Thin Air: (Shetland book 6)

by Ann Cleeves

  George was looking at Sandy and was expecting a response. The place was so quiet that they had been able to hear Grusche’s spinning wheel in the next room, the rhythm as soothing as a lullaby.

  ‘I just wanted to understand,’ Sandy said at last. ‘The story as we’d been told it just didn’t make sense.’ He paused. ‘Did Eleanor know the truth about Peerie Lizzie? Did Lowrie tell her the full background?’ Because why wouldn’t he? Lowrie was sophisticated and he lived in London. He wouldn’t understand why George would feel awkward about the true story of the dead child being made public. He would probably have lost the Shetland islanders’ habit of restraint and discretion. And it would make a great programme for Eleanor. A piece of detective work going back over time. Sandy could see that she would be excited.

  ‘I don’t think he would have told her about it,’

  George said. ‘He’d grown up with thinking of it as something to keep in the family.’

  But Lowrie might well have told his new wife. She was a family member too, an academic full of curiosity about unusual places and the people who lived in them. Perhaps Caroline had passed on the story to her friend. A gift. Something to cheer Eleanor up when she was depressed. Not realizing that it was any kind of secret.

  The hum of the spinning had stopped. Sandy realized that if they had been able to hear the wheel, Grusche had probably heard every word of the conversation. She appeared now at the door, big and angular. She was wearing wide linen trousers and a loose fisherman’s smock. She ignored Sandy.

  ‘I’m going to phone Lowrie,’ she said. ‘Offer them a lift back from the boat club. In this fog I don’t think it’s safe for them to be walking back along the cliffs.’

  George nodded and she disappeared again. They heard her speaking in the other room, but this time she’d closed the door and they couldn’t make out the individual words. Sandy thought that he should go. He wanted to tell Jimmy Perez what he’d discovered, and he’d promised Mary Lomax that he’d only be away for an hour.

  He got to his feet just as Grusche returned to the kitchen. ‘They say they want to walk and anyway they don’t know when they’ll be done. They haven’t finished eating yet.’ She frowned. ‘I hope they take care. We want no more tragedies here.’ She flashed a sudden smile at Sandy. ‘We mothers worry too much. You wait until you have your own child, Sandy. You’ll understand then.’

  Out in his car he saw that he had a missed call from Perez. There was a voicemail: ‘We need to track down Monica Leaze, Sandy. There’s been a development and we’ll stay here for a while, though we’d like to get back to Unst this evening. Can you book us onto the last ferry from Yell?’

  Sandy tried to phone back, but there was no reply. He drove to Springfield House. The fog was patchy and cleared occasionally to let bright shafts of sunshine light up the hills. Outside the hotel he paused, thinking about the girl who’d lived there, who’d led such a short and troubled life.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Perez stared at the sketch of the woman on the easel in Monica Leaze’s loft. Eleanor Longstaff was captured in pencil. Of course she looked like the body he’d seen in the tiny lochan, but this wasn’t an exact representation. He felt just as he’d felt when he’d heard the child on Eleanor’s recorder singing Peerie Lizzie’s song: that there was a discrepancy, something not quite right. He continued to look at it and for a while found it hard to believe that the artist who’d made the disturbing and detailed interiors he’d seen with Fran in the gallery had sketched this too. Then he remembered that Leaze had also painted the little girl in the white dress and thought there was something similar in the tone of both figures. A jauntiness and a sense of mischief, which seemed almost blasphemous now. It was as if the artist was pleased that Eleanor was dead, was amused by the murder.

  He became aware of Willow standing behind him. ‘We have to talk to the woman,’ she said. ‘She must have seen Eleanor’s body. At the very least she’s a witness.’

  Perez was about to contradict her, but stopped himself. At this point nothing was certain. Instead he went for a mild observation. ‘There doesn’t seem to be water in the background.’

  ‘There’s nothing in the background except a few pencil strokes.’ The words burst out. He saw they were a release of her pent-up frustration.

  He wished he could say something to make her calmer. Like this she reminded him of Cassie, panicky and on the edge of a tantrum. He calmed her by holding her to him, very tight. There was a brief moment when he pictured himself holding Willow, squeezing the stress from her, and then he remembered that he hadn’t called Cassie that day. He never went a day without speaking to her. ‘I have to make a phone call. Sorry. I’ll be quick.’ He climbed down the steep wooden staircase to the hall below, sensing Willow’s displeasure tracking after him.

  Cassie sounded pleased to hear from him. ‘When are you planning to be back?’ Her voice was even. She’d never been a child to make demands.

  ‘Soon. Certainly by the end of the weekend.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘We’ll both be glad to get home,’ Perez said.

  ‘Will you take me to Fair Isle when you come back?’

  ‘You have school,’ he said, fudging it. ‘It’s too far to go in a day.’

  ‘We could go for a long weekend. I asked my teacher. She said it would be fine to have a couple of days off. She thinks it’s an important thing for me to do.’

  ‘Then we’ll go.’ There was nothing else to say. ‘The first weekend when the weather’s good, when it’s calm enough to take the Good Shepherd.’

  She didn’t reply, but he heard a gentle sigh at the other end of the line. Satisfaction because she’d got her way.

  In the loft Willow was still fretting, but she was calmer. The yoga training perhaps. ‘What do you think, Jimmy? How can we find Monica? This is the only address we have, and Annie’s like Neighbourhood Watch on speed. If there was any gossip to be gained about the woman, then she’d have it.’

  ‘We could try the gallery.’ He thought he’d like to look at the painting of the girl in white again, if it was still there. He wasn’t quite sure what good that would do, but it seemed important.

  ‘Of course.’ There was relief in her words because at least they had a plan of action. ‘It’ll be shut, but maybe someone nearby will have some information. We’ll be able to track down the key-holder at least.’

  Outside, she was set to drive off immediately, but Perez insisted on going next door to thank Annie.

  ‘Did you find anything helpful?’ The woman wanted to keep him there, chatting. She even had her hand on his arm. This was more about her being lonely than inquisitive.

  ‘Not really. As you said, it looks as if Monica has moved on. We’ll try her landlord. But you’ve been a great help all the same.’ And then he had to walk away because Willow was flashing him evil looks from the driver’s seat. Annie stood in the doorway watching until they’d turned the car and driven off.

  He directed Willow to the gallery and left a message for Sandy at the same time. They drove through an empty hillside scarred with peat banks. In the gloom everything was dark and colourless. The gallery was so well camouflaged that Willow almost shot past, and when Perez pointed out the building she slammed on the brakes and had to back up to get into the car park. The door was locked, but there was a light inside and when they banged on the door a woman opened it to them.

  ‘The gallery’s not open in the evenings.’ She had a European accent that Perez couldn’t quite make out. French?

  ‘We’re police officers.’ Willow was already holding out her warrant card. The woman stood aside to let them in. Inside the space was quite different from how Perez had remembered it, and the unreliability of his recall troubled him for a moment. How could it be so altered from the picture he’d kept in his head? It seemed smaller and more drab. Perhaps it had seemed grander on the night of the opening exhibition because of Monica Leaze’s energy and the sense of occasion. Beca
use Fran was there with him.

  He saw the painting of the girl in the white dress on the far wall and went straight towards it, leaving Willow to engage with the woman. The murmur of conversation behind him didn’t distract him. The girl in the painting at least was as he remembered her. There was the knowing smile, and the curls. She was just as Polly Gilmour had described the child she’d seen on the beach. He turned back to join the women.

  ‘This is Catherine Breton,’ Willow said. She frowned as if she resented his lack of attention. ‘She’s a potter. She has a studio here and looks after the place.’

  ‘Do you know Monica Leaze?’ Perez felt foolish as soon as he’d put the question. It was the first thing Willow would have asked.

  ‘Of course. She’s a painter. She exhibits here.’ The woman was dark and heavily built, with muscular arms. There was clay under her fingernails. Perez sensed that she just wanted to get back to work.

  ‘Do you have any idea where she is now?’

  She shrugged. ‘Monica has a complicated domestic life. I’m never sure exactly where she is.’

  ‘Tell us about that.’

  She must have realized that they wouldn’t go away because she led them into her studio. At one end there was a beaten-up sofa and a low table. She sat them down there. A glass wall showed through to the gallery.

  ‘This must be like working in a goldfish bowl,’ Willow said.

  ‘It’s part of the deal. I get to live in Shetland, and the studio comes for free.’ Catherine paused. ‘And in winter we get few visitors here.’

  ‘So tell us about Monica.’

  ‘She’s a painter from London. A good painter, and recognized. She has a . . .’ the woman paused, seeking the right word, ‘. . . turbulent relationship with her partner. A couple of years ago she decided that she couldn’t live with him full-time. He bored her.’

  Perez’s thoughts were racing. He remembered his conversation with Cilla, Eleanor’s mother. Cilla had said that Ian would bore Eleanor eventually. Perhaps Eleanor and Monica knew each other from London. Perhaps they were friends. If Eleanor already had Monica’s contact details that would explain the lack of family name or phone number in the notebook. He looked up at the potter and kept his voice calm. ‘So she moved to Shetland.’

  ‘She rented a house in Shetland. But she doesn’t live here all the time. She has a daughter. Grandchildren. And she still maintains a relationship with her husband. So it’s a kind of semi-detached attachment that she has with the islands.’

  Another complicated family, Perez thought. Like me and Cassie and Duncan. But perhaps it’s a good thing that families have changed over the years. I think my mother suffocated in her marriage. And I kind of suffocated as a result. Now we let some air and space in and give individuals a chance to breathe and grow.

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  Catherine considered. She was a very precise woman, Perez could see. ‘A week ago. On the Friday morning.’

  The day before the hamefarin’. The day before Eleanor’s murder.

  ‘Could you tell us about the meeting?’

  ‘Monica called in here. There’d been some family crisis in London, she said. One of the grandchildren was ill. She’d decided to go home. She asked if I could let the owner of the gallery know. She’d agreed to run a workshop here later in the month and she wasn’t sure that she’d be back in time.’ Catherine looked at her watch. It was clear that she felt reluctant to spend any longer with them. ‘She seemed pleased to be going back to London. Almost excited to be leaving. She claims to love Shetland, but she misses the city, I think, and her friends there.’

  ‘Does Monica have any friends in Yell?’ Perez thought the woman he’d seen in the gallery with Fran had been sociable. She’d enjoyed an audience. Monica might find Annie’s questions too intrusive, but he couldn’t imagine her leading an entirely solitary life while she was in Shetland.

  ‘She’s very close to Jen Arthur and her parents.’

  ‘And they are . . .’

  ‘Jen’s a musician, a songwriter. She has a young family. Divorced.’ Catherine allowed herself a brief smile. ‘She found her husband very boring too. They met at school. Married too young, according to Jen. She had two sons with him, then decided that she’d be better on her own.’

  ‘Is her ex-husband Neil Arthur? Lives in Meoness in Unst? He’s a plumber.’ Willow interrupted with the questions, suddenly excited. It took Perez a moment to make the connection. Neil Arthur’s second wife was Vaila, Lowrie’s cousin. They had Neil’s sons to stay with them every other weekend. Another complicated family trying to make things work. And Vaila claimed to have seen the ghost of Peerie Lizzie. She’d also met Eleanor on the afternoon of her death.

  ‘That’s right.’ Catherine stood up. She’d been barely polite throughout the conversation and now she was making it clear that she wanted them to leave.

  Willow and Perez got to their feet.

  ‘Do you like Monica?’ He asked the question without really thinking about it. There was a pause and he expected a bland and conventional answer. Instead the response was surprising and honest.

  ‘Not much. She’s self-centred. Unpredictable. A little arrogant. She doesn’t care about hurting people if they get in her way.’ Catherine paused for a beat. ‘But I think she would be a loyal friend. You wouldn’t want Monica as an enemy, but if she was your friend she’d fight for you until the end.’

  They left the studio and returned to the main body of the gallery. Perez was drawn again to the portrait of the child in white.

  ‘Do you know the model for the painting? Is it her granddaughter?’

  Catherine shook her head. ‘It was painted a long time ago. Monica had kept it and only brought it up for the exhibition last year. Then Roland, the owner, persuaded her to leave it. It does his credibility good to have a Monica Leaze in the gallery, even though he knows it’s unlikely to sell at the price he’s put on it. That’s Freya, Monica’s daughter. Monica was happy to hang it here because she says the girl was conceived in Shetland. She made it sound like a kind of joke.’

  In the car back to the ferry terminal Perez was on the phone to Sandy. More requests. ‘Can we rouse someone at NorthLink and Flybe and see if Monica Leaze left Shetland on the day of the murder. Or the day after. The Sunday. It’d also be great to find out if Eleanor met her on her flying visit to Shetland the week before. I think Monica is friendly with the director of Shetland Arts, so Mareel might be a logical place for them to meet. Do you know any of the kids who work in the bar there? See if they remember the two women meeting. They’d have stood out. Both English, both stylish.’ He paused for breath and imagined Sandy jotting down notes, rather slowly, on a scrap of paper. ‘Did you get all that, Sandy?’

  ‘I went to see George Malcolmson,’ Sandy said. ‘I had an idea.’

  ‘What idea would that be, Sandy?’ Perez was glad that he was on the phone. The mood she was in, Willow would already have lost her temper with the younger man.

  ‘I was talking to Louisa about the fact that she was adopted. I wondered about Lizzie Geldard.’ He paused and Perez didn’t make any attempt to hurry him. Sandy would need time to gather his thoughts. ‘It seems she was the natural child of Sarah Malcolmson. Story is that Gilbert Geldard seduced the girl when she was only fifteen. Roberta took in the little girl, not knowing the history. I wondered how she’d feel about the girl if she found out the truth.’

  ‘You think Roberta might have drowned Lizzy Geldard?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Sandy sounded anxious and worried that he was making a fool of himself. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I can see how that might happen.’ Perez thought that an angry woman might blame the child, rather than the man she would be forced to stay married to for appearances’ sake. If Gilbert had loved Lizzie because she was his daughter, to kill her would be a terrible act of revenge. And a denial – a way of eliminating the proof of her husband’s flaws.

  ‘I don’t
see how it could have any relevance to this case, though,’ Sandy said.

  Perez didn’t answer. He was thinking that the heart of the investigation lay in complex families trying to survive.

  ‘How have you and Willow got on?’ Sandy asked. ‘I booked you onto the last ferry. Are you heading back now?’ He sounded nervous.

  ‘It was very interesting,’ Perez said. ‘We’ll fill you in when we get back. We’re hoping to get the earlier ferry, so we should see you soon.’

  Willow was driving like a maniac down the narrow roads. The fog had settled again and visibility was poor. Occasionally house lights would swoop at them out of the gloom, or headlights would appear straight ahead of them so that she had to swerve onto the verge. But Perez didn’t ask her to slow down. Like Willow, he was desperate to get back to Unst. He couldn’t bear the idea that they might have to wait an hour for the last ferry. He sensed that they’d soon reach the end of the investigation and they needed to be on the most northerly island of the archipelago before there was another tragedy.

  Sandy was looking out for them. It was nine o’clock. As they opened the main door to the Springfield House the long-case clock in the hall chimed the hour. He had the light on in the kitchen and had been peering out at the shadowy courtyard to check that the car he’d heard belonged to them. He’d looked like an anxious child, left alone in the house for the first time, waiting for his parents to return.

  ‘I need tea.’ Willow slumped in one of the chairs and took off her shoes. Perez saw that there was a small hole in the toe of her hand-knitted sock.

  Sandy switched on the kettle. ‘So, did you find Monica?’

  Perez explained about the empty bungalow and the visit to the gallery.

  ‘So you think she was away before the killings?’ Sandy said. ‘I can’t confirm that. Nobody from North-Link or Flybe will be available until seven tomorrow morning.’

  ‘She can’t have left on the Friday.’ Willow had her hands cupped round the mug of tea and Perez thought she looked exhausted. ‘She saw Eleanor’s body.’ She explained to Sandy that they’d seen a sketch of the dead Eleanor in Monica’s house.