Ann Cleeves - Dead Water

Again it was Jessie who spoke first. ‘That doesn’t sound like the Jerry Markham we knew.’ Her voice was unsympathetic. She needed to save all her concern for her daughter.

‘I wondered if he’d been in touch with you. Perhaps he’d sent you a letter. An apology for the way he’d treated Evie.’

‘No,’ Jessie said. ‘There was nothing of that kind. And it would take more than a letter to make me feel differently about him. You didn’t see Evie at the time that he left her. You didn’t see how thin and ill she looked.’

Perez turned to the man who was still standing, his back to the stove. ‘Francis? Did you hear from Jerry Markham?’

‘Markham would know better than to try to contact me.’ Watt’s mouth snapped shut like a trap.

‘Peter Markham told me that you’d met him in the street a little while ago,’ Perez said. ‘He told me that you were on friendly terms then.’

‘I had no quarrel with the father,’ Watt said. ‘No reason not to be polite to the man.’

And at that Jessie Watt started talking again about Francis’s work. ‘They’re going to put one of his yoals in a museum in Bergen. Imagine that! He has a waiting list of folk wanting to buy boats from him.’ And then even she lapsed into silence and stared out of the window at Willow and her daughter, walking along the beach. They all watched as Willow put her arm round Evie’s shoulder and started back with her along the path across the field towards the house.

Willow and Perez had to wait a while for the ferry back to Yell and sat in the car at the pier, sharing notes.

‘How was the girl?’ Perez asked.

‘Angry. And who can blame her.’ The walk along the beach had given Willow some colour. She looked fitter, healthier. ‘I don’t think she had any idea that Markham had taken up with Annabel Grey, though. That was a complete surprise.’

‘And she still says that she never met him after he arrived back?’

‘Mmm. And that she deleted the message he’d left on her voicemail.’ Willow turned to face him. There were freckles on the bridge of her nose. ‘Where do we go from here, Jimmy? I still feel we’re nowhere near finding out what went on.’

‘Should we call in on Joe Sinclair on our way back to Lerwick?’

‘Aye.’ She seemed preoccupied. Was she dwelling on her failure to get a result? ‘Let’s do that.’

‘It still seems a coincidence to me that Markham was at the terminal, so close to where Henderson was working, that afternoon. And Joe was out at Hvidahus with Evie and the Fiscal on the morning Henderson died. They were all there, within half a mile of where John was killed. He’s on the edge of both of our investigations.’

‘Sure, Jimmy. Whatever you think.’ But he wasn’t sure that she was really listening. She’d thought the conversation with Evie would bring a new energy to the inquiry. Now perhaps she believed that the long trip to Fetlar had been a waste of time.

Joe Sinclair was short and solid. Confident. Practical. Perez had served with him on a working party that had set out guidelines for a response to a possible major oil spill and had come to respect his straightforward approach to problems. There was no bluster with Joe Sinclair. He might have his own agenda, but there was no obvious power-play.

On the wall of his office had been pinned a detailed large-scale map of Shetland and a photo of the last ship he’d skippered, a colour image of Shetland from space, a photo of his wife and grown-up daughters.

‘You’re here about John.’ There was a coffee machine in the corner of the room. The jug was already filled with water and Sinclair tipped grounds from a jar into the filter and switched it on. ‘I still can’t believe he’s dead.’ And Perez saw that in this case the cliché was true. Joe looked at the door as if he was expecting Henderson to walk into his office for his next shift. ‘He’d worked here longer than me and could have done my job with his eyes shut, but he preferred being out on the water. I’d come to depend on him.’

The coffee gurgled and Sinclair fetched mugs from a drawer, glad of an excuse to turn away.

Perez looked at Willow, offering her the opportunity to lead the interview. He’d already introduced her as the Senior Investigating Officer. But she shook her head briefly and throughout the discussion sat very quiet and still. Listening intently? Or still preoccupied by her encounter with Evie Watt, wishing that she’d taken a different tack, asked other questions?

‘I’d like to talk about Jerry Markham first.’ Perez took his coffee and set it carefully on the floor at his side. ‘You knew him.’ Not a question. Joe Sinclair knew everyone in Shetland. ‘What did you make of him?’

There was a moment of silence. It wasn’t the question Joe had been expecting. But he was accustomed to people asking for his opinion and he answered readily enough. ‘He wasn’t a bad lad. Spoilt rotten, and that wasn’t his fault. Maria ruined him, and Peter would never stand up to her. It left Jerry with an unfortunate manner. Arrogant. He always managed to rub folk up the wrong way.’

‘You came across him when he was working on the Shetland Times ?’

‘He turned up occasionally, sniffing out stories. Hoping for something from me when Andy Belshaw sent him away with a flea in his ear.’ Joe paused. ‘Andy was one of the people he managed to irritate.’

‘Anything specific?’

Joe smiled sadly. ‘There was a minor incident at the terminal. A bit of a spill. Not even big enough for us to put the boom across the voe. But Jerry turned it into a disaster and sold the story to one of the broadsheets in the south. That gave Andy a lot of hassle with his managers, who wanted to know why he’d let the thing blow out of proportion. Jerry was never his favourite person after that.’

‘Yet Jerry was in the terminal the afternoon before he died. Andy met him and showed him round.’ Perez wasn’t sure how important this was, but wished he knew what Jerry had been doing at the terminal, wished there was a notebook, fragments of an article on a laptop, to point them in the right direction.

‘Mr Markham was a hotshot reporter these days. Andy could hardly turn him away.’

‘Did you know Jerry was back in Shetland?’

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘I haven’t been down at the Ravenswick Hotel for months.’ He gave a brief grin. ‘I can’t afford the prices in the bar these days.’

‘John didn’t mention him?’ Perez finished his coffee, wondered if he needed more.

Joe shook his head. ‘But then John wouldn’t. He was the most private man I’ve ever met. If Markham was trying to get in touch, nobody else would know about it.’

‘Markham didn’t call in here the afternoon he died?’

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘I was working that day and, like I said, I didn’t even know he was back.’ He paused and studied the photo of his family on his desk. ‘Something odd did happen.’

‘Yes?’ Outside the office window, Perez saw that the weather was changing again. A front was coming in, bringing a westerly breeze and scraps of cloud.

‘John was here in the office. He’d just come in from bringing in the Lord Rannoch and we were talking about the roster for the next couple of months. His mobile went. Usually he’d just ignore it, switch it off and say he’d deal with it later. But he apologized and went outside to take the call. Then he came back and asked if he could take an hour off.’ Joe looked up from his desk. ‘That was unprecedented. Even when his wife was ill, John organized things so that he never took time off work. So I said fine, of course.’

‘Did you ask him what the call was about?’

‘Not directly. I didn’t want to pry. I probably said “Everything OK?” And he just nodded and went out.’ Joe stood up and went to the window, looked at the sky with a sailor’s eye. ‘I thought it was something about the wedding. Evie panicking about details. You know women before the big day. And John was besotted with her. She was the only person he’d leave work for.’