Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

‘Where did you and Charles meet?’

David spoke without looking at him, to a background sound of waves breaking on the sand. ‘Quite by chance in a cafe in York. It was the summer and the place was busy with tourists. I was living there, and Charles was performing at the theatre. His television career was already finished by then, but he was still able to pull in the crowds in provincial venues. There was a seat at his table and I asked if I could join him. “Excuse me,” I said. “Don’t I know you?” He was thrilled to be recognized, though honestly I don’t think I’d ever seen him on TV. Later I realized that he looked very like a colleague from Leeds, and that was who he reminded me of. But we talked and there was an attraction even then. He offered to leave a complimentary ticket for me at the theatre for his performance. I thanked him, never really intending to go. Not my thing. Charles always said I was a snob. But I was at the box office an hour beforehand and I knew I’d be devastated if the ticket wasn’t waiting for me.

‘After the show we went for a meal. And I suppose that was it. We’ve been together as a couple ever since. I carried on living and working in York, but Charles stayed with me whenever he wasn’t working. Then he was offered fewer tours and I found teaching increasingly less attractive, so we decided on early retirement and a move north. Charles loved the drama of the grand gesture. And for a man used to life in the city, running off to Unst was pretty dramatic. He was passionate about the house and enjoyed supervising the refurbishment. But when that was complete there was just the everyday tedium of running and maintaining a place the size of Springfield. He was starting to be bored. We’d always planned to leave Shetland in the winters and do some travelling, but the house soaked up all our spare cash and I’m sure he felt trapped here.’

They’d reached the steps that led through the terraced garden. David paused for a moment, not to catch his breath – he was obviously very fit – but to remember. ‘I’ve never told anyone else that story.’ Another pause. ‘But then nobody has ever asked.’ They stopped at the front door. ‘What will happen now?’

‘Willow has already contacted the funeral director in Lerwick,’ Perez said. ‘Charles will go south for post-mortem. You met James Grieve, the pathologist. He’s great at what he does.’ He hesitated. ‘Very respectful.’

‘What do think killed him?’ It came out as a strangled cry of pain.

‘Dr Grieve will help us to know that.’ Perez remembered a conversation with the pathologist, late one night. Another case. They’d had dinner together and shared a bottle of wine. My patients aren’t the dead, Jimmy, but the living relatives. My responsibility is to them. At least there was no mystery about what happened to Fran, he thought. I was there. He had a sudden flashback: the lightning glint of a knife in moonlight. A scream. He thought not knowing how she’d died would have been the worst kind of torture.

Sandy was waiting for them inside. ‘I found rooms for the other guests in a B &B in Yell and booked them onto the ferry. They left five minutes ago.’ His voice was almost a whisper, but David wouldn’t have heard if Sandy had shouted. He was lost in memories of his lover.

‘What should I do?’ David asked. It was as if he was a stranger in his own home. Perez thought the roles had reversed now. The police officers were in charge of the place and David was more like a guest. ‘I want to help.’

‘We’d be really glad of some coffee, if you’re up to making it.’

David looked grateful to have something specific to do and disappeared towards the kitchen. Perez sent Sandy to the beach to relieve Willow. Hillier’s death must be linked to Eleanor Longstaff’s, and he wanted to speak to the group at Sletts before news of the tragedy leaked out. But he knew better than to go without speaking to Willow first. The only time they’d really fallen out on an earlier case was when he followed his own line of investigation. And the previous evening he’d pushed his luck by talking to George without her permission. He stood by the front door and watched Sandy’s progress across the beach, then waited as Willow walked towards him. He saw her as if for the first time, the long, tangled hair and the easy stride, and thought she looked more like a Viking than most Shetlanders. He could imagine her rowing a longboat with the strength of a man. The thought made him smile and the image stayed with him until she reached him.

‘Jimmy, do tell me there’s a reason why you’re looking so happy, because I don’t have a clue where we should go from here.’

He shook his head and could feel himself blushing. ‘I was thinking we should go and talk to the folk at Sletts before the news of Hillier’s death is generally known. I’d like to see their reaction when they hear of it.’

‘Could we get Lowrie and Caroline there too, do you think? They seem to have avoided our questions until now, and we can’t rule them out of Eleanor’s murder just because they were celebrating their marriage on the night of her death.’

‘I could phone them,’ he said. ‘And it might be worth contacting the English people too to warn them that we’re on the way. We don’t want them deciding this is their day for a trip into Lerwick.’

‘You do that, Jimmy. But tell them we’ll be there in an hour. I haven’t had breakfast yet and I don’t work well on an empty stomach.’

When they arrived at the holiday house all the friends were there, taking up the chairs in the living room, so Perez had to drag two garden seats in from the deck. Caroline was sitting on the arm of Lowrie’s chair.

‘This is very mysterious, Inspector.’

He wondered if anything would penetrate her skin of efficient good humour. He couldn’t imagine her ever crying, for example. Had something in her past led to her forming this protective shell or was it a feature of her age and class?

‘There’s been another death.’ They’d all been looking to Perez for an explanation and when Willow spoke they stared at her, surprised. He watched them, but the shock seemed real.

‘Who?’ It was Polly Gilmour, as pale as a ghost herself, Perez thought.

‘A hotelier called Charles Hillier.’

Perez thought he saw the woman flash a glance at Longstaff. ‘You knew him?’ he said.

There was a pause before Polly answered. ‘We had a…’ Another pause. ‘An encounter yesterday.’

‘What happened?’ Willow leaned forward. They were similar in age and she could have been an old friend from university, encouraging gossip.

‘I’d wandered into that derelict house on the way to the hall. Just nosy, I suppose, to see what it looked like inside. And Mr Hillier turned up to ask what I was doing there.’

‘As if it was any business of his!’ Longstaff seemed to have aged since Perez had first met him; to have turned into one of those angry, red-faced middle-aged men with a short fuse and a tendency to fall victim to a heart attack.

‘You were there too, Mr Longstaff?’ Willow again, keeping it calm and cool.

‘I was driving past and I saw them in the house, just shadows in my headlights. A woman’s been murdered here, and it looked as if Hillier was keeping her there against her will. Of course I was going to check that Polly was OK. She should never have been wandering around on her own.’ He looked at Marcus. Accusing: You should be taking better care of your woman.

‘And was Mr Hillier being unreasonable?’ Willow again.

Polly shook her head. ‘He was just being weird. I probably shouldn’t have been there, but I wasn’t doing any harm and he seemed to overreact big-style. Then Ian turned up and things started getting a bit fraught, so we just left.’ She hesitated. ‘Hillier said there was some connection between the house and the ghost that Eleanor claimed to have seen.’ She turned to Lowrie. ‘Did you know anything about that?’