Ann Cleeves - Cold Earth

Perez found himself smiling. Fran would have loved the idea of a green burial site in Ravenswick. She’d be one of the first to volunteer to plant wildflowers and small native trees. He thought he should talk about the idea to Cassie, and again it came to him that this wasn’t the right time to bring a new woman into their lives. Cassie already had enough to deal with. He returned to the letter and saw that Tom Rogerson’s name was at the bottom of it. He must have been one of the councillors who’d come up with the idea, immediately after the landslide. There was no signature of course. The letter must have been drafted, approved and then slowly made its way through the council bureaucracy, to be printed without anyone realizing it might not be appropriate for it to carry Rogerson’s name.

All the time he’d been keeping half an eye on the valley and the road. The cars were moving steadily, despite the single-lane traffic south of his house. No movement from the Hays. No sign of the eldest son, the one who had given Perez most concern. Was Andy in the house, helping his parents, or had he stayed overnight in Lerwick? Perez ate oatcakes and cheese, still perched at the window, not really hungry.

Cassie would come out of school at three. A neighbour usually collected her and kept her until Perez had finished work. He thought that today he would go himself. He’d still have the Hays in his sight for most of the way and he couldn’t bear the idea of being trapped in the house any longer. The rain had stopped and the cloud had lifted a little. There might even be sufficient light for Cassie and him to look down at where the cemetery had once been, and he could talk to her about the green burial site. It would be a way for her to think about her mother’s life, her dreams and ideals.

Cassie was first out into the playground and was delighted to see him, though she tried to be super-cool about it. She moaned a little because he didn’t have the car and they’d have to walk back. ‘You don’t know how hard Miss Rogerson makes us work.’

‘How does she seem?’ Usually Kathryn came out into the playground to see the children off the premises, but today the classroom support teacher was there instead.

‘OK.’

He didn’t walk with her up the footpath to the main road and home, but down towards the sea. They would skirt Tain that way, but the sycamores would hide most of the devastation and there was a rise in the land where they could look down at the remains of the cemetery. The afternoons were already getting lighter; there was an hour of the day left. Cassie was chatting about her friends and about the costume she’d need for the end-of-term performance. ‘But Miss Rogerson says you’re not to worry about that. She’ll sort it out for us.’

‘That’s very kind of her.’ But now Perez was thinking that Kathryn Rogerson might not be so kind. How could a woman who’d just lost the father she claimed to adore continue working as if nothing at all had happened?

In the distance Perez could see Kevin Hay working on a big machine, a tractor with a bucket on the front. He was digging a trench that might be a new drainage ditch by the side of a field, heaping the damp black soil in piles to one side. From a distance, the ditch looked like a long grave. The rumble of the machine sounded animal, like a monster from one of Cassie’s stories, but she seemed not to notice it.

There was a figure standing on the bank, just where Perez had thought he and Cassie would have their conversation about her mother’s headstone. He felt a moment of resentment. Usually there was space enough in Shetland not to be disturbed. As they approached he recognized the figure as Jane Hay. She turned as she heard them.

‘You got the letter too,’ she said.

‘You had someone buried there?’ He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Kevin’s family had crofted here for generations.

‘Kevin’s grandfather, though his parents looked after his grave.’ She paused. ‘I never knew him. I suppose I’m here for Minnie Laurenson.’

‘The old woman who used to live at Tain.’

She nodded. ‘She didn’t have any family locally and she was the closest thing I had in the islands to my own relative.’ She qualified the words quickly. ‘I mean, Kev’s mother and father were always lovely to me, but it’s not quite the same.’

Cassie was pulling at his hand, making it clear she wanted to be on her way home. She had no interest in the adult conversation taking place above her head. Perez nodded towards her. ‘I wanted to talk to the bairn about the green burial idea.’

‘Of course. I’ll leave you to it. I’m not sure what Minnie would make of it. She was always a great one for tradition.’ A pause. ‘When you’re done, Jimmy, why don’t you bring Cassie into the house? I’ve been baking. We might find her something to keep her going until tea time.’

He nodded again, thinking that it was good to have an invitation to the Hays’ house. Much better than staring out of his kitchen window into the dark.

Willow was doing her morning yoga when she heard the baby. It was a strange noise, more like a bleat than a cry. Rosie started singing then, and the combined sounds – the mother singing and the baby calling – moved Willow almost to tears. She thought she could understand those sad, lonely women who snatched children from prams outside shops. In the kitchen John was sitting in his dressing gown drinking tea.

‘Oh God,’ he said when he saw her. ‘Is it that time? What must you think of us? Are you OK with cereal and toast?’

‘I’ll make it.’ She preferred to be in the kitchen on her own. Something about his sleepy, rather smug face made her want to hit him. It was deep and basic playground envy: You’ve got something I want, and I hate you . She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t control it.

‘Are you sure?’ He was already on his feet. ‘You know where everything is?’

‘Quite sure, and I’ll find it.’

After breakfast she walked through the drizzle to the police station: up the lane, emerging opposite the library, and then past the town hall. Lerwick had become familiar to her now and some of the passers-by recognized her, gave her a wave. It was early and the place was quiet. Sandy had planned to head straight to the airport and Perez would be in the house in Ravenswick, staring down the valley towards Gilsetter and Tain. She hoped he wasn’t brooding over Fran; she hadn’t intended to give him some sort of ultimatum.

She spent the morning attempting to lose herself in the details of the investigation and stuck a mind-map on the wall – a contemporary-art extravaganza of different-coloured marker pens, all circles and connections: Alison Teal’s sudden crisis in Simon Agnew’s office linked to the crisis that had first brought her to the islands; Tom Rogerson’s relationship with Alison, with Kevin Hay and with the developers of the smart cabins north of Ravenswick. The second generation – the Hay boys and Kathryn Rogerson – marked in red; the earlier generation – Magnus Tait and Minnie Laurenson – circled in green. Willow was still staring at the map, feeling that she was starting to see a strange inverted pattern, when Sandy came in. He looked at the map briefly, but seemed to dismiss it as the ravings of a lunatic and started to tell her about his trip to Sumburgh. Willow turned away from the wall to listen and felt her theory dissolve into nothing.

‘Rogerson took a phone call while he was waiting for his plane,’ Sandy said. ‘Or made a call out. My witness couldn’t be sure. And suddenly his plans changed and he cancelled his flight.’

‘We asked Kathryn for her dad’s mobile number.’ Despite herself, Willow began to see why Sandy was so excited. ‘She didn’t get back to us. We know he had two phones – one for business, and I have that number; and a personal one. I don’t think we’ve ever been given those details.’