Ann Cleeves - Cold Earth

‘I’ve just walked down to collect Cassie from school. Getting stir-crazy in the house.’

‘It seems Kathryn Rogerson and Andy Hay were close at one time.’ Willow tried to explain the relationship between the young people, as Mavis had described it to her.

He didn’t answer immediately and she thought his phone might have lost reception altogether. In the end, when he did speak, it was just one word. ‘Interesting.’ Then the connection was lost and the line was dead.

Sandy seemed to have picked up Willow’s restlessness, because he couldn’t settle, either. He kept sticking his head round her door to see if they’d heard from Rogerson’s mobile provider. He was still triumphant after finding the witness in the airport, and he had a stake in the information. In the end she sent him to make tea, though she was awash with the stuff. All the time she was looking at her watch or staring at the white plastic clock on the office wall. She could hear the minutes tick. Despite the yoga and the mindfulness, she’d never been much good at waiting. She was just about to call the phone company again and was building herself up for another confrontation, when the email came through. Sandy came in with the two mugs of tea and she swivelled the screen so that he could read it at the same time as her.

‘What do you think?’

She thought Sandy must have spent too long in Perez’s company, because he gave the same one-word answer as his boss had done half an hour before. ‘Interesting.’

Willow was on her feet, staring at the mind-map, which was still on the whiteboard. The pattern that had seemed fuzzy and inexplicable now made perfect sense.

‘I need to talk to Alison Teal’s brother in prison. Can you phone them, Sandy? See if you can sort it out?’ Because words and ideas were tumbling through her head and she needed to concentrate to make sense of them. She didn’t need distractions. Besides, Sandy would be good at a task like that. Persistent but polite. She was so wired that she worried she might end up shouting again. ‘I don’t need a video-link this time. Just a phone call will do.’

He nodded and left the room, bewildered, but knowing better than to ask for more details.

He bounded back a quarter of an hour later, grinning. ‘All sorted. If you ring this number in ten minutes, Teal will be in the governor’s office ready to talk to you.’

‘Sandy Wilson, you’re a bloody miracle-worker!’ She could feel the case moving forward now. It was physical, like a rumble beneath her feet, like the soil sliding down the hill during the landslip. Unstoppable.

‘No problem.’ But Sandy was blushing, as delighted as she was. It seemed the assistant governor was a birdwatcher. Obsessed. A regular visitor to Shetland. He’d been happy to help in any way he could, glad of another, informal link to the islands. ‘I’ve promised to take him out for a beer next time he’s up.’

‘I’ll tape the conversation,’ Willow said, ‘so I can play it back to you as soon as we’re done, but I don’t want an audience when I’m talking to him, Sandy. Is that OK? I need to be able to focus.’ She paused. ‘My performance has to be just for Teal.’

Sandy left the room without comment. If he was disappointed, Willow didn’t notice. She was making notes on a scrap of paper on the desk in front of her.

She looked at her watch again, took a deep breath, made the call. The man who answered had an educated southern accent. Warm, interested. He sounded more like an old-fashioned schoolmaster than someone who worked with offenders. Willow created a back-story for him in her head as he introduced himself: he’d be someone who’d been brought up to take responsibility for people less fortunate than himself. His father was a priest, maybe. Or a socialist intellectual. She wondered what his colleagues made of him and hoped he wouldn’t become hardened and cynical. She forced herself to listen to his words.

‘I wish I were in the islands with you.’ His voice was wistful. ‘It’s my favourite place in the world.’ Then he dragged himself back to the present. ‘I have Jonathan with me. I’ll put him on the line.’

Teal sounded even younger than he had on the video-link. Perhaps he had no idea why he’d been dragged to the governor’s office and was scared. Willow took the interview slowly, felt the rhythm of it like a poem and pulled him with her, so eventually he felt the need to answer as he would join in the chorus of a song.

‘I’d like to talk about the time your sister disappeared, Jono. Could you cast your mind back to then?’ A pause. ‘It was a while ago, I know, but let’s go through the details again.’

A mumbled response.

‘Anything – however trivial – might help us find Alison’s killer. You do want to do that?’

‘Of course.’

‘It was 2002: you in the army, Britney Spears at the top of the charts. Alison at the height of her fame in that drama on TV.’

‘I remember like it was yesterday. Good times.’

‘Brilliant, Jono!’ Willow felt as if she’d caught him now. In his mind he was fifteen years younger, still with a purpose and a famous sister. Contacts and parties when he was home on leave. ‘What might have happened, do you think, to make Alison run away and give it all up?’

‘She was pretty messed up.’

‘Man trouble?’

‘Oh, she could never keep a decent man. Always wanted more than they could give. And she never took to the good ones. It was always the losers, the druggies and the wasters. The older ones who reminded her of Dad. Or the exciting ones who promised her the world.’

Willow was about to ask another question when Jono spoke again, and she could tell that he was back with his sister, sharing the glamour and the heartache. The stories spilled out. Details he’d probably forgotten for years. Names and places and the parties they’d been to, the meals they’d eaten. No need for Willow to ask leading questions, to tease out the facts. The recorded conversation might be used in a future court case, so she had to be careful. All the same, she felt in total control of the exchange.

Twenty minutes later Sandy knocked quietly and looked in, but seeing that she was still talking, he went away again. At last, when she could think of nothing else to ask and the man at the end of the line had fallen silent, she thanked Teal and told him they were done. The assistant governor came onto the line again.

‘I hope that was useful.’

She assumed he’d been in the room all the time, listening in. ‘Terrifically. All confidential at this stage, of course.’

‘Oh, absolutely. You can trust me.’

‘I’m sure that I can.’

There was a pause. Willow was impatient to end the call so that she could consider the implications of the conversation with Teal, but the man spoke again.

‘Perhaps we could meet up next time I’m in Shetland.’ He sounded nervous, almost as if he was inviting her out on a date. Perhaps he was. She imagined it would be hard to meet many women in his profession, and birdwatching seemed to be a predominantly male activity.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I probably won’t be here when you next visit. I don’t actually belong here.’ Replacing the receiver, she thought that was true. Whatever Jimmy Perez decided, she would never truly belong in Shetland.

She found Sandy in the ops room, staring out of the window down at the street below. The traffic was heavy; it was just after five and this was the nearest Lerwick got to a rush hour. The rain made everything look slick and shiny in the headlights. He turned back to face her. ‘Well?’

‘Listen to the call yourself. I want to know what you think.’ She paused and came to a sudden decision. ‘I’m going out. I’ve just tried to get Jimmy on the phone, but there’s no reply: no reception on his mobile and he’s not answering the landline in his house. He was picking up Cassie from school, but he should be home by now.’