Ann Cleeves - Cold Earth

‘Not young. Late thirties maybe. Forties and well preserved? No grey in the hair, but that doesn’t mean anything these days, when we can get it in a bottle.’

‘Did you hear her speak? It would be helpful if we had some idea of her accent.’

Again Jane tried to imagine herself back in the shop in Brae. It had been busy, two tills open. She’d been standing next to the woman in a different queue, squinting across because she was curious about her. ‘Not Shetland,’ she said now to Perez. The woman hadn’t said much to the guy on the till, but there’d been an exchange about the champagne. He’d asked if she was celebrating.

‘English?’

‘Maybe. She didn’t have a strong accent, but I’d say she was from the south.’ Jane paused. ‘I couldn’t swear to anything, though. She only said a few words and there was a lot of background noise. She could have come from anywhere in the world.’ Almost repeating Sandy’s comment about the photo, the night before.

‘Did she pay by cash or credit card?’ Perez’s voice was measured, but she could tell this mattered.

Jane shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I was paying then myself. I didn’t notice.’

‘Did you see where she went when she left the shop?’

Jane replayed the events in her head again. There’d been a sudden downpour, the rain dramatic after a morning of persistent drizzle. She had stood in the entrance of the shop hoping it would pass. She’d only walked from the shop’s car park, but she would be drenched in the time it would take to run back to her vehicle. Had the dark woman been there too?

‘There was a car waiting for her.’ She saw it very clearly: a car driving up almost to the door of the shop and the dark woman, politely pushing her way through the other waiting customers, then running through the downpour to climb into the vehicle.

‘Someone else was driving?’ Perez had started making notes. He looked up.

‘Oh yes, she got in the passenger door. The rest of us were jealous. We knew we’d get wet, even running to the car park.’

‘Did you see the driver at all?’

Jane shook her head. ‘He was furthest away from us. He’d driven, so the passenger door was closest to the shop.’

‘But you think it was a he ?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I just made that assumption. Because of the champagne. Because it was running up to Valentine’s Day.’

Jimmy Perez smiled to show he understood the way her mind had been working. ‘Can you tell me anything about the car?’ He set down his pen and gave her his full attention.

She shut her eyes for a moment in the hope of fixing the image. ‘Dark,’ she said. ‘A medium-sized family saloon. But the rain was so fierce, Jimmy, and the light was so bad that any colour seemed washed away. And I couldn’t tell you the make. I’m not interested in cars. I couldn’t even start to think about a registration number.’

‘I didn’t expect that for a minute.’ He grinned, but she could tell he was disappointed.

‘It had a Shetland flag stuck on the back bumper!’ The memory shot into her mind. ‘The white cross against the blue was caught in the light from the store and seemed bright in the gloom. And I thought it was odd, because I’d decided the woman wasn’t local.’

She was rewarded by a sudden smile that lit up his face. She remembered Jimmy smiling a lot like that when Fran was alive. It was as if the artist had given him permission to be silly. More recently he’d become grave and responsible again.

‘Had you seen her round here?’ Perez looked up from his coffee. ‘You’d have been her nearest neighbour. Perhaps you noticed the same car at the house?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not a car. And you can’t quite see Tain from here. It’s hidden in that dip in the hill and by the trees.’ She paused and tried to remember. ‘I saw lights in there one day. I’d been out for a walk to the shore and took a shortcut back to the house.’

‘When was that?’

‘About a month ago. Between Hogmanay and Up Helly Aa.’ She pictured the scene. It had been about four o’clock and already dark. She’d been hurrying back because it was a meeting night and she’d wanted to start cooking tea, so that she could get into Lerwick on time. Then she’d seen the lights spilling out from the croft. She’d been grateful to have the path lit up, but embarrassed too, because she’d been in effect walking through someone else’s garden.

‘Did you see anyone inside?’

‘Yes.’ She’d hurried past the window, hoping the person inside wouldn’t turn round. ‘A woman.’

‘Could it have been the woman you saw in Brae?’

Jane nodded. ‘She had dark hair, certainly. Long dark hair. I only saw her back, not her face.’ She was about to continue, but really, what else was there to say?

‘That’s very helpful,’ he said. ‘Really. Thanks. And for the only decent cup of coffee I’ll get all day.’

She walked with him and Cassie out into the yard. She was brooding about the woman in Tain, then her mind switched direction and she thought Jimmy Perez would make a fine husband for someone one day.

Back in his office, Jimmy Perez phoned the Co-op in Brae and asked to talk to the manager.

‘I’m interested in a purchase made a couple of days ago. February the twelfth. A bottle of champagne.’

‘Moët and Chandon was on special offer.’ A pause. ‘Along with our own-brand chocolates. It was the run-up to Valentine’s Day.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Perez was thinking back to his first Valentine’s Day with Fran. He’d invited her to his house on the water in Lerwick and cooked for her. Nothing special, but he could remember every mouthful. He’d used some of the Fair Isle shoulder of lamb he had left in the freezer and made a Moroccan dish with dried apricots. He’d found the recipe online and followed it slavishly. They’d talked about how they might go to North Africa one day, had daydreamed about spice markets and deserts, as the Bressay ferry criss-crossed the Sound outside the window. Flashes of memory like that weren’t as painful as they’d once been, but they still unnerved him, threw him off-track.

‘We sold a fair few bottles.’ The manager’s voice was English and broke into the daydream. ‘I’m not sure my staff would remember every purchase.’

‘Would you be able to check a credit-card sale, if I gave you an approximate time? I’d like the name of the card-holder.’

‘That should be possible. It might take a while, though.’ The manager sounded less than enthusiastic about the effort it would take to trace the sale. ‘Can I call you back?’

‘I’ll send someone up to talk to your staff,’ Perez said. ‘They’ll be there in an hour. It would be good if you could have the information ready by then.’ He couldn’t help being sharp. James Grieve would have started the post-mortem by now. He’d promised to do it as soon as the body arrived in Aberdeen from the boat. Perez hated the idea of his dark-eyed lady being cut open as an anonymous corpse.

Sandy stuck his head round the door. ‘I’m still trying to track down a contact for the owner of Tain. The landslide’s been all over the national news and you’d think they’d get in touch, just to start things moving with their insurers.’

‘No joy?’

‘I’ve talked to Stuart Henderson. His son Craig leased it for six months last year. Craig’s in the oil business and he’s on contract in the UAE, but his time is up. He’s travelling back just now and he’ll be home at the weekend. At least we’ll have a contact then. The lettings all seem to have been done on a private basis. I haven’t seen the house advertised anywhere, either through the estate agents or as a holiday let. Promote Shetland didn’t know anything about it.’ Sandy moved into the room and landed on the other side of Perez’s desk. ‘Was Jane Hay any help?’