Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

‘The techies have blown up the images that were on the two scraps of paper Vicki found at the scene.’ Willow clicked on her laptop and turned it so that he could see the screen. ‘They were definitely photographs, but it’s difficult to make out anything helpful from such small pieces.’

Perez stared at them. One of them was of a corner of a building. Wood and glass. Contemporary. It must be in the background of the shot to contain even that much detail in such a small fragment of photograph. He wondered if it was familiar, but the perspective was strange and he couldn’t quite make it fit anywhere he knew. The other was a slice of a face. An eyebrow and a strand of dark hair. ‘Is that Eleanor?’

Willow looked up from the computer. ‘I wondered that. So the killer ripped up a photo of his victim just before or after the murder? What does that tell us?’

Perez shook his head. ‘Not much, except that the murderer knew Eleanor well enough to have a picture of her, but I think we’d already worked that out.’

Willow nodded. She seemed distracted and he saw that her attention had already moved elsewhere. ‘What do we do about David and Charles?’

He paused again and wondered if he’d been this indecisive before Fran had died. ‘If Eleanor had been in touch with them, why wouldn’t they tell us?’

‘Just keeping their heads down, do you think? People have all sorts of reasons for not wanting to get involved in a police investigation. Even these days a gay couple might not want to draw attention to themselves.’ She stood up. ‘Sandy’s done a check and neither of them has a record. Not even a traffic offence. Let’s just talk to them, shall we?’ He thought everything seemed very simple and straightforward to her.

They found David in the kitchen garden at the back of the house. It was surrounded by a high dry-stone wall and entry was through an arched wooden gate. Inside only part of the ground had been cultivated, the vegetables there planted in straight rows. The rest was overgrown, almost a meadow, and at the far end a lean-to greenhouse had its glass missing and the metal frame was rusting away. David was digging potatoes. He wore wellingtons and a checked shirt. They watched as he sifted the potatoes with his fork, shaking the sandy soil from them before sliding them into a bucket. He must have sensed Perez and Willow behind him, because he stuck the fork into the ground and turned.

‘Tatties for tonight’s supper,’ he said. ‘We should have our own broad beans soon too.’

‘It’s well sheltered here.’ Perez couldn’t think what else to say.

‘We have to grow all we can. The transport costs are outrageous, and folk don’t realize why everything imported is so pricey. The house seemed very reasonable when we bought it, but we hadn’t factored in that all the repairs would be more expensive than they’d be in the south. And there’s almost full employment here, with everything that’s happening with the oil and gas. It’s hard to get good men to do the work.’ It was the longest speech he’d ever made. Perez saw that worry about the business was always with him.

‘It’s hard coming into the islands from outside,’ he said. ‘You have to start from the beginning making contacts.’

‘I feel responsible.’ It sounded like a confession. ‘This was always my dream, not Charles’s. If things don’t work financially either, I’m not sure how we’ll manage, whether we’ll survive.’ He was talking about his relationship with the other man and not just about the hotel.

‘We need to talk to you.’ Willow was brisk, businesslike. It was as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Charles too. When’s a good time?’

‘I’ll be in for tea in ten minutes.’ The man seemed puzzled by the request, but quite relaxed. ‘I haven’t seen Charles since lunchtime, but he’ll be there too.’ He bent again to return to his task.

When they went to the kitchen later he was washing his hands under the tap, scrubbing his nails. The potatoes were in a colander on the bench and Charles was pouring boiling water into a teapot. For the first time Perez noticed how big Charles’s hands were, very long and flexible. When he set down the kettle he waved them about, fingers together, so that they reminded Perez of a seal’s flippers cutting through the water.

‘To what do we owe the pleasure?’ He was one of those men who hide their anxiety with joviality and bad jokes. ‘You’ll have a cup of tea?’ Again waving the hands first towards the chairs at the table, then to the mugs.

Perez remained standing. But Willow nodded and sat down at the table. ‘Eleanor Longstaff phoned you,’ he said. ‘A couple of weeks ago. About Peerie Lizzie. The Geldards owned this house.’

David looked blank. ‘I didn’t talk to anyone.’ He was drying his hands on a paper towel and threw it into the bin.

Perez was watching Charles.

‘What about you, Mr Hillier? Did you talk to her?’

There was a moment’s silence. Charlie poured tea and went to the fridge for milk, which he tipped from the carton into a jug. This seemed to take a long time. At last he was back, facing them again. ‘I spoke to someone,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember her name. I suppose it could have been the poor woman who died.’ He sat down and his big hands settled flat on the table in front of him.

Perez caught Willow’s eye. ‘When was this?’ His voice was very quiet.

‘About a month ago.’ He looked up. ‘You must realize, Jimmy, that we get a lot of enquiries.’

‘But this was a television production company. A chance for some publicity. For you and for your business. That would have been a bit exciting, I’d have thought. You’d have remembered that, maybe researched the company on the Internet to see what they’d done before.’ Talked to your partner?

‘I told you, Jimmy, my days in show business are long over.’ Charles gave a rueful smile.

‘But you’d be glad of some media exposure for the hotel. David was telling me how difficult it is to make a decent living up here. And I understood that Eleanor was offering a performance fee.’

Charles lifted the hands, a gesture of incomprehension, and looked at David. ‘Really, I don’t remember anything of that sort.’ The explanation more for his partner than for the detectives.

‘So what exactly did Eleanor want from you?’ Perez asked.

‘Information, Jimmy. Nothing more than that. She wanted me to tell her the story of poor Peerie Lizzie. David had done the research. We’d put it all into a little brochure for any of the guests who might be interested. There was a child called Elizabeth, only child of Gilbert and Roberta Geldard. She was born in 1920 and died just ten years later. She was playing out in the garden under the care of a local woman, one of the Malcolmsons. Elizabeth slipped away from her minder to go to the voe and she must have wandered out onto the sand. Then the fog came down and the tide came in and she was drowned. They found her body the following day, washed up onto the shore. She was lying on her back with her hands by her side and she seemed quite perfect, although the story is that she’d been in the water all night.’

‘There was no possibility that it was foul play?’ Perez directed the question to David, who seemed a more reliable source of information.

‘I found no suggestion of that at the time,’ David said. ‘I looked up the report of the death in The Shetland Times . The implication was that the young nursemaid should have been more careful, but nobody was ever charged. I tried to trace her – the nursemaid, I mean – but she died in 1993. I hadn’t really expected to find her alive.’

‘This was quite a project for you,’ Willow said. ‘Time-consuming when you have so much other work in the hotel.’