Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

Sandy wasn’t sleeping. It wasn’t the light night. He’d grown up in the islands and was used to the simmer dim. He was kept awake by laughter and talking just outside. His room was at the back of the house, small, the only one without its own bathroom. When he’d shown him round Charles had been apologetic. ‘It’s the only single in the house and there’s usually a child in here. There’s a door through to the adjoining room; it’s a kind of family suite.’ Sandy had taken it anyway and had given the better rooms to Willow and Jimmy. But it looked out on the courtyard and towards the bar, and tonight the noise seemed to go on well past normal closing time, the smokers all gathering in the yard chatting.

In the end he got up and dressed. He fancied winding down a bit, a couple of pints with people who spoke the same language as him. Jimmy Perez was a Shetlander, but since Fran’s death he’d been distant and no fun at all. Sandy made his way through the quiet house. There was still a light in the hotel office. He saw it under the door. But there was no sound from inside. Outside the air was still, but cold. He let himself into the courtyard and could hear rowdy laughter, someone singing the end of a song.

When he walked into the bar there was a moment of silence. Even those who didn’t recognize him would know now who he was and what he was doing there. Only three people were making the noise: a group of men in their late twenties who were kind of familiar. He ordered a pint. Draught Belhaven, not the island’s bottled beer. Billy nodded, but didn’t speak. Now Sandy recognized the drinkers as boys from the ferry. The most sober held up his hands.

‘Did we wake you? It’s Frankie’s birthday and we were just having a few drinks. To celebrate, you know how it is. Sorry, pal.’ He held out his hand. ‘Davy Stout.’

‘Will you be fit to take out the ferry early tomorrow? My boss’ll be out on the first boat.’ Sandy grinned to take the sting out of the words. No point coming in and throwing his weight around.

‘We’re all on the late shift and we’ll be fine by then.’ But Sandy’s presence seemed to have made the group more subdued. Billy came out from the bar to collect the last glasses and wipe the tables. He looked at his watch. He expected them to be leaving once they’d finished their drinks.

‘You’re here investigating that holidaymaker’s death,’ Stout said.

‘Eleanor Longstaff. She was up for Lowrie Malcolmson’s hamefarin’.’

‘I was there. It was a fine do. You think someone killed her?’

Sandy shrugged. ‘Did you see her at the party? One of the bridesmaids. Dark hair. English.’

‘You wouldn’t miss her.’

‘Anyone showing any special interest?’

This time the ferryman shrugged. ‘She wanted people to look at her. You know the sort. Never happy without an audience. Most of the men in the room obliged.’

‘Nobody gave her any hassle?’ Sandy drained his glass and raised it to Billy to show that he wanted another. The barman seemed disappointed.

‘Nah. It wasn’t that sort of party. You’ve been to the hamefarin’s. It was for families. Elderly relatives and bairns.’

‘Did you know all the people there?’ Sandy asked.

‘Apart from the English folk.’

‘I’m interested in a peerie lassie. Aged around ten. She was out on the beach, and her parents could have been in the hall. Do you mind who that might have been?’

The man considered and seemed to be running through possibilities in his head. ‘Sorry, I can’t think of anyone like that at all. But I didn’t know everyone. Besides the couple’s English friends, there were other relatives from the south.’

‘Any lasses of that age live in Meoness?’

This time he answered more quickly. ‘Nah. Some of us have bairns, but they’re all boys.’

The drinkers drifted away then and Sandy was left to finish his beer alone. When he returned to his room the light in the office had been switched off.

Perez left Unst the next morning on the first ferry to Yell. Sandy got up to see him off and watched him go, as if it was a sort of desertion. There were a couple of families on the boat, holidaymakers heading south after a spring break. Perez wondered if he’d see them again at Sumburgh. The rest were local, in cars with the blue-and-white Shetland flag on their bumpers, making the long commute to Lerwick for work or shopping.

Cassie was waiting for him at Duncan’s house, her small overnight bag already packed. He could tell she was excited, but that she was fidgeting about missing school. Cassie had always been one for following rules, and since Fran’s death it had become a kind of compulsion. A neurosis. Perez could understand that. It was about security. Playing it safe.

‘I’ve told her,’ Duncan said, ‘a few days away from lessons will do her no harm. I was always bunking off, wasn’t I, Jimmy?’

‘I’ve talked to Miss Price.’ Perez directed his words to Cassie, not to her father. ‘She’s given me some work for you to do when you’re staying with Grandma. And she wants a story all about the trip to London, when you get back to school.’

On the way south to Sumburgh they talked about London. ‘Grandma wants to show you the sights,’ Perez said. ‘She’s talking about a boat trip on the Thames and all sorts of treats. They can’t wait to see you.’

‘Will you be there?’

‘I have work to do in the city,’ Perez said. He paused. ‘Anyway I think Grandma and Grandpa would rather have you to themselves for a while. Then they can spoil you without me seeing and stopping them.’

‘Is it dangerous work?’

‘No! It’s talking to people, to women mostly. Routine. Background stuff.’

‘But you’re a boss,’ she said. ‘Sandy should be doing routine work.’

‘I wanted an excuse to take you to London.’ And that, at last, seemed to satisfy her.

It was a clear day and, on the flight south to Aberdeen, Fair Isle appeared suddenly beneath them, with the iconic shape of Sheep Rock to the east. Perez wasn’t sure whether he should point it out. That’s where I was born. And where your mother died. But Cassie saw the island below and mentioned it herself. ‘You said you would take me soon,’ she said. ‘When can we go?’

‘This summer. When school’s finished. We’ll stay for a few days.’ He realized that the idea made him uncomfortable. Was it impertinent to think of Cassie as belonging to his family now? What would Fran’s parents in London make of that?

Cassie seemed to pick up his ambivalence. ‘What should I call your mother and father when I see them? They’re not quite grandparents, are they? Or are they? I never know, so I end up not calling them anything.’

‘They think of themselves as your grandparents,’ he said. But call them whatever you like. James and Mary? You could ask them.’

She peered out of the window until the island disappeared from view. There was a quick connection at Aberdeen and then they were arriving into Heathrow, into the crowds and the noise. Everything giant-sized and everyone yelling. Cassie went very quiet and held onto his hand. She looked smaller here where the buildings and the buses towered above her. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and take her back to Shetland, where he could keep her safe. Then he thought that a woman had just been killed in Shetland and that people were much the same wherever they were.

Fran’s parents were waiting for them, had probably been looking out for the taxi for hours. Cassie was their only grandchild, but it was more than that. She was all they had left of their daughter. Perez could understand why she was so important. They glimpsed traces of the girl they’d known and the woman they’d lost in Cassie’s eyes, in the way she ran, and in her stubbornness and her fierce independence. They lived in a neat little house in a tree-lined suburb, which had become more fashionable since they’d bought it. There was a new coffee shop on the corner. A woman in an extravagant floral dress walked down the street clutching a small white dog and ignored them.