Shetland 05: Dead Water (19 page)

‘He came to see us the day we moved in and brought us eggs from his hens, and milk and bread. Such a kind gesture, we thought. He was very private, of course, but a man who would always help in a crisis.’

‘You’ll have known Evie then? His fiancée?’

‘Of course.’ But Sandy sensed a slight discomfort.

‘It didn’t cause any awkwardness between you? The fact that you were so opposed to the tidal-energy scheme that Evie was heading up.’

There was a silence. Sue threw a desperate look at her husband, who answered, ‘We were all adults, Inspector. We were allowed a grown-up disagreement. We felt that the whole character of Hvidahus would be changed by the scheme and that the small experimental project could lead to energy generation on an industrial scale. Evie is an evangelist for green power. But we had perfectly amicable personal relationships. We were even invited to their wedding.’

Again Sue’s hands flew to the fine, flyaway hair. ‘Poor Evie!’ she said. ‘That such a thing should happen just a few days before her wedding!’

Sandy turned away so that he wouldn’t have to look at Jimmy’s face. But when Perez spoke, his voice was quite even. He returned to his original question. ‘Were you here this morning?’

‘Only until about eight o’clock,’ Mark said. ‘We went into Lerwick early for shopping and we haven’t long been home. We treated ourselves to lunch in Monty’s.’

‘Did you see anything unusual? Any strange car on the track?’

Sandy thought Sue was about to answer, but Mark got in before her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing like that.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

When they met up in the operations room it was already starting to get dark. At Hvidahus they’d have set bright lights shining into the garage to conduct a proper search. Vicki Hewitt and her colleagues would be there, and the place would be taped off. The organized buzz of a crime-scene investigation. James Grieve, the pathologist, had been called back from Aberdeen. He’d sounded relieved that he’d missed the last plane in and he’d have one night at home. Willow had the impression that Shetland wasn’t his favourite place in the world.

‘Do me a favour, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Find this killer quickly.’

At least now they were working there without an audience. By morning maybe sightseers would turn up. They’d be pretending to walk a dog, or to hike along the coast path, but they’d be there for a ghoulish glimpse of blood, to watch the police at work.

In the police station they’d set up a conference link with Inverness, but the boss listened to what was going on without saying much. How could he grasp what was happening in the most northerly place in his patch? He only visited a few times a year for meetings and official functions and seldom ventured far from Lerwick. Willow soon forgot about him and focused on the people in the room. On the whiteboard there were more photos and there was a new name at the centre.

‘John Henderson,’ she said. ‘Widower, skipper of the oil-terminal tugs, voluntary youth worker and all-round saint. Apparently. And fiancé of Evie Watt, whose former lover just happens to be Jerry Markham. So what’s going on here?’ A pause. She turned to Sandy, who was sitting on a desk at the back of the room. ‘You broke the news to Evie. How did she seem?’

‘She was calm enough,’ Sandy said. ‘But so tense you have the feeling that she could snap at any time.’

‘Could she have killed him?’ Willow asked the whole gathering. ‘I mean, I know it sounds mad, but she’s the only link.’

‘She doesn’t have an alibi for early this morning.’ Sandy spoke again. ‘From eleven she was out on a site visit, checking out the place up north where she thought the tidal-energy plant might work. She was onsite with two witnesses, but she has no alibi before that.’ He paused. ‘The witnesses were Joe Sinclair and Ms Laing.’

‘What the hell would the Fiscal know about water power?’ Willow thought the woman was all over this case like a rash, but it seemed there was no way to pin her down.

‘Apparently she was a member of the working party. Some sort of legal advisor?’

Perez had been quite still and quiet throughout the preparation to the meeting and sat a little apart. There was coffee on the desk in front of him. Now he raised his hand. Willow nodded across to him.

‘But Evie’s not the only link between the two men, is she?’ His voice was very low, so they had to concentrate to hear the words.

‘Tell us what you’re thinking, Jimmy.’ Willow leaned back against the desk and waited.

‘Jerry Markham seems to have been planning a story around Shetland’s energy. He asked his father to set up a meeting for him at Sullom, and he’d agreed to attend the action meeting called by the Walshes. He was sniffing around about the new gas terminal. And John Henderson worked as a pilot on the oil tankers. Another link. Not so personal. But more likely maybe than Evie Watt disposing of her men like a black-widow spider.’ He paused. ‘Maria Markham said he was working on something secret and he was planning to tell them the night that he died.’

‘So we’re back to Jerry Markham’s story,’ Willow said. ‘The one that was going to make his fortune. Except, according to his editor, there was no story.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that too.’ Perez was still tentative. It was as if, after standing up to her earlier in the afternoon, he didn’t want to come across as pushy or to undermine her further. She wanted to tell him to get over it – she wasn’t the sort to feel threatened by a colleague. But part of her still resented the fact that he was the one coming up with the new ideas.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘What if the story wasn’t for publication, if he was researching for quite a different reason?’

‘Like?’

‘I did wonder,’ Perez said slowly, ‘about blackmail.’

As soon as the word was spoken it seemed so obvious that Willow was astonished, horrified that it hadn’t occurred to
her
. How had she ever thought she could do well at this business? Markham was a greedy man and he’d thought he could squeeze money from former contacts. But still she kept her voice even and didn’t let on what she was thinking. Years of practice, when the Uist kids laughed at her hippy clothes and called her names. ‘Well, yes, Jimmy. Of course that does make sense. So who was blackmailing whom here? And how does John Henderson fit in?’

Perez leaned forward now, joining in the circle, less of an outsider looking in. ‘As I see it – ’ his voice was hesitant and still so quiet that she struggled to make out the words – ‘Markham was the blackmailer. His blackmail victim was the killer. And Henderson guessed what was going on. Or was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was driving past, maybe, when Markham’s car was forced off the road.’

‘That holds together,’ she said. ‘It works as a theory, for the moment at least.’ She looked at the group. ‘But we won’t get seduced by it, huh? We’ll keep open minds until we get more evidence. That OK with you, Jimmy?’

He nodded and gave her that reluctant, out-of-practice smile. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I would say just the same myself.’

On the whiteboard she wrote
Blackmail?
Then:
Who and why? What was the story?
‘So what was the blackmail about? Something to do with Sullom Voe, Jimmy? Is that the way your mind’s working?’

‘Maybe,’ Perez said. ‘Or maybe something to do with the tidal energy. Why else would he agree to go to the meeting at Vatnagarth? It might explain why Markham was so keen to talk to Evie when he was home this time.’

There was a moment of silence and then she turned to Sandy. ‘Was Evie planning to go home tonight?’

‘Her parents came to collect her,’ Sandy said. ‘They’re taking her back to her house for tonight, then home with them on the first ferry tomorrow.’

‘I talked to her parents earlier,’ Perez said. ‘Jessie and Francis. That’s what I was doing in Fetlar. That’s where they live.’

‘And why did you feel the need to do that, Jimmy?’ She heard the sharpness in her voice and didn’t care.

‘To get a handle on Evie Watt and Henderson,’ he said. Answering the question, refusing to acknowledge her anger. ‘To find out what they made of the marriage.’

‘And what
did
they make of it?’

‘They seemed happy enough. Henderson had been a friend. There was the age difference, but they thought he was a good man.’

‘You can tell me all about it in the car,’ she said suddenly, ‘on the way to Evie Watt’s house. I’d like to speak to her myself.’ She didn’t want this conversation in public. She sensed Perez’s hesitation. ‘That
is
all right with you, Jimmy? No childcare problems tonight?’

She thought she was being a bitch, but it was too late to take back the words. Jimmy picked up his jacket. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Cassie’s having a sleepover with a friend. No childcare problems tonight.’

Willow let Perez drive and still hadn’t found the words to confront him when they were out of Lerwick and on the way north. In the end he was the one who broke the silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have headed out to Fetlar to speak to Evie’s parents without talking to you first. It was wrong.’ A pause. ‘Rude.’

And that sucked away all her anger and made her feel deflated and flat.

‘I need to know where you are,’ she said. ‘Where all the team are.’ Which sounded pathetic and as if she was some sort of control freak.

‘Of course.’ He slowed down to let a boy racer overtake on the straight road close to Tingwall airstrip. ‘Maybe I’ve been on my own too long. I’ve lost the knack of communication.’ He hesitated. ‘Like when you’ve had a stroke. You have to practise all over again.’

‘Did you speak to the manager at the Bonhoga?’ she said. Best to be crisp and professional.

‘Aye. He didn’t recognize the woman speaking to Jerry Markham.’

‘Evie wondered if it might be Maria Markham,’ Willow said. ‘She said they were always very close. “More like lovers than mother and son.” That was how she described them.’

‘Maria didn’t mention meeting Jerry for coffee.’ Perez kept his voice flat. No indication whether he thought this might be a possibility or whether he thought Willow was talking rubbish.

‘Could she be involved in the blackmail, do you think?’ It was quite dark now. Willow had forgotten how black it was with no street lights, no car headlights. She was transported back to Uist, to the star map and the silence of her childhood.

‘She could be protecting Jerry’s memory,’ Perez said. ‘Oh yes, definitely that. But working with him to extort money? I’m not sure.’ He paused. ‘Maybe, if she’d convinced herself that it was due to him, that he had a right to it. But if that’s the case, I’m not sure what the secret he was planning to share could have been.’

He slowed down to turn off the main road. There was still a white tent where the dummies of Evie and her fiancé had once lain in the grass. A police car with Davy Cooper inside.

‘Do you want to stop?’ Perez asked.

‘No. I want to get to Evie’s place while they’re still up.’

On the walk from the car to the little house all they had to guide them was the light coming from one of the windows. At least the Watts weren’t in bed and asleep. It hadn’t rained again, but still there was the smell of damp grass and wet sheep’s wool. At one point Willow stumbled and Perez caught her arm.

The family sat round a kitchen table. Willow looked in from outside and thought it could have been a stage set. The small table at the centre of the room. The sheepskins: two on the floor and a black one thrown over the back of the plain wooden chair. The brightly woven blanket covering the sofa. Photographs and drawings on the wall facing the window. A jam jar of meadow flowers, already fading on the table. And three characters.

The man was sitting stiff and upright. Willow thought he could have walked out of a play by Ibsen or Strindberg. In his mid-fifties, he had a brown face and a little moustache. His legs were hidden by the table, but he was wearing a hand-knitted sweater, Fair Isle-patterned in browns and greys. A sweater for special occasions, Willow thought. For church and parties, and for mourning the man who might have been a son-in-law. For comforting a daughter who’d lost the love of her life.

Each side of him a woman. The mother small, her hair still dark. One of those Celtic women, who keep their dark hair into middle age. Bright-blue eyes. Bright with a feverish concern for the daughter who sat across the table from her. She reached out in front of her husband to clasp the young woman’s hand. And Evie Watt, as still and upright as her father, still wearing the clothes she’d been in when Willow had met her for lunch, allowed her mother to take it.

Willow remembered meeting Evie for their lunch in the Tollclock Centre, the conversation about the wedding, the impromptu invitation to the celebration party and thought:
This woman isn’t a killer. She didn’t stab her fiancé, dump his body by the road and make it look like a dummy, then talk to me about Jerry Markham. Nobody is that good an actor.

Jimmy Perez approached the door and knocked. Willow continued to stare through the window. Jessie was startled by the noise and Francis got to his feet to answer. Evie didn’t move. It was as if she hadn’t heard it.

‘Francis, I’m so sorry.’ As Willow watched from the shadow, Perez put his hand on Watt’s shoulder. The men stood very close for a moment, then pulled apart. ‘This is Inspector Reeves,’ Perez went on. ‘She’s in charge of the investigation. You don’t mind if we come in?’

‘Come away inside,’ Francis said. The habit of good manners and hospitality meant he wouldn’t refuse them entry, even tonight, even when his family was in crisis.

The women looked up when the visitors walked into the room, but didn’t get to their feet. Willow saw that the mother had shifted chairs in the moment that her husband had left the kitchen; now she was sitting next to her daughter. Francis moved around the room, which was obviously familiar to him, switching on the kettle, putting teabags in a pot. Still Willow felt removed from the action: she had wandered onto the stage, but she wasn’t part of the play. She needed to become engaged. She pulled out a chair so that it was facing Evie.