Ann Cleeves - Cold Earth

‘I think that was a coincidence. They’d lost touch by the time she ran away from her life as an actress in a popular drama. She must have been a very young woman when he first knew her. And very lovely, of course.’ Willow hesitated. ‘I found the same self-help book in his office as the one we found in Teal’s room. It was probably standard issue at the clinic they both attended.’

Willow was thawing out a little now, engrossed in her story. ‘So Simon becomes respectable and invents a past for himself. An ex-wife who couldn’t cope with his energy and his passions. No kids. He did work as a psychologist in a teaching hospital and briefly as an academic, but he exaggerated his success in those fields. He loved Shetland. People admired him. But then Alison turned up, almost on his doorstep, wanting to take advantage of all the single men in the floatels and the workers’ hotels.’

‘Setting up in business with her old pal Tom Rogerson.’ Perez supposed he should be taking notes, but this was never going to be a formal interview. There would be time for that later.

‘Then Alison and Agnew met up somehow. By chance. Or perhaps Andy Hay mentioned one to the other. Agnew had always got on with the boy.’

‘And Alison saw another business opportunity.’ Perez saw now how neat this was, how it all hung together perfectly.

‘You think she was blackmailing Agnew?’ Willow had finished her whisky, but set her glass on the floor without asking for more.

‘Don’t you?’

‘I think it might have been more subtle than that. More complicated. Alison wanted friendship, some kind of recognition. They’d been lovers, remember. Perhaps Simon Agnew was determined to put his old life behind him. In his mind, the bad stuff never happened. Or at least wasn’t his fault.’

Perez supposed he could understand that. ‘Then Alison turned up at the Befriending Shetland office. An attempt to renew the relationship. Or demand money from him.’ He still believed blackmail was a more plausible motive.

‘And later Simon went to Tain and killed her. Perhaps he’d convinced her that they had a future together. She dressed up for him and cooked him a meal. He was worried that someone had seen Alison coming into his office in Lerwick, so he had to make up an excuse for her being there. Alison was still calling herself Alissandra Sechrest, so Agnew used that name when he described the distraught woman coming in out of the rain.’

‘What about Tom Rogerson?’

‘Simon believed that Alison had talked to Tom about him,’ Willow said. ‘Tom had been in contact with Alison since they’d first met at the Ravenswick Hotel. The note we found in her house was cementing the business partnership and he suggested that she used Sandy Sechrest’s identity to get to the island. Alison Teal’s discovery here, fifteen years ago, was a big deal and Tom worried that the name might be recognized.’

‘So Tom had to die?’ Perez thought Agnew had always been reckless and a risk-taker. He’d gambled that no connection would be found between him and the two victims.

‘Simon had served with Tom on island committees and knew Rogerson would delight in making mischief. Simon phoned him and arranged to meet him. He probably said that he knew something about Alison’s death. That would have intrigued Tom. Worried him. He wouldn’t have wanted his relationship with Alison being general knowledge in the islands. Agnew picked him up at the airport and drove him to the manse, took him for a walk so that they could talk things through. He’s always been one for exercise. He used to swim from the beach where Rogerson’s body was found.’

‘But it wasn’t so healthy for Tom.’ It was Perez’s attempt at flippancy, but he was thinking that Fran had swum from that beach too. He was wondering if she’d ever been there with Agnew.

‘That’s one way of putting it. Agnew left the body there, perhaps hoping that a high tide or a strong gale would take it away. But the weather calmed and Kevin Hay found it.’

‘Agnew would have got away with double murder, if you weren’t such a good detective.’

‘Like I said, that was all down to Sandy working his magic with the witness at the airport.’ Willow unwound the towel around her head and shook her hair loose. ‘I saw Agnew, you know, this evening. He was jogging along the road. I thought he’d be in his car and that I’d have some warning of his return. And of course he left his door unlocked – he wasn’t scared of a killer in the dark. If I hadn’t been so stupid, he would never have caught me.’

‘Would you like coffee?’ Perez wanted Willow to change the subject, not to think beyond the point when Agnew had found her in the office at the manse.

‘I want sleep,’ she said.

‘Use my bed. I’ll stay here on the sofa.’

‘Nah, come in with me.’ A grin that made him see she was stronger than he’d ever be. ‘I won’t make unreasonable demands, Jimmy. I’m not up to that tonight. And no strings. But I could use the company.’

He lay beside her and slept fitfully. She hardly stirred. The next morning he made sure he was up and dressed before Cassie was awake, and he had an excuse prepared for Willow being in his bed.

Willow decided she’d go south on the ferry. The weather was calm and still again, and she needed a slow trip. Time to get her head round all that had happened, to prepare for life away from Shetland and Jimmy Perez. The day had been spent waiting. In the Gilbert Bain hospital, for the required check-up before her bosses would allow her to travel. In the police station, while Sandy and her colleagues from Inverness finished interviewing the man who’d almost killed her.

‘He’s confessed to everything.’ Sandy had been flushed with triumph. ‘He says Alison’s death wasn’t planned, that he walked to Tain, just to persuade her to leave the islands. Found her all dressed up and ready to entertain him. It’s been too long, Simon. There’s champagne on ice and I’ve cooked your favourite food .’

‘He ate with her before he killed her?’

‘Apparently. “She was a bloody good cook. I wasn’t going to let a meal like that go to waste.” That’s what he said.’

‘Sounds premeditated to me.’ Willow had thought Agnew’s need to show off would mean that no jury would believe any manslaughter plea.

‘He even went to bed with her,’ Sandy said. ‘Afterwards, when she was lying there, he got the belt round Alison’s neck and twisted it. He’s still a strong man for his age.’

Agnew was being flown south. Another reason for Willow’s decision to take the ferry.

Jimmy Perez insisted on carrying her bag onto the ship and seeing her settled in her cabin. He stood awkwardly and seemed to take up the whole space between the two narrow beds.

‘We never had that talk,’ he said.

‘Ah well, other things got in the way.’ The last thing she wanted was for him to go all soulful on her. She wanted to leave with some dignity.

‘We will stay in touch?’

‘Of course, Jimmy.’ Now she just wanted him to go, so that she could lie on the cold, clean sheets on the bunk. She was suddenly very tired again.

‘Look out for Fair Isle as you go south,’ he said. His face lit up and she remembered why he’d haunted her. ‘You should see the lights from this side of the boat.’

‘You promised to take me there one day.’

‘And so I shall.’

She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Off you go, Jimmy Perez, or you’ll be carried away with me. And what would Shetland do without you?’

‘But you’ll come back to see me?’

She smiled. ‘Just try to stop me.’