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Cold Earth

Page 25

by Ann Cleeves


  A middle-aged man was seated in a corner reading a newspaper. Otherwise the room was empty.

  ‘Mr Jamieson?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’ He might have been from Shetland originally, but his voice had been weathered by other places and the trace of accent had almost disappeared.

  Sandy introduced himself.

  ‘And how can I help?’

  ‘I’m part of the team investigating the murders out at Tain. We’re making routine enquiries about all the people who live close to the crime scene. The Hays’ farm is one of the properties nearby.’

  ‘So you want to know all about Michael?’

  Sandy nodded.

  ‘I can offer you a dreadful cup of coffee before the hordes arrive.’ Jamieson nodded towards a filter machine. ‘I warn you, it’s probably been standing there since break time.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Wise choice.’ He nodded for Sandy to take a seat next to him. ‘I don’t know what to tell you about Michael. He’s one of those kids who never stand out. Well enough behaved so that he doesn’t irritate. Not particularly bright, but not so stupid that he needs extra help. Steady. Stable. Maybe a little bit boring, but in a school like this there are so many divas that that’s quite refreshing. His future is mapped out for him. He wants to join his father on the farm. His mother would like him to go away to Agricultural College first, to widen his horizons a bit, but Michael doesn’t see the point and neither does his father. He’s got a stubborn streak, so I think he’ll probably get his own way.’

  ‘He’s got a girlfriend,’ Sandy said.

  ‘Gemma.’ The teacher smiled. ‘Cast in the same mould. But a little bit more chatty. She did get her way, and left before Highers.’

  ‘So there were never any concerns about Michael? No sudden outbursts of temper?’

  ‘Nothing at all like that. What you see is what you get. I suppose the only time I ever saw him lose it was with Andy.’ He looked at Sandy to check the name meant something.

  Sandy nodded. ‘The older brother.’

  ‘Hard to imagine two siblings so unalike. Andy was bright and so full of charm that you couldn’t help like him, even when he was back-chatting big-style.’

  ‘He must have been a hard act to follow.’

  ‘Maybe. But Michael never tried to. If anything, I think he found Andy embarrassing. A bit of a show-off. I never felt that Michael wanted to be like him.’

  Sandy was startled by the electric bell that shrieked from the corner of the room and marked the end of the school day. He asked his next question quickly. Soon all the other teachers would arrive and he might lose the chance. ‘So what happened when Michael lost his rag with Andy?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure what provoked it. Apparently Andy had been goading Michael all day. Something about Gemma and about how they were old and settled before their time. Why don’t you just get married and have done with it? And finally Michael hit back, said at least he had a girlfriend. Andy was all talk and no action. All he did was dream about it. His love life was one big fantasy. And suddenly they were scrapping in the yard like twelve-year-olds, everyone gathered round, watching and cheering them on. You know what it’s like.’

  Sandy nodded. He knew. The girls with their high-pitched screaming and the boys yelling, ‘Fight! Fight!’ until a teacher came along to pull the brawlers apart.

  ‘That’s it, really. Nothing very major, in the scheme of things.’ Jamieson folded his newspaper.

  There were footsteps in the corridor. Outside crowds of children ran through the rain towards the gate. Some of them didn’t have coats. Sandy remembered that. How somehow it was uncool to come to school with a big coat.

  The staffroom door opened and a group of teachers walked in, chatting and laughing. A young woman in a tiny skirt, thick black tights and long boots approached him, arm outstretched. ‘You must be Sandy. Maggie said you wanted to chat about Andy.’

  Sally Martin made him fresh coffee and, once the machine had started to work, the room was nearly empty again. The teachers who had any sort of commute home wanted to be on their way. Sandy could hear them talking about the possibility of another landslide as they left.

  ‘What about you?’ Sandy took the mug of coffee from her. She looked so young that she could have been a student herself. ‘Do you need to get off?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a flat in Lerwick. I can walk home. Not much fun in this weather, but I’m so new to it that I still enjoy the drama of being out in the storm.’ Her voice was English, quite deep and classy.

  ‘Is this your first job?’ Sandy thought it must be. It wasn’t just that she looked so young; it was something about the starry-eyed enthusiasm.

  ‘Yeah. My parents are island freaks and brought me and my brother here when we were children. I’d just finished my postgrad teacher training and saw the post advertised. I didn’t think I had a chance of getting it, but here I am, already in my third year and loving it.’ She looked up at him. ‘Maggie said you were investigating the murders out at Ravenswick.’ She paused and gave a little frown. Something about it made Sandy think she was like an actress, always conscious of her audience. Perhaps because she was so bonny that she was used to people staring at her. ‘I’m sure Andy wouldn’t be involved in anything like that.’

  ‘It’s just routine enquiries,’ Sandy said. ‘We’re checking all the people who live close to the crime scene. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And Maggie said you were the best person to talk to about Andy Hay.’

  ‘He was the first student I met when I arrived here,’ Sally said. ‘The head got him to show me around. He’d just started the sixth form and had that swagger that kids get because they suddenly feel grown-up. And Andy was funny. He described the other teachers as we walked past their classrooms, summing them up in a couple of lines. The comments weren’t always complimentary, and I knew I shouldn’t be encouraging him, but I couldn’t help laughing.’

  ‘You taught him?’ Sandy wondered why he’d never had a teacher like Sally Martin.

  ‘English and theatre studies. He was really very good at both. He had the confidence to be creative, to take risks, if you know what I mean.’

  Sandy didn’t, but he nodded his head. He was thinking too that the young man he’d seen at the Hays’ farm hadn’t seemed very confident to him. He wondered what had changed between Andy leaving school and arriving back in Shetland after dropping out of university. Perhaps when he was with other bright kids, he’d realized he wasn’t quite so brainy and that had come as a shock. Sandy had known friends go south and come back happier to be a big fish in a small pool than to flounder in an anonymous city without any support.

  ‘Did Andy have a girlfriend?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Sally had finished her coffee. She crossed her legs. Sandy tried not to be distracted. ‘He was part of the arty gang that hung out in Mareel and were members of the Youth Theatre there, but I don’t think there was anyone special.’

  ‘A boyfriend perhaps?’

  She paused for a moment. ‘You think he might be gay? I don’t think so. And it wouldn’t have been a big deal, not in the crowd he mixed with. Not in this school at all, really.’

  ‘Mr Jamieson said there was a fight with his brother and that was something about a girl.’ Sandy wanted to have something to take back to Willow and Jimmy Perez.

  ‘I heard there was a fight. I didn’t know what it was about. I’m guessing that Michael provoked it. Andy really wasn’t the fighting kind.’ She flashed him a smile, but Sandy could tell she was starting to lose interest. Perhaps she wanted to be home, out of the storm, to start her evening. He wondered if she lived on her own in the flat in Lerwick.

  ‘Andy had a very public argument with one of the victims,’ he said. ‘Tom Rogerson.’

  ‘Well, I can guess what that would have been about. Most of the guys in the Youth Theatre would have had a go at Rogerson, given the chance. He was t
he councillor leading the campaign to cut arts funding by seventy per cent. I don’t see it as a credible motive for murder, though.’ She turned to face him. Her dark hair was cut in a bob and it caught the light as she moved.

  ‘No.’ Besides, Sandy thought, that wouldn’t explain Alison Teal’s death. It seemed that her acting days were long behind her, and she wouldn’t have had any dealings with island politics.

  The teacher’s phone buzzed. She looked at the text, smiled and her fingers moved swiftly over the keypad to send a reply. ‘Oh, lovely! My boyfriend’s finished work early, so he can give me a lift home.’

  It seemed the drama of the storm had lost its magic. Sandy had pictured himself walking into town with her, them battling together against the weather, and felt oddly resentful. As if she’d led him on, though he could see that was ridiculous.

  ‘He’s waiting outside.’ Sally was already on her feet, pulling on her coat. ‘Have you finished? I really don’t think there’s anything else I can help you with.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s all for now.’ He thought of asking if he could have a lift, but decided against it. He imagined how awkward it would be, crammed in the back while she and her man chatted about their days. Suddenly he wanted to be in Louisa’s house in Yell, in the quiet room where her mother sat in her chair by the window. Standing at the main door into the school and watching the teacher run across the yard to a waiting car, he thought that Sally Martin was a woman who could really screw up a young man’s mind. He wondered if Andy Hay had some sort romantic crush on her, what she might have done to encourage it, and if that was why he’d ended up back in Shetland.

  By the time Sandy got back to the police station his trousers were soaking and the rain had run down the neck of his coat. But he’d remembered the buns and, when he opened the door to the ops room, Jimmy and Willow were there talking as if they were friends again. They gave a little cheer when they saw him, laughed when he hung his coat over the radiator and it started to steam. Willow made a pot of tea and put the cakes onto a plate. Sandy thought that between them they’d soon bring the case to a conclusion. It seemed that all was well with the world.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  When he arrived back at the police station after speaking to Kathryn Rogerson, Perez found Willow watching the recording of her interview with Jonathan Teal. She was hunched over the desk in a small room, her hair falling over her shoulders. He remembered stroking her neck the evening before, rubbing the tension from it. Without a word he pulled up a chair so that he was sitting beside her. She pressed a button to replay it and her voice filled the space.

  All the way back to Lerwick he’d wondered if he should speak to her about the night they’d spent in the house in Ravenswick. Apologize maybe, though she’d not been a passive partner. I’m sorry, that’s not usually the way I behave when I invite a woman into my home. Then he’d thought perhaps it might be the way she did behave, if the opportunity arose. Sex without strings. Nothing wrong with that after all, between consenting adults. Perhaps there was no need for either of them to speak about it and she’d think he was making a fuss about nothing, if he did. He heard Fran’s voice in his head again: Jimmy Perez, you’re probably the nicest guy in the world, but you do worry far too much.

  However, and this was the big deal, the cruncher: he wanted the strings. Not some work fling or one-night stand. He’d never seen the attraction in those – he was so arrogant that he felt he deserved better. Or he was too naively romantic. Now he knew that he wanted Willow as part of his life. If he’d been free and without responsibility, he’d have found a way to make it work. He’d sorted out that much, on the drive back from Ravenswick. And what did that say about his commitment to care for Cassie? How could he possibly consider bringing another woman into her life when his stepdaughter was still so young? Fran had entrusted the girl to him. It would seem like the worst kind of betrayal.

  He still wasn’t sure how to play it, when he went into the office and found Willow watching Jono Teal again on the screen. She turned and smiled at him.

  ‘Jimmy Perez, I thought you were avoiding me.’

  ‘Maybe I have been.’

  Suddenly she pressed the button again and Teal was frozen on the screen, his face turned to the camera, his mouth still open. ‘I want you to know that I don’t go to bed with all my colleagues. No pressure, but I just wanted to tell you that I don’t take that sort of thing lightly.’

  He looked at Willow carefully, thinking for a moment that she was still teasing him, but she was just waiting for his response. ‘Nor do I,’ he said.

  She threw back her head and laughed. ‘Jimmy Perez, don’t you think I don’t know that? You’ve never done anything lightly. You’re the most serious man I’ve ever met.’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ he said.

  ‘I know. Guilt and responsibility, and all those grown-up emotions that I probably don’t understand. You need time to sort yourself out.’ Suddenly she was serious herself. ‘I can wait, Jimmy. For a little while at least.’ Then she switched on the screen again, so he could watch the interview from the beginning.

  Soon afterwards they moved to the ops room. Sandy came in from the High School, drenched and miserable, but with a bag of cakes bought from the shop in the street. The cakes were almost dry, because he’d been holding them under his coat, and they gave a little cheer when they saw he had not forgotten them.

  ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, Sandy,’ Perez said. ‘I should have phoned to arrange to pick you up on my way back from Ravenswick. I just had other stuff on my mind.’

  Willow caught his eye and started to giggle. Sandy was hanging his coat on the radiator, so he didn’t notice.

  ‘Where do we go from here?’ Willow took charge, focused again on the case. ‘From what Alison’s brother told us, it’s clear that we were right: she and Rogerson were organizing sex workers in the islands. I’m guessing they were mostly targeting the guys in the floatels and in the hotel at Sullom, but islanders seem to have signed up as clients too.’

  ‘Does that mean we’re looking at a killer who wanted to shut down the whole operation?’ Sandy was eating a chocolate brownie and the words were muffled.

  ‘Did your mother never tell you not to speak with your mouth full?’ But Perez thought the man had a point. ‘So who are we looking at? Some religious nut who hates the idea of prostitution? An aggrieved partner of one of the men using the service?’

  ‘It seems we have one of those conveniently close to both crime scenes,’ Willow said.

  ‘Jane Hay?’

  Willow nodded. ‘We know that Kevin paid Rogerson. Alison Teal was living practically on his doorstep and there must have been some activity in the place, but he claimed not even to know that Tain was occupied. That suggests to me that he was covering up something. I’d bet he was one of the clients. If Jane found out, that would give her motive for both murders, and there’s nobody with a better opportunity.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Perez thought of the Jane Hay he knew. She’d been a friend of Fran’s. Not a close friend, but Fran would call into the farmhouse for coffee, if she was painting out that way. She’d been Simon Agnew’s friend too, and Perez wondered what Fran would have made of her neighbours’ involvement in the case. Fran had described Jane as calm: You get the sense that she could survive anything with equanimity. That didn’t sound like the sort of woman who would kill two people, however badly her husband had behaved.

  Then he remembered what Kathryn had said of her father. ‘Was it something shameful, Jimmy? So shameful that someone would want to kill him?’ Shame worked in all sorts of ways, and maybe there were things in Jane’s past that Rogerson or Teal had discovered. Something she’d kill to keep hidden. Then he thought he was straying into Agnew territory and this was a question for a psychologist, not a cop.

  ‘What did you get from the High School, Sandy?’ Willow asked. ‘Did any of the teachers mention the boys’ mother?’

  ‘No, only to
say that she has ambitions for Michael to go away to college, but he wants to stay and work on the farm.’ Sandy looked guilty. ‘But I didn’t think to ask about the parents. I was talking to them about the sons. Sorry.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Not really. Andy was the bright one. Sparky, arty, a bit cheeky, but with the charm to get away with it. I wondered if he might have fancied his English teacher. She was one of those women who like to be admired. Maybe she only went into teaching because she had a captive audience. You could see she wouldn’t discourage the attention, even from one of her students.’ Sandy paused to slurp his tea.

  ‘And Michael?’ Perez couldn’t really see where this was going, except to provide a bit more background to the Hay family, but he was even more convinced that the four individuals at the farm should be at the centre of the investigation.

  Sandy shrugged. ‘The teacher I spoke to didn’t have much to say about him, except that he was one of those kids who don’t stand out. Not terribly bright, but not needing special help.’ He looked up and grinned. ‘A bit like I was at school, maybe. I don’t get the sense that the brothers were very close. They had one scrap in the playground, in Andy’s last year. Nobody could work out exactly what triggered it, but it seems to have been teasing about a woman that got out of hand.’ He paused. ‘And Sally Martin, Andy’s teacher, shed a bit of light on what that argument in the street could have been about. Apparently Rogerson was leading calls in the council to cut arts funding. All the kids in the Youth Theatre were protesting about it.’

  ‘No.’ Willow leaned forward. ‘If it had been about that, Andy would have said so. It would be another opportunity to make a political point. That row in the street was more personal.’

  ‘Could he have found out that Kevin was seeing Rogerson’s women?’ Perez thought there was a link here about children standing up for their irresponsible parents: Kathryn and Tom, Andy and Kevin. ‘It might explain why Andy’s seemed so twitchy. He might think his father is a killer.’

 

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