Ann Cleeves - Dead Water

Rhona Laing took a long time to open the door. She was wearing blue jeans and a navy sweater. No make-up, which made her somehow look vulnerable. More attractive and softer. ‘Jimmy,’ she said. A touch of impatience in the voice. ‘How can I help you? I was just about to spend a morning in the boat. I have a few days’ leave owing.’

‘Have you heard about John Henderson?’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s dead,’ Perez said. He wished she’d invite him in. It felt strange carrying on a conversation like this on the doorstep. Almost disrespectful. ‘He was stabbed yesterday morning in his garage at Hvidahus, and his body was moved to the junction down towards Evie Watt’s place. Made to look like a straw dummy. You’ll have seen them there, kind of scarecrows, in the run-up to the wedding.’

The Fiscal stared at him. ‘What is going on here, Jimmy? Two violent deaths in North Mainland in less than a week. And what is that strange young woman from the Hebrides doing to stop it?’ Her voice was high-pitched and shrill.

Perez found it hard to believe that she didn’t know about Henderson’s murder. Surely her assistant would have been on the phone to her as soon as he’d been notified by Willow Reeves. ‘Your office didn’t let you know?’

‘They’ve been told not to disturb me when I’m on holiday.’ Still she was poised on the doorstep. Did she really expect him to go away and let her get to her boat? He couldn’t understand her reaction.

‘We should talk about this,’ Perez said. ‘It must be related to the Markham killing, and you’re involved with that. You found the body.’

‘And that was why I took leave.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘There was a conflict of interest. I do see that. Besides, Inspector Reeves made it very clear that she’d prefer me not to supervise the case.’

‘We should talk,’ Perez repeated. ‘You’re a witness of sorts.’

And only then did she move aside and let him in. She made coffee for him without asking if he wanted any. They sat in the kitchen. Perez had never been in the house before and it was rather grand, in a sleek, minimalist way. Clean lines, white walls, everything freshly plastered, the corners sharp as blades. No untidiness here. He wondered what Sandy Wilson had made of it.

‘Did you know Henderson?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘I’d met him of course. Social occasions. Regattas. He was a great seaman. Instinctive.’

‘What was your impression of him? As a man, not a sailor?’

She considered. ‘He was quiet, thoughtful. Shy perhaps. Not one to put himself forward in a group. From what I’ve heard, he was quite different from Jerry Markham.’

‘So you have no idea what connection there might be between them?’

She shrugged again. ‘None at all.’

They sat in silence. Perez thought he liked her much better this way – quiet, a little unsure. ‘I have to ask you where you were yesterday morning,’ he said. ‘Early. I know where you were later in the morning. You were at Hvidahus then with Evie Watt and Joe Sinclair to look at the tidal-energy site.’

Suddenly she was herself again, fierce and intimidating. ‘Are you accusing me of murder, Inspector Perez?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not. But you should tell me where you were. You know how these things work.’

‘Oh yes.’ Suddenly she seemed very tired. ‘I know how these things work.’

‘John Henderson lived at Hvidahus,’ he said. ‘That’s where he was murdered. Did you see anything unusual? A car at his house?’ But he thought it likely that the man was already dead when the tidal-power working group had been there.

‘No,’ she said. ‘There was nothing unusual.’

‘So where were you before you set out for your meeting?’

‘I was here, Jimmy. I made some phone calls. From my work mobile, so I suppose I could have made them from anywhere. But my car was parked up on the road. Everyone in the village would have seen it.’

Perez nodded. Rhona Laing wasn’t stupid. He’d check and find that everything was as she’d said. But a car wasn’t the only way to travel round Shetland. The Fiscal had a fine boat, and most of Shetland’s communities could be reached from the water. There’d been no roads in Shetland for centuries – all travel had been by sea. Perhaps this wasn’t much of an alibi; he’d ask around and see if the boat had been there all morning too.

Rhona Laing closed the door gently behind Jimmy Perez and stood for a moment, leaning against it, as if blocking the way to other unwelcome intruders. Then she went upstairs and stood, hidden by the curtain like some nosy Shetland wife, to watch him walk back down the bank. Only when she saw his car drive up the hill towards Bixter did it feel as if she was breathing again.

Has it come to this? That I hide in my house like a common criminal?

Her plans for the day – to take out the boat with a picnic, to explore the voe and to moor up at a little beach for lunch – now seemed impossible. She had once represented a client with agoraphobia, and although she’d been professional throughout the court proceedings, her impulse had been to shake the woman. What was wrong with this person? Was it such a huge step to open the front door and walk out onto the pavement? Now, for the first time, Rhona Laing began to understand the irrational fear of the space outside one’s home. The stranger’s face. The unfriendly buildings. The threatening landscape. It would be easy to curl up in her chair with her back to the window. To drink tea or whisky. To shut out the world.

But to start down that path would be the worst possible mistake. Rhona could see that. And if she were in the house she’d be trapped, at the mercy of telephone calls and people knocking at her door. Perez might come back. Willow Reeves with her wild, untidy hair and her staring eyes might turn up with questions. Rhona thought she could mislead Perez, but the woman from the Hebrides would be harder to deceive. She couldn’t face it.

So she went into the kitchen and finished preparing a packed lunch. She cut the sandwiches with a good, sharp knife so that the edges were neat and wrapped them in foil. She put fruit and biscuits into a bag and made a flask of coffee, poured milk into a little jar that she kept for the purpose. Pulled her oilskins from the cupboard under the stairs and went to her bedroom for a spare jersey, because in Shetland the weather could change in a second. And then she left the house, locking it behind her, and walked swiftly down to the marina, keeping her eyes on the path. She had a sense that only on the water could she come to terms with what had happened. The water was where she felt safe. It felt as if she was running away forever.

Perez found the Belshaws’ home immediately. It had been built in the last ten years, one of the wooden Scandinavian kit-houses that had suddenly appeared all over Shetland. Theirs was painted pale blue, almost grey, two storeys and a wooden deck at the front facing towards Aith. It looked as if it should have a sauna at the bottom of the garden, but instead there was a swing and a climbing frame, a couple of plastic toy cars, a trampoline surrounded by a net. Behind, in the shelter of the house, he glimpsed a small vegetable patch, the rich soil newly dug.

Perez knocked at the door and Andy Belshaw answered immediately. He was wearing jogging trousers and a rugby shirt, carpet slippers on his feet. He looked pasty and tired.

‘I thought you might turn up,’ he said. ‘I heard about John on Radio Orkney. A dreadful business. Come away in.’ Perez thought he’d already picked up something of the Shetland accent.