Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

‘He raped a young girl to give his wife a baby?’ Even after all these years Sandy was shocked. He could see why the Malcolmsons hadn’t wanted to talk about it. ‘Or did Geldard pay for her services?’

George shrugged. ‘Raped, seduced, bought. In the end it all amounts to the same kind of thing. All wrong. All violent.’

‘Did Roberta ever know that her husband was the father of the child they’d adopted?’

Another shrug. ‘If you look at the picture of the girl in the museum in Lerwick and the picture of the man in Springfield House they look kind of similar. You’d think the woman would have wondered.’

Sandy was trying to imagine how Roberta would have felt if she’d found out that Gilbert was the father of her adopted daughter. It would be one thing to take on the child of a local lass as a kind of charity. Selfish, of course. You’d do it because you were desperate to take a baby into your arms. But you could persuade yourself at the same time that it was a good thing that you were doing – rescuing her from poverty, from life with a single mother. Saving Sarah Malcolmson from disgrace. But how would it be if later you found out that it was the result of your husband’s perversion? If the girl grew to look like the man you slept with at night. How would that make you feel? Would you still love the child? Or would you want rid of it?

George turned back into the room. ‘I don’t see why you want to dig all this up now. It has no relevance to the murder of two people from the south; they have nothing to do with our family.’

Sandy didn’t know how to answer that. He wanted to say that murder was important even if the victims didn’t belong to the islands. And that the murder of a ten-year-old child was important even if it happened years ago. Because he was starting to think that Peerie Lizzie had been murdered. Perhaps by her adoptive mother. And that both the Geldards had been happy to blame Sarah Malcolmson and see her move away. Then there would be nothing to remind them of the girl, and of the man’s sexual violence. They could continue to convince themselves that they were good people, and to hold their grand parties. Except that the child had come back to haunt them, even if she only appeared in their dreams, and eventually they’d had to move away too.

George was looking at Sandy and was expecting a response. The place was so quiet that they had been able to hear Grusche’s spinning wheel in the next room, the rhythm as soothing as a lullaby.

‘I just wanted to understand,’ Sandy said at last. ‘The story as we’d been told it just didn’t make sense.’ He paused. ‘Did Eleanor know the truth about Peerie Lizzie? Did Lowrie tell her the full background?’ Because why wouldn’t he? Lowrie was sophisticated and he lived in London. He wouldn’t understand why George would feel awkward about the true story of the dead child being made public. He would probably have lost the Shetland islanders’ habit of restraint and discretion. And it would make a great programme for Eleanor. A piece of detective work going back over time. Sandy could see that she would be excited.

‘I don’t think he would have told her about it,’

George said. ‘He’d grown up with thinking of it as something to keep in the family.’

But Lowrie might well have told his new wife. She was a family member too, an academic full of curiosity about unusual places and the people who lived in them. Perhaps Caroline had passed on the story to her friend. A gift. Something to cheer Eleanor up when she was depressed. Not realizing that it was any kind of secret.

The hum of the spinning had stopped. Sandy realized that if they had been able to hear the wheel, Grusche had probably heard every word of the conversation. She appeared now at the door, big and angular. She was wearing wide linen trousers and a loose fisherman’s smock. She ignored Sandy.

‘I’m going to phone Lowrie,’ she said. ‘Offer them a lift back from the boat club. In this fog I don’t think it’s safe for them to be walking back along the cliffs.’

George nodded and she disappeared again. They heard her speaking in the other room, but this time she’d closed the door and they couldn’t make out the individual words. Sandy thought that he should go. He wanted to tell Jimmy Perez what he’d discovered, and he’d promised Mary Lomax that he’d only be away for an hour.

He got to his feet just as Grusche returned to the kitchen. ‘They say they want to walk and anyway they don’t know when they’ll be done. They haven’t finished eating yet.’ She frowned. ‘I hope they take care. We want no more tragedies here.’ She flashed a sudden smile at Sandy. ‘We mothers worry too much. You wait until you have your own child, Sandy. You’ll understand then.’

Out in his car he saw that he had a missed call from Perez. There was a voicemail: ‘We need to track down Monica Leaze, Sandy. There’s been a development and we’ll stay here for a while, though we’d like to get back to Unst this evening. Can you book us onto the last ferry from Yell?’

Sandy tried to phone back, but there was no reply. He drove to Springfield House. The fog was patchy and cleared occasionally to let bright shafts of sunshine light up the hills. Outside the hotel he paused, thinking about the girl who’d lived there, who’d led such a short and troubled life.

Perez stared at the sketch of the woman on the easel in Monica Leaze’s loft. Eleanor Longstaff was captured in pencil. Of course she looked like the body he’d seen in the tiny lochan, but this wasn’t an exact representation. He felt just as he’d felt when he’d heard the child on Eleanor’s recorder singing Peerie Lizzie’s song: that there was a discrepancy, something not quite right. He continued to look at it and for a while found it hard to believe that the artist who’d made the disturbing and detailed interiors he’d seen with Fran in the gallery had sketched this too. Then he remembered that Leaze had also painted the little girl in the white dress and thought there was something similar in the tone of both figures. A jauntiness and a sense of mischief, which seemed almost blasphemous now. It was as if the artist was pleased that Eleanor was dead, was amused by the murder.

He became aware of Willow standing behind him. ‘We have to talk to the woman,’ she said. ‘She must have seen Eleanor’s body. At the very least she’s a witness.’

Perez was about to contradict her, but stopped himself. At this point nothing was certain. Instead he went for a mild observation. ‘There doesn’t seem to be water in the background.’

‘There’s nothing in the background except a few pencil strokes.’ The words burst out. He saw they were a release of her pent-up frustration.

He wished he could say something to make her calmer. Like this she reminded him of Cassie, panicky and on the edge of a tantrum. He calmed her by holding her to him, very tight. There was a brief moment when he pictured himself holding Willow, squeezing the stress from her, and then he remembered that he hadn’t called Cassie that day. He never went a day without speaking to her. ‘I have to make a phone call. Sorry. I’ll be quick.’ He climbed down the steep wooden staircase to the hall below, sensing Willow’s displeasure tracking after him.

Cassie sounded pleased to hear from him. ‘When are you planning to be back?’ Her voice was even. She’d never been a child to make demands.

‘Soon. Certainly by the end of the weekend.’

‘Good.’

‘We’ll both be glad to get home,’ Perez said.

‘Will you take me to Fair Isle when you come back?’

‘You have school,’ he said, fudging it. ‘It’s too far to go in a day.’