Ann Cleeves: Thin Air

Willow was tempted to ask what the book group had been reading. She was feeling light-headed and a little giddy. She’d believed that Grusche was a dignified and intelligent woman. She hadn’t recognized the obsession that had gripped her.

But Grusche was still talking. ‘Hillier was waiting for me on the sand. The mist was coming in again. It wasn’t hard to dispose of him.’ Then she snapped her lips shut. ‘I’m not talking any more, Jimmy. Not to you, and not in this place. I know my rights. You can take me to Lerwick now, and Lowrie will find me a lawyer. Lowrie will look after me.’

‘I still don’t understand why the Malcolmson woman went after Polly Gilmour,’ Sandy said. ‘And that stuff about Peerie Lizzie. Was the lassie on the sand just a figment of the English folk’s imagination?’

They’d stopped in the North Light Gallery for lunch on their way south through Yell. Willow’s idea. Perez would have preferred to go straight back to Lerwick so that he could be home when Cassie came back from school. The painting of the girl in the white dress was still hanging on the gallery’s wall. Catherine Breton was in her glass bubble making pots. The gallery with its cafe was unusually quiet. It was a breezy day, with the wind blowing cloud-shaped shadows across the water outside and loose sand against the windows.

He was about to answer when the door opened and a woman walked in. Perez thought Willow had been expecting her, that this was a pre-arranged meeting. The newcomer stood just inside the door, then approached them. She was wearing a bright-red coat, heavy brown boots and carried the smell of cigarettes with her.

‘I went to the police station this morning as soon as the ferry came in.’ Monica Leaze had the same nervous energy that Perez remembered from the launch of her exhibition. The same wiry hair and chestnut eyes. ‘They told me to talk to you here.’

‘So now we’re in a position to explain to Sandy about the ghost.’ Willow’s voice was light until she turned to the artist. Then she was fiercer than Perez had ever seen her. ‘If we’d understood earlier that you were involved, we might have prevented Hillier’s death.’

‘Of course I should have come before.’ Monica was playing with a napkin on the table, folding it into smaller and smaller squares. ‘But when I left Shetland I didn’t know Eleanor had died, only that she was missing, and that was always part of the plan.’ She turned to stare out of the window. A waitress brought coffee without her noticing. ‘It started out as a bit of a hoot, and a way to get Nell out of a financial mess. Nobody was really supposed to get hurt.’

‘Perhaps you could talk us through what happened.’ Perez thought he knew most of it, but Sandy was sitting on the other side of the table looking bewildered. The man had worked well on this investigation and his own version of the real Peerie Lizzie story was probably close to the truth. He deserved some answers to the make-believe one. ‘You met here in Shetland a couple of weeks ago. You and three others.’

‘Well, I’d known Eleanor for ages. We moved in the same arty circles, I suppose – my husband’s a director. I hadn’t come across Charles or Lowrie before. We came together that day; we were Nell’s team, her secret weapon. The four of us had lunch in the Hay’s Dock. It seemed like great fun at the time, a bit of a party, as if we were on some kind of secret mission.’ Monica paused. ‘That was the last time I saw Eleanor. Lowrie and Eleanor had flown in on separate planes, very cloak-and-dagger – Lowrie from Edinburgh and Eleanor from Glasgow, though they both started off in London. I was already here in Yell and Charles Hiller gave me a lift down to Lerwick.’

‘And what was the meeting about?’

‘To arrange the scam, of course: the Peerie Lizzie haunting. Nell needed her documentary about ghosts to be a big success. The company, Bright Star, had been leaking money – there’d been a couple of poor shows, and Eleanor was distracted when she lost the baby. Not on top of her game. This was the last chance to avoid bankruptcy. She wasn’t prepared to take any chances.’

‘And you?’ Perez asked. ‘What would you get out of it?’

She seemed startled for a moment, as if the answer was so obvious that it needed no explanation. ‘Fun,’ she said. ‘Like I said. And Nell was a mate who needed help. Besides…’ She paused again.

‘You glory in the commonplace made weird,’ Perez said.

‘Yeah. Something like that.’ She gave him a strange look. ‘I suppose I was thinking about it almost like a piece of art.’

‘So you manufactured a ghost.’

‘Not to mislead the television audience,’ Monica said sharply. ‘Eleanor would never have stooped to that. She was honest about her work and took it seriously. But to show how educated and rational people might become suggestible in certain situations. She wanted to persuade her friends of the reality of Peerie Lizzie and use their experience as an example in her documentary.’

‘Why did she involve Hillier and Lowrie?’ Willow stood up and stretched. The gallery ceiling was so low that she almost touched it. There was a sudden shower and the rain hit the window hard, like stones. The room became very dark.

‘Eleanor always liked a gang,’ Monica said. ‘Especially a gang of admirers. But there were practical reasons too. Lowrie knew the layout of the land. He’d grown up in Unst. Hillier’s partner had researched the background to the Peerie Lizzie story and Charles could throw in the details that might make it seem authentic. Besides, he’d been a stage magician. He had skills that we could use.’

Hillier would have loved that , Perez thought. And the chance to appear on television again .

‘And you?’ Willow asked. ‘What was your role?’

‘I was the set designer and the theatrical assistant. When we met for lunch I brought along some drawings. One was of Eleanor looking like Ophelia in her bridesmaid’s dress – you found that in my house in Cullivoe. We weren’t sure how we’d use them, and it was all very cheesy.’ A pause. ‘But mostly I was there because I could provide the ghost.’

‘Your granddaughter.’

‘Grace, yes. Her mother finds her a tricky child and I don’t think London suits her. She’s got too much energy. She spends some of her time here with me.’

Perez was looking at the painting of the girl on the gallery wall.

‘That’s my daughter,’ Monica said, ‘but the resemblance is uncanny. It’s a while since I’ve seen that and I hadn’t realized quite how alike they look, now that Grace is getting older.’

I can see how Polly was so disturbed by it , Perez thought. How she started to question her sanity.

‘You got Grace to record Peerie Lizzie’s song,’ he said. ‘But of course it didn’t sound right. She’s spent a lot of time in Shetland, but she hasn’t picked up the accent yet.’ He paused. ‘She and the Arthur boys were singing it the night Polly was lost in the fog and must have freaked her out big-style.’

‘When I went south, Grace wanted to stay with Jen Arthur and the boys and I thought another week off school wouldn’t do her any harm. Jen was happy to have her, and it’s an education in itself, isn’t it, living in Shetland? I didn’t know then that Eleanor had been killed and there was a murderer on Unst.’

‘It must have been in the papers in the south,’ Sandy said. ‘Once Hillier was killed too. Why wait until today to get in touch?’

Monica still looked out at the grey water. ‘I was scared. If you knew I was there the night Eleanor was killed – if you found my painting – you might accuse me of murder.’