Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

Willow didn’t know how to answer that. She was beginning to feel impatient, but she was aware of Perez in the corner. His skill was patience. Letting a silence stretch until it was filled by a witness.

And eventually Marcus continued talking. ‘She’s not my usual type actually. I tend to go for girls who are more extrovert. Perhaps more like me. But something about Polly has got under my skin. I even took her to meet my mother a couple of weeks ago. Mother usually hates my girlfriends, but they got on like a house on fire. Perhaps it’s about time I considered settling down.’ He paused, suddenly embarrassed, and gave a little laugh. ‘Sorry, you don’t want to know all about my love life. But I was pleased when Polly asked me to this wedding. I thought she must like me. I mean, you wouldn’t want to spend a whole week with someone if you couldn’t stand their company. Would you?’ This time it was Marcus who waited for the silence to be filled.

Perez spoke. ‘What did you make of the relationship between Ian and Eleanor?’

Marcus seemed startled by his question, almost as if he’d forgotten that the Shetlander was in the room. ‘Oh, I hadn’t known them long enough to have an opinion.’

‘They’re your partner’s two best friends. You’d have discussed it, surely. Especially as Eleanor had been going through a hard time.’

‘I don’t think Ian was Polly’s friend,’ Marcus said carefully. ‘They don’t have much in common. He’s very ambitious, very driven. She treats her work as a vocation. I’m sure she’d do it even if she wasn’t being paid.’

‘That doesn’t quite answer my question,’ Perez said. ‘If your partner was ambivalent about Mr Longstaff, all the more reason for you to discuss him.’

Marcus looked up sharply. ‘I don’t think Ian killed Eleanor, if that’s what you’re implying. They were a couple who enjoyed drama. The excitement of falling out and making up. Polly isn’t like that. She couldn’t understand it. She had a very safe and secure childhood. Her parents have probably never rowed since they were first married. Not in her presence at least. We tend to give a moral weight to the things with which we’re most comfortable, don’t you think?’

Willow found herself staring at him. She’d first thought him stupid, a public-school buffoon straight out of Wodehouse. Now she wondered how she could have reached that opinion.

‘Do you have any other insights into Polly’s friends?’ Perez asked. ‘Lowrie and Caroline, for example. What did you make of them?’

‘I only saw them at their wedding and then at the party!’ Marcus said. ‘They seemed at ease with each other. At home. It occurred to me that they might settle in Shetland. And they both seemed very fond of Eleanor. I can’t imagine either of them would have wanted to hurt her.’

‘The night Eleanor disappeared,’ Willow leaned forward across the table, ‘did you leave the house for any reason?’

‘Of course not. Why would I?’

‘You’re as far north as you can get in the UK and it’s midsummer. That makes people behave strangely. And you like wild places. Perhaps you took the opportunity to explore on your own.’

‘I was tired,’ he said. ‘Too tired to wander around on my own. And I can sleep anywhere. I wouldn’t be able to work as I do if I couldn’t drop off in planes, in a camp in the bush, in strange hotels. The light doesn’t bother me. I slept very well.’

‘And Polly?’

‘Ah, Polly’s quite different. She takes sleeping tablets when she travels away from home. She worries about being shattered the next day. She is rather a worrier altogether, I’m afraid. I’m hoping I’ll cure her of that. But when she takes the pills she doesn’t stir.’

Polly hated being in the house with Ian. He’d shut himself in the room that he’d shared with Eleanor, but even through the walls she sensed his desperation and imagined a suppressed rage, pictured him pacing up and down across the stripped wooden floor. She thought she should offer him some comfort, but was nervous about approaching him. Once Marcus had left to give his statement to the police officers she made a pot of coffee and sat outside.

A young girl came onto the beach. The girl carried a bucket and a spade; she took off her socks and shoes, squatted on the sand and began to dig. Very tidily and with concentration. She seemed old enough to be at school and Polly wondered what she was doing there. Perhaps she was on holiday with her parents, though there was no adult with her. In London it would be a matter of concern to see a child alone, but here perhaps it would be less unusual. It was only when the girl stood up and ran towards the sea that Polly recognized her as the child who’d been dancing on the sand on the night of the hamefarin’. There was the same long hair and skinny limbs. But this time, instead of the white dress, she wore a red pinafore printed with blue butterflies over a blue blouse. It still looked a little old-fashioned and formal for the beach. For a moment Polly couldn’t believe her eyes. It was almost as if she’d started to believe in Eleanor’s notion of the girl as Peerie Lizzie.

She ran into the house to get her jacket. Away from the shelter of the building there was a breeze that felt cold to her, though the child seemed oblivious to the chill. When she reached the shore the girl was still there, but walking away from her towards the Meoness community hall. Perhaps an adult was waiting for her there. She seemed to have covered a considerable distance, though she stopped occasionally to pick up a shell or a piece of driftwood, before dropping it into the bucket. Polly hurried after her without any real idea what she would do if she caught up with her. What would she say to the girl’s parents if they were waiting for her? My dead friend thought your daughter was a ghost.

The girl turned away from the water and took the path from the beach. Polly thought she would catch up with the child when she got to the road. She would surely stop to put on her socks and sandals, and then Polly could pass her and make a friendly comment that might lead to a conversation. Perhaps she lived in one of the houses along the street between Sletts and the hall. Polly realized that she wanted to confirm Eleanor’s account of what had happened on the afternoon before she died. Suddenly it seemed overwhelmingly important to prove that her friend hadn’t imagined the girl on the beach and her apparent disappearance into the sea.

A sandy path ran beside the Meoness hall and joined the street by the telephone kiosk. Polly came to the corner of the hall and had a view of the road in both directions. She’d expected to find the child there, sitting on the verge, cleaning her feet, but there was no sign either of the child or of any waiting adults. Polly hadn’t heard a car. The girl had completely disappeared from view.

There were two houses on the road that led back to Sletts. Polly walked fast, peering into each building, hoping to catch a glimpse of the girl inside. Lack of sleep and confusion about Eleanor’s death were making her question her own judgement. It was as if the silver light of the simmer dim was seeping into her brain, drowning her reason. Had she imagined the girl with the bucket and spade, the dancing child at the wedding party? The first building was single-storeyed, modern, but built to the same pattern as the older homes on the island: a storm porch in the front, with rooms to either side. On the grass to the back of the house there was a climbing frame with a swing attached to it. A rotary washing line had a pair of men’s jeans hanging from it. This was a family home. The obvious explanation was that the girl had hurried along the road and gone inside. Polly thought that she’d overreacted, running out of Sletts and chasing down the beach. The girl must have noticed her and might even have thought she posed some kind of danger. News of Eleanor’s death would have got out by now and children might have been told to be wary of strangers. Perhaps that was why the girl had disappeared so quickly. What could she do now? Eleanor would have knocked at the door and charmed the residents so that they’d have invited her in, made tea for her and laughed when she explained that she’d thought the child might be a spirit. But Polly was more timid.