of elderly ladies from Middleton who’d taken a trip out in case there was anything to see. They turned out for any reported accident or disaster. A journalist from the Shetland Times. It occurred to Kenny that the plane bringing in the Inverness police would also be carrying reporters from the national press. Now he was here he felt awkward. He supposed he and Edith were just like the others; they’d come to the Herring House in hope of news.

Martin Williamson came out from the kitchen to take their order. He had a light, almost dancing, way of walking that made Kenny think of a racehorse just before it went into the stalls. Kenny nodded at the other customers. ‘At least it’s good for business, then, having a dead body next door.’

Martin grinned. ‘Aye. I’ll not be sorry when they take it away though. It seems kind of weird, leaving it there all night. Mother’s in a right state about it. I don’t think she slept.’

‘I know she’s upset. She came to see me yesterday.’

‘You can’t blame her,’ Edith said. ‘When you think what happened to your father. It must bring it all back.’

‘Have you heard when the police from Inverness will get here?’ Kenny asked. He was thinking that Perez hadn’t phoned him back. When the dead man was taken away he’d have a chance to see him, then he’d know for certain that it couldn’t be Lawrence. The more he struggled to conjure his brother’s features in his head, the more they became blurred and slid away from him.

‘First plane out of Aberdeen,’ Martin said. ‘They’ll be in any time.’

Kenny asked for a cappuccino for Edith and a latte for himself. They always had the same when they came here. Because it seemed like a holiday he added a couple of pieces of cake to the order and Martin danced away.

They’d almost finished when Roddy Sinclair made an entrance. He stood at the door and heads turned. Everyone recognized him and there was a brief moment of silence before the conversation continued. He looked as if he’d just got out of his bed. His hair was tousled and he still seemed half asleep. Or maybe, Kenny thought, he’d been up all night. He didn’t find a table and wait for Martin to take his order, but walked towards the kitchen, leaned on the doorframe and shouted in.

‘Double espresso. Strong as you like.’ There were other people at the tables waiting to order, but nobody seemed to mind him jumping the queue. Typical Sinclair, Kenny thought. They’re arrogant, the lot of them. Across the tables, one of the Middleton old ladies smiled at the boy and gave him a little wave. Kenny thought that was typical too. Women would let the Sinclair boy get away with anything.

Roddy tilted his body away from the doorframe so he was standing upright.

‘Fantastic view from here,’ he said. ‘It always surprises me.’ He sauntered towards them. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

‘We’ll be going soon,’ Kenny said, but the boy seemed not to hear and sat down anyway. Outside now there was strong sunshine. A sailing boat was on the water halfway to the horizon. Kenny tried to work out who might own it and decided it didn’t belong to anyone local.

Roddy leaned forward across the table. ‘I understand you were the one to find the body.’ His accent was just as strong as when he’d been a boy. Kenny wondered if he practised at night in his Glasgow flat, in the hotel rooms in exotic cities. It was his trademark. He nodded.

Martin carried across the coffee. Roddy nodded his thanks, but continued to look at Kenny, and waited till Martin had moved away before continuing the conversation.

‘You’re sure he was a stranger?’ he asked. ‘You’d never seen him before?’

Kenny allowed himself to be distracted a moment by the smell of the espresso. If it tasted as good as it smelled he could be converted too. He didn’t want to make a scene here in front of Edith, but he wanted to tell Roddy Sinclair to mind his own business. What right did he have to interrupt them here? Spoil the time he had with his wife?

‘I didn’t recognize the man,’ Kenny said.

‘He was here at Bella’s launch,’ Roddy said. ‘But I didn’t take much notice of him then.’

‘You saw him alive?’

Kenny almost asked Roddy if the man could have been Lawrence, but what would Roddy know? Lawrence had left when Roddy was still a small boy. He was living in Lerwick with his parents and only came to Biddista to visit Bella. He had been an annoying boy even then, spoiled, running wild about the place.

‘Yes. I wish I’d talked to him. If we knew who he was and where he’d come from, we could just get back to normal.’

What would you know about normal? Kenny thought. It seemed a strange thing for the boy to say. Normal was the last thing Roddy had ever wanted. He wanted drama, a different woman every night. Surely he’d be enjoying this small excitement.

Roddy turned to Edith. ‘What do you make of all this?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It sounds very callous, but I can’t get excited by the death of a man I didn’t know.’

Roddy was about to answer, but he was interrupted by the sound of a car driving down the road outside. Two cars. Everyone’s attention was turned to the window. The old ladies from Middleton stood up so they could get a better view. Quite shameless. Despite himself, Kenny swivelled round in his chair so he could see too.

Jimmy Perez got out of one of the cars. With him was a tall, heavily built man with a bald dome of a head. You could tell even from this distance that he was the boss. There were two other men and a woman, and a couple of police officers Kenny recognized: Sandy from Whalsay and young Morag. Suddenly he didn’t want to be here any more, staring down at the spectacle like children at the circus. He stood up and waited for Edith to follow him home.