by Ann Cleeves
Sandy held the woman around her legs and thought how light she was. After all, it wouldn’t have been so difficult to bring her here and string her up. Her skirt rose up as he grabbed her and he caught a glimpse of bright, white underwear. He found himself fascinated, but turned his head; he didn’t want to be caught staring.
While Sandy took her weight, the pathologist pulled the rope away, so he could see her neck. More photos. ‘That’ll do, Sandy, you can let her go now. Gently, though.’ As Sandy released the body, it started to swing, slowly, and turned so that Emma was facing him. Grieve’s camera flashed again and he saw the red lipstick and the heavy eye make-up that she’d been wearing in the photo in her room. This must be her signature look. Seeing the woman from this angle, her cheekbones seemed even sharper. Sandy thought she was different from any other woman he’d seen, and suddenly found the idea ridiculous. How could he fancy a dead woman? It was as crazy as Perez getting obsessed with that woman they’d found in the croft in Ravenswick, after the landslide earlier in the year.
Grieve had already started talking again. ‘I think this could fit in with your theory. There are marks of manual strangulation, and I’d bet anything you like that the killer was behind her when she died. There are no signs that she struggled, so I’m guessing that he surprised her.’
Outside there was the sound of a car coming up the track. Sandy was glad of an excuse to turn his back on Emma Shearer and go outside. It felt like breaking a spell. Inside the byre he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. ‘It’s Jimmy and the chief inspector,’ he called back to Grieve. ‘They’ve made pretty good time from the airport.’
He was pleased that Willow had made it safely into Shetland. She and Perez made the best possible team and when she was there, Sandy felt less responsible for lifting his boss’s mood. He went out into the sunshine and waited for the car to reach the house.
But when the pair arrived, Sandy could sense at once the tension between them. Willow greeted him warmly enough when she climbed out, but she looked grey and tired. Perez sat where he was, staring ahead of him. His car window was open and Sandy shouted in to him, ‘The professor is here, Jimmy. He’s got some thoughts about the cause of death. I think you should speak to him.’
It took Perez a while to answer. This was how he’d been immediately after Fran’s death. There’d been times then when Perez had been so wrapped up in his own grief that Sandy had been driven crazy, when he’d wanted to yell at Perez, to tell him to stop being so rude and selfish. So bloody childish.
‘Willow’s here now. She can deal with Prof. Grieve.’
Willow looked back at the vehicle, and Sandy thought she was about to cry. When he’d been growing up his parents had rowed occasionally. His father was a stubborn man with a temper on him. Then, Sandy had felt like this: confused and distressed. As if his world was falling apart.
‘What are your plans, Jimmy?’ Willow asked, very quietly. Before, there’d been jokes between them. She’d tease Perez for taking charge when she was supposed to be the senior officer. But now neither of them was joking.
‘I’m going to Deltaness,’ Perez said at last. ‘I want to track down a man called Magnie Riddell. Apparently he was the dead woman’s boyfriend.’ He paused for a beat. ‘I’m not sure how long I’ll be. Why don’t you get a lift back to Lerwick with Sandy? He can drop you at your B&B. I’ve booked you into the same place as last time.’ Then he started the engine and drove away.
Chapter Fifteen
Perez drove too fast down the hill, loathing himself for his display of petulance, for his cruelty to Willow, for his inability to disentangle his emotions. In the end, it was too much for him to think about. Her child. His child. He shut it at the back of his mind, with all the other stuff he couldn’t bear thinking about: guilt, grief, the flashbacks that still came out of the blue and made visits to his parents in Fair Isle so painful. All that would have to wait. He would focus on this investigation, on Emma Shearer. At least a dead woman wouldn’t betray his trust.
He drove past the school and the hall and came to the new building that held the community shop. Inside, a woman in a purple sweater with a patterned yoke was stocking the shelves and an elderly man stood next to the counter. Perez could tell that he’d been there for a while. He wasn’t waiting to be served – he already had a recycled carrier bag with a newspaper and loaf of bread at his feet – but he was lingering for the company and to chat. Inside, it seemed dark and cool, a little dusty and disordered, but it contained everything that the people of Deltaness might need. The shop was run by volunteers.
Perez took a bottle of water and a Mars bar from the shelves and carried them to the counter. The woman in purple straightened and joined him. ‘It’s Jimmy Perez, isn’t it? You came once and gave a talk to the bairns in the school.’
‘You’ve got a very good memory.’ He made himself smile. He didn’t want to think about sitting on a small desk, answering questions from the children in the class. The eager faces. It took him back to Willow and the ideas he was trying to forget. ‘That must be ten years ago.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ve seen your photo in the paper since then too.’ She leaned towards him. ‘You’ll be here about that business in Dennis Gear’s old place. The lassie that died.’
He nodded. ‘Did you know her?’
‘She came in here with the Moncrieff children from Ness House a couple of times a week. On their way home from school. Sometimes she’d buy them a few sweeties. Sometimes it was ciggies for her.’
‘She smoked?’ Perez put the water and the chocolate into his jacket pocket.
‘On the sly. I don’t think Belle and Robert ever knew.’ A pause. ‘But then I think she got up to quite a lot that Belle and Robert didn’t know about.’
‘Oh?’ He tried not to sound too curious.
‘She was young when she arrived at the big house. Just out of school. The Moncrieffs treated her a bit like a big kid. But even then, she had a way with her. She dressed older than her years . . .’
‘In a provocative way?’ Perez didn’t want to put words into the woman’s mouth, but he didn’t want to be here all day. Not with the elderly guy listening to every word, hoovering up information to spill out at a later date.
‘Not quite that. I mean not tarty. Not skirts like a pelmet and bosoms hanging out, like some of them. She wore the sort of clothes they went for in the Fifties and early Sixties. Like the old movies they used to show on the telly on Sunday afternoons. It didn’t seem right on a lassie of that age. There was something . . .’ she struggled to find the right word and in the end relished the Gothic nature of the situation, ‘grotesque about it. Like she was a little girl dressing up in her mammy’s clothes. I thought it was kind of creepy.’ She paused for a beat. ‘The men seemed to go for it, though.’
‘Any specific man?’
But it seemed that question was too direct. She shrugged. ‘They all seemed to be taken in by her.’
‘I heard she had a boyfriend. Magnie Riddell. Margaret’s son. Works at the waste-to-power plant.’
Perez thought the last two pieces of phrases had been unnecessary. The woman knew exactly who Magnie Riddell was. But it didn’t hurt to let her know that he already had information about the community.
‘I did hear they were hanging about together.’ She looked directly at Perez. ‘But that was a while ago. I hadn’t seen them together recently.’
‘Where can I find him?’
‘He’ll be at work.’ As if the question was daft and the answer obvious. She was fidgeting now. Any pleasure in the conversation was long over. She’d probably gone to school with Margaret, and Perez could see how the two women might be pals.
‘But he still lives with his mother, doesn’t he? You can tell me where Margaret lives.’
The woman hesitated and the elderly man answered, not even pretending that he hadn’t been listening. ‘She’s in one of those houses that the council put up when the oil came. Next doo
r to her sister Lottie. It’s the one with the blue door and the fancy knocker. She should be in; it’s not one of her days for Brae.’
Perez thanked them and walked out of the shop. He left his car where it was and walked along the shore to the double row of houses that ran along the bank parallel to the water. They were small, grey, the concrete stained. There’d been nothing pretty about them when they’d first been built in the early Eighties, put up to house the growing population of people who’d come to Shetland to work in the oil industry. Now they were ugly, a blot on an otherwise beautiful landscape. But people had to live somewhere and the islands had never been a theme park for tourists.
He found the house with the blue front door. Perez knocked and the neighbour’s net curtains twitched. He wondered if the people of Ravenswick behaved like this. Would a stranger walking around the settlement where he lived be scrutinized in the same way? Perhaps he would after a murder, Perez thought. It would have been like this after Fran found Catherine Ross’s body. Murder made everyone tense and curious.
The door opened and the woman who’d been talking so loudly at the Deltaness Sunday teas opened the door to him.
‘Mrs Riddell?’
‘Yes.’ Wary. She looked down the street to see if anyone was about. The place was empty.
He introduced himself.
‘You’d better come in.’
In the distance there was the sound of a bell and children’s laughter. It must be mid-morning playtime at the school. She showed him into a small but spotless front room. The furniture was slightly too big for it and he had to squeeze between a sofa and an armchair to find a seat.
‘When I was still married, we had a bigger house in Voe.’ The words were full of bitterness, but also a kind of apology. ‘We had to sell when the divorce came through. I wanted to come back to Deltaness, but this was all I could afford.’ She looked at him. ‘You were at the Sunday teas. Did you know something like this was going to happen?’
‘No!’ he said. ‘That was just chance. Coincidence.’
‘Will you take something? Tea? Coffee?’ The invitation was grudging, but she knew what was expected when anyone came into her home.
‘Tea would be lovely.’ He thought her coffee would be dreadful, but she would make a good cup of tea. And suddenly tea, comforting and familiar, was exactly what he needed.
She nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. He heard the kettle being switched on and the rattle of crockery, tried to focus on that and the facts of the case, to squeeze out the other thoughts that were battling to come into his mind. Margaret Riddell returned with a tray – a teapot, two cups and saucers, a milk jug and a plate of home-made shortbread. Proving to the inspector that she knew how to behave, even if she’d ended up here, in a former council house. She poured his tea and waited for his questions, sharp eyes set like currants in a doughy bun, looking out at him.
‘I understand that your son was friendly with Emma Shearer,’ he said.
‘I don’t know who told you that.’
He didn’t answer the implied question.
There was a silence, which eventually she filled. ‘I think he took her out a few times. Then he saw through her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Magnie’s a good man. He’s had his problems in the past. You’ll have checked and you’ll know that he has a record. He got in with a bad crowd when he first started working in Lerwick and he couldn’t control his temper. He had his own flat there and nobody to keep an eye on him. But he’s changed, now that he’s back in Deltaness. He works hard and he likes things simple. She messed with his head.’
‘In what way?’
This time she was the one to avoid the question. ‘It wasn’t her fault. She’d had a bad time as a youngster. Her father died in prison and her mother was ill for most of her life. Emma was left to bring up her brothers. She had too much responsibility when she was a bairn. No wonder she decided she was going to look after number one, once she left home.’
‘Are you saying she was selfish?’ Perez asked.
Margaret Riddell thought for a moment. ‘Maybe self-centred would be a better way of putting it.’
‘I’m not sure what the difference is.’
‘I thought her life was a kind of performance. She needed people to look at her and admire her. Like she was a star. Everything was a drama. Magnie couldn’t deal with that. He likes to know where he is with folk. He’s not one for games.’ Margaret poured more tea and helped herself to another slice of shortbread.
‘So, he was the one to end the relationship?’
‘If there was a relationship. Magnie fell for her, and she liked the admiration. The flattery. He earns good money at the plant and he was always wasting his money on her, buying her daft presents. I’m not sure she really felt anything for him.’ There was another pause. ‘For anyone.’
‘How did she get on with family she worked for?’
‘Well enough, I suppose.’ Margaret sniffed. ‘They’re wild, those children, allowed to do as they please. You’d think a doctor would know better. Emma could keep them under some sort of control, at least.’
‘You’d have known Robert Moncrieff since he was a boy,’ Perez said, ‘if you grew up in Deltaness.’
‘I’m a bit older than him, and his father didn’t like him mixing with the local kids. We weren’t good enough.’
None of her answers were straightforward. It was almost as if she was speaking in a sort of code that Perez was supposed to decipher for himself. ‘I was at school with Robert,’ he said, in an attempt to make a connection.
‘He went south to university, and he only came back after his father died.’ Another answer that carried a weight of meaning behind it. ‘And then he had Belle with him. She was very glamorous. Not what we were used to at all. That caused a bit of a stir. I wasn’t sure that she’d settle.’
‘But she has done?’
‘Yes.’ Margaret sounded almost surprised, but at least it was a direct response.
‘I might come back later and talk to Magnie when he’s home from work.’ Perez was wondering if there was some way of seeing Magnie away from this house and his mother’s oppressive presence. ‘Or maybe I’ll catch him in Lerwick before he comes back.’
‘He won’t tell you anything different from me!’
‘All the same, if he went out with Emma, he might know a little bit about her and anything will help. We haven’t been able to track down any close friends.’
‘She didn’t really have women friends,’ Margaret said, bitchy until the end. ‘Maybe they saw through her. Maybe they realized that if you got through the style and the make-up, there was nothing there.’
He stood up and was out of his way through the door into the hall when he turned back, remembering the conversation he’d heard between Margaret and her sister at the Sunday teas. ‘What do you make of the people who’ve moved onto Dennis Gear’s land?’
The question surprised her. He caught a fleeting expression on her face that surprised him. Tenderness? Longing? It was gone before he could decide, but it had made her more human, more sympathetic. ‘They seem alright,’ she said. ‘They’ve built a weird kind of place up there, and the lad’s not right in the head. Not his fault, but I’m not sure he should be in the school with the normal kids.’
He thought of Helena Fleming, who’d had to put up with this bile since she’d moved to Shetland, and any sympathy he’d felt for Margaret Riddell disappeared. The islanders he knew were welcoming to strangers. Then he remembered that Margaret’s husband had left her for an incomer, and her son had gone off the rails for a while. She hadn’t had it easy, either. He realized his response to her was shifting with every word she spoke, and thought that was nothing to do with the woman herself. His emotions were all over the place. He needed to focus again.
‘You work in the bank in Lerwick?’
‘I used to. It’s too far to commute from here. It’s all right for Magnie; he seems not to
mind the drive and he works long shifts and earns good money. I’m at the Co-op in Brae now.’ She frowned. He could see how Brae would be less exciting and the job less important. He thought she would probably miss the bustle of Lerwick and the chance to catch up with her friends. ‘I’d hoped I might be thinking of retiring by now. My ex-husband is manager of the bank, where I used to work. Another reason for resigning. When we were together, I only worked to get out of the house. Now I need the money.’ She blushed, suddenly embarrassed that she’d given away so much of herself. ‘Is that everything?’
He nodded and left the house. Standing in the street, he saw that the curtains in the next-door house were being pulled aside again. A face stared out and he recognized Lottie, Margaret’s sister. She realized that he’d seen her and quickly the face disappeared. He was left with an impression of sadness and of isolation.
Chapter Sixteen
Helena hoped that Jimmy Perez would still be there when she returned from taking the children to school. The situation that she was facing now terrified her. She’d thought she could cope with stress; it was what she’d always done. Now she felt as if her own sanity was unravelling and that her world was spinning out of control. The possibility that Daniel had had an affair with a woman less than half his age was far more distressing than the fact that the woman, the object of his desires, was dead. Because Helena was convinced that Daniel had been consumed with desire, that Emma Shearer had been the subject of his passion – infatuation – even if there’d been no physical relationship. Now she wondered if she had become infatuated too, with the scruffy, dark policeman who lived with a little girl in Ravenswick. As she walked back up the track to the house, she thought that if Perez was there, calm and understanding, everything would be well.
But when she approached the house she saw that the detective’s car had not come back. Putting off an encounter with Daniel, she crossed the courtyard and walked down the path towards the barn. Crime-scene tape blocked her way and she was about to go into her studio, to lose herself in work, when a woman called out to her, ‘Hello! Are you Helena?’