Ann Cleeves - Dead Water

‘Why do you think she was behaving so unusually?’ Perez gave an encouraging smile. ‘Last-minute nerves, do you think, before the wedding?’

Jen shook her head. ‘She’d been besotted with that man from the first date. She’s always wanted to marry him. No second thoughts there. And who could blame her? He was a lovely man.’

‘Any idea then? You must have asked her.’

‘Well, it wasn’t exactly an ideal situation for a heart-to-heart. A bunch of lasses singing filthy songs in the back of the bus, and Evie threatening to throw up every five minutes.’

‘But maybe you had some idea?’

‘Jerry Markham was back,’ Jen said. ‘That was what had really freaked her out.’ She looked at them. ‘You know he got her pregnant when she was a kid?’

‘Had she met him?’ Perez asked. ‘Is that why she was so upset? Had he tracked her down at work? Bumped into her by chance?’

The woman shook her head. ‘I have no idea! By the time I’d got that much out of her she was so drunk that she was making no sense at all. I mean, slurring her words and hardly able to stand. You asked if anyone was spiking her drinks. It was the other way round. I was buying her tonic water and telling her there was vodka in it.’

‘So what exactly did Evie say about Jerry,’ Perez asked. ‘If you could remember word-for-word, Mrs Belshaw, it would be brilliant.’ That smile again, which made the recipient feel as if they were the most important person in the world.

‘Oh, I can remember word-for-word.’ Jen gave an embarrassed, little laugh. ‘“Fucking Jerry Markham!” That’s what she said – over and over again. I’d never heard her swear before. It was shocking. Like hearing your grandma cursing. Or the minister.’

‘But no more detail?’ Perez said. ‘Nothing more than that?’

Jen shook her head.

‘Can I take you back to the events of that evening then,’ he said, as if Evie’s state of mind was of minor importance and he wanted to return to the main reason for their being there. ‘Where did you head for after the Busta House? And it would be very helpful, please, if you could give us the timings for that.’ Sandy thought he sounded like the person at headquarters who checked their expense sheets, a very boring little man called Eric, who only cared about the detail. Perez made Sandy write everything down and then read it back to Jen. He asked more than once about the red Alfa Romeo.

‘I’ve already told you that I didn’t see it,’ she said. ‘I know it ended up in the car park at Vatnagarth, but beyond that, I know nothing about it. We were in the bars for a lot of the time. It could have driven down the road while we were inside and we would never have noticed.’

An electronic bell rang then, and it was so loud that it made Sandy jump in his seat. They heard the children running out into the playground for their break.

‘My God, is that the time?’ Jen got to her feet. Sandy thought she was glad of an excuse to get away from them, and he couldn’t blame her. ‘I’ll never get that pie cooked by dinnertime if I don’t go now.’ And she ran out of the room, leaving them to find their own way to the car park.

They sat in the car outside the school for what seemed like an age – Jimmy Perez staring ahead, although there was nothing to see except a brick wall. Sandy shuffled in his seat. Maybe he should just drive off back to Lerwick. He didn’t like to disturb Perez when he was lost in thought. At last he couldn’t bear the silence any longer and was forced to speak.

‘Which way then, boss?’

And Perez turned slowly to look at him, kind of surprised, like some sort of animal waking up after hibernation. A bear, Sandy thought. With all that shaggy black hair, he could be a bear.

‘Let’s head up towards Sullom Voe,’ Perez said. ‘I’ve had a bit of an idea and I want to get a feel for the lie of the land again. But we’ll stop at the Old Schoolhouse on the way through, just in case the Fiscal’s at home.’

Rhona Laing’s car was still not parked outside her house, but Perez asked Sandy to pull in anyway. Sandy waited in the vehicle while Perez went up to the front door. He banged hard, but there was obviously no reply. Perez walked round the garden, looking through all the downstairs windows, and at last emerged from the other side of the house and came back to the car. ‘It all looks tidy enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll give her a ring at work when we get back to the station.’

Just as he was about to drive off Sandy looked back towards the house. For a moment he thought he saw a shadow at an upstairs window, a curtain moving. But the window was open, and it must have been the breeze blowing the fine cloth. He was imagining things. He didn’t say anything. The inspector thought he was stupid enough as it was.

They drove through Brae and took the road that ran along the side of Sullom Voe and would eventually end up at Toft and the North Isles ferry. Before they reached the terminal Perez asked him to turn off towards Scatsta Airport. Sandy had never driven down here before; all the traffic at Scatsta was oil-related, so there was no reason to. A helicopter took off and hovered for a moment before heading out towards the North Sea and the rigs. They seemed very close to the aircraft and surrounded by the noise. Sandy thought he could feel the power of the rotor blades rocking the car.

‘Down there.’

It was a track and beside it an old sign, reading ‘Authorized vehicles only’. There was no gate blocking the way, though, and it led to the end of a low headland that jutted out into the water. The area was covered with flat sheets of concrete, so it looked as if buildings had once been there and only the floors were left. Now the concrete was cracked, and weeds and even little bushes had pushed their way through. Sandy parked so that they were facing north.

‘I think this was a military station during the war. Air-force, I suppose.’ Still Perez sat, looking across the water to the oil terminal, the tanks and the flare, and to the lorries that carried rock over the newly constructed road to the gas plant. ‘I suppose they flattened it when there was no further use for it.’

‘Weren’t they going to develop it as a business park at one time?’ Sandy thought he had heard that or read it in the Shetland Times .

Perez didn’t answer. He climbed out of the car and Sandy joined him. ‘Imagine that you’re Jerry Markham,’ Perez said. ‘You’ve just visited the oil terminal and had a meeting with Andy Belshaw. Routine stuff, if Andy is telling it how it was. Maybe the meeting was just to provide an excuse for Jerry to be at this end of the island. You decide that you want to meet John Henderson. We don’t know why at this point. To apologize for the way you treated Evie? To wish him luck for his marriage? Or to warn him off, because you’ve decided that after all you want Evie for yourself? And all your life, you’ve had exactly what you wanted. Whatever the reason, you phone him while he’s at work. We know from Sinclair that Henderson took a call. Where would you arrange to meet?’

‘Here?’ It seemed to Sandy that this was the answer that was expected. He thought with satisfaction that Perez was back to his old form, focused and sharp.

‘That makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Perez stared out to sea, but continued talking. ‘It’s not overlooked. There are cars here occasionally – it’s a place where kids come to practise driving before their parents let them out onto the roads. So a couple of vehicles wouldn’t particularly attract notice.’

‘ My car might,’ Sandy said. ‘I mean, if I’m still pretending to be Jerry Markham.’

‘The red Alfa Romeo. So it would.’ And Perez smiled, so Sandy felt as if he’d passed some sort of test.