Ann Cleeves - Dead Water

‘So how will we play this, Jimmy?’ The wind was catching her hair, blowing it across her face. ‘I don’t want to imply that I think Evie’s been lying to us. Especially not in front of the parents. They’d never talk to us again.’

Perez thought of Francis and Jessie. They’d be protective of their daughter. And they’d been friends of Henderson and would be grieving in their own right. No doubt they’d have had hassle from the press too. ‘Let’s phone and let them know we’re coming. Then, when we get there, we’ll explain about Jerry Markham’s girlfriend turning up from nowhere. That will seem courteous, as if we want to tell them before the media get hold of the news.’ He considered. ‘It’s odd that the press hasn’t mentioned Grey already. You’d think they’d have tracked her down by now, even if she’d been hiding away from the world until a couple of days ago. Do you think he was trying to keep his new relationship secret?’

‘In my experience,’ Willow said, ‘most blokes would want to be seen out with a young woman as good-looking as Annabel. He’d be parading her in front of everyone who’d ever known him.’

‘So why the secrecy?’

‘The Christian thing? Maybe she has a tendency to evangelize in the pub? Might be a tad embarrassing in front of a bunch of hard-nosed journos?’

‘Aye,’ Perez said. ‘Maybe.’ The ferry was slowing as they approached Fetlar. He opened the door of the car. ‘Do you want to see Evie on her own? You obviously got on well with her, and it might be easier for her to talk to a woman. An outsider. And there are things most of us would prefer not to say in front of our parents.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’ Willow got into the car beside him just as the ramp was lowered.

There was phone reception as soon as they drove ashore. Perez made the call, thinking that one of the parents would answer and they’d be more likely to respond to a Shetland accent.

‘Yes?’ It was Evie’s mother. Aggressive, ready to attack.

‘It’s Jimmy Perez, Mrs Watt. One of the detectives investigating John’s murder. How is Evie?’

A silence. ‘Ah, Jimmy, I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. It’s like she’s frozen solid from the inside.’

‘We’re in Fetlar.’ A ringed plover was running along the shingle behind the beach. ‘I was hoping we might come to talk to her.’

‘Oh, come along, Jimmy. Of course. Anything we can do to help.’ He heard the relief in her voice and understood that she and Francis would be glad of company, someone else to distract Evie for a moment, to take the responsibility away from them.

By the time they got to the house there was the smell of baking in the oven. Jessie wouldn’t think to ask them in without offering food. The parents stood in the yard as Perez parked the car, grave and silent, and so still that they reminded him of a grey photo of old crofters, the sort you might see in Vatnagarth museum. He couldn’t decide what they expected from the detectives. Hope that there would be a resolution and that things would return to normal, that the traditions of boat-building and crofting would seem important to them again? He introduced the couple to Willow.

‘Evie’s in her room,’ Jessie said. ‘Would you mind waiting a while before talking to her? She’s only just fallen asleep and she must be exhausted.’

‘Of course.’

In the kitchen Jessie put on the kettle and lifted a tray of biscuits from the oven, slid them onto a cooling rack. The parents were waiting for them to speak, for an explanation of their arrival. Perez looked at Willow, but still there was an awkward silence. Perhaps, like him, she wasn’t quite sure what to say.

‘Have you found him?’ Francis said at last. ‘Have you found John’s killer? Is that why you’re here?’

‘No,’ Willow said. ‘We have more questions. And some information. We wouldn’t want Evie to read about it in the press.’

Then the door opened and Evie appeared. It seemed she hadn’t been asleep at all, as if she would never sleep again.

Willow took Evie for a walk along the crescent of sand that she’d seen from the Watts’s kitchen window. With the flat land behind it, the beach reminded her of home on North Uist. There was a place very similar close to the commune, low ground just in from the sea, fertile strips of machair planted with crops. For the first time in months, she thought maybe she should take a trip back to the Hebrides and spend a week or so with her folks. The spring was always a busy period for them and she’d enjoy working on the land again.

Jessie had been pleased when Willow suggested the walk.

‘What a good plan! It might bring some colour back into your cheeks, my love.’ And Evie had been compliant. An obedient daughter doing as she was told. Not really caring, Willow saw. Nothing would matter to her now. Not the green tidal energy she’d been planning in the Sound off Hvidahus or her role in the church. The life had gone out of her. The parents watched from the doorway until the women had taken the path across the fields. Not waving, but looking as if this was a farewell, as if Evie was starting out on a long voyage.

They walked between the tide line and the water. There was that sense of free floating, of the air and the sea all around them. The tide was low, but there were no other footprints on the beach. Evie was wearing a long hand-knitted cardigan, the colour of heather, and though it wasn’t a cold day she huddled inside it.

‘Every day is worse than the one before,’ she said. ‘At first there was just shock, and I thought I could deal with it. With my faith, and the help of my friends and family, I thought I could cope with anything. But I can’t. Not this.’

Willow had nothing to say.

‘Everyone thought John was the lucky one,’ Evie went on. ‘Lucky to be marrying me, I mean. A widower. So much older. But it was quite the other way round. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when he asked me to marry him. I’d dreamed of nothing else since our first date. Of that ring on my finger. Sharing the rest of our lives.’

Willow bent to pick up a shell. It was pink and perfect, a series of shining chambers inside, smooth to the touch.

‘I don’t think I believe in God any more,’ Evie said. The confession was defiant. She sounded like a three-year-old shouting out forbidden smutty words: bum, willy, poo . Willow was sure she hadn’t admitted any loss of faith to her parents. But this anger was surely healthier than the dumb compliance that she’d shown in the house.

‘Have you any idea what Jerry Markham might have wanted to talk to you about?’ Willow asked. ‘You said he’d left a message on your voicemail.’

‘No!’ It was as if bereavement had given her the licence to be rude. Perhaps for the first time in her life. ‘I don’t care about Jerry. I don’t give a shit about him.’

Willow wondered if Perez had behaved like this when his fiancée had died. Had he stamped his feet like a three-year-old and yelled at strangers. Perhaps in his own way he was still doing that. ‘Would the message still be on your phone?’ she asked.

Evie looked at her. ‘I deleted it. Why?’

‘Because if we find out why Jerry came to Shetland it might help us make an arrest, lock up John’s killer.’

‘I never believed in the death penalty,’ Evie said. ‘Not before this happened. I thought it was barbaric. Now I think I’d be prepared to kill the bastard myself. I’d stab him as he stabbed John.’ She picked up a pebble and hurled it into the water.

‘Jerry Markham had a new girlfriend,’ Willow said. ‘A young woman named Annabel Grey.’

‘Is that relevant?’ Evie’s voice was flippant. ‘I can’t imagine Jerry going for very long without a girlfriend.’