Cold Earth

Chapter Thirty-Five

On the way back from Brae there was suddenly phone reception and their mobiles started to ping. Perez was driving, so Sandy relayed the messages.

‘The boss has just texted that she’s setting up a video-link to talk to Alison Teal’s brother in the nick.’

The boss, Perez thought. If we had any sort of relationship, is that what she’d always be? He wondered how that would make him feel and if it would matter to him or not. He couldn’t come to a decision.

‘Willow wants to know if you want to sit in on the interview,’ Sandy said.

Perez didn’t answer. The visibility was so poor now that he could hardly work out whereabouts on the road they were, and he felt as if they were in a grey bubble of water and wind. Thoughts of Willow were swirling around his head, as strange as the furious rain outside. He heard Fran’s voice teasing him in his head. He couldn’t remember if she’d ever actually spoken these words but, surrounded by the dense cloud, he could hear them as clearly as if she was sitting beside him in the passenger seat: You’re so romantic, Jimmy Perez. A soppy git. One day a wicked woman will come along and take advantage of you. How will you manage without me to look after you then?

Suddenly he realized that they were at the junction to Voe, and he knew where he was and felt grounded in the real world again.

‘Jimmy?’ Sandy was pressing him for an answer. ‘What should I tell Willow about the video interview?’

‘Tell her I’ll discuss it with her later. She’ll have it recorded, so we can see what the man says when we get back. I’m going to Ravenswick to see Tom Rogerson’s daughter. I should be able to catch her just as she finishes school.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ They were approaching Tingwall airstrip now. The cloud had lifted a little, but it was still raining.

‘No,’ Perez said. ‘I’ll drop you in Lerwick. I want you to go to school too. Call into the Anderson High and make some enquiries about the Hay lads. Willow seems to think we’re missing something with that family. Maybe one of the form teachers will have more information about them. Andy only left last year, so there should be someone who remembers him.’

‘Shall we meet up again later?’ Sandy sounded a little anxious. It seemed that Perez’s refusal to join Willow in the Teal interview had worried him. He wanted their small group to be working together again. He’d sensed the tension.

‘Sure,’ Perez said. ‘Tea and buns in the ops room at about five o’clock. You get the buns. Why not?’

He’d pulled up outside the High School and watched Sandy run across the exposed playground, his hood pulled over his forehead, his coat held tight around him against the almost horizontal rain. The strength of the wind triggered a memory; it was something Willow had said, something he needed to check. But the thought disappeared before he could properly pin it down.

On the road south to Ravenswick, Perez passed Duncan Hunter in his flash new Range Rover. He was driving in the opposite direction and Cassie sat on her booster in the front seat beside him. She’d be staying with her father in the Haa again this evening, something Perez hadn’t mentioned to Willow. Cassie caught sight of Perez as the car flashed past and gave him a little wave. Gracious, like a queen. Perez smiled. He was just grateful that Duncan had remembered to collect her from school on time. It didn’t always happen.

Kathryn was in her classroom with a pile of exercise books on the desk in front of her. Now he was here, Perez wasn’t quite sure what to say to her. He realized now that the trip back to Ravenswick was partly an excuse to put off seeing Willow. He heard Fran’s mocking voice in his head again: Scaredy cat! Then he remembered his fiancée’s grey headstone being tipped over by the landslide, had a fleeting thought that perhaps the shock had released her spirit. But he didn’t believe in ghosts.

Kathryn looked up. ‘Jimmy! Is there any news?’

‘Just a few more questions, I’m afraid. I don’t want to bother your mother again, unless I can help it.’ He wasn’t sure where to sit. Perching on her teacher’s desk seemed too close and intimate and the children’s chairs were tiny. In the end he sat on one of the children’s octagonal tables.

‘Mum said that the detective from Inverness came to chat to her yesterday at the Red Cross shop. Bought her coffee and cake. That was kind. I don’t think Mum’s eaten properly since Dad died. Now she can’t stop.’ Kathryn set down her pen and gave him her full attention. ‘Mum said the detective was asking questions about money.’

‘Your father had a bank account,’ Perez said. ‘Separate from his business or personal account. Over the last six months considerable sums have been paid into it and we were struggling to find an explanation for them.’

She stared at him, her eyes hard and fierce. ‘Do you have to do this? Do you have to pry into every part of our lives? My father was a victim, but you’re making him sound like a criminal.’

‘I’m afraid we do have to ask uncomfortable questions.’ Perez had never imagined she could be so angry. ‘A lot of people get hurt in a murder investigation. It’s not only the victims. Do you have any idea where the money might have come from?’

Kathryn didn’t answer directly. ‘I miss him so much,’ she said and she was more herself again: the gentle young teacher who’d comforted Cassie when she’d tumbled in the playground, or who made the kids laugh when she read them silly stories. She looked up. ‘Dad was dreadful with money. He made plenty, but he always spent more. He was forever coming up with schemes that were going to make him rich. At one time he was going to invest in Stuart Henderson’s holiday lodges along the coast. I’m not sure what happened with that. Perhaps the money you’re talking about came from some of those investments.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why don’t you come out with it, Jimmy? Was it something shameful? Shameful enough to make someone want to kill him?’ The outburst was the last spark of anger. She began to cry very quietly, took a handkerchief from her pocket and dried her tears.

Perez gave her a moment to compose herself and had to force himself to continue the interview. His instinct was to comfort her. ‘We think he might have been running an escort service. For contractors and islanders.’ He thought that was the kindest way of putting it and hoped she would understand what he meant.

It seemed she did. ‘You’re saying my dad was a pimp?’ The words shocked him, but they were flat and empty. He couldn’t tell if she was astonished by the idea or if she’d known all along.

‘We have evidence to suggest that he was organizing women in prostitution. Was there anything about his behaviour that might have made you guess what was going on?’ Perez thought he should have asked Willow to talk to the teacher. It didn’t seem right for a man to be asking these questions of her.

‘My father was a flirt. I’ve already told you that. He liked pretty women and I don’t think he would have seen anything immoral in prostitution. But I never guessed that he’d have set up a business supplying working girls. It wasn’t something we discussed over the dinner table, along with his council affairs and the price of fish at Shetland Catch.’ She looked straight into his eyes. ‘Will this have to become public? It would kill my mother if her neighbours and the people she goes to church with find out.’

Perez paused before answering. ‘If we have enough evidence when we find his killer, they’ll be advised by their lawyer to plead guilty. Then none of this will have to come before a court.’

‘I hope you find him quickly,’ she said. ‘This digging around in other people’s business is an act of violence in itself. It’s disgusting. There are things that should remain private.’ She stood up. ‘Please don’t ask my mother these questions, Jimmy. Dad wouldn’t have talked to her about this and she would never have guessed what he was up to, even if the evidence was staring her in the face.’ She looked out across the school yard. It was too dark to see the fields beyond and the lighthouse on Raven’s Head was already flashing.

‘Did you guess?’ He stood up too now. He was looking straight down into Kathryn’s face, but he couldn’t read her.

‘I knew he was excited about something. Some new venture or woman, to make him feel alive and young again. He was ambitious, Jimmy, and he was terrified of getting old. But I never guessed the details.’ Her words turned bitter. ‘Sex and an opportunity to make money, all rolled into one. He wouldn’t have been able to resist that. He’d have seen it as a project made in heaven.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have had to know.’ He could imagine how he’d feel, if Cassie was ever ashamed of something he’d done.

‘My dad was a flawed man. He did stuff that embarrassed me and made me angry, but nothing you tell me will make me love him any less.’ A pause. ‘Now I need to get back to my mother.’ She put the exercise books into a canvas bag and pulled her waterproof from a hook on the door.

They were standing in the school porch and she was locking the door behind them.

‘I’m sorry, Jimmy. I shouldn’t have had a go at you. You were only doing your job. I’m over-protective about my father and always have been. If there’s anything else I can do to help find his killer, do ask.’

‘Do you know the Hay family?’ He wasn’t sure where the question had come from.

‘Sure, they’re great supporters of the school. We took the kids into the polytunnels to see all the plants grow. Part of a biology project. Why?’

‘One of the boys, Andy, was seen having an argument with your father a couple of days before he died. Any idea what that was about?’

‘None at all. But Dad always liked a good argument. It was one of the reasons he enjoyed being on the council. His idea of sport. It probably didn’t mean anything. I knew Andy a bit at school. He was a gentle soul. He wouldn’t start a fight with anyone. Sounds like a rumour that’s come out of nothing.’ She touched his arm, a final gesture of reconciliation, and ran towards her car.

On the way back to Lerwick, Perez switched on the radio. Radio Scotland had an item about the weather. There was to be no break in the wind and the rain. Shetland got its own mention. There were fears, the newsreader said, about another landslide.