Thin Air: (Shetland book 6)

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘Tell us what happened this evening.’

  ‘It was their last night in Shetland,’ Caroline said, ‘and we wanted to mark it in some way. There was a charity dinner at the boat club. Food and music. We thought it would be better than letting them sit in here, brooding. And local people had wanted to express their sympathy, so we knew they’d be made welcome. That they’d be treated with proper sensitivity.’

  ‘You walked?’

  ‘We took the path along the cliff, yes. It’s not very far.’ Caroline shifted uneasily in her seat and Sandy thought the walking had been her idea. She’d be a great one for the benefits of exercise and fresh air.

  ‘Did you think that was safe in the fog?’ Willow kept the question polite, but Sandy could sense the hostility between them. It crackled like electricity. Two strong women, but otherwise different in every way. Willow would have been the rebel at school and Caroline the perfectly behaved head girl.

  ‘It wasn’t so bad when we set out. Besides, Lowrie has been playing on the cliffs here since he could walk. He wasn’t going to get lost.’ As if Willow was stupid for suggesting there might be any danger.

  ‘But Polly did lose her way?’

  There was a silence. Caroline couldn’t seem to explain the fact that Polly was missing. ‘Polly ran off on her own after the meal,’ she said at last. ‘We couldn’t have expected that. Marcus thought it was some sort of panic attack. She was there watching the musicians and then she’d disappeared. Eleanor’s death has made her kind of flaky.’ Sandy thought the woman had already picked up some of the accent. She’d turn into one of those soothmoothers who became more Shetland than the Shetlanders. He imagined her as a member of the parish council, fighting on behalf of the other crofters. A pillar of the community.

  ‘You’re sure she went of her own volition?’ Willow asked.

  ‘Well, she wasn’t kidnapped in front of an audience of fifty people!’ Caroline’s voice was sharp. The prefect was reasserting her authority.

  ‘Did you see her leave the room?’

  ‘No.’ Caroline looked up at Willow. ‘None of us did. It was a bit of a scrum at the end. As soon as the music stopped everyone got up to leave at once. The weather was so bad then that people wanted to get home. Folk who hadn’t been able to make the hamefarin’ came to congratulate Lowrie and me on their way out, so we were among the last to go. Marcus met us at the cloakroom downstairs, but Polly’s jacket had already gone. We thought she’d be waiting outside, but there was no sign of her.’ Another silence, then an admission. ‘It was a bit spooky actually. As if she’d disappeared into thin air. Just like the night that Eleanor went missing.’

  Perez had been looking out of the window during the conversation. Now he turned back into the room. For a moment Sandy thought he was going to make sense of all this, to tell them what lay behind the killings. Because Sandy thought that Jimmy had an idea. He’d been working it out in his head since Eleanor’s mother had phoned. Instead Perez said, ‘We should look for her.’ Just those words. Forceful, as if Polly wasn’t only a potential victim, but was essential to the solving of the case.

  They all looked at the inspector, but nobody moved.

  ‘We should look for her.’ Perez said the same words, but they were even more urgent this time.

  ‘The boys went straight back out when we got here and there was no sign of her,’ Caroline said. ‘I waited in the house to call you.’ She paused. ‘They haven’t found her yet. I’ve just spoken to them. They walked together along the cliff path back towards the club in case we just missed her, but now they’ve split up. Lowrie’s taking the cliffs because he knows them best. The others will search inland.’ Another hesitation. ‘Marcus said he’d look at the lochan where Eleanor was found.’

  Perez was on his feet and they were all looking at him. Now he was in charge. ‘We’ll check Meoness then, if your men are looking along the cliff path. Willow, will you do the beach between here and the hall? Sandy, you go to Voxter. Not along the road, but by the path that takes you past the planticrub where we found Eleanor’s phone. Check the fields and the ditches on either side of the path, in case Polly has tumbled. Then chat to George and Grusche and see if they noticed anything unusual this evening.’

  Caroline interrupted quickly. ‘There’s no point in going to Voxter. I’ve only just spoken to George to explain why we’d be late back. He didn’t mention anything.’

  ‘Was Grusche there?’

  ‘I presume so. George didn’t say.’

  ‘Go all the same, Sandy.’ Perez’s voice was firm. Sandy thought how splendid it was to have the old Perez back. There’d been a time following Fran’s death when he’d thought he’d be lost to them forever. ‘Anything out of the ordinary, report back to me.’

  None of them asked where Perez intended to search. They had the sense that he wouldn’t have told them anyway.

  Outside, Sandy thought that the fog was lifting a little. They’d passed the darkest point of the night. He walked away from Sletts, first onto the road and then by the path that led above the beach towards Voxter. His mind wandered. A week ago the Malcolmsons would have been preparing for the hamefarin’, the house full of activity and the smell of baking. Friends and family would be turning out to help make bunting and decorate the hall. Caroline would be in her element directing proceedings. Then he wondered if he would ever marry, and that led him on to thoughts of Louisa.

  The sky was definitely lighter now, but still he shone his torch and shouted Polly’s name. If she’d fallen she might see the pinprick of light in the gloom. He imagined finding her alive and well, and thought how pleased Jimmy would be then. At the planticrub he paused. But there was no sign of Polly here. No phone lying on the grass to be discovered. He looked down towards the sea. The sky was brighter still. A faint glimmering line along the horizon. There was a sharper point of light, which he assumed to be from Willow’s torch as she searched the beach. He walked on down the bank towards the Malcolmsons’ croft, shouting the woman’s name, thinking he must look like a madman, howling into the darkness.

  He’d just left the crub when his phone rang. He answered without seeing who was calling. ‘Jimmy? Is that you? Any news?’

  But it was a woman’s voice on the other end and it took him a moment to work out who was there. Mary Lomax.

  ‘Sandy, I’m really sorry.’ She seemed distraught, on the verge of tears.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘David Gordon has done a runner. I didn’t realize until I heard the sound of the car starting. He must have come down the back stairs. I tried to run out to stop the car, but I was just too late.’

  ‘You should tell Jimmy Perez.’ Sandy didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t want to take responsibility for the missing man. And Jimmy had told him to check on Grusche and George, so that was what he intended to do.

  The buildings at Voxter were darker shapes against the sky. Chickens stirred in the hen house as he passed. He stopped outside the house and looked in through the window. The light was still on in the kitchen. There was no sign of George in the chair, where Sandy had left him earlier in the evening, though a nearly empty bottle of whisky and a glass remained on the table. No sign of Grusche, either. Sandy thought if they had any sense they’d both be in their bed. Caroline had said she’d spoken to them when she’d phoned Voxter about the missing woman, but that might have been a while ago. Sandy wondered if George was outside helping in the search. He tapped on the window, but there was no response, so he walked round to the front door. He switched off his torch because there was light from the window and his eyes were accustomed to the dusk now. The door was unlocked and he went inside.

  There was a rush of sound and a white figure appeared in front of him. It was Grusche in an old-fashioned cotton nightgown and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. ‘Who is it? Lowrie, is that you?’ She sounded older than Sandy remembered, panicky and frail. He realized that if she’d come out of a lit bedroom, he would be jus
t a shape to her.

  ‘It’s Sandy Wilson. The detective from Lerwick.’ ‘Sandy, what are you doing here at this hour of the morning? You scared me.’ She reached out for a switch and suddenly the room – a small scullery with space for boots and coats – was full of light.

  He blinked. ‘Polly Gilmour is still missing. Jimmy Perez sent me here to see if she’d wandered this way.’

  ‘We’d have told you if she was here, Sandy. Of course we would. Caroline phoned earlier to say she was missing.’ She paused. ‘These have been terrible times. I’ll be glad when the English people go south again. They’ve brought nothing but trouble.’

  Sandy thought that Caroline was English too, but perhaps Grusche already counted her as local.

  ‘Could I speak to George?’

  She hesitated for a moment. ‘He’s asleep,’ she said. ‘He’d been drinking all evening and I sent him to bed.’ Her voice was bitter. Sandy decided you could never tell what went on between a man and his wife. The picture they showed to the world could be quite different from what went on in the home. It started with the wedding – all music and smiling, a kind of performance – and then unless you were lucky things started to crack. Maybe Grusche was so eager for Lowrie to move back to Shetland because George provided no companionship for her at all.

  She stood where she was, poised between the bedroom and the kitchen, as if she was unsure whether to go with him or back to her bed. In the end she wrapped the shawl around her head and led him into the kitchen.

  ‘I should try to wake George,’ Sandy said. Perez had told him to speak to the man.

  ‘You’d be wasting your time,’ Grusche replied. ‘You’ll get no sense out of him when he’s like this.’ She stood blocking the door and he saw she was adamant that her husband shouldn’t be disturbed.

  ‘Does it happen often?’

  She shrugged and moved to the Rayburn and lifted the kettle onto the hot plate.

  ‘Often enough. He needs help, but I don’t think he really wants to change. He’s not been the man I married since he left the lighthouse service.’

  ‘It must be hard living with him.’ Sandy couldn’t see how this had anything to do with the two murders, but he knew that Jimmy Perez wouldn’t walk away if a witness was just about to speak to him.

  ‘Not really. He’s a good man. He works hard and he’s always been a good father to Lowrie. He can be the life and soul of a party. He just needs a drink before he can face new people or difficult situations, and then he can’t stop drinking when he’s had a few drams inside him. There are lots of Shetlanders who are just the same.’

  Sandy thought that was true too.

  The kettle on the hob whistled. Grusche made the tea.

  ‘What do you think happened to Polly?’ she said. She put a mug of tea on the table in front of him.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Sandy sipped the tea. ‘It was very foggy. It’s easy to lose your way.’

  ‘She’ll maybe have been chasing after Eleanor’s ghost-child,’ Grusche said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She thought that she’d seen Peerie Lizzie. It seems the spirit appeared to her on the night of the hamefarin’. And then again on the beach the next day.’ Grusche paused. ‘Caroline and I took her out for lunch in Yell and I thought she was kind of obsessed with all that nonsense. I suppose if your best friend is killed, you lose your perspective. It’d be easy to start believing in the spirit world. And she was determined to track the lassie down.’ She paused. ‘Polly seemed rather mad to me, Sandy. I don’t think she’s entirely safe to be left alone. You need to find her.’

  Sandy wasn’t sure what he made of that, but he supposed that Willow and Jimmy would be interested in Polly Gilmour’s state of mind. ‘You’ve known her for a long time?’

  ‘She was one of Lowrie’s friends since they started at university together.’

  ‘And what did you make of her?’

  ‘She was a quiet little thing,’ Grusche said. ‘Always overawed by Caroline and Eleanor. Grateful for their attention. They loved having an admirer, of course. It was very good for their egos to have Polly hanging on their every word. I knew that she’d do well, though. She worked very hard. And she wasn’t one then for weird imaginings.’

  ‘But that last time you saw her, when you took her out to lunch, you thought she was a bit flaky?’ Sandy asked.

  ‘She said she didn’t believe in the ghost, that there’d be some rational explanation for the girl she’d seen, but I think she was trying to convince herself as much as us. It’d be easy enough to frighten Polly and tip her into a panic.’ Grusche stared at Sandy as if she was telling him something important. ‘If that was what you wanted to do.’

  ‘Caroline said Polly had a panic attack at the dinner tonight and that’s why she ran out.’ Sandy finished his tea and thought he should get back to Sletts and see if there was any news of the woman. He shouldn’t sit here in the warm gossiping, though it was pleasant to be inside.

  Grusche stood too and led him back to the front door. ‘They should never have dragged her and the others out to that dinner. It was Caroline’s idea. Lowrie was all for leaving them alone last night.’

  ‘Caroline’s a strong woman,’ said Sandy.

  ‘She is.’ Grusche allowed herself a smile. ‘But she loves my boy to bits, and in the end that’s all that matters.’

  Sandy didn’t quite believe that. He thought Caroline might turn into one of those bunny-boilers, very jealous and possessive. He wondered how Lowrie would be in twenty years’ time. Would he be asleep in his bed after too much whisky and a day of being nagged by his strong woman? He thought Grusche wouldn’t have been an easy person to live with, either. Perhaps George could deal with her better when he was still working his shifts in the lighthouse and there was an escape for him every month. Perhaps she’d been happier then, when she just had Lowrie to keep her company. Caroline and Lowrie would be working and living together every day, though. Sandy couldn’t see how that arrangement could work successfully.

  ‘I should go and see what’s happening,’ he said. ‘Polly might be back at Sletts now and we could be worrying over nothing.’

  ‘Aye, maybe.’ But he could tell that Grusche wasn’t convinced. As he left the house, the cockerel in the hen house began to squawk and he saw that it was almost morning.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Willow made her way down to the beach and felt a sudden spurt of anger. What the shit am I doing here? I’m the senior investigating officer in this case, not a rookie plod to be ordered around by the great Jimmy Perez. He wouldn’t have spoken to a male superior officer like that!

  The anger was directed first at herself, because she hadn’t taken charge of the search when she’d had the chance. Because she’d allowed the man to walk all over her. Then it was turned towards Perez, who’d been cold and uncommunicative since they’d left Springfield House. What was it about the man that turned her into a pathetic girl, unable to assert her authority for a moment?

  The tide was out and she walked on the damp sand, which was ridged, hard under her feet. Here the fog was patchy; sometimes it was so dense that she lost all sense of direction and wandered towards the water, and occasionally it lifted so that she could make out the lights in Sletts. She was shouting Polly’s name and swinging her torch in an arc so that it would be seen from all directions, but she felt this was pointless. Why would Polly be on the beach, when the holiday house and safety were close by? Surely there would be nothing in Sletts to scare her. No, Jimmy Perez was going it alone again, playing the hero. This was more about his ego, and proving to himself and to the world that he was back at the top of his game, than saving a young woman’s life.

  There was a sudden breeze from the sea, which swirled the mist in strange patterns and she thought she saw a figure standing near the water. She told herself that she was dreaming or the faint light on the horizon was playing tricks with her imagination, but all the same she felt chilled, sudde
nly scared. As she got closer to the tideline she saw that it was no Peerie Lizzie, no young girl dressed in white. This was an adult clothed in a waterproof jacket and a hood. The fog thickened again and the figure disappeared. Willow screamed Polly’s name and ran towards the shadow, but on the flat sand directions were deceptive and she thought she could be running in completely the opposite direction. She stood still and listened. The tide must be turning now. She heard soft waves breaking. On a morning like this Elizabeth Geldard had slipped away from her adoptive mother, or had been led into danger by her, and been drowned as the water slid down the voe and filled the gullies behind her, cutting off her escape back to the shore. For the first time Willow realized how easily that could have happened.

  There was another sound. Human, not supernatural. Choked sobs.

  ‘Polly!’ Yelling as hard as she could. But it was like screaming in a dream, when no sound comes out. Her voice was lost in the wide expanse of the beach and there was no response. ‘Polly, come away from the water, it’s dangerous there.’ She wondered if the woman had had a real breakdown, or had been attacked and left wandering on the shore. She listened again, but now there was silence, apart from the splash of the waves.

  Then, like a curtain rising, the mist ahead of her cleared and she saw the figure clearly, still some way off to the north of her and on the part of the beach that was closest to the Meoness community hall. The water had already come up to the figure’s calves. Willow was reminded of a series of sculptures that she and her mother had visited on a beach in Merseyside. Antony Gormley’s cast-iron figures, which had been moulded from his own body, planted in the sand and covered twice a day by the tide. Each of them had seemed entirely lonely as the water covered them, and Willow had watched, fascinated, as they disappeared a little at a time under the sea.

  She ran across the shore, determined to get there before the fog returned. Then she realized that the figure was too tall to be Polly. This was a man, standing motionless and waiting to be swallowed up by the tide.