Ann Cleeves - Dead Water

‘No!’ The response immediate and bitter. ‘I want to be on my own, Sandy. I want you to go.’

He saw that it was taking all her effort to hold herself together, that she couldn’t bear to cry in front of him. John Henderson had been the only man with whom she’d shared her emotions. He thought she’d be silent and buttoned up for the rest of her life.

When he reached Hvidahus, Willow asked him about Evie and then sent him with Perez to the White House. ‘You’ve met the couple, Sandy. They might be more comfortable talking to you.’ But she directed her instructions to Perez. ‘Find out what they made of Henderson. If he supported the tidal-energy scheme, they might have considered him an enemy. It would be useful to get an unbiased view. And they might have seen someone at his house this morning.’

Sandy and Perez walked down the track to the White House. Sandy would have liked to talk to Perez about Evie, about how she’d refused to cry, but then he thought that might be the most tactless thing in the world. He knocked at the door and, when there was no reply, pushed it open and walked inside. Perez followed. They stood in the wide hall that Sandy remembered, with its smell of furniture polish, a jug of daffodils on a polished chest. Beyond, in the kitchen, there were raised voices. Mark and Sue Walsh were arguing.

‘Why can’t you let it go?’ the woman said. ‘We have to live here. I want to fit in and make friends.’

‘It’s a matter of principle.’ Walsh’s voice was stubborn. ‘You’ve read Francis Watt’s column. There are Shetlanders who feel just as we do.’

Sandy felt awkward standing there, listening. ‘Hello!’ he shouted. ‘Can we come through?’ As soon as he’d spoken he realized it had been a mistake. He should have waited patiently to hear the row through to the end. That was what Perez would have done. He glanced apologetically over his shoulder and Perez shrugged an acknowledgement.

The couple hurried through then, all smiles and apologies for not having heard the door. ‘Come in, Sergeant. How can we help you?’ And the kettle was put on for tea.

‘This is my boss, Jimmy Perez,’ Sandy said. ‘He’d like to speak to you.’ And he felt a tremendous relief, because now he could hand the matter over to Jimmy. Perez was in charge again and things had returned to their proper order.

‘Welcome to Shetland,’ Perez said. ‘I hope you’re settling in here.’ Sandy would never have thought of starting a conversation in that way. ‘We have some very sad news about your neighbour.’ And he went on to explain, very simply, that John Henderson had been killed. ‘We think he was murdered in his own home. I know you’ll want to help in any way you can. Were you here this morning?’

‘How terrible!’ Sue had fine hair, dyed a very pale orange, the colour of apricots. She ran her fingers through it. ‘John was a lovely man.’

‘You were close?’ Perez was drinking his tea, leaning forward across the table.

‘He came to see us the day we moved in and brought us eggs from his hens, and milk and bread. Such a kind gesture, we thought. He was very private, of course, but a man who would always help in a crisis.’

‘You’ll have known Evie then? His fiancée?’

‘Of course.’ But Sandy sensed a slight discomfort.

‘It didn’t cause any awkwardness between you? The fact that you were so opposed to the tidal-energy scheme that Evie was heading up.’

There was a silence. Sue threw a desperate look at her husband, who answered, ‘We were all adults, Inspector. We were allowed a grown-up disagreement. We felt that the whole character of Hvidahus would be changed by the scheme and that the small experimental project could lead to energy generation on an industrial scale. Evie is an evangelist for green power. But we had perfectly amicable personal relationships. We were even invited to their wedding.’

Again Sue’s hands flew to the fine, flyaway hair. ‘Poor Evie!’ she said. ‘That such a thing should happen just a few days before her wedding!’

Sandy turned away so that he wouldn’t have to look at Jimmy’s face. But when Perez spoke, his voice was quite even. He returned to his original question. ‘Were you here this morning?’

‘Only until about eight o’clock,’ Mark said. ‘We went into Lerwick early for shopping and we haven’t long been home. We treated ourselves to lunch in Monty’s.’

‘Did you see anything unusual? Any strange car on the track?’

Sandy thought Sue was about to answer, but Mark got in before her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing like that.’

When they met up in the operations room it was already starting to get dark. At Hvidahus they’d have set bright lights shining into the garage to conduct a proper search. Vicki Hewitt and her colleagues would be there, and the place would be taped off. The organized buzz of a crime-scene investigation. James Grieve, the pathologist, had been called back from Aberdeen. He’d sounded relieved that he’d missed the last plane in and he’d have one night at home. Willow had the impression that Shetland wasn’t his favourite place in the world.

‘Do me a favour, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Find this killer quickly.’

At least now they were working there without an audience. By morning maybe sightseers would turn up. They’d be pretending to walk a dog, or to hike along the coast path, but they’d be there for a ghoulish glimpse of blood, to watch the police at work.

In the police station they’d set up a conference link with Inverness, but the boss listened to what was going on without saying much. How could he grasp what was happening in the most northerly place in his patch? He only visited a few times a year for meetings and official functions and seldom ventured far from Lerwick. Willow soon forgot about him and focused on the people in the room. On the whiteboard there were more photos and there was a new name at the centre.

‘John Henderson,’ she said. ‘Widower, skipper of the oil-terminal tugs, voluntary youth worker and all-round saint. Apparently. And fiancé of Evie Watt, whose former lover just happens to be Jerry Markham. So what’s going on here?’ A pause. She turned to Sandy, who was sitting on a desk at the back of the room. ‘You broke the news to Evie. How did she seem?’

‘She was calm enough,’ Sandy said. ‘But so tense you have the feeling that she could snap at any time.’

‘Could she have killed him?’ Willow asked the whole gathering. ‘I mean, I know it sounds mad, but she’s the only link.’

‘She doesn’t have an alibi for early this morning.’ Sandy spoke again. ‘From eleven she was out on a site visit, checking out the place up north where she thought the tidal-energy plant might work. She was onsite with two witnesses, but she has no alibi before that.’ He paused. ‘The witnesses were Joe Sinclair and Ms Laing.’

‘What the hell would the Fiscal know about water power?’ Willow thought the woman was all over this case like a rash, but it seemed there was no way to pin her down.

‘Apparently she was a member of the working party. Some sort of legal advisor?’

Perez had been quite still and quiet throughout the preparation to the meeting and sat a little apart. There was coffee on the desk in front of him. Now he raised his hand. Willow nodded across to him.

‘But Evie’s not the only link between the two men, is she?’ His voice was very low, so they had to concentrate to hear the words.

‘Tell us what you’re thinking, Jimmy.’ Willow leaned back against the desk and waited.

‘Jerry Markham seems to have been planning a story around Shetland’s energy. He asked his father to set up a meeting for him at Sullom, and he’d agreed to attend the action meeting called by the Walshes. He was sniffing around about the new gas terminal. And John Henderson worked as a pilot on the oil tankers. Another link. Not so personal. But more likely maybe than Evie Watt disposing of her men like a black-widow spider.’ He paused. ‘Maria Markham said he was working on something secret and he was planning to tell them the night that he died.’