Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

Lowrie shrugged. ‘The croft house was in our family,’ he said. ‘The lass looking after Lizzie Geldard lived there. Then my grandfather built our house on a bit of the land, and later Vaila and her man built their new place next door, and the old house was just left to ruin. It was a shame. I thought Vaila’s husband might renovate and extend the old place, but I suppose it would have cost more in the end than starting from scratch.’ He hesitated. ‘And there’s always been a kind of superstition about the building. Maybe they thought it would be bad luck to tear it down.’

‘Is it ever used?’ Willow asked.

‘Maybe for storage, but probably not even for that now, it’s such a damp old place.’

Perez thought Polly was about to speak again, but she turned towards the window and said nothing.

‘What did you do last night when you got back here?’ Willow asked.

‘I cooked supper,’ Polly said. ‘There was heaps, so we phoned Lowrie and Caroline and asked them to join us. It was good to get together to remember Eleanor. Somehow she seems to have got lost in all this.’

‘And then?’

‘Then the others wanted to go out. I stayed here.’ She paused and smiled at Ian. ‘Ian was worried about me, but I felt quite safe. There are locks on the doors and my mobile has reception. I promised I’d phone if anything worried me. We’ve all been shut in together since Eleanor died and I longed for some time on my own.’

‘Where did the rest of you go?’

‘To the bar at Springfield House.’ Lowrie took up the story. ‘Ian had been round to our place in the afternoon and we’d had a few beers. I thought it might be good for him to have some company. Then after dinner I could see that he wanted to carry on drinking, so I suggested going to the bar. I didn’t like the idea of him being in his room on his own with a bottle of whisky. I mean Polly and Marcus have been fantastic, but being here in Sletts must just remind Ian of Eleanor. There’s sometimes music at Springfield House on a Thursday night, and I thought the noise and the people might help release the tension for a while.’

‘And did it?’ Perez remembered the days after Fran’s death. He’d felt like drinking himself unconscious, but he never had. Too guilty. He hadn’t felt he deserved to escape the pain.

‘Yeah,’ Ian said. ‘But I’ve got a bloody awful hangover this morning.’

‘How long did you stay in the bar?’

Ian shrugged and looked at Caroline. ‘You drove us home. When was that?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Caroline turned to Perez. ‘It was getting light again. Maybe two o’clock.’

‘Were you in the bar with the men?’

‘I stopped for one drink,’ she said. ‘Then I saw that it was going to turn into a session, so I came back to Meoness in our car and told Lowrie to give me a ring when they wanted to be collected.’ She paused. ‘It was obviously going to be a boys’ night out and I had the feeling that I’d be in the way.’

‘You didn’t come back to Sletts to keep Polly company?’ That seemed odd to Perez, if the two women were such good friends.

‘No. I wanted to speak to the solicitor handling the sale of our house. He’s an old friend and I knew he wouldn’t mind me calling late. Now that we’ve made the decision to come north we want to get things moving as soon as possible.’ Caroline hesitated. ‘I’ve already handed in my notice to the university, and Lowrie’s told his employer that he’ll be leaving soon. It’s a little bit scary that we won’t have any real income for a while. We need to be planning our new life.’

Perez had the uncharitable thought that Caroline seemed to be viewing her friend’s death as an interruption to her business plans. ‘Were George and Grusche at home?’

‘Are you asking me to provide an alibi, Inspector?’ The question was sharp and angry.

‘I’m just trying to get a picture of everyone’s movements.’

‘Grusche was at a book group in Baltasound. I’m sure her friends will corroborate her story. George was working outside, I think.’

Perez directed his next question to the men.

‘When you were at Springfield did you see Charles Hillier?’

Lowrie shook his head. ‘The owners hardly ever come into the bar. It’s managed by a local guy, a pal of mine. Ian told me that he’d run up against Charles, but I didn’t think there was any danger that they’d meet there.’

‘Did any of you leave the bar for any length of time?’ The question came from Willow. ‘Of course we’ll be talking to the other drinkers.’

‘By that time I was so pissed I could hardly stand,’ Ian said. ‘I didn’t think much of the local band – the folk thing doesn’t really do it for me – and I might have gone out to escape the music, but I don’t remember anything about it.’

‘I left for about half an hour,’ Marcus said. ‘It would have been around eleven. I phoned Polly. I wanted to make sure she was OK. She said she was fine, just going to bed and not to make too much noise when I came in. Then I phoned my mother. I hadn’t been in touch for a few days and we chatted for quite a time.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘You know mothers.’

‘If you were in the garden at Springfield you’d have had a view down to the shore,’ Perez said. ‘Did you see anything? Hear anything?’

Marcus gave a little laugh. ‘The fog had come in again. It was eerie. There was a foghorn somewhere in the distance. Moaning like the seals we saw earlier in the day. But no, I didn’t see anything.’

Before they’d arrived at Sletts, Willow had discussed tactics with Perez. ‘See if you can get Lowrie on his own afterwards, Jimmy. Talk to him about Eleanor. She must have asked him about Peerie Lizzie before she arrived for the party. Why hasn’t he told us? Some last-minute fling with his first love before he tied the knot, do you think? Seems to me Eleanor would have been up for that. It would have amused her.’

Now they were all trooping out of the holiday house and Perez wasn’t sure how he would manage to separate Lowrie from Caroline. The woman was so forceful and competent that she intimidated him. But it seemed she had plans of her own: a trip to a gallery in Yell to look at some pieces for the new house. ‘Are you OK to walk home, Lowrie? If I take the car now, I should be back before supper.’ So in the end it was quite straightforward and Perez joined Lowrie as he set off along the beach towards Voxter, his parents’ croft.

‘This is a terrible business, Jimmy.’

‘Worse for you, perhaps. You were very close to Eleanor at one time, I think.’ Perez remembered Lowrie, red-faced and distraught after finding the woman’s body.

‘Has my mother been gossiping to you?’ The tide was on the ebb now and the sand was hard where they were walking. It was hard to tell what Lowrie made of Grusche’s interference. Or what he made of Eleanor’s death after the first dramatic reaction.

‘As Marcus said, you know what mothers are like.’ My mother wants me home too. She’d like me and Cassie in a croft in Fair Isle, where she can keep us safe.

‘I fancied myself in love with Eleanor when we were at university,’ Lowrie said. ‘It seems like a kind of madness now. But I was young and homesick and I’d never met anyone quite like her. She was like some exotic creature from another planet. For the first six months in Durham she filled all my dreams.’

‘What happened?’

‘She slept with me a couple of times for fun and then moved on to more interesting men. Men with more style and influence.’ Lowrie stopped suddenly and looked out to the horizon. ‘She said that I was very sweet, but she was ready for a grown-up.’