White Nights (26 page)
Authors: Ann Cleeves
The writer answered immediately. ‘I’d like to settle here. Make a fresh start. My partner and I never had children. There’s nothing to take me back.’
‘How did you come to rent Willy’s house?’ Perez dropped in the question as an afterthought.
‘Didn’t you know? Bella owns it. The council sold off all these houses some years ago. Willy was given the option to buy, but he’d already retired and couldn’t raise the mortgage. She gave him the money. Security and a rent-free home for the old man, and an investment for her. He doesn’t have any family. Recently he moved into sheltered housing. When I
emailed her that I was looking for a short-term let in Shetland, she offered it to me.’
Taylor wondered why that fact hadn’t come to light before. Perez was supposed to know these people, everything about them. But then, could it have any importance? Another small domestic detail. Nothing likely to lead to murder. It was time to move on.
Perez, though, seemed reluctant to leave the writer.
‘Did you go out yesterday evening?’
‘Not on to the hill. Only for a walk on the beach.’ Wilding looked directly at the Shetlander. ‘If I could help you, inspector, I would. I liked Roddy. He was young and irresponsible, but he didn’t take himself too seriously. He made people laugh. More than that, Bella doted on him and I’d do anything in the world to make her happy.’ His face softened. Taylor thought he was besotted. That obsessive streak again.
He moved over to take a seat in front of the computer, to show them that he wanted to go back to work.
Outside on the road, Perez said abruptly that he needed to get back to Lerwick. He had an appointment he couldn’t cancel. If Taylor wanted to continue questioning the community, he’d arrange for a car to pick him up later. Of course Sandy had already spoken to everyone. The implication was that Taylor was unlikely to come up with anything new and it was all rather a waste of time.
Taylor forgot that earlier he too had thought there was little to be gained by talking to the Biddista residents. He saw this as a chance to beat Perez on his home ground. He sensed an edge in the competition. ‘I’ll just pay a visit to Miss Sinclair,’ he said. ‘I know
you talked to her yesterday, but she should be calmer now. She might remember more.’
It was late afternoon on a Saturday. In Inverness Taylor hated the weekends when he wasn’t working. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He hadn’t made friends there; somehow he’d always known he wouldn’t be staying and that had made him keep people at arm’s length. Suddenly the exile in the highlands seemed pointless. What was the point of spiting his father, even though he was no longer alive?
He was so wrapped up in these thoughts that he arrived at the Manse without realizing. He rang the bell and heard the tinny ring inside. The door was opened by a woman he didn’t recognize. She was wiry, smartly dressed. His first thought was that she might be a housekeeper or cleaner, but that was dispelled by the calm air of authority when she spoke.
‘If you’re a reporter, Miss Sinclair isn’t speaking to anyone.’
Taylor thought the woman could be a member of Perez’s team, an officer he hadn’t yet met. He introduced himself and she invited him in. As if she were doing him a favour, not that he was there by right.
‘We haven’t met,’ she said. ‘I’m Edith Thomson. I thought Bella needed someone with her.’
‘Of course. A time like this she’ll need her friends.’
Edith looked at him thoughtfully. ‘We’re not exactly friends. But I couldn’t leave her alone at a time like this. I was imagining how I’d feel if I’d lost one of my children.’
‘He was her nephew,’ Taylor said. ‘Not quite the same.’
‘It felt the same to her.’
‘Your husband found the body. Both bodies.’
She looked at him. Through him. Decided to ignore the challenge under the words. ‘I know. It’ll haunt him for ever. He’s already having nightmares.’
‘Can I speak to Miss Sinclair?’
She shrugged. ‘You can try. She’s been drinking.’
They went into a room Taylor hadn’t seen before. A rather grand living room at the front of the house with a view over the water. The windows were long, with folded shutters in the French style. The furniture was old and a little shabby. Bella was half sitting, half lying on a chaise-longue. There was a small table with a glass and a bottle beside her. She was drinking whisky.
When she saw Taylor, she half stood, an attempt at the old charm, then fell back on to the seat.
‘Inspector.’
‘Would you like me to leave you alone?’ Edith asked.
‘No, stay.’ Bella made an extravagant gesture with her arm. ‘Please stay. Edith and I have known each other for years, haven’t we? Do you remember when you first came to Biddista? Weren’t we all pals, the six of us?’
‘Six of you?’ Taylor was still finding it hard to come to grips with the relationships within the place. I should write it all down, he thought. Make a chart. The sort of list Wilding had on his desk for all his characters.
‘My brother Alec, Aggie Watt, Kenny and Edith and Lawrence and me.’
Taylor turned to Edith. ‘Who’s Lawrence?’ The name was familiar but he couldn’t place it.
‘He’s Kenny’s brother. He left Shetland years ago. We’ve lost touch.’
‘Of course. I should have remembered. Your husband thought he might be the man who was hanged. Why did he leave Shetland? Some sort of family feud?’
‘No,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘They think it was my fault that Lawrence left.’ It was Bella, talking too loudly, as if she were giving a performance. ‘They think he was madly in love with me and I spurned him and he was so heartbroken that he ran away.’
‘Well?’ Edith asked. ‘Wasn’t it a little like that? Kenny could never understand why Lawrence left like that, so suddenly. He still misses him. When the phone rings he thinks it could be his brother. He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell what he’s thinking.’
Taylor had a picture of Kenny Thomson standing in the mortuary, his relief when he discovered the body looked nothing like his brother.
‘No,’ Bella said. ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’
‘So tell us,’ Taylor said. ‘What was it like?’
‘I loved Lawrence. If he’d asked me to marry him, I’d have accepted. I had my wedding dress designed in my head, and the hymns for the service chosen. But he never asked me. We were great friends, but he wasn’t the marrying kind. He wanted to see more of the world than Shetland and I wasn’t going to leave. The islands were my inspiration, and besides, I had Roddy to think about. If Lawrence was crazy about me,
as everyone says, why didn’t he want to settle with me and make a family with me?’
She looked at them with a haunted desperation, which was only partly to do with the drink. Taylor thought how much energy she must have put in over the years, putting on a brave face. It suited her for people to think she’d been the one to reject Lawrence Thomson. At least that way she’d managed to maintain her pride.
‘He never contacted you either?’ Edith asked.
Bella shook her head. She’d started to cry. ‘Kenny’s not the only one who has a flicker of hope every time the phone rings.’
She wiped her eyes. Taylor found himself thinking that part of her was enjoying the drama. He wished he knew how much of it was real.
‘Tell me about your relationship with Mr Wilding,’ he said.
‘I don’t have a relationship with him.’
‘He’s your tenant?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s Willy’s house,’ Edith said.
‘It’s Willy’s house but I gave him the money when the council gave him the right to buy. He gave me the house when he moved into the sheltered housing. All legal and above board. I wanted to give him a bit of security. I didn’t need his rent. I told him he was looking after my investment for me.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘There are lots of things about me folk don’t know.’ Bella dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. ‘I gave him the money. He got into a state when the council gave him the right to buy, thought they might throw him out.
He said he wanted to stay there until he died. Such a shame he couldn’t manage on his own in the end. It was Roddy’s idea to give him the money to buy the house. He loved Willy. The nearest he ever had to a grandfather, I suppose. You know how good he was with the children.’
‘Yes,’ Edith said. ‘He was the same with Kenny and Lawrence and then with our two. Perhaps it was because he’d never quite grown up.’
‘Why did you suggest Mr Wilding live there?’
‘Willy had moved out and I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want to sell. Not while Willy was alive. I always told him it would be there for him to move back when he felt more himself. And I suppose I hoped Roddy would want to settle in Shetland one day. It would be a good home for him to start with. Then I had the email from Peter Wilding asking if I knew anywhere he could rent for a short while. He’d not been well and he needed somewhere quiet to stay. I thought why not?’ She paused. ‘Besides, he was a fan. As you get older, it’s good occasionally for the ego to have an admirer close at hand.’
‘How did Roddy get on with him?’
‘I don’t think Roddy liked him particularly. Sometimes he took against people for no reason. Roddy said it always made him feel sad to think of that house without Willy in it, but that was hardly Peter’s fault. Roddy loved the old man and visited there whenever he came home from tour. Take a bottle of whisky and stay up half the night talking about old times. He said he’d heard Willy’s stories hundreds of times but he never tired of them. He still kept in contact even after Willy moved into the sheltered housing. That’s a part
of his life the press never picked up on.’
Suddenly she got to her feet, more sober than she’d seemed throughout the rest of the encounter. She carried the whisky bottle to a sideboard and put it away. ‘I’m going to make coffee,’ she said. ‘Would anyone like one? Edith, you don’t need to stay, you know. I’m quite used to being on my own.’
The appointment Perez couldn’t miss was the final performance on
The Motley Crew
. He’d invited Fran and Cassie before Roddy’s body had been discovered. Fran would understand if he cried off but he’d decided, suddenly, sitting listening to Dawn, that he should be there. If he pulled out this time it would set a precedent for other occasions, other times when there were pressing things to do at work. He wanted to be part of a family again.
He collected them from Ravenswick. Cassie was wearing a new pink cardigan and Fran had put on make-up and the earrings he’d given her for her birthday. I should have made more of an effort, he thought. It seemed as if he’d been wearing the same clothes for days. The show took place in the saloon below deck, so the audience were crammed into seats very close together. As Lucy Wells had said, it was packed. Mostly families, mostly visitors. It still smelled of a boat, wood with a hint of tar. And they could feel the movement of the water under them.
The show was an environmental piece aimed mostly at the children. There were songs about the rainforest and melting ice floes, but enough of a pacy story to keep Cassie enthralled. Lucy played a green
fairy, dressed mostly in emerald Lycra with a couple of wispy wings. Perez found his eyes drawn towards her, became lost for a moment in a sexy fantasy, thought of the possibilities that would be closed to him if he was committed to Fran.
After the show the actors jumped down from the low stage and mixed with the audience, following up some of the issues raised in the piece. Lucy came up to Perez.
‘You made it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you would.’ She seemed extraordinarily pleased to see him. Perhaps that’s what actors do, he thought, disconcerted. They exaggerate without meaning to. She was playing with some green glass beads she wore round her neck and he saw that her hands were plump and soft.
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Very much.’ He paused and saw that a compliment was in order. ‘You were very good.’
‘It’s not a role that requires much characterization,’ she said, smiling. ‘Fun, though.’
He was flattered by her attention. There were all these people to speak with and she’d chosen him. Beyond her, he could see Cassie and Fran chatting to friends.
‘When do you leave?’ he asked.
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ Something in her reply made him think that if he suggested they might spend the evening together she would agree. That she’d be delighted. He was horrified that the thought had even crossed his mind.
‘Good luck,’ he said to Lucy. ‘I hope everything goes well for you. When you’re famous, I’ll be able to tell folk I met you.’
He moved away from her and put his arm around Fran’s shoulder, asked her in a whisper if she was ready to leave. Later, he wondered if it was a good thing he’d done, walking away from a lonely young woman who wanted his company, or if he was just a coward.
That night he stayed at Fran’s place again. While she prepared supper he sat on Cassie’s bed and read her a story. She was asleep by the time it was finished and he stayed for a moment, thinking how it must be for her, having a new man in her mother’s life. And how it would work for him, sharing her with Duncan Hunter, her father, a man he didn’t much care for, though once they had been best friends.
Back in the kitchen Fran was draining rice. Her face was flushed. She’d taken off her jacket and was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt. He could see the lacy pattern of her bra in relief through the fabric. Distracted, he returned to the subject of her ex-husband.
‘What will Duncan make of us seeing so much of each other?’
She tipped the rice into a brown earthenware bowl.
‘I like everything I’ve seen of you. If you’re talking literally . . .’
‘I’m being serious.’
‘You’re way too serious. It’s my mission to get you to lighten up. Anyway, who cares what Duncan thinks? It’s none of his business.’
‘Cassie’s his business.’
‘I’d never stop him seeing Cassie and neither would you.’
He could tell she thought he was making difficulties where none existed. In London she’d been
surrounded by unconventional families. She’d told him about close lesbian friends who’d fostered a son; many of her colleagues were divorced and remarried, and for them weekends had been a time of shared parenting, the entertainment of visiting stepchildren. He was used to more traditional ways, but didn’t want to question her judgement. He didn’t want her to think him narrow-minded.