Cold Earth

Chapter Fifteen

The police station was Sunday-quiet, despite the investigation. They met in the ops room, with superior coffee from the machine in Perez’s office and chocolate biscuits on a chipped plate. Perez had the photo he’d found in Magnus Tait’s house on the table in front of him. Vicki Hewitt was still at Tain, sorting through the debris, but Willow and Sandy were there.

‘You went back to the house, Jimmy?’ Willow found it hard to understand that. Perez had seemed almost lost in the old man’s house. She’d cut the visit short, partly because it seemed like a wild goose chase – why bother looking for the Tain keys if they’d obviously been delivered to the solicitor? But partly because Perez had seemed so uncomfortable in the place.

‘I just remembered that I hadn’t looked in the small drawer under the chair.’ Perez was dark-eyed and dishevelled. It was as if he hadn’t slept at all.

Willow thought this was how he’d been the first time they’d met: exhausted and preoccupied. At least now the preoccupation seemed to be with the investigation. ‘And at last we have a name,’ she said. She wanted to add a few words of congratulations. Well done, Jimmy! But she knew him well enough to realize he’d bristle at that and find the tone patronizing.

Perez turned the photo face-down and they all looked at the signature on the back. It was clear, almost childish. Alison Teal.

‘Alis.’ Willow looked round the table. ‘The letter Sandy found in the box in Tain must have been to Alison, not Alissandra. A weird coincidence.’

Perez turned the photo back so that the image stared out at them. ‘It looks like one of those publicity shots that marketing departments send out to fans. There’s nothing personal about this. Not even something bland like: To Magnus with very best wishes. What do we think? Was she a singer? Actor?’

‘I kind of recognize her.’ Sandy screwed up his face. When he concentrated he looked like a small boy.

‘How would Magnus get the photo of a pop star?’ Willow knew she’d have nothing to contribute to this discussion. In the commune, popular culture had been despised. She’d tried to get into rock music and soap operas as a form of rebellion, but the indoctrination had been too deep. ‘And why?’

‘He only got a television about a year ago,’ Perez said, ‘and this photo is a lot older than that.’

‘She was Dolly Jasper.’ Sandy was jubilant that the memory had surfaced. ‘The maid in that TV drama set in a big house in the country in Victorian times. You know the kind.’ He looked round at them. ‘It was on a Sunday night. My parents loved it. I was only a kid; it must have been nearly twenty years ago.’

‘So perhaps Magnus got to see the TV show.’ Perez spoke slowly, but he was fully engaged now. Willow could see the ideas sparking in his head. ‘Maybe at Minnie Laurenson’s house – Tain, where all this started. Minnie kept in touch with the old man even when the rest of Ravenswick left him to himself. I can imagine a regular invitation: Sunday tea and then an evening in front of the telly. It would have been a treat for Magnus.’

‘And you’re saying he fancied the actress and sent away for a photo?’ Willow was sceptical. She could imagine the lonely old man becoming attracted to a pretty young actress. Obsessed even. People had considered Magnus simple. But she couldn’t see him being sufficiently organized to find the address of the TV production company and write to them.

‘Maybe. He liked objects that reminded him of people he’d taken to,’ Perez said. ‘There was no harm in it.’

Willow wasn’t sure about that. It didn’t seem healthy, a lonely old man drooling over the glossy photo of a pretty young woman.

‘She came to Shetland!’ It was Sandy again, almost beside himself with excitement. ‘It was a big story. Maybe you were away south working then, Jimmy, or you’d surely have remembered it. The actress who played Dolly suddenly disappeared. There was a media campaign to find her. She’d been depressed and there was stuff in the media about drugs. The first thought was that she’d gone back to rehab somewhere, but she’d just run away to Shetland. When they found her she said she’d chosen Shetland after seeing it on a map. It looked so far to the north that it seemed like an escape. No other reason. Just that she was feeling low and wanted to run away. She drove to Aberdeen, left her car there and came up on the ferry.’

Willow thought that sounded a bit like the Agatha Christie disappearance; she did have a taste for popular fiction and had read about Christie vanishing, before turning up in a hotel in Harrogate some time later. ‘Was it just a publicity stunt?’

‘I don’t think so. One of the diners in the Ravenswick Hotel recognized her. Otherwise nobody would have known who she was. She spent all day on her own, out walking.’

‘So she’d come to Ravenswick.’ Perez was writing on the whiteboard now, frantically making connections before he lost their thread. ‘She might have come across Tain on one of her wanders through the countryside. She might even have met Minnie and Magnus.’

‘Was this last trip a return visit, do you think?’ Willow was following his train of thought. ‘For a similar reason. There was another crisis in her life and she saw Shetland as her sanctuary again. It could explain why she travelled under an assumed identity. Even if she’s not as famous as she was in the rest of the UK, a Shetlander might recognize her name.’

‘And the desperate call to Simon Agnew at Befriending Shetland fits in with her having some form of emotional turmoil or breakdown.’

‘We still need to know how she got hold of the keys to Tain.’ Willow felt a wave of optimism, now that their victim had an identity. Not only because it meant a shift in gear for the investigation, but because it might give Perez a more reasoned perspective on the case. A minor soap star with psychiatric problems was less entrancing, surely, than a mysterious dark-eyed stranger.

‘Someone in Shetland must have known her real identity and must have been protecting her.’ Perez was scribbling on the whiteboard again.

‘Tom Rogerson?’

‘He seems the obvious person. He has the reputation as a lady’s man and he had access to the keys.’

‘Would he have written the letter to Alis, do you think? The letter that Sandy found?’

There was a moment of complete silence in the room while Perez considered the question. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘Maybe it’s best to keep an open mind.’

‘Magnus? Could he have written it before his stroke?’

This time Perez answered more quickly. ‘I know Magnus’s writing and I don’t think it’s his. We have the notebooks, though, and we can get them checked.’

Sandy reached out for the last chocolate biscuit. Willow thought he’d been eyeing it up for some time, waiting to see if anyone else wanted it, but now his arm shot out quickly, like the tongue of a fat snake. ‘So what are the plans for today?’

Willow got in before Perez. ‘We find out what Alison Teal had been doing since she last turned up in Shetland. I want to know everything about her. Work, family life, medical history. And Jimmy and I are going to visit a lawyer.’

It was Sunday, so the solicitors’ office in Commercial Street would be shut. Perez and Willow were still in the ops room; Sandy had returned to his office. ‘How do you want to play this?’ Willow wandered around the big table collecting rubbish and taking it to the bin, piling up cups. She was restless and couldn’t keep still. ‘You know the man, and I’ve never met him. Should we phone him first to warn him that we’re coming?’ She came to a stop and watched Perez.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said at last. There was a silence while he thought the idea through and then he chose his words. ‘Tom’s a committee man. A councillor. He has influence in the islands. Best to follow procedure, show some respect.’ Another pause. ‘Besides, he’s kind of slippery. I don’t think anyone really understands him, except maybe his family.’ Perez looked out of the window, before speaking again. ‘I know his daughter. Kathryn. She works at the Ravenswick school. She teaches Cassie.’

Willow thought that was another complication. It was always that way in a Shetland investigation; within the islands there was a web of relationships, personal and professional, blurred. Perez would feel awkward upsetting the Rogersons, because their daughter cared for his beloved Cassie. He wouldn’t let that get in the way of his work, but he’d be aware of it, over-compensating at times.

‘So you think we should ring first?’ Willow was starting to lose patience. She wanted to be away from the confines of the police station; it was time to start asking questions, to dig around in the solicitor’s life, to make it less comfortable.

‘It would be more polite.’

‘And who should do that, Jimmy? You or me? Let’s just get on with it, shall we?’

Again he took a moment to consider. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said in the end. ‘It would seem too formal coming from you and it might scare him off.’ He took his mobile from his jacket pocket and scrolled down the contacts list to find the number. In the corridor outside, somebody walked along whistling.

The phone rang for such a long time that Willow was expecting a recorded voicemail to kick in. But Perez hung on and, when it was answered, it soon became clear to her that it was Rogerson’s wife. Perez sat down at the corner of the conference table.

‘Hello, Mavis. I’m sorry to catch you at this ungodly hour on a Sunday.’

Willow couldn’t hear the response, but Perez gave a little chuckle. ‘No, it’s not Kathryn I’m after today, so you can let her have her beauty sleep. I was hoping we might have a couple of words with Tom. It’s kind of work-related and we’d like to ask his advice about something to do with this dead woman. We wondered if we could come round and disturb you. Relieve you of some of that baking maybe.’

Willow thought Perez was brilliant at this. The woman would be disarmed.

‘I see, I see.’ Perez pulled a face at Willow. This obviously wasn’t going to be as easy as simply bowling up to the Rogerson house and talking to the man. ‘And when are you expecting him back?’

A response from Mavis on the other end of the line.

‘So maybe the best thing would be to make an appointment to see him at the office on Tuesday morning. Do you have a mobile number for him? Yes, I understand reception can be a bit tricky there, but I might strike lucky, huh?’ Perez reached out for a pad left on the table after a previous meeting and scribbled down the number. ‘Goodbye, Mavis. And thanks to you and Kathryn for your help with Cassie last week. I appreciate it.’

‘Well?’ Willow was starting to think Rogerson was the key to the whole case. She was convinced now that he was the man who’d collected Alison Teal from the Co-op in Brae the day before the landslide.

‘He’s away to Orkney apparently. There’s an EU fisheries meeting there tomorrow and he won’t be home until the last flight on Monday.’

‘Convenient.’ Willow knew she sounded like a spoilt child but couldn’t help herself. ‘Why the need to fly down so early, if the meeting isn’t until tomorrow.’

‘According to Mavis, he has friends in Kirkwall. He was using the business trip as an excuse to catch up with them. She’s given me his business mobile number. She says that’s the one he’ll answer.’

Willow began to pace up and down the room again, trying to ease away her frustration with the movement.

‘Do you want me to phone him and get him back here?’ Perez waved the scrap of paper with the scribbled number. ‘He should be able to get on a plane today and take an early flight back to Orkney tomorrow morning before the meeting, if it’s so important that he’s there. Or we could go to Orkney to talk to him.’

Willow was tempted by that suggestion. She liked the idea of a dramatic chase down to Sumburgh to get onto a flight, visiting a group of islands unfamiliar to her, but she shook her head. ‘We don’t want Rogerson to think he’s that important to us. He’s a lawyer. As you say, slippery. Let’s use the extra days to find out a bit more about him, so that when we do meet we have something concrete to put to him.’

She wandered over to the window, then turned back to face the room and Jimmy Perez. ‘Let’s set up a meeting with his partner. Did you say his name was Taylor?’

Perez nodded. ‘Paul Taylor.’

‘Wasn’t he the person who drew up Minnie Laurenson’s will? It would make sense, if he kept the keys to Tain. Besides, it would be good to get his perspective on his colleague before we meet up with Rogerson next week.’

Perez nodded.

Glancing back at the window, Willow saw that a rainbow was throwing its stained-glass colours across the grey street below.