Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

‘Yes.’ She got to her feet. Then she saw him. ‘Sandy Wilson, what are you doing here?’ Her voice was cool. He might have been one of her seven-year-olds misbehaving.

‘I’m working on an investigation into a serious crime,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard about it.’ He was aware that the older children were listening in.

‘I’m not sure how I can help.’ She had smooth, dark hair and he thought she had more in common now with the English people in Sletts than she did with him. He was pleased that she’d known him at once, though. He’d wondered if she would have forgotten him.

‘Perhaps I should come back later,’ he said, ‘when you’re not so busy.’

‘No need for that.’ She watched a car pull up outside. ‘That’s Mr Rickard. He’s here to take music – that’s one subject I can’t teach, even to the little ones. You remember me, Sandy, always tone-deaf, always told to stand at the back and mime.’ She turned her attention back to him and smiled. ‘If you’re lucky I’ll make you a cup of tea and you can tell me what this is all about.’

She asked the children to finish what they were doing and he looked around the room. As Davy Stout, the ferryman, had said, there was a preponderance of boys. He couldn’t see any girls with long, dark hair. This would be a waste of time and he’d have nothing to tell Perez to make him proud.

They drank tea in a little room that acted as her office.

‘What brought you back?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘My father died last year and my mother’s on her own. Guilt, I suppose.’

‘You had nothing to keep you south?’

‘I don’t have a husband or a family, if that’s what you’re asking.’

He thought she’d always had a sharp tongue. It’d be a brave man who took her on.

‘So what are you doing in Unst, Sandy Wilson? And in my school?’

‘The woman who was killed, she had a thing about Peerie Lizzie.’

‘What sort of thing?’ She took a biscuit from the tin that stood between them and dipped it into her tea. Her teeth were very sharp too.

‘She was a TV producer and she was making a film about ghosts. But maybe she believed in them. She claimed to have seen a dark-haired girl, aged about ten, on the beach by Sletts, the holiday home on the shore. I’m trying to work out what really happened, but I didn’t see any bairns to match that description in your class.’

‘Perhaps she dreamed the whole thing up,’ Louisa said, ‘to make her television show more interesting.’

‘I don’t think so. Another woman saw the lass too. I’d like to find her.’ He thought again. ‘Do you know Vaila Arthur?’

‘She works here part-time as classroom assistant, but she’s on maternity leave.’

‘What do you make of her?’

Louisa smiled. ‘She’s helpful enough. Chatty. Loves the kids.’

‘She claims to have seen Peerie Lizzie.’

‘I know that.’ Another smile. ‘I’ve heard the story many times. It gets a little bit more dramatic every time she tells it.’ Louisa paused. ‘I wouldn’t have her down as the most reliable witness.’ There was another hesitation before she continued, her voice confidential. ‘Grusche Malcolmson was the cook here until she retired. She was an old pal of my mother, so I’ve known her for years. Vaila’s a kind of niece of hers and she drives Grusche crazy with her silliness.’

This was classic Shetland, Sandy thought. Everyone connected one way or another. ‘If you know Grusche and George, maybe you were at Lowrie Malcolmson’s hamefarin’?’

Louisa shook her head. ‘Grusche asked me, and I’d heard all about the wedding. I think she only retired because it was taking up so much of her time. I’m hoping to lure her back as cook. We still haven’t got anyone permanent and she was brilliant. But I live in Yell with my mother and she hates being left alone all night. I’d have missed the last ferry home.’

He saw then how constrained Louisa’s life was. She’d come back to the islands from her responsible job in Edinburgh, leaving behind her friends and her freedom, to care for a mother who made demands on her.

‘So you can’t help me in my ghost-hunting?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Louisa smiled at him. ‘The girl you describe certainly isn’t one of my pupils, but I might have seen her.’

‘When?’

‘Last Saturday. The day of the party.’ She paused. ‘I’d left behind a pile of marking, so I just popped back to Unst to collect it from the school. I had a bit of a wait for the ferry in Yell. It was a lovely day, so I didn’t want to stay in the car. There was a young girl with a woman and they were waiting in the sun too. She had long, dark, curly hair. I didn’t recognize her, but then she could have belonged to anywhere in the North Isles, or she could have been visiting.’

‘Did you speak to her?’

‘No. I’d been speaking to kids all week and I was angry with myself for leaving the paperwork behind. Making conversation with a ten-year-old was the last thing on my mind. My thoughts were running to a big glass of Pinot and a deep bath.’

‘Did you see what they were doing?’

‘I think they were taking photos of the seals that swim around the pier there.’ Louisa was frowning, trying to concentrate. ‘Maybe looking out for otters.’

‘And they came to Unst in the ferry with you?’

‘I think so. But I wasn’t really watching. I was just thinking of getting back to the school and home again as soon as possible.’

In the classroom the children were singing. Scottish folk songs that Sandy had been taught as a bairn. Their voices were sweet. ‘Perhaps I could come and visit you,’ he said. ‘When all this is over. Perhaps I could see you at home. Your mother might remember me. I used to make her laugh.’ He remembered Mavis, Louisa’s mother, as a shopkeeper in Lerwick. Stern on the outside, but given to giggles.

‘So you did, Sandy. But my mother doesn’t laugh much now and she doesn’t remember anyone. Not even me, on her bad days. Dementia. She was older when she got me, if you remember, and the illness came on suddenly soon after my father died. At first I just thought she was grieving for him.’ Louisa turned away.

‘Then I could come to see you?’

The song stopped and there was a moment of silence.

‘Why don’t you do that, Sandy? You could make me laugh. I often need cheering up.’

Shetland seemed grey and gloomy when they got out of the plane. And cold, as if the summer was already over. Perez dropped Cassie at school and watched for a moment from the corridor as she took her place in the classroom. She caught sight of him waiting and waved impatiently to send him on his way.

Driving through Shetland mainland to get the ferry to the North Isles, he wondered what the young people from Eleanor’s company Bright Star would make of the space and the distances. The chill weather. Willow had said that she’d wait for him to arrive before talking to Charles and David, before asking the men why they hadn’t mentioned that Eleanor had been in touch with them. She was looking out for him at Springfield House and then led him to the yellow lounge that they’d used as an interview room.

‘It sounds as if you had a useful trip south.’ She smiled, looking up from her laptop for a moment.

‘I’m glad to be back.’

‘What was Eleanor’s mother like?’

He thought about that for such a long time that he saw she was wondering if he’d ever answer. ‘Very elegant,’ he said at last. ‘Sophisticated. But not a happy woman even before Eleanor died, I think. They didn’t have an easy relationship. And she couldn’t throw much light on the investigation. Eleanor had lunch with her just before the trip north, and Cilla thought she was different. Unsettled. But there’s nothing concrete. Nothing helpful.’ He hesitated again. ‘Anything to report here?’