Ann Cleeves - Cold Earth

‘So you’re going south?’

‘Yes,’ she said, already almost out of the room. ‘I’m going south.’

Kevin Hay dropped Perez and Cassie right outside their door. He’d talked Cassie through the vehicle’s controls and let her switch on the indicators on the drive back from Gilsetter. She was squeezed between the two men on the front bench seat and Perez didn’t speak at all. There was no mention of the murders until the Land Rover had stopped and Kevin had let Cassie out of the driver’s door to run inside. Then the two men were alone, standing in the drizzle on either side of the van.

‘I wasn’t very civil last time we met, Jimmy. I’m sorry.’

‘No problem. It’s a stressful time for everyone.’ Perez was in a hurry to join Cassie; he didn’t like her being alone even for a few minutes, and this was no place for a useful conversation. ‘Thanks for the lift.’ He turned away to walk to the house.

‘Jimmy!’ Perez looked back and Kevin Hay continued, ‘These killings have nothing to do with my family. We all make mistakes, but we’re good people.’

Perez wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he just raised his hand in farewell. Inside, he saw there were missed calls from Willow on his mobile and his landline, but when he tried to call her there was no reply. He felt a moment of relief. He still wasn’t sure what he would tell her. Perhaps they could work out a compromise, a way of staying close without disrupting Cassie’s life. But he thought Willow wasn’t a woman who would be comfortable with compromise. Besides, he wanted more than that.

He made scrambled eggs for Cassie’s supper and then realized he was hungry and made more for himself. The dark outside was dense now, the remaining daylight had long gone and there was no moon. But still he stared out of the window down the valley towards Tain and Gilsetter. Partly because it was what he’d been doing all day and had become a habit, partly out of a kind of superstition. If he stopped looking, something dreadful might happen. The cluster of lights must come from Gilsetter, from the polytunnels and the house itself. They were familiar, a part of the night-time landscape. He wondered what was happening there, pictured Jane and Kevin at the kitchen table, discussing the case. Making plans. Inventing excuses for themselves or their sons.

He dragged his attention back to the child, bathed her and prepared her for bed. Cassie seemed to pick up on his mood and was quiet and a little subdued, making no protest when he said it was time for her to go to sleep. He went back to his seat by the window and noticed that it was still raining. He could hear that the ditch running past the house where Magnus Tait had once lived was full. It crossed his mind that perhaps he and Cassie should move away for a while and stay with friends in Lerwick, in case the hill was still unstable and likely to slide again. But he couldn’t bear the thought of the disruption to both their routines.

When he was sure Cassie was asleep he went outside to put rubbish in the bin by the track. The lights in Gilsetter remained, but now there was another light a little way to the south. At first Perez thought it might come from a stationary car on the main road, but it wasn’t a usual place for a vehicle to park. The light taunted him. He couldn’t ignore it and kept staring, trying to fix it in his mental map. It didn’t shift. He went back inside and phoned Willow again and still there was no response. On impulse he picked up the phone once more and called Maggie, the friend who usually cared for Cassie after school.

‘Sorry to be a pain, but is there any chance you could babysit? It’s a work thing. I shouldn’t be long, and Cassie’s in bed.’

‘No bother, Jimmy, and be as long as you like. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ Her voice was comforting and normal and made him believe he was overreacting.

By the time Maggie had arrived, though, he’d convinced himself that the light was in Tain. Where else could it be? There were no other houses in that part of Ravenswick. The only other building was the manse, and that was east of Gilsetter. The school was further north. When his neighbour tapped at the door, he had his boots and waterproofs on and his car keys in his hand. Outside, he changed his mind about driving. It was only quarter of an hour’s walk down the hill and he didn’t want to warn whoever was in the ruined croft of his presence.

It was muggy and unseasonably mild. The low cloud seemed to hold in the smoke from the settlement’s open fires and the smell of peat mixed with the compost scent of damp vegetation. He almost ran down the bank to the road, crossed it and looked over the valley towards the coast. His eyes had adjusted to the murk. Occasionally cars passed behind him. The Gilsetter lights were clear from here and spilled outside onto the sycamores that surrounded Tain. The trees were bare now and Perez could see quite clearly that there was a light inside the ruins. Not the same constant brightness of the glow in Gilsetter, but uneven, flickering. A candle or a torch.

He walked more slowly. There was no vehicle parked at the end of the short track. Whoever was inside Tain had walked, like him. The light was in the space that had once been the bedroom and was still relatively intact. Perez slid closer, then moved round to the side of the house that faced the sea, treading carefully because there was still debris underfoot, shattered crockery and smashed furniture. There was no glass in the window here and he could hear at once that there were two people inside. This was a conversation between a man and a woman.

‘You haven’t been staying here?’ Jane Hay’s voice was strained and tense, but she was reining in her emotions and trying to keep calm. ‘What’s been going on?’

Perez shifted position so that he could see inside. The mother and son were standing, uplit by a candle which had been stuck onto a saucer and placed on a plain wooden chair. Jane had a torch in her hand, but that had been switched off.

‘No,’ Andy said. ‘I haven’t been staying here.’ He seemed lost inside a big parka, and in the candlelight looked even thinner than Perez remembered. Skeletal. Perez could see the bones in the boy’s face and in the long fingers that never seemed to rest. The piercings near his eyebrow glittered. ‘I told you. I was staying with a friend.’

‘Why didn’t you come and see me at home tonight?’ She was trying not to sound accusing, but the words came out as a cry. ‘Why all this drama and mystery?’

There was a moment of silence. Because he’s a young man , Perez thought. And because he’s always been attracted to melodrama .

‘I couldn’t face Dad.’ Andy looked directly at her. ‘I needed to talk to you first.’

‘Your father isn’t even at home.’ She was growing impatient now. ‘He took Jimmy Perez and his daughter home and then went straight to the Henderson house to watch the footie. There’s a Scotland game.’

The ordinary, banal words seemed almost to offend Andy. Perez thought again that he preferred the tension and the high drama.

‘So why don’t we just go back to Gilsetter?’ Jane went on. ‘You can explain everything to me in the warm.’

‘I used to come here.’

‘I know you used to come here. You came with me to see Minnie Laurenson. She had a tin of toffees and home-made fudge and she told you stories.’ Perez saw that Jane was smiling. It was probably easier for her to think of Andy as a small boy, eager to please. She didn’t know what to make of the angry young man.

‘No!’ He sounded frustrated now. ‘I mean I came to Tain recently. While Alis was living here.’

‘Alis?’