Cold Earth

Chapter Twenty-Six

They met up again in Jimmy Perez’s house in Ravenswick. Nothing was said about the decision to meet there, but everyone knew he liked to be home for Cassie in the evenings. Sandy had become more comfortable in these informal discussions, felt almost as if he belonged with the others now. Willow had gone back to Lerwick to shower and change and had turned up with foil cartons of Chinese food that were keeping warm in Jimmy’s oven. Sandy was the last one to arrive. The fire was burning and Jimmy had lit candles. Sandy wondered what that was all about. This was work, not some kind of dinner party. His mind jumped for a moment to Louisa, who’d said she wanted to invite some of her friends to supper to meet him. He imagined they’d all be very clever people and he was already feeling anxious about it.

As soon as Sandy came in, Jimmy jumped up and started setting plates and cutlery on the table. Whatever conversation he’d been having with Willow in the candlelight seemed to be over. Willow ate her food with the chopsticks they’d sent from the Great Wall, not showing off, but as if that was the most natural thing in the world. Sandy couldn’t help staring at the deft way she caught up the food and got it into her mouth. Once or twice he caught Jimmy staring too.

‘Did you get a chance to talk to Michael Hay when you gave him a lift from school?’ Perez had finished eating.

‘I told him a body had been found on the beach below Tain.’

‘What did he make of that?’

Sandy thought for a moment. He pictured himself back in the car, driving south from Lerwick, the low sun very bright, slanting across the road. The boy had been sitting beside him in the passenger seat, his school rucksack by his feet. He’d seemed like one of those boys who turn into a man at a very young age, with square shoulders, big feet and an already grown-up face.

‘What’s all this about?’ Michael had turned to Sandy. There was something aggressive in the voice, which could have been the result of nervousness. Or just because he was a teenager and that was his way of speaking to everyone.

‘There was another dead body found close to your house.’

‘Whose?’ The question immediate, demanding a swift response.

‘A guy called Tom Rogerson. Do you know him?’

‘I know of him.’

‘A friend of your parents?’

Michael had shrugged. ‘Not as far as I know. I’ve never seen him in the house.’

‘Where were you last night?’

‘At home. I stayed at Gemma’s, my girlfriend’s place, on Saturday night and she came to ours for lunch yesterday. We usually spend the weekends together.’

‘Did Gemma stay over last night?’

‘Nah, she works, and it’s a bit of a trek from Ravenswick to town on a Monday morning. Besides, I had stuff to do for school. I’d be happy enough to leave and start work with my dad, but my mum has a thing about sitting Highers.’ He’d pulled a face and given Sandy a look that suggested he realized the man hadn’t cared much for school work, either.

‘Did you notice anything unusual?’

Michael had shaken his head. ‘I didn’t leave the house much yesterday. It was dreadful weather. More a day for being indoors.’

‘What about when you came down from Lerwick with your girlfriend on Sunday morning? Did you see any cars you didn’t recognize?’

‘I didn’t notice.’ And Michael had stared out of the car window, closing down any further conversation.

Now, in Jimmy Perez’s house, Sandy tried to answer the question. ‘When I told Michael there was a dead man on the beach, he wanted to know who that was. Once I told him, he didn’t seem much bothered.’

‘He’d have worried that it might have been his father.’ Willow pushed away her plate. ‘So close to their house, he’d have assumed it’d be someone he knew.’

‘Maybe.’ Sandy paused. ‘He didn’t seem to me to have much imagination. More one for action than dreaming, I’d say.’

‘Has any of the family come to the attention of the police?’ Willow had swivelled round in her chair so that her feet were facing the fire. When the light went, the temperature had dropped. There’d be another sharp frost.

Perez looked up. ‘No. I did check, but there was nothing. They’ve always seemed like a close and loving family. I didn’t think there’d been any trouble.’

‘Did you know that Jane’s a recovering alcoholic?’

‘I’d heard she was a bit wild in her youth. When Kevin brought her back to the islands, after they were married. You could say the same about lots of young people at the time. The oil was pouring money into the place. Some weekends the whole of Lerwick was like one big party.’

‘She still goes to AA.’

‘Do you think that’s relevant?’ Perez seemed defensive now.

‘Ah, Jimmy, you know enough about murder investigations to realize that everything’s relevant. Until we decide that it’s not.’

There was an awkward silence. Jimmy got to his feet to make coffee.

‘Do you think one of the Hays could be a killer?’ Sandy felt the need to speak. Really he didn’t know what he thought about the family.

‘Both bodies were found right on their doorstep,’ Willow said. ‘It’s an odd coincidence.’

‘Is it at all possible that someone might be trying to implicate them?’ Jimmy brought a coffee pot and mugs to the table.

‘That seems a bit elaborate.’ Willow pulled a mug towards her. ‘I just think there’s more going on in the family than they’re admitting. Someone’s keeping secrets.’

‘The whole case seems elaborate,’ Perez said. ‘Why would Alison take a false identity, for example? It’s not as if she’s a household name any more. And there are strange coincidences and connections. These are victims linked by a chance meeting years ago: an actress who was hiding away and the man who recognized her. If the letter we found at Tain was from Rogerson, they must have kept in touch.’

‘What did Rogerson’s wife say?’ Willow looked up from her coffee. ‘If there was a relationship between Alison and Rogerson, then Mavis Rogerson has the strongest possible motive.’

‘Jealousy, you mean? If Mavis was going to kill Rogerson and the women he’d slept with, James Grieve’s mortuary would be full.’

‘Maybe it was different with Alison Teal,’ Willow said. ‘Perhaps he brought her here and set her up in the cottage at Tain. Perhaps he intended to leave his wife for her. What do you think?’

‘I wish I knew what had brought on the crisis that took Alison Teal to the Befriending Shetland offices. If we understood that, we might understand why she was killed.’ Perez paused for a moment. ‘Have we tracked down her medical records yet? It would be useful to know whether she still suffered from depression or anxiety.’

‘Perhaps the crisis had nothing to do with her mental health.’ Willow was speaking almost to herself now. ‘If there was a relationship with Tom Rogerson and it had lasted since they first met in the islands all those years ago, any problem between them might have provoked some kind of meltdown.’

‘She’d changed her mind, you think? Decided she didn’t want to stay here after all? And perhaps Rogerson threatened her, scared her?’ Perez seemed suddenly to come to life. ‘I can see that he might have been controlling.’

‘You think Rogerson killed Alison?’ Sandy had been watching the exchange between the senior officers with growing confusion. All this speculation gave him a kind of dizzy feeling. The fire had made the small room very warm. He wanted to take off his jersey, but he wasn’t sure what sort of state his T-shirt was in.

Willow and Perez stared at him. Perhaps they’d even forgotten he was in the room. Sandy was used to being overlooked.

‘I suppose it’s a possibility.’ Willow spoke slowly. ‘Alison was dressed to impress, wasn’t she, when she was killed. We’d always assumed that she was entertaining some man. Perhaps there was an argument that got out of hand. There’d have been no danger of the body being discovered before Craig Henderson moved into Tain, and Rogerson knew about the arrangement with Sandy Sechrest. He’d have realized he’d have time to dispose of her body when it was convenient for him. Easy enough to carry it to the cliff and tip it into the sea at high tide. Even if it had been washed up again, I doubt enough of her would have been left to make an identification. It was only the landslide that got in the way of his plans.’

‘Then who killed Tom Rogerson?’ Sandy realized his voice might be a bit loud, because Perez looked at the door into the bedroom where Cassie was sleeping. But he couldn’t believe this scenario: two different killers in the south end of Shetland.

Willow gave one of her lovely smiles. ‘What do you think, Sandy?’

‘I think this is all nonsense. I can’t see that we could have two killers.’

‘We’re telling stories here, Sandy. Dreaming things up, just to see if we can make some sense of the situation. So if Tom Rogerson killed Alison, who might have killed him?’

This felt like a kind of test to Sandy. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘I just don’t see it.’ Sandy felt as he had when he’d been put on the spot at school: that any intelligent idea had seeped out of his brain, like water leaching from a rock pool at low water. It didn’t help that all day he’d been distracted by thoughts of Louisa. ‘Perhaps she had another man – someone who murdered Rogerson in revenge for her death.’

‘Maybe.’

Perez leaned back in his chair. ‘This is all fantasy,’ he said. ‘Like you said, it’s storytelling. We have no real evidence that Alison was having any relationship. Never mind that there were two men scrapping over her.’

‘Well, we know she had contact with two men.’ Sandy forgot his reserve for a moment. ‘The guy who picked her up from the Brae Co-op. He was most likely Rogerson, because of the Shetland-flag bumper sticker. And the different man in Mareel. And she must have been buying the champagne to drink with one of them.’

‘We can dream up as many theories as we like,’ Perez said. ‘But at the moment it’s all fairy tales. And the one person who might have given us hard information is dead.’

He gathered together the mugs and carried them to the sink. Sandy took that as a sign that Perez was ready for them to leave, but Willow didn’t move. ‘So what are the plans for tomorrow?’

Perez turned back from the sink to face her. ‘We need to find out where Tom Rogerson went, after leaving his car at the airport. Sandy, you go back to Brae and show your pal Peter some photos of our possible suspects. Let’s see if we can identify the man who was drinking with Alison in Mareel. And I’d like to get a handle on what she’d been up to recently. Who’d been paying for the smart clothes and the executive cabin on the NorthLink, if her agent says she hadn’t been working. Can we see if there have been any unexpected payments from Rogerson’s bank account?’ He turned to Willow. ‘Anything else, Ma’am?’

She grinned at him. ‘I think you’ve got it covered, Inspector.’

Now Sandy did get up. He had his own car outside and he was starting to feel that he was in the way. The sense that he’d been intruding into a private conversation, when he’d arrived at the house, had returned. But as he made his way out, Willow joined him. And when they left together to walk down the bank to the road, there was no physical contact between her and Jimmy Perez. She just gave a friendly wave before he shut the door on them both.