Ann Cleeves: Thin Air

The five of them had walked along the cliff towards the boat club. Ian had been striding out ahead of them, as if he wanted to pretend they weren’t there, that he was quite alone. Marcus had been strangely silent. Polly had turned to him. ‘Is anything wrong?’ She’d been frightened that he might tell her the relationship was over and that he preferred Eleanor’s mother. Because deep down Polly knew that Eleanor had been telling her the truth about the affair. Behind them Lowrie and Caroline were quiet too, as if Marcus’s mood was contagious.

Then the scene in her head shifted to the boat club, and the tone was quite different. Here everything was music and partying. It had felt as if the whole room was celebrating Eleanor’s death, that Polly was the only person there sad that she’d gone. And then she’d seen the girl dancing. Peerie Lizzie, who couldn’t be a ghost, because Polly had heard her singing. She’d been captured as if in a spotlight, as if the camera had zoomed in on her and all around her the scene was blurred. Polly had followed her out into the night and the fog had come down. For a moment she had thought seeing the girl had been a warning, a premonition. Perhaps Polly would drown too, like Elizabeth Geldard, and her body would be washed up on the shore. And nobody would care. Not even Marcus.

At the worst point of the panic, when she was remembering the night of Eleanor’s disappearance, Polly’s phone had rung and a sensible voice at the other end had come to her rescue. ‘Don’t you dare try to find your way back along the top of the cliff. Not in this weather. Walk back along the track to the boat club and we’ll come along and pick you up in the car. It might take you a while but that’s the safest thing.’

And now, as the life was being squeezed from her and the point of the sharp knife was pricking her skin, she relived her relief as the car drew up. Lowrie’s father George had leaned across and opened the door for her, and she remembered that first time they’d danced together, the strength in his arms as he’d almost swung her off her feet, the tingle of excitement when the music had stopped.

‘Come along in out of the cold,’ he’d said. ‘You must be frozen. Grusche says I’m to take you back to Voxter. She has some soup on the stove for all of you. She’ll let the others know, and you can have some supper with us before you go back to Sletts.’

But when they’d arrived back at Voxter there was no sign of the others. There was just Grusche in the kitchen wearing a strange white nightdress, with a hand-knitted shawl tied around her shoulders. And George disappeared, saying something about needing to get to his bed. And suddenly Grusche was standing behind her, muttering about Eleanor and Lowrie, and the arms that had gained their strength through lifting sheep and kneading dough were holding her as if she were in a vice, and Polly began to scream and at last everything went black.

She regained consciousness briefly and thought she saw a figure at the window. Perhaps it was Peerie Lizzie coming to fetch her into the water. But when the door opened, it wasn’t Lizzie standing inside, but the detective with the wild black hair. Polly had thought that sometimes he looked haunted too.

He walked up to Grusche and his voice was gentle, as if he was talking to a child. ‘This won’t do now, will it? You don’t really want to hurt Polly. What has she ever done to you?’

Polly felt the grip on her neck relax a little.

Then an inside door was opened. George stood there. ‘Woman, let that lass go!’ His voice was as clear as a foghorn and roused Polly completely. Grusche turned to face him. Polly felt the movement of Grusche’s body against her shoulders and again a slight release of tension.

‘It was for Lowrie,’ Grusche said.

‘Was it?’ This was the detective again. ‘You’ve always been honest. That class you did with Fran. The final assessment. She said your art was uncompromising, truthful. Didn’t she?’ He paused briefly and when he spoke again his voice was easy, conversational. ‘So let’s be honest now, shall we? This was about you. About not wanting to end up a lonely woman. Needing Lowrie and Caroline for company and conversation. I know about loneliness. I can understand that. But it has to end here.’ He held out his hand. There was a moment of hesitation, a sudden tightening of the hold on Polly’s neck, then Grusche reached out, twisted her wrist so that the handle was facing the detective and dropped the knife into his palm. Polly saw that his skin was dark, as if he’d been in the sun, and his hand was bony like Marcus’s.

Then Willow Reeves was there, wrapping Polly up in a blanket and asking if she was all right, or if they should get Oscar Charlie , the rescue helicopter, to take her to hospital. Saying they’d take her back to her friends in Sletts. Polly turned for a moment and saw Grusche staring at her with eyes that were still full of hatred.

In Springfield House, Willow sat in the corner of the yellow morning room and watched the conversation between Jimmy Perez and Grusche Malcolmson. Sunlight was streaming through the window and outside there was the sound of birdsong. Jimmy had rustled up coffee from somewhere and the smell of it filled the room. On a plate was a pile of little round biscuits dusted with sugar. They’d probably been made by Grusche herself.

‘Why did you kill Eleanor?’ The inspector’s voice was so soft that Willow strained to hear.

They’d allowed Grusche to get dressed. She was wearing wide linen trousers and a hand-knitted sweater. Willow thought that she herself would probably look very similar to Lowrie’s mother when she was in her sixties. She would be tall and angular and would wear charity-shop clothes.

Grusche looked up sharply. ‘She was evil. You know that, Jimmy. She was flirting with Lowrie, trying to steal him from Caroline, trying to steal him from me. ’ The voice suddenly very sharp and shrill.

‘I don’t think she was doing that, Grusche. She was faithful to her husband. Always had been.’

‘No!’ The word exploded from her like a gunshot. ‘I had proof. The two of them were here in Shetland together just a week before Lowrie’s wedding. I saw a photograph on his laptop, the day of the hamefarin’. It was of Lowrie with his arm around that woman, and the museum in Lerwick behind them.’ She stared at Perez, her eyes like steel, forcing him to understand the implication of her words. ‘That afternoon Lowrie was in his room, staring at the picture, when I took in his clean shirt for the party. He shut his computer, but not before I’d seen the image.’

‘You printed it out,’ Perez said, ‘on photographic paper.’ Willow thought none of this was coming as a surprise to him.

Grusche nodded. ‘While he and Caroline were hanging up bunting in the hall. Think of what it meant, Jimmy. Think of the spell that woman must have had over him. He was only married for a week, and yet he was obsessed by the photograph of himself with another woman. She must have been some kind of witch.’

‘So why did you print out the photo, Grusche?’ Perez took a little sip of coffee and seemed to savour it.

‘I wanted to confront the woman. To prove to her that I knew what her game was. I wanted something in my hand – something concrete.’ The German woman paused as if she was looking for the right words, as if she was desperate for Perez to understand. ‘Something real. I couldn’t carry Lowrie’s computer across the sand to Sletts now, could I, Jimmy?’

‘Why don’t you tell me what happened,’ Perez said. He leaned back in his chair and waited. Outside a curlew flew overhead, calling. He shut his eyes and for a moment Willow wondered if he was drifting off to sleep.