Ann Cleeves - Thin Air

‘Why do you think Eleanor would want to run away from her husband?’ It was where the conversation had started. Perez wasn’t frustrated by the time it had taken to get back to the question. He had a much better sense now of these women as successful, professional friends.

For the first time Caroline seemed unsure of herself. ‘I have no evidence.’

‘Sometimes I have to pursue an investigation without evidence,’ Perez said. ‘The purpose of my work is to obtain it, but it’s not where we start from.’

‘It seems disloyal speculating like this.’ She frowned.

Perez said nothing.

‘For the past six months Eleanor has been very low. More unhappy than I’ve ever known her.’

‘She’d lost a child,’ Perez said gently. This woman with her strong bones and her clear thinking might not understand how that would feel. He didn’t see Caroline as the most imaginative of women. Or the most maternal.

‘Yes, and Ian hasn’t been any support to her. He stuck her in a private psychiatric place so that she wouldn’t be a nuisance and then he started lecturing her to sort herself out. He lost patience with her.’ She paused again. ‘I think Eleanor might have found comfort elsewhere.’ The words sounded oddly prim, and Perez again had a sense of the schoolgirl she had once been.

‘Another man?’

‘I think so.’ Now Caroline sounded wretched, as if she regretted having started this conversation. ‘But, as I said, I have no real evidence. And Nell didn’t discuss it.’ She paused again. Through the window they saw a very elderly man walk down the road outside. He was dressed in his Sunday best – black trousers, polished shoes and all-over knitted jersey – and was bent over a walking stick. Caroline waited until he’d disappeared from sight before she started talking. ‘I saw her one evening with a guy in a restaurant. I was walking past and although they weren’t sitting in the window I saw her quite clearly. She stood to pick up the scarf that had fallen from her chair. The man had his back to me, so I saw nothing of him except the back of his head. Eleanor reached out and touched his hand on the table. There was a look on her face… I don’t know how to describe it. Mixed up. Guilty perhaps.’

‘Did she see you?’ Perez tried to picture the scene in the restaurant and thought that Caroline was making too much of it. Eleanor could have been reassuring a young colleague about a problem at work. A touch of the hand could be a gesture of friendship. It didn’t have to be intimate.

‘No,’ Caroline said. ‘It was a few months ago. She had her second miscarriage just before Christmas, and this was March or April. Late enough for it to be dark outside. One of those drizzly days that feel more like midwinter. She hadn’t long sprung herself from the hospital. She wouldn’t have seen me.’

‘Did you discuss it with her?’

‘Yes.’ Caroline paused. ‘She lied. You must have been mistaken, Caro. I was in Brussels that week. I wasn’t even in London. Her voice all brittle and tense. I let it go. But I wasn’t mistaken. It was definitely her.’ She looked up at Perez. ‘That was when I knew this new man must be important, you see. If the dinner was just a work meeting, or even if she was having a fling or a one-night stand, she’d tell me and swear me to secrecy. But she lied and she’d never done that to me before.’ There was another pause. ‘Since then Eleanor seems to have been trying to avoid me. I think she’s met up on her own with Polly a couple of times, but I’ve only seen her when other people have been around.’

‘If Eleanor were planning to leave her husband,’ Perez said, ‘I don’t quite understand why she would wait until she was in Shetland to do it. It’s so much more inconvenient here.’

Caroline gave a tight smile. ‘Eleanor’s never planned to do anything in her life. It would have come to her in the middle of a dance; or maybe when she saw Lowrie and me together she realized that her life with Ian was impossible. That she couldn’t stand it any longer. Then she would have walked away. Without thinking through the consequences. Have you tried the guest houses in Unst? If she hasn’t left on the ferry, she might be fast asleep on a comfortable bed. Eleanor has always liked her comfort.’

‘Without taking her toothbrush or her moisturizer?’

For the first time Caroline looked a little shaken. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t sound so much like the Nell I know.’ She reached for the pot in the middle of the table and poured out more tea.

Outside there was a noise. The bark of a dog and running footsteps. A man crashed through the door into the kitchen. He was wheezing from running and his face was red. He bent double and tried to catch his breath to speak. Caroline stood up and stroked the hair from his forehead. She could have been comforting an anxious child.

‘We’ve found her! I need to tell the police.’ Then he noticed Perez, sitting in the shadow. ‘Who are you?’

‘He is the police.’ Caroline’s voice was impatient. ‘You’ve found Nell? Where is she? Is she OK?’

Lowrie Malcolmson straightened. He ignored his new wife’s questions and directed his words to Perez. ‘Eleanor’s dead,’ he said. ‘You need to come with me.’ Then he put his arms round Caroline’s shoulders and pulled her to him. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Perez saw that he was crying. ‘I know how much she meant to you, and this shouldn’t happen to anyone. I’m so very sorry.’

Caroline wanted to go with them, but Perez told her to stay where she was. ‘If this is a suspicious death we need the locus contaminated as little as possible.’

She nodded, as if she could see that made sense. ‘Can I go to Sletts to tell the others?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone yet. Not until we have something specific to say.’

She nodded again.

‘Are you OK here on your own? Should I get someone to be with you?’

‘No,’ she said, and he thought again how strong she was. She could be an island woman from a previous generation, doing all the work on the croft and bringing up a family while her man was at sea; coping alone with the news that he’d been drowned in a storm. ‘Lowrie’s parents will be back soon. I’ll be fine.’

Eleanor’s body lay on the headland south of Sletts. A murderer would have taken the most direct way from the scene, so Perez took a circuitous route to avoid further contamination. He thought the English people would probably have walked within a hundred yards of here during their exploration of the cliffs the day before. Just away from the marked footpath was a standing stone formed from granite. At its base a small peaty lochan. The stone was reflected in the water, with the colour of the sky and a small white cloud. But the reflection was disturbed by the shape that lay in the shallow pool. Eleanor Longstaff was on her back. Her feet were bare and Perez saw that the toenails were painted. She still wore the bridesmaid’s dress of the night before: full-length cream silk, which seemed to move when a breeze blew across the surface of the water. Her eyes were open wide and stared at the huge sky.

Sandy Wilson was still waiting in the holiday house when the call came through from Jimmy Perez. He was hungry and wondering what they might do about lunch. And he was uncomfortable. These people had turned Sletts into a little piece of London, with their ground coffee and their English voices, the fancy food on the cupboard shelves. He was the Shetlander and yet he felt like a stranger. He went outside to take the call.

‘Meet us there, will you, Sandy, once you’ve found someone to sit in with the witnesses?’ Then a list of directions that Sandy jotted on the back of his hand, because he remembered nothing when he was flustered. ‘And while you’re waiting for someone to relieve you, see if you can track down James Grieve and Vicki Hewitt. This is a suspicious death and we want the pathologist and crime scene manager here. I know it’s Sunday, but work your charm, eh? It’d be great if we could get them in today. If not, first thing in the morning.’