Ann Cleeves - Cold Earth

Willow sipped her wine. ‘You think Tom Rogerson stole the idea?’

‘I think it would explain the random payments from islanders and from incomers. I checked into the background of some of the islanders on the list. Many of them are lonely single men.’

‘Do you have any evidence for the theory?’ She was thinking this would be hard to prove. Tom Rogerson’s clients would be too embarrassed to talk, especially the men like Kevin Hay who were married, and the working girls would have their own reasons for keeping quiet. She imagined many of them would be Eastern European. Perhaps they’d come to Shetland to work as chambermaids or in the fish-processing factory and Rogerson had recruited them with the promise of easy cash.

‘None at all. And it wasn’t even my theory. I went to see Craig Henderson and he told me there were rumours among the contractors that Rogerson could put them in touch with the women.’

‘But Rogerson can’t have paid the women,’ she said, ‘because there’s no trace of regular sums leaving his account. He must have charged an introduction or arrangement fee, and the women would have been paid direct. So there was no evidential link between him and the girls. He was very careful.’ She was thinking through the details. ‘That was a lot of cash to pay just for an introduction.’

‘The islanders would have had no idea of the going rate,’ Perez said, ‘and the incomers wouldn’t have been short of cash. Besides, perhaps Rogerson didn’t just make the introduction and sort out the logistics. Perhaps he provided somewhere discreet for the parties to meet.’

‘The house at Tain?’

Perez nodded. ‘Over the winter at least. Before that, who knows?’

‘How did Alison Teal fit into the scheme?’ Willow thought Alison must have been a part of the business. It would make sense of the unexplained affluence and the expensive clothes. Her presence in Tain. ‘There was no record that Rogerson shared his profit with her. Was she just another of his working girls? A high-class whore imported from the south to serve Rogerson’s more discerning customers.’

Perez didn’t answer directly. ‘I’ve been sitting here going over and over the possibilities.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘It’s been driving me a little bit mad.’

‘Well, we’re all a bit mad.’

‘Maybe I’ve been madder than most, brooding about the past. I’ve not been great to be with, over the past couple of years.’

‘I can understand that,’ Willow said. She expected some response, but none came. Perhaps it was too soon for him after all, too raw. Perhaps he just didn’t fancy her. ‘Look, would you rather be on your own? Would you like me to go?’ She was already on her feet.

‘No,’ Perez said. He didn’t move from his seat and his face was in shadow, so it was still hard to tell what he was thinking.

She’d already pulled on her coat and had her bag over her shoulder.

‘Please stay. Have another glass of wine, something else to eat. I’d like to talk to you. Just for the pleasure of your company. If you don’t mind.’

She let her bag drop down her arm. Now he got to his feet and he helped her out of her jacket. He stroked her hair away from her face and pulled her to him.

It hadn’t been the best fellowship meeting. Rachel had turned up drunk and Jane had sat with her while the others spoke, and afterwards Jane had checked that Rachel wasn’t driving and had seen her home. She knew better than to think of the woman’s lapse as her own failure, but she was sad for her. More selfishly, she knew there would be more late-night phone calls, more self-pity and floods of remorse. Jane’s sponsor had seen her through her own recovery, but there was so much stress at home now that she wasn’t sure she could stand more disruption within the family. When she got into the house she turned her phone to silent. Rachel would probably sleep tonight anyway.

Kevin was waiting for her. ‘You’re late. I was starting to get worried.’

‘I had to give someone a lift home.’ She switched on the kettle. ‘Would you like tea? Coffee?’ She hated these brittle conversations when nothing was really said.

‘Jimmy Perez was here earlier.’

‘What did he want?’ She hovered with her hand reaching for her mug. Frozen with a kind of fear. She knew Kevin was involved in some way with the dead woman. The certainty came almost as a relief. She wasn’t making things up or going mad. But even if Kevin was a killer, she didn’t want him caught. She wanted the whole affair to be over and for Jimmy Perez to leave them on their own to work out their marriage.

‘Just some questions about Tom Rogerson. They’d found a couple of payments I’d made to him. I’ve been through the files. They must have been when he bought that piece of land out towards the school for us.’

She felt a moment of relief. Kevin was always buying parcels of land. Andy sometimes joked that he wouldn’t stop until he’d bought up the whole of Shetland mainland. It was the woman from Tain, the actress from London, who most risked their stability, even now she was dead; not business deals with Tom Rogerson. It occurred to her suddenly that she would have killed the woman herself to save Kevin and the boys.

‘Jimmy told me it was nothing official,’ Kevin said. ‘He was just tying up loose ends.’ But he didn’t look at her and she wasn’t reassured by the words.

She put a camomile teabag into a mug and poured on the water. The last thing she needed tonight was caffeine. ‘How are the boys?’

‘Michael’s up in his room. He came down a while ago for something to eat. He’s doing school work, he says. More likely sitting in front of that computer of his and watching rubbish.’

‘He spends too long in front of the screen. I wonder what he’s looking at. You hear such dreadful stories. Maybe we should keep a closer eye.’ It was a conversation they’d had before. Kevin thought she was fussing about nothing. Michael was almost a man. Settled and almost married. What did it matter what he accessed on the computer? Occasionally Jane had wandered into the office and Kevin had quickly switched off the screen, so she wondered if her husband was watching the same sort of material. Now he didn’t bother answering.

‘What about Andy?’ She’d seen his car in the yard and had thought with relief that he must be home. One less thing to worry about. The last few days all I’ve done is worry .

‘He hasn’t been here all day. I thought he must still be at work.’

‘His shift finished at five and his car’s here.’ The worm of anxiety, so familiar, was already burrowing into her brain. ‘Did you see him come back?’

Kevin shrugged as if he had more important things to worry about. ‘Maybe he didn’t take the car this morning. If he was meeting up with friends for a couple of pints after work, perhaps he decided to go up on the bus.’

She thought Kevin was right. She couldn’t remember if the car had been in the yard all day or not. It wasn’t late yet and Andy was probably in town. She phoned him all the same, though she wasn’t surprised when there was no reply. When she went to bed he still wasn’t home, but it was as if she’d lost her capacity to continue worrying. There’d been so much anxiety that her brain couldn’t take any more. She fell immediately into a deep sleep.

She woke suddenly when it was still quite dark. There was no moonlight and she knew immediately that the weather had changed again. It was as if a switch had been flicked and they were back in winter. Wind rattled through the house, battering at the windows and howling down the chimneys. No rain yet, but she could tell by the sound that the gale was north-westerly, and she knew that it would soon come. Kevin was lying beside her, still fast asleep. She looked at the radio by her bed. Nearly six o’clock. Not too early to get up and make tea.