Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

‘I’ve seen the portrait in Lerwick.’ Polly thought Grusche was treating her as if she were a child who needed to be humoured.

‘I always think the girl in the museum painting is very plain,’ Grusche said. ‘This lassie is quite different, don’t you think? She’s very bonny.’

‘Do you believe in the ghost?’ Polly looked up from her soup and waited intently for the reply, her spoon poised above the bowl.

‘Not at all!’ Grusche gave a little laugh. ‘I’ve lived in Meoness for thirty-five years and I’ve never seen her. Though I have a sneaky suspicion that George is a believer. He claims not to be, but men who’ve worked close to the sea are terribly superstitious and he has some strange ideas. He doesn’t talk about her, though. He thinks her death reflects badly on her family.’

‘Why does he think that?’ Caroline had already finished her soup and was spreading butter onto the remaining bread with brisk efficiency. Polly thought she’d never seen Caroline being dreamy or idle. Even her pursuit of Lowrie, when they were all students, had been carried out with a ruthless precision. She’d fancied him from the moment she first saw him and had decided she would make him ask her out. She’d just seen his infatuation with Eleanor in their first year as a challenge.

Grusche was answering. ‘Because her nursemaid was Sarah Malcolmson, who was George’s aunt, and she should have taken better care of the girl. There are different stories to explain Lizzie’s death, but one of them is that Sarah was distracted from her duties, and her carelessness caused the accident. She was talking to her sweetheart, who worked in the garden at Springfield House, and didn’t notice that the girl had run down to the shore in the mist. It’s probably a pack of lies, but everyone loves a romance.’

‘And she lived with her family in the house that’s almost derelict now.’ Polly was remembering her encounter with Charles Hillier and the strange smile on his face as he’d passed on the information. Looking back at the painting, she thought the girl in white had the same knowing smile.

‘The house was called Utra,’ Grusche said. ‘We have photos of it before it fell into disrepair, if you’re interested. George’s mother as a young woman, just married, sitting outside it, knitting.’

‘Why didn’t they stay there?’

Grusche shrugged. ‘Because it was so small. When old George married he’d want his own space. Imagine them all crammed in together. Old George – that’s Lowrie’s grandfather – built Voxter before they started their own family.’

Polly pushed away her bowl and stood up to get a closer look at the painting. But as she got nearer, the girl seemed to disappear into the texture of the background. It was only when she moved back again that the figure became clearer, and once more there was another shock of recognition.

‘Really, she does look just like the girl I saw on the beach outside the hall on the night of your party.’ The words came out before she could stop them, and she gave a little laugh to show that she didn’t really believe in the vision as a ghost. ‘She has the same mouth and eyes. Some coincidence, huh?’

‘Perhaps the child you saw was someone local,’ Caroline said, ‘and she acted as a model for the painting. Are you sure you don’t know her, Grusche?’

Grusche stood up too to get a closer look, but shook her head.

Again Polly’s eyes were drawn back to the painting on the wall. The background was of woodland and quite unlike Shetland. She knew she was being quite ridiculous. ‘I thought I saw her another time,’ she said. ‘In the old house that’s derelict. Utra. It was the night we’d all been to supper at your house. A girl dressed in white twirling round on her toes.’ She snapped her mouth shut before she could say any more, but felt relieved that she’d told them about the visions. It felt good to have the words out in the open. She’d been wrong to bottle up her worries in her head. That way madness lay.

‘You think you saw Eleanor’s ghost-child in Utra?’ Caroline looked at her strangely as if she was crazy already.

‘Well, it obviously wasn’t a ghost.’ Polly gave little self-deprecating smile, but really she wasn’t sure. Perhaps that was what she had seen. The idea had been creeping up on her over the last few days, tugging at her reason, so she felt her rational thoughts unwinding like a hank of yarn. What other explanation could there be for the dancing child? A child whom nobody in Meoness recognized. She looked up at the other women. ‘But somebody was inside.’

‘That could have been anyone.’ Caroline was dismissive. ‘It must have been almost dark when you walked past. And we were all pretty spooked after Eleanor’s murder.’

Not you! You’ve never been scared in your life. And I’ve been scared for most of mine. Not of being haunted, but of saying the wrong thing, causing embarrassment. Showing myself up. That’s why I’m pretending now. Suddenly she longed for Eleanor, who would have listened to her without preaching or looking disapproving, whose solution to the ills of the world was laughter and another bottle of wine. ‘I expect you’re right. My imagination playing tricks in the weird light.’

Grusche gave her a strange look, but Caroline hardly seemed to hear. She’d wandered away to the gallery. Grusche followed, and Polly could hear them talking about curtains and colours, and whether an abstract painting inspired by Muckle Flugga would look well in a room with a polished wooden floor. ‘I think that’s the one Lowrie would prefer,’ Grusche was saying. ‘That’s the one you should get.’

Polly heard the words, but they seemed to come from a long way off. She stood in front of the painting of the girl. There was an artist’s signature in one corner. Monica Leaze. The name meant nothing to her, but she didn’t need to make a note of it. She knew she wouldn’t forget.

In the ferry on the way back to Unst they stood on deck once more and Polly felt a sense of foreboding as the island drew closer. She told herself that she just had to survive for one more night. When the vessel turned to inch its way to the pier she had a view south to Yell and saw a grey bank of fog on the horizon. It was as if the route of her escape had been closed behind her. By the time they’d driven back to Meoness the light had gone again.

Willow and Sandy put together a scratch lunch in the kitchen at Springfield House. Willow was feeling restless. If she were on the Scottish mainland she’d be at the post-mortem by now. She’d know how Charles Hillier had died. Here, there seemed little to do but wait and she’d never been very good at that.

David had retreated to the walled vegetable garden. Earlier Willow had watched him from her bedroom window, digging and digging the uncultivated patch close to the shattered greenhouse, as if the activity would wear out his mind as well as his body and he’d stop thinking. She went outside to call him in for lunch, but even when she was right behind him he continued to plunge the spade into the sandy soil, then push it with his foot, his whole body straining to get the blade into the peaty soil, oblivious to everything else. She tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Come in and get some lunch. You need to eat.’

He stopped. His face was red, and sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes.

‘Where is he?’

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. ‘Annie Goudie, the funeral director, has just arrived with a couple of men. Charles will be on his way to Lerwick soon. He’ll be on the boat for Aberdeen tonight.’ She paused. ‘Do you want to see him? To say goodbye?’