Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

Fran’s mother took Cassie to the room that had once been Fran’s. It smelled of paint. Perez wondered if the couple had been up all night decorating it. There was a view over city gardens, and everything was green and lush.

‘You’ll stay for an early supper, Jimmy? I thought we’d eat soon because Cassie will be tired.’ She smiled and he thought she was a very good woman. She made such an effort to keep the blame from her voice.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m pushed for time. You know.’

‘But you’ll have a cup of tea at least.’

So he agreed to a cup of tea. He had to respond in some way to her generosity of spirit. Downstairs Fran’s father already had the kettle on. They sat in the tiny garden on uncomfortable wrought-iron seats, balancing the cups on a wobbly wrought-iron table, while Cassie played with the neighbour’s cat and they all tried to pretend there was no tension or awkwardness. He thought even Cassie was relieved when he took his leave. He stood on the doorstep and said he would be there early on Thursday morning to take the girl home. That provoked the only crack in the mask of cordial civilization.

‘So soon, Jimmy?’ Fran’s mother cried. ‘Is that all we have? One full day?’

‘I have to be back in the islands for work.’ The words mild. ‘And Cassie has school.’ He understood that deep down they wanted to capture Cassie and bring her up themselves. How could they entrust her safety to the man who’d allowed their daughter to be killed? But Fran had bequeathed Cassie to him and they all had to respect her wishes.

‘Of course.’ She’d already recovered her composure. ‘You said that it would only be a flying visit.’

‘Why don’t you come up and stay with us ?’

‘We will.’ But they’d only been in Shetland once since Fran had died and he knew they’d found the experience distressing. It reminded them of how far she’d grown away from them, even before her murder.

He checked into his hotel and phoned the number he’d been given for Cilla Montgomery, Eleanor’s mother. No reply. Then he tried Bright Star, Eleanor’s production company. It was five o’clock and he’d expected that the staff would be preparing to leave work for the evening and thought he’d be forced to make an appointment for the following day. But a young man said everyone would be around for a couple of hours yet, if Perez wanted to call in, and went on to give crisp directions. Perez found the office in a converted brewery close to King’s Cross station. Bright Star took up half the ground floor. In the rest of the building there was an architect’s practice, a literary agency and a firm of lawyers. Perez was buzzed into an open-plan office where five people sat in front of PCs. Most seemed very young and all were casually dressed. He’d been expecting a place where films might be made – a studio with cameras and spotlights – but this had the air of a well-appointed sixth-form common room. The atmosphere was sombre. Perez supposed that Eleanor’s death would mark the end of Bright Star Productions and these people might now find themselves without work.

A tall, dark man dressed in jeans, Converse boots and a loose sweater of the kind that Willow Reeves might have worn came up to him with his hand outstretched.

‘Inspector Perez. We’ve been expecting you. You found us OK?’ He smiled as if the inspector was a valued client. Perez wondered if Eleanor’s team had been appointed for their charm. He supposed that it would be part of the job to be appealing to broadcasters and commissioners. ‘I’m not quite sure how we can help, though. We’re in a state of shock.’ He shook Perez’s hand. ‘My name’s Leo Whitehouse. I was Nell’s assistant.’

Perez sat on a desk and felt like a college lecturer trying to be one of the gang. ‘Eleanor was working on a documentary about ghosts,’ he said. ‘Can you give me the background to that?’

‘There’d been a survey about contemporary belief systems for one of the national papers and it seemed to indicate a spike in the number of younger, educated individuals who claimed to have had supernatural experiences. Our documentary planned to look in more detail at what might have provoked the increase. It wasn’t about debunking the reports, but about considering what might lead apparently rational people to become convinced that they’d seen a ghost or that a medium had been in contact with a deceased loved one. A need for the spiritual in an irreligious age. That was the angle we were going for.’ The words came easily. He’d obviously described the project before. He paused before continuing. ‘Actually we were all thrilled when we got the commission. Things had been looking a bit tricky recently. Financially, I mean. It looked as if there might have to be some redundancies. The ghost project was just what we needed.’

Perez made a mental note to ask Willow to get a search on the Bright Star accounts. ‘What was Eleanor’s take on the subject?’

‘I’m sorry?’ The lanky young man frowned.

‘Did she believe in ghosts?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so!’ Leo gave a sudden grin. ‘Nell believed in good red wine and expensive shoes. I don’t think you would have called her a spiritual woman in any sense.’

‘Even more recently? I understand that the loss of a child had affected her very deeply.’ Perez looked out at the young, unmarked faces and wondered if any of them had faced tragedy. In the weeks after Fran’s death he’d been convinced that he’d seen her standing at the foot of his bed. If a medium had promised that she could set up a line of contact with the dead, he’d have jumped at the chance.

‘That was a few months ago,’ the man said. ‘She’d been more her old self lately. Excited by her friend’s wedding and the trip north. The whole ghost thing.’

‘Were you all working on that?’ Perez looked around the room, at the nearly grown children who’d lost their boss and their surrogate mother.

‘No,’ Leo said. ‘Just me and Alice at this point.’ A small, dark young woman dressed in black waved from a desk in the back row. ‘The others are winding up a couple of smaller projects. Eleanor did the important stuff, setting up meetings with potential directors, working out budgets. We were making the initial contacts, weeding out the loonies.’

‘Were there lots of those?’

‘No,’ Leo said. ‘Surprisingly few.’

‘Had you talked to anyone in Shetland about sightings of Peerie Lizzie?’

There was a moment’s silence in the room and in the end Alice spoke. ‘I found out about Peerie Lizzie on the Internet,’ she said, ‘and tracked down one couple who’d claimed to have seen her. The others weren’t very credible. Though Eleanor had already heard about Peerie Lizzie from a friend and she said she’d follow up that story because she was going to Shetland anyway. It was a bit of a bummer actually! I was hoping I’d get a trip to the islands out of it. I’ve never been further north than Derby.’

‘Did Eleanor set up a meeting with the couple?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alice said. ‘Nell went a bit weird and mysterious on us actually, about Peerie Lizzie. I mean usually she was very open and sharing about her work, but she started shutting her office door when she was on the phone.’ She pointed to a glass box in the corner of the room. ‘It was odd. She hasn’t minded us listening in before, even to quite high-powered discussions with execs.’

‘Are you sure all her secret conversations were work-related?’ Perez was trying to make sense of this. If Peerie Lizzie had the reputation of appearing to the childless and helping them to become pregnant, he could see why Eleanor would want to follow up the story herself. But he couldn’t understand why she would want to keep her interest private. Perhaps she’d be embarrassed to admit that she might be taking the claims seriously, but she had a legitimate work-related excuse for her questions, so why be worried about her team eavesdropping? It occurred to him that there might be another explanation for the closed door.