Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

George Malcolmson didn’t like chaos. He’d been a keeper at the Muckle Flugga Light until it had been automated in 1995 and that had suited him well. Lighthouse work was all about routine. There were seasons for painting and seasons for maintenance. A time for being sober, when you were on duty, and a time for drinking, during the month onshore. The helicopter had brought them to the rock for their shift every four weeks and had taken them away at the end of it, as long as the weather allowed. George had always been more upset about being grounded onshore than about being stranded on the rock. In Muckle Flugga the keepers had worked in threes. If you had two men on their own in a small space that could be the recipe for disaster – for ill will, fighting and madness. George had a reputation as a peacemaker because he was controlled and never lost his temper. The other men had liked to work with him. He was calm, methodical.

The patterns and rituals of his lighthouse life had made him superstitious. It had pleased him that the rock was the most northerly station in the UK. There was clarity about the fact and that gave it special significance. He still thought that three was a lucky number, didn’t whistle in a boat and sometimes planted his crops at full moon – he knew the power of the tide.

Now he sat in the bar of Springfield House with a pint on the table in front of him. His house at Voxter was in chaos because a woman, a friend of his son, had died. He tried to work out what might have been behind the death. George hated random tragedy and looked for patterns here too; for whatever could lie behind Eleanor Longstaff’s dying. He couldn’t imagine that anything they’d done could have led to the woman being killed, but it was a difficult time and he couldn’t be certain. Lowrie had been influenced by the woman when he was a student, but surely all that nonsense was long finished. George went over and over the events of the previous day in his head, searching for a reason, for any small episode that might explain what had happened.

His wife couldn’t understand his need to organize his life into patterns and rhythms and he no longer tried to explain his obsession to her. Grusche would have liked more children, but he’d known that three was a good number for a family and had made excuses to stop after Lowrie was born. He’d tried to discuss his worry that another child might not be healthy, that she was getting on in years and he feared for her safety too, but she’d laughed at his anxiety. In the end, though, she’d stopped trying to persuade him. He could be stubborn and his wife had had to come to terms with what she called his ridiculous superstitions. And she was so close to Lowrie that perhaps she realized that another child might feel left out.

All the strangers in Voxter and the break in his routine had made George jittery. The fuss of the hamefarin’ had been disruptive enough, but he’d been prepared for that. It was the death of the woman with the dark hair and the flashing eyes that had disturbed him. If he’d stayed in the house he’d likely have taken more drams than were good for him and that would have got him into bother, so he’d mumbled an excuse and come here, driving very carefully up the track because he suspected he might still be a little drunk from the night before. He’d been told that Mary Lomax had gone south and so there’d be no police officer to stop him, but he didn’t want an accident. That would only provide another reason for his wife to be angry with him. He loved Grusche and he didn’t want to hurt her.

Then Sandy Wilson, the young detective from Whalsay, arrived in the bar and George had felt uncomfortable all over again. He got up to leave when he heard the man say that his team were looking for accommodation in Springfield. Suddenly there were too many associations with the past, with this building, and George wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. Driving slowly back to Voxter, he wished again that the lighthouses had never been automated, that he was back with his old life of whitewashing the tower and polishing the lenses, of taking his shifts with his pals. Of returning each month to his exotic foreign wife and his growing son. Back then his world was much simpler.

Willow was surprised by the opulence of their temporary accommodation. Sandy had found rooms for them in a hotel just south of Meoness. The house was Georgian, large and very grand, beautifully restored with period furniture and paintings. Peerie Lizzie had grown up here, not far from the cliff where Eleanor’s body was found, and she’d drowned in the voe, the inlet that cut into the land from the sea. The legend was that she’d been caught out by the tide in a thick fog. Now it was the darkest part of the night, the stars were out and the water reflected a sliver of moon. The house stood on a slight rise and had a view of water and, in the distance, the standing stone, breaking the line of the horizon. Lizzie’s father had been an English laird and now it was mostly English tourists who pretended to be masters of their island universe, or at least this house and its surrounding garden. Locals came here too, but to the public bar that had been built in the old stables at the back of the house, and on special occasions to eat in the dining room.

Sandy was apologetic. ‘It’s a bit pricey, but everywhere else was full. I got them to give us a discount.’

Willow could see that he was uncomfortable in this house, overwhelmed by its grandeur. ‘Hey, it’s fab. Really convenient and enough space for us to set up a base if we need to. Good choice!’

It was past midnight and they had the lounge to themselves. The owners had left food for them in the kitchen, and Sandy brought in trays of sandwiches wrapped in cling film and a plate of cakes and biscuits. Willow had been given a double bedroom. It had brocade curtains, a huge ornate mirror and delicate chairs that looked as if they would snap under her weight. She’d always been clumsy and had a horror of breaking things. She’d dumped her holdall there and pulled out a bottle of the island malt whisky that always reminded her of home. She’d brought some to the islands with her when she was last in Shetland and had thought it might be the start of a good tradition.

In the lounge they switched on a couple of table lamps and began to eat. Willow found glasses in a sideboard and poured out the whisky. James Grieve raised his glass to her. ‘I’ve spoken to the funeral director. We’ll get the body south on tomorrow evening’s ferry.’

‘And you really have no idea about the cause of death?’

She always felt untidy and awkward in comparison to him. Unsophisticated and gawky. She suspected that he regarded her with amused resignation, as if he saw her as an example of how the police service had deteriorated in the time he’d been working as a forensic pathologist.

‘Are you asking me to speculate, Chief Inspector?’

‘I wouldn’t dare, Doctor.’

He laughed. ‘If I were a betting man I’d guess that we’ll find some form of blunt-force trauma on the back of her head.’

‘And that’s why she was posed in that way?’ Willow was talking almost to herself. ‘So she still looked perfect.’

‘Ah, that’s psychology or some other magic, and beyond my area of competence.’ The small man drained his glass. ‘I just can’t see any other cause of death until we move her.’ He stood up. ‘I’m away to my bed. I’ll see you bright and early in the morning.’

Sandy Wilson seemed to have been drowsing throughout the conversation and he stood up and left the room too. Willow reached out and tipped a little more whisky into Perez’s glass and then into her own. ‘So how have you been, Jimmy?’ She thought she wouldn’t have had the nerve to be so personal without a drink inside her. ‘And how’s Cassie?’