Cold Earth

Chapter Eleven

Willow Reeves thought this Shetland – the Shetland of winter gloom and dark shadows – was quite different from the midsummer Shetland of her memory. That had been all pink and silver, sparkling light on water, flowers on the headlands. This was her third time in the islands, but it was as if she was making her first visit, seeing the place as a stranger. Perhaps she needed a reality check, she thought. She couldn’t go through life like a teenager, dreaming for the tall, dark man who brooded about the perfect woman who’d died. Her parents had been dreamers. They’d thrown away their comfortable life as academics to set up a commune on the Hebridean island of North Uist. In the end, the other settlers had lost enthusiasm and drifted away, but Willow’s parents were still there, scraping a living from the sandy soil, unwilling to admit that the experiment had been a huge mistake.

She sat in Jimmy Perez’s office and listened while he made the phone call to New York. They’d decided that Americans probably started work early, and first thing in the working day might be a good time to reach Ms Sechrest’s employer. Perez spoke slowly and moderated his voice so that the accent almost disappeared.

What do I know about him, after all? Who is this man, who can be whatever is needed to get his work done?

‘I’m a police officer from the UK,’ Perez was saying.

Willow couldn’t hear what was said on the other end of the line, but she could guess when Perez said, without a trace of impatience, ‘Well, no, not English, but Scottish. Yes, almost the same thing. I’m based in the Shetland Islands.’ He gave a little laugh and pulled a face at Willow. ‘I need information about someone who I believe works for your company. Her name is Alissandra Sechrest. Yes, of course I’ll hold.’

There was a click on the other end of the line and Perez pressed a button so that the phone was on speaker, and suddenly the room was filled with an American voice: ‘Yes, Sandy Sechrest speaking. How may I help you?’

For a moment Willow was tempted to laugh, because Perez seemed so incredulous. They’d been convinced they’d tracked down the identity of the dead woman, and now it seemed she was alive and well and working in New York. It took him a little while to answer.

‘Excuse me for disturbing you, but I’d be grateful if you could answer a few questions, before I explain. Did you have relatives from Shetland?’

‘One distant relative. An aunt.’ She sounded older than the dead woman. Willow guessed she must be close to retirement. But she was sharp and fiercely intelligent.

‘And she left you property in her will?’

‘She did. A small house in the village of Ravenswick. And I still intend to visit it one day, when things aren’t quite so busy here.’ A pause. ‘What is this about, Officer?’

‘I’m afraid your house was damaged in a landslide this week.’

‘Well, it’s very good of you to notify me. I’ll inform my insurers. If you could email me the details, I won’t need to trouble you further.’ She was about to replace the receiver.

‘Someone died,’ Perez said. ‘A woman. We think she was staying in your house. Do you know anything about that?’

‘No!’ The response was immediate. ‘I gave permission for a man to stay there. He was the friend of an elderly guy who knew my aunt. But he left six months ago. He’d asked if he might use the house again, in return for general maintenance and repairs, and I agreed. He’d have been moving in again in a couple of weeks.’

‘The dead woman was calling herself Alissandra Sechrest,’ Perez said. ‘At least she travelled into the islands using your name and made at least one appointment under it.’

‘And you thought I was dead?’ Sandy Sechrest gave a sharp, barking laugh.

‘It was rather a shock when you came on the phone.’

‘Are you thinking fraud? Identity theft? Just so she had somewhere to stay.’

‘Honestly, I’m not quite sure what I think just now. If I email you a likeness of the dead woman, perhaps you could let me know if you recognize her.’ Perez paused for a moment. ‘Are you aware of any fraud? Money missing from your bank account? Your credit card used without your knowledge? She might even have been using a false passport in your name.’

‘I haven’t noticed anything, but I’ll certainly go back and check.’

Perez looked at Willow and raised his eyebrows to see if she had any questions.

She mouthed: ‘Ask her about the solicitor.’

‘Who looks after your affairs in Shetland, Ms Sechrest?’

‘A firm of lawyers: Rogerson and Taylor. They contacted me about my aunt’s will and asked what my plans were for the property. They arranged to have it cleared of all but big items of furniture; there was nothing of value. A few items of cheap jewellery, which they mailed to me. Apparently there were pictures and photos, but I asked for them to be kept in the house. That was where I felt they belonged. Then they used a contract cleaner to go through the place. My aunt had been elderly and hadn’t been able to look after herself, or her home, so well recently.’

‘Do you remember the name of the cleaning company?’

Perez’s interruption seemed to throw her for a moment, but she answered after a beat. ‘No, but the lawyers should have a record. I was sent an invoice.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I asked them to make sure it was secure and to hang onto the keys until I could get there myself, or make some decision about the place. I’d almost forgotten about it, when I got the phone call from the guy asking if he could rent it. I checked him out with the lawyers’ office and they said he was legit. It made more sense to have someone in the house than have it stand empty.’

‘Can you remember who you talked to at Rogerson and Taylor about allowing a tenant into Tain?’ Willow noticed that Perez had let a trace of Shetland back into his voice.

‘I’m sorry, Officer. I don’t think it was one of the partners. It was a woman. She could even have been someone working on reception. But she said she knew Craig Henderson and that he came from a good family. That was good enough for me. Crazy for the place to stay empty when somebody local needed it.’

Willow thought Sandy Sechrest was a woman who would make decisions easily and then stick to them.

‘And who at the office did you instruct to clean and secure the house?’ Perez said. ‘Was that the same woman?’

‘No, that was definitely one of the lawyers. His name was Paul Taylor.’ She paused, as if waiting for a further question, and when none came immediately she said, ‘If that’s all, Officer, I should be in a meeting.’

‘The woman who died,’ Perez said. ‘She wasn’t killed in the landslide. It wasn’t an accident. She was murdered.’

For the first time Sandy Sechrest seemed to lose her composure. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘She was strangled,’ Perez said. ‘We assume that her body had been left in the house and was swept out when the landslide hit. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been discovered until Craig moved back in.’

‘And she was using my name and pretending to be me.’

‘I have to ask if there’s any reason why someone might want to kill you.’ Perez’s voice was calm and even.

She gave the same barking laugh as when she’d first started talking. It was a smoker’s laugh. Smoking would be her secret vice. ‘Well, I’ve made a few enemies in my career: authors I’ve rejected or dropped, other editors who dislike the fact that I’ve poached their stars. But nobody who hates me enough to want me dead. And nobody who’d cross the Atlantic to do it. Besides, as soon as they saw the woman, they’d realize they’d got the wrong person.’

‘What kind of books do you publish?’

‘We’re a general publisher, but my specialism is non-fiction. Mostly self-help books.’

‘Is Think Yourself to a Better Future one of your titles?’

‘Well, yes, Inspector. One of our big sellers.’ She seemed flattered rather than curious.

‘Would you have sent a copy to your aunt?’

She gave another throaty laugh. ‘I hardly knew she existed and, besides, I don’t think she’d have been interested.’

So what was the Mullion title doing among the dead woman’s possessions?

‘Are you in contact with anyone else in the islands?’

‘There was an old man called Magnus Tait. He was a friend of my aunt and he used to phone occasionally after she died. I think he’d recently had the phone installed in his house, and it was like a toy. Maybe he didn’t have anyone else to call. He rang to tell me the cleaning firm had been into Tain and that they’d done a pretty good job. And then to ask if Craig could rent the place from me. I could hardly understand a word he said, but it was kind of sweet. It made me feel a part of a place I’d never even visited. But I haven’t heard from him in several months.’

‘I knew Magnus,’ Perez said. ‘He’s been very ill for a while and he died quite recently.’

‘Oh!’ She sounded genuinely upset. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Did Magnus have a set of keys to Tain?’

‘I think he must have done,’ Sandy Sechrest said. ‘I think he found my aunt’s body, and he phoned me before the solicitor did to tell me that she was dead.’

Perez looked at Willow again and this time she shook her head. She had no more questions for Sandy Sechrest at this point. Perez had covered everything. Now she was already trying to process the information he’d gained. If Sandy had no friends in Shetland, if she’d never visited, if her only contact was by email to her lawyer, it seemed unlikely that she’d been the intended victim of the Tain murder. The most important task now was to track down the man, or men, with whom the impostor had been seen.

Perez was ending the call. He replaced the receiver. Willow grinned at him. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Now the fun starts.’

They went for lunch in Mareel, walking down the bank from the police station and past the new council offices. The arts centre stood right on the water. Willow thought it was a concrete-and-glass statement of confidence in Shetland’s artistic future. Nothing like this would be considered in the island where she’d been brought up. Since the oil, Shetland seemed to think it was capable of anything. She said as much to Perez.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘This probably wouldn’t be built here now.’ He seemed lost in thought and didn’t give any further explanation.

In the small downstairs bar they had to wait to be served and, aware that they might be overheard, they waited in silence in the queue. There seemed to be lots of mothers with kids. Jolly young women wearing hand-knitted sweaters, talking about breast-feeding and toddler groups. Willow wondered idly if she would ever be a mother.

She reconsidered the question and this time the possibility hit her with a physical sensation like an electric shock. She was almost surprised Perez hadn’t noticed a change in her, because he had his hand on her elbow, helping her through the crowd, and in her heightened state she thought he must have experienced the jolt too. Perhaps the idea of motherhood had been bubbling just under her consciousness for some time, but now the possibility that she might become a mother struck her with such force that she reeled under the enormity of it. How inconvenient that the notion should surface here, when she was with Perez and in the middle of an investigation! She needed more time to think about it. She couldn’t decide now if the idea would pass or if it would become a compulsion; she only knew that time was sliding by and a decision would have to be made.

They took their drinks upstairs. The space there was almost empty.

‘This is where she was seen in the days before her death,’ Perez said. ‘According to a witness, our mystery woman sat just here sharing a drink with a smartly dressed man.’

‘The same man who picked her up from the Co-op in Brae?’ Willow tried to ignore her hormones and focus on the investigation.

‘That’s my guess. Too much of a coincidence otherwise.’ Perez set his tray on the table. There was a view down to the bar below them. The mothers were gathering up babies and toddlers and making their way outside. Now the talk was of a language class for under-fives, started in the community centre.

I could never do that. I could never make a profession of bringing up my babies. All those websites and discussion groups about education and childcare. They’re surely just for women who miss being at work. Maybe my parents had it right, and all kids need is love, fresh air and a bit of healthy neglect.

‘How did she know to use Alissandra Sechrest’s name?’ Willow watched the women trail away, laden with kids and bags and buggies. The lunchtime rush was over and even the bar downstairs was quiet now. ‘I can see how she could con the house keys out of the lawyers – if she gave her name and a bit of the background, they probably wouldn’t ask to see any formal ID – but very few people here knew who that house belonged to, and she’d have needed that information to start the process.’

‘Perhaps there was something in The Shetland Times.’

‘Would she have had access to that, if she came from the south?’ Willow unscrewed the top from her bottle of mineral water. ‘And why the elaborate charade? Why not just come to the islands and book into a B &B, if she wanted to visit the place?’

The food arrived before Perez had time to answer. It was carried by a young man in a black uniform T-shirt and black jeans. His hair flopped over his forehead and he had a string of studs over an eyebrow. One of the arty kids who’d found a spiritual home in Mareel. Willow thought there had been nowhere like this when she’d been growing up. Her social life had consisted of underage drinking in the only bar in the island, illicit encounters behind the community hall while the old folk danced to fiddles and accordions inside. Perez waited until the young man had slid the tray onto the table and then he spoke.

‘It’s Andy, isn’t it? Jane and Kevin’s lad? I heard you’d come home for a while.’ Perez held out the drawing of the dead woman. ‘Do you recognize her? She had a drink in here. It would have been about a week ago in the evening. She would have been with a middle-aged man.’

Willow watched the young man’s face. It was impassive. No interest and no curiosity. That seemed odd, but perhaps he’d practised being cool and it had become a habit. Andy Hay shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

She expected Perez to push the point, but he only handed over the drawing. ‘Take it with you. Show it to your colleagues. Anyone recognize her, ask them to come and let us know.’

‘Sure. Bye, Jimmy.’

After the meal their plates were cleared by a large young man, wearing the same uniform of black jeans and Mareel shirt as Andy Hay. His face had a slightly grubby look, caused by an incipient beard and adolescent bad skin. His badge gave his name as Ryan.

‘Did Andy show you the drawing?’ Willow pushed her soup bowl towards him. He seemed incapable of energetic movement.

‘What drawing? Andy’s just gone off-shift. I usually work on the ticket desk, but they’re short-staffed so they asked me to help.’ A sniff of resentment. Clearing tables seemed to be beneath him.

‘This drawing.’ Perez pulled out another copy and laid it on the table.

Ryan pulled up a chair and sat with them. Willow thought the Shetland kids displayed the same confidence as the building itself. They’d grown up in a time of plenty, when anything seemed possible.

‘Do you know this woman?’ Perez shifted his chair to make more room. ‘She was having a drink here with a middle-aged guy.’

‘I don’t work in the bar – still at school. I’m on the desk in the lobby at weekends, selling tickets. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her, though.’

‘Have you not seen her face in the paper, heard the news on Radio Shetland?’

‘I don’t really bother with the paper.’ The boy was unrepentant. ‘Too busy working for Highers.’ A quick grin to show that was only an excuse. The Shetland Times was for his parents. He had his phone and tablet for information.

‘Tell me about the time you saw her.’

‘Well, it would have been a Saturday night. Saturday’s the only evening I do, and it was definitely an evening.’ He leaned back in his chair.

‘She came to the desk downstairs to buy tickets?’

‘For the movie, yeah.’

‘Did she pay?’

‘Yes, but it was just one ticket. She was on her own.’

‘Are you sure? Another witness saw her in here with a middle-aged man. Perhaps she was with him, but he paid for himself?’

The boy screwed up his face into a grimace to show he was thinking. Willow supposed most of the kids working in Mareel had artistic ambitions. It seemed this witness had a theatrical bent too.

‘No,’ he said. ‘She was definitely on her own.’

Willow sensed Perez’s frustration. He’d hoped for more from this encounter: a description of the dead woman’s companion, even if they couldn’t get a name. He’d been battling to identify her for two days. Willow smiled at the boy. ‘What time did you serve her?’

‘I’m not sure.’ No histrionics this time.

‘Was she in a hurry? Was it almost time for the film to start?’ Another smile of encouragement. Perez was usually very good at this, at putting a witness at ease, but he’d become too close to the case already. It had become a personal challenge to put a name to the victim.

‘No, there was no rush,’ Ryan said. ‘There was still about half an hour to go, I think. She went straight from the counter into the bar.’

‘It was busy there?’

‘Yes, that time of night it’s usually busy. Not just with folk coming to the cinema or a gig, but people stopping for a drink or a coffee on their way home. We’re close to the business park.’ He nodded vaguely in the direction of the sea.

‘So she could have met the guy later? He could have bought his own ticket and joined her in the bar.’ Or they could have met up by chance. Perhaps he was one of the businessmen on his way home from work. If the place was busy, they could have been forced to share a table. But in that case he would have got in touch with the police by now. Middle-aged people would read The Shetland Times.

‘Yeah, I guess so.’

‘Were you still on duty when the film finished?’ Willow had taken over the conversation. Perez was staring into his coffee. But he was listening. The thing about Jimmy Perez was that he was always listening. Willow wondered if he listened in his sleep.

‘Saturday night I’m always on the late shift.’

‘Did you notice the woman leaving?’

‘No,’ the boy said. ‘But that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. It’s always a crush when the film ends. And we just want them away.’

‘That Saturday, what else was going on here? Was anything happening in the small hall?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s usually quite quiet at this time of year. Folk are still recovering from Up Helly Aa.’

‘Thank you, Ryan.’ Willow dismissed him with a smile.

Perez gave the boy a brief wave as he walked away, but said nothing.

Perez had booked her into a new B &B. It was run by a friend of his, some lad he’d been to school with, someone who had gone south to make his way in the world. Another person who had come home when there was a child on the way. It was the old sheriff’s house, on one of the lanes leading up from Commercial Street, an easy walk away from the police station, but quiet. It had a garden with mature trees, unusual in this part of the town. Perez shouted, walked in and led Willow down to the basement kitchen. It was warm. A large Aga took up the whole of one wall. A very pregnant woman sat at the table peeling carrots and potatoes. Willow couldn’t help staring and had the same odd sensation as when she’d seen the women drinking coffee in Mareel. This time she identified it: envy. I want to carry a child in my body. I want to look like that.

The woman lifted herself to her feet and moved the kettle onto the hot plate.

‘My God, Rosie,’ Perez said. ‘How much longer is it now? That thing can’t get any bigger or you’ll burst.’

Rosie smiled. ‘There’s a week or so yet, Jimmy. You’ll need to get the case wrapped up before then, or John will be on breakfast duty.’ She turned to Willow. ‘And trust me, you wouldn’t want that.’

Willow’s room was at the top of the house under sloping eaves. Perez took her up, carrying one of the bags, to save Rosie the stairs. It was freshly decorated in seaside blues and greens, with a view of Bressay Sound.

‘What does John do?’

‘He’s an accountant, managed to get a job with the council. Might give it up, if the B &B takes off. The water’s his first love. Plan is to get a small boat and do tours round the islands, take visitors out for a day’s fishing.’

She nodded. ‘It must be hard to spend your day doing one thing, all the time dreaming of doing something else.’

‘Ah,’ Perez said. ‘John’s happy enough.’

There was a slightly awkward silence. Neither of them was very good at talking about personal stuff. It was a relief when Perez’s phone rang.

‘That was Sandy,’ he said when the call had ended. ‘He and Vicki are on their way back to the station. They’ve run out of light. He says there’s something we should see.’

‘Give me two minutes to wash my hands. I’ll see you downstairs.’

She heard his feet disappear down two flights of polished wooden stairs, but she was thinking of Rosie, wondering what it would feel like to hold in her belly a child that was pushing and straining to get out.