Ann Cleeves: Cold Earth

He’d worried that he wouldn’t have the strength to get her there, when Kevin Hay arrived in his Land Rover.

‘You need to go back to Gilsetter,’ Perez yelled above the sound of the engine. ‘Jane’s there with the killer.’

‘Don’t worry, Jimmy. The boys are there too, and they’ve locked him into the tractor shed.’ Kevin jumped down from the vehicle and between them the two men lifted Willow inside. ‘You just look after your friend. We’ll deal with all the rest.’

In the house Perez sat Willow in the bath and rinsed away the mud with the hand-held shower. Tender. Grateful that she wasn’t pushing him away. He washed the soil and blood from her hair, using Cassie’s shampoo, then filled the tub with clean water.

‘Shall I leave you to soak?’ He thought she might want to be on her own. He’d prop the door open, so he could hear that she was still conscious.

‘Nah, but bring in the bottle and a couple of glasses.’ A pause and a thin grin that took some effort. ‘I always think it’s wrong to drink on my own.’

Later they sat in front of the fire. She wore his dressing gown and a pair of his thick socks. Her hair was wrapped up in a towel. He could tell she still felt cold. He wanted to hold her tight to him, but since she’d emerged from the bathroom something about her body language, frozen and tight, made him think it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

‘Shouldn’t you be at the station interviewing Agnew?’ she said. ‘I could stay here, if you’d trust me with Cassie.’

He almost said that she needed someone to be with her , but stopped himself just in time. ‘Nah. It’s about time we gave Sandy some responsibility and they’re sending some of your colleagues in on the first flight from Inverness tomorrow. Besides…’ he lifted his empty glass, ‘… I’m not fit to drive.’ He paused. ‘But you’re a witness. I could talk to you and make a few notes, if you feel up to it. Nothing that would stand up in court of course, but it might help us to jot down a few things while it’s still clear in our memories.’

Willow took a moment to speak and he thought he’d played that all wrong. She wouldn’t want to relive the nightmare so soon and would think he was an insensitive oaf.

‘When did you know it was Simon Agnew?’ she said at last.

‘Not for certain until I saw him standing by the ditch, with the spade in his hand. But I remembered you’d said that Agnew had told Sandy he was speaking in Fair Isle over the weekend. I checked with the Fair Isle Times and he was certainly booked to be there. But he couldn’t have made it. The weather was so bad on Friday and Saturday that neither the plane nor the Good Shepherd would have gone, and there are no planes on Sunday. That was why your phone message made me so anxious. And when Andy Hay told his mother he’d been staying at the manse, it just seemed bizarre that Agnew hadn’t told Jane he’d seen him. She visited this morning. Agnew must have realized that Jane would be worried stupid. Surely he’d have encouraged Andy to go home and talk to his parents, or at least told Jane that the boy was safe. When she went to see Agnew, his door was locked. She thought it was because he was scared, but it was to give him time to hide Andy, if a visitor arrived.’

‘Why did he take the boy in?’

‘I think he supported Andy and encouraged him to confide in him, because it was a way of keeping in touch with the investigation. And Andy needed someone away from the family to talk to. He saw Simon Agnew as a man of the world. Someone who’d understand.’ Perez threw another peat onto the fire. It was as hot as a sauna in the small room already. ‘Agnew pointed us in the direction of the Hay boys, of course. He couldn’t appear too interested in the case himself, and I think it amused him to throw us off-track. He had that sort of arrogance.’ Perez looked at her. ‘But you got to the killer way before I did.’

‘Naturally.’ Willow tried to sound flippant, but didn’t quite manage it. ‘Really I can’t take any credit. Sandy did the legwork. He just has a way of persuading people to talk. He found a witness at the airport who remembered seeing Tom Rogerson take a call just before he cancelled his flight to Orkney. When we checked with the phone company, we found out that the caller was Agnew.’ She held out her glass for more whisky. Perez had stopped drinking, but he tipped a little into her glass. She was suddenly serious. ‘It’s hard to believe all that only happened this afternoon.’

Perez saw that time had gone crazy for Willow too. It must have seemed like hours while she was lying in the drainage ditch, helpless.

She stirred in her chair. ‘Would he have done it? Would he really have buried me alive?’

He waited for a moment before answering. ‘I think he was pleased when I turned up to stop him.’

There was silence. Perez realized that the rain had stopped. He went to the window and saw a thin moon, covered immediately by cloud. When he turned back to the room, Willow was checking her phone. He’d rescued it from her mud-encrusted jacket. She looked up with a smile and began to talk.

‘When I found out that Simon Agnew had been in touch with Rogerson, I went back over the details of the earlier investigation. He was the only person who’d described Alison Teal as depressed and desperate. Every other witness had said the woman was cheerful in the days before her death. She’d bought a bottle of champagne. Whatever we might think of Alison’s business venture with Rogerson, it was doing well. She was making plans for the future. But why would Simon Agnew lie about Alison’s visit to the Befriending Shetland centre in Lerwick? The only reason I could think of was that he was the killer.’

‘That’s a big step to make.’

‘Which is why I wanted to talk to him. I couldn’t believe it. Even when I spoke to Jono and he described Agnew as one of Alison’s rich junkie boyfriends. They ended up in rehab together; Agnew got clean. He already had a first degree in psychology and went on to do a PhD in addiction studies. That’s why he could understand Jane Hay so well. It seemed an odd sort of friendship because they’re from such different backgrounds, but he knew what she needed.’

‘You should have told us what you were doing.’

She paused before answering. ‘I tried to phone you, Jimmy. I thought you might be avoiding my calls.’

The silence lengthened while he struggled to find the right words to apologize or explain. In the end she rescued him and went on with her own explanation.

‘We knew that Alison’s parents were addicts and that she’d had her own problems. One of the articles we read about her disappearance talked about the possibility that she’d gone back into rehab. That suggested she’d tried rehab before. That was when she was knocking around with Simon Agnew. He was much older than her, but rather glamorous then. From a smart family, famous for his exploration and his partying. And maybe she was looking for a father figure. When we were thinking about the murders, we talked a bit about shame as a motivating factor. It occurred to me that Agnew might have a past that he was ashamed of. He was happy to admit to a rackety past as an adventurer. But not as a heroin addict, who’d turned his back on his children and stolen from his wife to feed his habit.’ Willow looked at Perez. ‘Those last details only came through to my phone a few minutes ago. He’d become a psychologist, helping other people with their problems, settled and happy in Shetland. A pillar of the community. He’d be the last person who’d want that past to come back to haunt him.’

‘Did he know that Alison came to Shetland to escape her problems?’