Ann Cleeves - Cold Earth

‘We think she was in here on Tuesday. Do you recognize her?’

‘What’s she done?’ Peter’s eyes flicked around the room. He seemed very twitchy. It occurred to Sandy that he might be into drugs. Or perhaps he was just desperate for a cigarette.

‘She’s dead,’ Sandy said. ‘We found her body after the landslide on Wednesday night, but we don’t know who she is. We need to track down her relatives.’

Peter stared at her. ‘Aye, she was in. She bought a bottle of champagne.’

‘Anything else?’

The boy screwed up his eyes, a pantomime of thinking. ‘A packet of couscous.’

‘You can remember that? After all the customers you serve?’ Sandy was all admiration. He knew how little praise it took for an insecure person to feel grateful.

‘Aye well, I’ve always had a good memory. Besides, she was striking, you ken, with that long black hair.’ He blushed. ‘I mean she was old enough to be my mother, but it still made me feel good just looking at her.’

‘Did you chat at all?’

‘Not really. There was a queue behind her. Just while I was ringing up the items. I asked her if the champagne was for Valentine’s Day, and I said her man should be buying it for her .’ He blushed again. ‘Soppy, huh? But the boss says we should engage with the customers.’

‘What did she say?’ Sandy thought how lucky he was that he didn’t have a boss like Colin.

‘She said she didn’t need a special occasion to drink champagne.’

‘Accent?’

‘Not local, but I didn’t notice. Not really.’

‘I can tell you’re more a visual person.’ Sandy turned on the flattery again. ‘Can you tell me what she was wearing?’

Peter screwed up his face again, but it seemed he did have a visual memory. ‘A coat. Long and dark blue, and reaching almost to her ankles. Kind of stylish, like you might wear in the city. Not waterproof, like most of the women here would wear. Black boots with a narrow heel. A blue silk scarf.’

‘So office clothes?’

‘Smart, yeah. I couldn’t see what she was wearing underneath the coat.’ He blushed again.

Sandy was thinking that he’d seen a coat like that in the cupboard at Tain. Another confirmation that they had found the right woman.

‘Had you seen her before? I mean, is she a regular customer?’

‘No, not a regular. I’ve seen her before, though.’ Peter had reached into a drawer for a packet of biscuits and dunked one into his coffee. It fell apart before he could get it into his mouth, and soggy crumbs fell back into the mug. He swore under his breath.

‘In the shop?’

‘Nah, in Lerwick. In the bar in Mareel. Upstairs. I was waiting to see a film.’

‘When was this?’ Sandy sipped the coffee as if he had all the time in the world.

‘A week ago. The Friday night. I was going to meet some friends, got there a bit early. Perhaps that’s why I noticed her when she came into the shop the other day; I knew I’d seen her before.’

‘Was she on her own?’

‘No, she was with a bloke,’ Peter said. ‘Smart. Jacket and tie. Not a suit, but he’d made an effort.’

‘You didn’t know him?’ Because Sandy thought the boy would have blurted out a name if he’d had one. He’d want to show off.

Peter shook his head. ‘He was older, you know. He wasn’t someone I’d have gone to school with.’

‘Anything else that might help us trace him?’

‘Sorry.’

Outside the rain had stopped and a faint, milky sunlight filtered through the gloom. Instead of turning back towards Lerwick, Sandy headed towards Sullom Voe and stopped at the new hotel that had been built just outside the village of Brae. Its accommodation was used solely for oil, gas and construction workers and had been full since it had been slotted together like a giant bit of Lego several years before. Sandy had been inside once for the Sunday-lunch carvery. It had felt a bit like going abroad and wandering into another world. There were foreign voices, loud and confident, and even those who spoke English were sharing jokes he couldn’t understand.

Now reception was crowded with men waiting to check out. They stood with their holdalls at their feet, impatient. Sandy supposed they’d been stranded because of the restricted flights and were anxious to get home. He waited until the queue had cleared and then went up to the desk.

‘Do you know this woman?’

Sandy thought he saw a spark of recognition, but the receptionist shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

‘She doesn’t work here?’

‘No, I’m certain about that.’ The man had an accent too. Sandy thought it was probably Eastern European, but his English was just as good as Sandy’s.

‘You know all the staff?’

The receptionist nodded. ‘Most of us live in. Those who aren’t Shetlanders – and she doesn’t look like a local. So if she worked here I would recognize her.’

‘You’ve never seen her as a guest in the bar or the restaurant?’

This time there was a brief hesitation. ‘I don’t think so. She’s not a regular. But lots of people wander through, and I’m stuck on the desk.’

‘She’s kind of striking,’ Sandy said. ‘I think you’d notice.’

Another pause. ‘Sorry, I really don’t think I can help.’

The queue had built up behind Sandy again. He could hear muttered comments and felt intimidated by the oil men’s bulk and hostility. He nodded to the receptionist and walked outside. The cloud had lifted even further, so now he could see down the voe towards the terminal. He thought he’d achieved very little. He had one snippet of fresh information from Peter – that the woman had been in the bar in Mareel a week ago with a smartly dressed man – but they still had no clue what she was doing in Shetland. And they still had no name for her. Sandy knew that Jimmy Perez would be disappointed in him.

Jane Hay let herself into the largest of the polytunnels and the familiar smell of compost and vegetation made her feel she was coming home. She’d met Kevin at college in Aberdeen; he’d been doing agriculture, but her subject was horticulture. On their first date he’d taken her hands in his and laughed at the ingrained soil under her thumbnail. Later he’d told her he knew then that she was the girl for him.

Her parents had grown soft fruit, and the plan had always been that she would join the family business once she’d graduated. Her father had been more addicted to drinking than horticulture, even before Jane started at college, and she’d seen herself in the role of saviour. She’d dreamed of returning home with the knowledge and the passion to take on the company and make it profitable again. But her father had died suddenly, when his liver gave up its unequal struggle with the booze, and her mother had sold up immediately without consulting Jane about her plans. That had been the start of Jane’s strange relationship with alcohol. It had covered up her sadness and made her fun to be with. Later it became her secret consolation.

Now she prepared the soil in the polytunnel and thought her father had at least given her this: the ability to work magic with seeds and earth, an understanding of what made things grow. She was planting early potatoes and carrots, for family use. When the rest of Shetland was still dark and grey, in her polythene world spring would have arrived. The boys had preferred frozen chips and baked beans when they were young, but she’d always felt a thrill when she put the first new potatoes on the table. It was warm in the strange plastic bubble and she took off her sweater. Outside, drizzle ran in streaks down the tunnel, clouding the polythene so that she had no sense of the outside world. And all the time she was thinking about the dark-haired woman who’d stayed in Tain.