Ann Cleeves - White Nights

He didn’t answer. He stretched and felt the tension in the muscles in his back. I need a bath, he thought. A long hot soak. Real food. Why do I think I enjoy doing this job?

‘I’m really sorry to have troubled you at work again,’ he said.

‘Is that it?’ she demanded. He saw that her nerves were tattered and she was having trouble holding things together. ‘No explanation for all these questions?’

‘Sorry,’ he said again.

He could see she wanted him to leave, but he hesitated, wondering if he could risk one last question. The question that had been in his head since he’d come to the school. ‘Have you any idea who the murderer is, Dawn?’

She stared at him. ‘I can’t believe you asked me that.’ He saw he’d pushed her too far, but couldn’t help continuing.

‘You might have heard something. People talking. I know you weren’t involved. You weren’t living in Shetland when all this started. But someone in Biddista knows.’

‘I can’t talk about this now. I want to get home, spend some time with my daughter. If you have more questions come to Biddista later when she’s asleep. I’d rather have Martin there anyway. I know it’s pathetic, but I can’t do this on my own.’

Perez thought how Dawn had been when he’d first met her. A strong and confident woman. This is what violence does, he thought. It makes victims of us all.

Perhaps it would be better talking to Dawn and Martin together, Perez thought. He drove out of Middleton a little way on the Lerwick road. He didn’t still want to be parked in the playground when Dawn came out of the school. She was jumpy enough and he didn’t want to scare her, didn’t want her thinking he was watching her. He pulled in to the side of the road, next to a few scrubby trees someone must have planted years ago as a windbreak, and made plans for the rest of the evening.

He thought he should call in on Kenny while he was waiting for Dawn to get Alice to bed. He could take the swab for the DNA. But didn’t think he could face talking to the crofter just yet. It came to him again that he needed hot food and a bath. And that would give him time on his own to order his thoughts. He was groping towards a solution but had no evidence. He still couldn’t see any way of obtaining sufficient proof to allow an arrest.

He drove back to Lerwick and parked in the lane outside his house. Inside he opened the windows, so the breeze blew the curtains and rattled the doors. A neighbour had the radio on and the sound blew in too. Perez recognized a track from the latest Roddy Sinclair album. He scrambled eggs and made toast and coffee and ate the food with the plate on his lap, perched in the window seat, watching the Bressay ferry make its way across to the island. Then he ran a deep hot bath and lay in the water, almost dozing, letting various scenarios around the case play in his head. He wasn’t usually one for conspiracy theories, but this time he allowed himself to consider the most preposterous ideas. Investigation was all about ‘What if…’ He thought Wilding must play the same games while he was writing his stories.

Before leaving the house he phoned Taylor, using his mobile number because he thought surely by now the man would have left the police station. The Englishman was staying in exactly the same room in the same hotel as in the previous investigation. Perez had picked him up from there once and it had been as tidy as a cubicle in a military barracks. It was hard to believe the bed had been slept in; his clothes were neatly folded. On the dressing table a pen, a brush and a notepad had stood in a precise line. Perez wondered whether Taylor ever relaxed.

Certainly he wasn’t relaxing now, because it was clear from the background sounds that he was still at work.

‘Yes?’

‘Did your friends in West Yorkshire mention finding any photographs in Booth’s house?’ Perez had returned to his seat at the window. ‘Someone was obviously taking pictures that summer because we have the group photo with Bella and the men. I wondered if there were any others.’

There was a silence. Taylor was trying to follow his reasoning. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me, Jimmy?’

Now Perez hesitated. ‘I need to talk to the Williamsons again,’ he said. ‘Then I’m going in to get that swab from Kenny. Do you want to meet me in Biddista later? Or maybe you’d rather get to your bed?’

‘No point,’ Taylor said. ‘I thought winter was bad enough here, but I’d survive that better than these crazy light nights. I know I’ve not been the easiest person to work with on this case. Put it down to being halfway to the Arctic Circle and getting no sleep. If I can track down any photos, I’ll get West Yorkshire to scan them and send them as attachments. I’ll print them out and bring them with me.’

‘Have you managed to track down a recording of the TV documentary?’

‘Apparently Sandy’s mother has one. She taped it because of the Shetland scenes. He’s gone to Whalsay to fetch it, hopes to get the last ferry back.’

‘Good.’

There was a brief hesitation. ‘Jimmy?’

‘Yes?’

‘Doesn’t matter. I wanted to ask your advice about something. But it’ll keep. You need to get off.’

Perez replaced the phone and then realized they hadn’t decided where they should meet. It didn’t matter. Biddista wasn’t such a big place. Taylor would find him, and anyway he wasn’t sure yet where he would be.

When he arrived at the Williamson house, the child was in bed, but all the adults were there. Even Aggie had been brought in from next door. Perez hadn’t been expecting that and wasn’t sure how it would work, but didn’t think he could send her back to her house. He didn’t want to start off the interview with a confrontation. Besides, he needed to talk to her. They sat in a row on the sofa. Martin opened the door to him, then returned to his place.

‘What is all this about, Jimmy? I didn’t have you down as the sort to go in for bully-boy tactics. You shouldn’t have gone to the school and harassed my wife in that way.’

‘I have to ask questions. That’s what I do for a living.’

‘You accused Dawn of knowing who the murderer is.’

‘No,’ Perez said. He hated being thought a bully. There was a pause while he considered if he could have played it any differently, then decided they had to know this was serious. ‘I asked her if she had any idea. That’s rather different. If I believed she knew what had been going on here she’d be under arrest for perverting the course of justice.’ He paused. ‘I wanted Dawn’s opinion because she’s relatively new to the place, more objective. Nothing more than that.’

Dawn had been sitting quietly throughout the exchange. Now she spoke. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I overreacted in the school. But this is horrible. The violence going on just outside the door. It was close enough to home already. Now it seems personal, as if it’s come in and become a part of our lives. Is there someone out there who hates everyone who lives in Biddista?’

‘No,’ Perez said. ‘I don’t think it’s that.’

They sat for a moment in silence.

‘What about you, Aggie?’ he asked. ‘Can you tell me what’s been going on?’

She sat very upright in the sofa and shook her head. The rest of her body was frozen and the movement seemed unnatural. It reminded Perez of a mechanical doll.

‘What were you doing fifteen years ago?’

‘I was living in Scalloway with my man, running the hotel and minding Martin here.’

‘Your mother was still living in Biddista then?’

‘Aye, she was still in this house. My father was dead by then. I moved back here when she died.’