Ann Cleeves - Dead Water

‘So we’re back to Jerry Markham’s story,’ Willow said. ‘The one that was going to make his fortune. Except, according to his editor, there was no story.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that too.’ Perez was still tentative. It was as if, after standing up to her earlier in the afternoon, he didn’t want to come across as pushy or to undermine her further. She wanted to tell him to get over it – she wasn’t the sort to feel threatened by a colleague. But part of her still resented the fact that he was the one coming up with the new ideas.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘What if the story wasn’t for publication, if he was researching for quite a different reason?’

‘Like?’

‘I did wonder,’ Perez said slowly, ‘about blackmail.’

As soon as the word was spoken it seemed so obvious that Willow was astonished, horrified that it hadn’t occurred to her . How had she ever thought she could do well at this business? Markham was a greedy man and he’d thought he could squeeze money from former contacts. But still she kept her voice even and didn’t let on what she was thinking. Years of practice, when the Uist kids laughed at her hippy clothes and called her names. ‘Well, yes, Jimmy. Of course that does make sense. So who was blackmailing whom here? And how does John Henderson fit in?’

Perez leaned forward now, joining in the circle, less of an outsider looking in. ‘As I see it – ’ his voice was hesitant and still so quiet that she struggled to make out the words – ‘Markham was the blackmailer. His blackmail victim was the killer. And Henderson guessed what was going on. Or was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was driving past, maybe, when Markham’s car was forced off the road.’

‘That holds together,’ she said. ‘It works as a theory, for the moment at least.’ She looked at the group. ‘But we won’t get seduced by it, huh? We’ll keep open minds until we get more evidence. That OK with you, Jimmy?’

He nodded and gave her that reluctant, out-of-practice smile. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I would say just the same myself.’

On the whiteboard she wrote Blackmail? Then: Who and why? What was the story? ‘So what was the blackmail about? Something to do with Sullom Voe, Jimmy? Is that the way your mind’s working?’

‘Maybe,’ Perez said. ‘Or maybe something to do with the tidal energy. Why else would he agree to go to the meeting at Vatnagarth? It might explain why Markham was so keen to talk to Evie when he was home this time.’

There was a moment of silence and then she turned to Sandy. ‘Was Evie planning to go home tonight?’

‘Her parents came to collect her,’ Sandy said. ‘They’re taking her back to her house for tonight, then home with them on the first ferry tomorrow.’

‘I talked to her parents earlier,’ Perez said. ‘Jessie and Francis. That’s what I was doing in Fetlar. That’s where they live.’

‘And why did you feel the need to do that, Jimmy?’ She heard the sharpness in her voice and didn’t care.

‘To get a handle on Evie Watt and Henderson,’ he said. Answering the question, refusing to acknowledge her anger. ‘To find out what they made of the marriage.’

‘And what did they make of it?’

‘They seemed happy enough. Henderson had been a friend. There was the age difference, but they thought he was a good man.’

‘You can tell me all about it in the car,’ she said suddenly, ‘on the way to Evie Watt’s house. I’d like to speak to her myself.’ She didn’t want this conversation in public. She sensed Perez’s hesitation. ‘That is all right with you, Jimmy? No childcare problems tonight?’

She thought she was being a bitch, but it was too late to take back the words. Jimmy picked up his jacket. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Cassie’s having a sleepover with a friend. No childcare problems tonight.’

Willow let Perez drive and still hadn’t found the words to confront him when they were out of Lerwick and on the way north. In the end he was the one who broke the silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have headed out to Fetlar to speak to Evie’s parents without talking to you first. It was wrong.’ A pause. ‘Rude.’

And that sucked away all her anger and made her feel deflated and flat.

‘I need to know where you are,’ she said. ‘Where all the team are.’ Which sounded pathetic and as if she was some sort of control freak.

‘Of course.’ He slowed down to let a boy racer overtake on the straight road close to Tingwall airstrip. ‘Maybe I’ve been on my own too long. I’ve lost the knack of communication.’ He hesitated. ‘Like when you’ve had a stroke. You have to practise all over again.’

‘Did you speak to the manager at the Bonhoga?’ she said. Best to be crisp and professional.

‘Aye. He didn’t recognize the woman speaking to Jerry Markham.’

‘Evie wondered if it might be Maria Markham,’ Willow said. ‘She said they were always very close. “More like lovers than mother and son.” That was how she described them.’

‘Maria didn’t mention meeting Jerry for coffee.’ Perez kept his voice flat. No indication whether he thought this might be a possibility or whether he thought Willow was talking rubbish.

‘Could she be involved in the blackmail, do you think?’ It was quite dark now. Willow had forgotten how black it was with no street lights, no car headlights. She was transported back to Uist, to the star map and the silence of her childhood.

‘She could be protecting Jerry’s memory,’ Perez said. ‘Oh yes, definitely that. But working with him to extort money? I’m not sure.’ He paused. ‘Maybe, if she’d convinced herself that it was due to him, that he had a right to it. But if that’s the case, I’m not sure what the secret he was planning to share could have been.’

He slowed down to turn off the main road. There was still a white tent where the dummies of Evie and her fiancé had once lain in the grass. A police car with Davy Cooper inside.

‘Do you want to stop?’ Perez asked.

‘No. I want to get to Evie’s place while they’re still up.’

On the walk from the car to the little house all they had to guide them was the light coming from one of the windows. At least the Watts weren’t in bed and asleep. It hadn’t rained again, but still there was the smell of damp grass and wet sheep’s wool. At one point Willow stumbled and Perez caught her arm.

The family sat round a kitchen table. Willow looked in from outside and thought it could have been a stage set. The small table at the centre of the room. The sheepskins: two on the floor and a black one thrown over the back of the plain wooden chair. The brightly woven blanket covering the sofa. Photographs and drawings on the wall facing the window. A jam jar of meadow flowers, already fading on the table. And three characters.

The man was sitting stiff and upright. Willow thought he could have walked out of a play by Ibsen or Strindberg. In his mid-fifties, he had a brown face and a little moustache. His legs were hidden by the table, but he was wearing a hand-knitted sweater, Fair Isle-patterned in browns and greys. A sweater for special occasions, Willow thought. For church and parties, and for mourning the man who might have been a son-in-law. For comforting a daughter who’d lost the love of her life.

Each side of him a woman. The mother small, her hair still dark. One of those Celtic women, who keep their dark hair into middle age. Bright-blue eyes. Bright with a feverish concern for the daughter who sat across the table from her. She reached out in front of her husband to clasp the young woman’s hand. And Evie Watt, as still and upright as her father, still wearing the clothes she’d been in when Willow had met her for lunch, allowed her mother to take it.