Chapter Sixteen
Perez walked off the ferry to Whalsay after the cars had driven down the metal ramp. This should be a pleasant task – he’d be telling Ronald Clouston that no charge would be brought against him – yet he felt a gloom settling on him as he walked past the two huge fishing boats moored at the pier. A strange sort of claustrophobia. Though he’d grown up in Fair Isle and that was smaller than Whalsay, here he felt trapped, as if it was hard to breathe. Perhaps that was because from Fair Isle there were low horizons in every direction; even on a very clear day the Shetland mainland was no more than a smudge to the north. From Whalsay the Shetland mainland seemed a close and oppressive presence. The low cloud just made it worse.
A couple of men stood outside the fish factory, smoking and chatting. Perez didn’t recognize the language. Something eastern European, Polish or Czech. He was distracted for a moment, wondering what they made of Whalsay and if the island’s famous friendliness extended to them. He thought it probably would. Sailors were the most open-minded people he knew; they travelled the world and came into contact with strangers all the time. It was the people left behind who distrusted incomers.
Sandy was waiting in his car. He seemed anxious, jumpy, and Perez realized he’d read his boss’s arrival as a bad sign. He assumed that Perez was there to arrest Ronald, that he’d be involved in taking his cousin into custody.
‘The Fiscal doesn’t think there’s enough to charge Ronald. She’ll take no further action.’ Perez settled himself in the passenger seat and waited for a response.
It took a moment for Sandy to take in the information, then there was a huge smile. No words. He couldn’t find anything to describe how he felt. Perez waited for him to drive off, but he seemed incapable of smiling and driving at the same time.
‘Well? Shall we go and tell him?’ Perez said.
Sandy switched on the engine. ‘He’s not at home. He’s at his mother’s house. I saw him go in as I came down the road to get you.’
‘We’ll go there then, shall we?’ Perez found himself interested to meet Jackie Clouston, Evelyn’s rival. He couldn’t help his curiosity. Fran laughed at him, told him he was like the old woman in Ravenswick who sat by the window watching the cars go past, who knew all her neighbours’ business. Perez dressed up his nosiness and his fascination with gossip as work, Fran said, but really he was just a voyeur. She was right, of course, but he had been charged by the Fiscal to make discreet enquiries into Mima Wilson’s shooting. Now he had a licence to be inquisitive.
The house had been built in the last ten years and stood on its own land on a slight hill away from Ronald and Anna’s bungalow. If
she
were the curious sort, Jackie would see everything that went on there from the windows at the front of her home. The building was two storeys high with a porch held up by moulded pillars and a roof of green tiles. In Shetland terms it was enormous and would have been more in place in a suburb of Houston or a gated estate in the south of England. Perez wondered briefly how it had managed to get planning permission and which architect had actually designed something so tasteless.
‘They knocked down the old house and built on the same site,’ Sandy said. ‘Ronald and Anna lived here too while they were waiting for their place to be finished.’
‘There’d be plenty of room.’
‘Aye. It’s a grand place for a party.’
It seemed a poor excuse to put up such a monstrosity.
Jackie had seen them coming and had the door open before they had the chance to ring the bell. She was small, wiry and energetic, with dyed blonde hair so tightly curled that it might have been a wig. Perez guessed she was older than Evelyn. She wore a white T-shirt in Lycra with diamante letters on the front. Perez didn’t want to stare at her chest to read it and by the end of the visit was still not sure what it said. Her jeans had more diamante on the pockets. Her sandals were gold. In the house the central heating was full on and even with the door open the heat was overwhelming. Perez was still dressed for the ferry and began to sweat.
Jackie seemed to know exactly who he was and why he was there. ‘Ronald’s in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘The baby’s finally gone to sleep, so Anna thought she’d do some work and he decided to keep out of her way.’ She paused briefly for breath. ‘Whoever would have thought you could make a business out of teaching people to knit and to spin? It’s always seemed an old-fashioned kind of pastime to me and it’s so easy, with the internet, to buy clothes in. But Anna says it’s a big business in America. In my day it was enough for us to look after the house and bring up the bairns, but now all the women want work of their own. It doesn’t seem right so soon after the baby was born.’ She paused again. He wondered if she was remembering the time when Andrew was skipper of a trawler and Ronald was a boy.
‘Thanks,’ he said. He didn’t want to encourage the flow of words. He understood that Jackie was nervous on behalf of her son, but her tension was having an effect on him. He suddenly felt an irrational panic, as if the woman’s stress was contagious.
The kitchen was the size of his house, with chunky units built of orange pine, a six-hob range cooker and a huge stainless-steel fridge. Jackie pointed out the main features of the room with pride. ‘We’ve just had it done.’ Her speech was rapid, clipped. It reminded him of the regular metronomic click of knitting needles. ‘The old one was looking kind of tired.’
Ronald sat at the table reading a newspaper. Not the
Shetland Times,
one of the more intelligent nationals. When he saw them come in he got to his feet. He appeared to Perez like one of the rabbits he dazzled and then shot, terrified but unable to move. Next to him was an older man.
‘This is Andrew,’ Jackie said. ‘My husband.’
The man waved a hand at them. He was a giant, tall and big-boned, with frizzy grey hair and a full grey beard. Perez could tell Andrew Clouston wasn’t well, but wasn’t sure how he knew. Something about the stiffness of the gesture, the brief moment of panic in the eyes at seeing a stranger in the house. The fact that he was wearing slippers and a cardigan rather than working clothes during the day. Jackie stroked his shoulder. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. He just wants to speak to Ronald.’
‘Perhaps Ronald and I could talk on our own.’ Perez thought the house was sufficiently large to allow half a dozen confidential interviews. It wasn’t that he felt the need for privacy, but he wanted to escape the woman’s words for a while.
‘You can use the office,’ Jackie said. Ronald seemed to have lost the power of speech.
The office was on the ground floor just off the lobby. There was a desk with a PC, printer and scanner. Perez shut the door behind him and leaned against it. He nodded to Ronald to take the chair.
‘The Fiscal’s decided not to proceed with the matter,’ he said at once. ‘You won’t be charged.’
Ronald stared at him, speechless.
‘She couldn’t get a conviction to any criminal charge at this point.’ Perez went on. ‘It’ll go down as an unfortunate accident.’
‘But I killed a woman.’
‘You couldn’t have known she would be outside. You had every reason to think she’d be in her house, not wandering about on her land. That means you weren’t criminally reckless.’
‘I feel as if I should be charged with something,’ Ronald said. ‘Not murder – I honestly didn’t know she was there – but it doesn’t feel right to kill someone and for nothing to happen.’
‘It’s the law.’
‘I must go home and tell Anna,’ Ronald said. ‘She’ll be so relieved. I don’t think either of us has slept since it happened, and that’s nothing to do with the baby. She was worried about it affecting her business. She wants us to be more independent here. My parents are brilliant – I’m the only child and they’d give me everything I wanted. But she doesn’t like that. She says we should stand on our own feet. And besides, she says the fishing’s precarious. We still make a good living from it, but maybe she’s right and it won’t go on for ever.’
Perez wondered if Ronald had any opinions of his own. He might be a bright man but he seemed incapable of independent thought. ‘Do you enjoy the work?’
There was a second’s pause. ‘I hate it. I’d be glad if the seas were all fished out and there’d be no reason to leave harbour.’
‘You have a choice,’ Perez said mildly. ‘You were at university. You could have finished your degree.’
‘My father had a stroke. It’s a family business. There was nobody else.’
‘Your family could have found someone.’
‘That wouldn’t be the same. Besides . . .’
Perez said nothing, waited for him to find the words to continue.
‘Besides, the money’s addictive. I’m not sure how I’d take to being poor. I earn more in a month than some of my old schoolfriends do in a year. I grew up living comfortably and I want that for my children.’ His mood suddenly lightened. ‘So I’ll have to hope that Anna’s business becomes a roaring success, won’t I? Then she can support the family and I can go back and take my degree.’
‘I’m still not quite sure how the accident happened,’ Perez said. ‘Now you’ve had some time to think about it, perhaps it’ll be clearer in your mind.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve been running it over and over again in my head to work out what must have happened and I still don’t understand it.’ His relief at finding out that he wouldn’t be charged had already evaporated. He seemed pleased for Anna, but still haunted by what he’d done.
‘All the same, I would like you to take me through it again.’
‘Is there any point now?’ Ronald looked up at him. ‘Mima’s dead. I killed her. I accept that.’
‘I still have to make a report, tie up the loose ends.’
‘I went out to shoot rabbits. I’d had a row with Anna so I wasn’t in the best of moods. It was dark and murky. I shot a couple from the car then went out with the flashlight into the field. I didn’t think I was anywhere near Mima’s place, but I was thinking about Anna and what I should have said to her. About how I shouldn’t have been so scratchy. She was still tired after giving birth. Moody. Hormonal. It wasn’t easy for her. I never thought giving birth would be . . .’ he paused to search for the right word, ‘. . . as violent as that. You know how it is when you’ve had an argument, you rerun everything in your mind.’
Perez reflected that he and Fran didn’t argue much. He’d never liked rows, didn’t see the point of them. Sometimes that frustrated her. ‘Don’t just agree with me! Stand your ground and fight!’ But usually he did agree with her. He could see her point of view and was happy to concede that she was right.
‘You’re sure you didn’t see anyone else out?’
‘No one else was shooting.’ Ronald looked out of the window. Following his gaze, Perez had a view of the bungalow where he and Anna lived. Anna came outside and hung a basket of washing on the line, just as Mima had done the day before she was shot.
‘But there were people about?’ Perez persisted. He could understand why Ronald just wanted the nightmare of Mima’s death to be over but he couldn’t let it go. And it wasn’t something Ronald would wake up from.
‘A car went down the road while I was shooting over the field.’
‘You have no idea who it belonged to?’
‘It was dark, man, and I had other things on my mind.’ The tension was starting to tell again. ‘I saw headlights and heard an engine. Nothing more.’
‘Which direction was it going?’
‘I don’t know! Does it really matter?’
‘Was it coming from the Pier House, or away from Lindby?’
‘Not from the Pier House. The other way.’
So
, Perez thought,
not drinkers on their way home from the bar.
‘Who else shoots regularly in Whalsay?’ he asked. He tried to keep his voice relaxed and easy.
‘Most of the men do. We’re all trying to keep down the rabbits. What is this about?’
‘It’s the sort of thing I need to say in my report. Better me asking the questions than a lawyer in the court.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Ronald looked straight at Perez again. ‘I know you’re only doing your job. I should be grateful. Ask whatever you like.’
‘Nah, I’ve done for today. Go and tell Anna the news.’
Ronald grinned. ‘Thanks, I will. I’m going out tonight, fishing with one of my friends. Not on the big boat, but one of the inshore ones. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave her alone with this hanging over us. At least now she’ll be able to focus on the baby and her work. She’s setting up a website for her business. And she still has knitting orders to complete.’
Perez thought that sounded like a phrase Anna would use.
I need to focus on my work.
Ronald stood up and left the office. He didn’t wait for Perez to follow, but ran straight out of the front door of the house. Then he began to bound down the hill to the bungalow, like a boy running just for the pleasure of it.
‘Ronald, is that you?’ Jackie emerged from the kitchen, saw Perez alone in the office and frowned. ‘What have you done with Ronald?’
‘I’ve done nothing with him. The Fiscal has decided not to press charges. He’s gone to celebrate with his wife.’ It wasn’t his place to tell the woman, but she’d find out soon enough. He was surprised Ronald hadn’t called in to tell her. Even more surprised that Sandy had managed to keep his mouth shut.
