Cold Earth

Chapter Forty

Jimmy Perez sat in the house that he still thought of as Fran’s and saw Sandy drive away. It had been his idea to watch Kevin Hay’s farm for unusual movements, but now he found the lack of activity frustrating. That wasn’t the only reason for his feeling out of sorts. He knew he’d set himself an unreasonable deadline. Willow would be expecting some sort of answer from him at the end of the day and he knew he would have nothing coherent to tell her. He should be giving all his energy and attention to finding a double killer, not becoming angst-ridden about a relationship with a senior colleague.

The post van stopped outside his house and Davy Sutherland ran up the path with his mail. Perez stooped for the post, glad of the distraction. Three bills and a letter from the council, which he nearly threw into the bin unopened. When he looked more closely he saw it was labelled Confidential and when he opened it, he realized the letter was about the Ravenswick cemetery:

You will be aware that the recent landslide caused considerable damage. We want to assure everyone that while headstones were overturned and in some cases washed away, your loved ones should not have been disturbed. We need to make a decision about the cemetery’s future and, in view of the possibility of further extreme climate events, the council is considering turning it into a green burial site. If that was the decided option, headstones would not be replaced, but a suitable environmentally friendly way of marking your loved ones’ graves would be explored. We would welcome your comments.

Perez found himself smiling. Fran would have loved the idea of a green burial site in Ravenswick. She’d be one of the first to volunteer to plant wildflowers and small native trees. He thought he should talk about the idea to Cassie, and again it came to him that this wasn’t the right time to bring a new woman into their lives. Cassie already had enough to deal with. He returned to the letter and saw that Tom Rogerson’s name was at the bottom of it. He must have been one of the councillors who’d come up with the idea, immediately after the landslide. There was no signature of course. The letter must have been drafted, approved and then slowly made its way through the council bureaucracy, to be printed without anyone realizing it might not be appropriate for it to carry Rogerson’s name.

All the time he’d been keeping half an eye on the valley and the road. The cars were moving steadily, despite the single-lane traffic south of his house. No movement from the Hays. No sign of the eldest son, the one who had given Perez most concern. Was Andy in the house, helping his parents, or had he stayed overnight in Lerwick? Perez ate oatcakes and cheese, still perched at the window, not really hungry.

Cassie would come out of school at three. A neighbour usually collected her and kept her until Perez had finished work. He thought that today he would go himself. He’d still have the Hays in his sight for most of the way and he couldn’t bear the idea of being trapped in the house any longer. The rain had stopped and the cloud had lifted a little. There might even be sufficient light for Cassie and him to look down at where the cemetery had once been, and he could talk to her about the green burial site. It would be a way for her to think about her mother’s life, her dreams and ideals.

Cassie was first out into the playground and was delighted to see him, though she tried to be super-cool about it. She moaned a little because he didn’t have the car and they’d have to walk back. ‘You don’t know how hard Miss Rogerson makes us work.’

‘How does she seem?’ Usually Kathryn came out into the playground to see the children off the premises, but today the classroom support teacher was there instead.

‘OK.’

He didn’t walk with her up the footpath to the main road and home, but down towards the sea. They would skirt Tain that way, but the sycamores would hide most of the devastation and there was a rise in the land where they could look down at the remains of the cemetery. The afternoons were already getting lighter; there was an hour of the day left. Cassie was chatting about her friends and about the costume she’d need for the end-of-term performance. ‘But Miss Rogerson says you’re not to worry about that. She’ll sort it out for us.’

‘That’s very kind of her.’ But now Perez was thinking that Kathryn Rogerson might not be so kind. How could a woman who’d just lost the father she claimed to adore continue working as if nothing at all had happened?

In the distance Perez could see Kevin Hay working on a big machine, a tractor with a bucket on the front. He was digging a trench that might be a new drainage ditch by the side of a field, heaping the damp black soil in piles to one side. From a distance, the ditch looked like a long grave. The rumble of the machine sounded animal, like a monster from one of Cassie’s stories, but she seemed not to notice it.

There was a figure standing on the bank, just where Perez had thought he and Cassie would have their conversation about her mother’s headstone. He felt a moment of resentment. Usually there was space enough in Shetland not to be disturbed. As they approached he recognized the figure as Jane Hay. She turned as she heard them.

‘You got the letter too,’ she said.

‘You had someone buried there?’ He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Kevin’s family had crofted here for generations.

‘Kevin’s grandfather, though his parents looked after his grave.’ She paused. ‘I never knew him. I suppose I’m here for Minnie Laurenson.’

‘The old woman who used to live at Tain.’

She nodded. ‘She didn’t have any family locally and she was the closest thing I had in the islands to my own relative.’ She qualified the words quickly. ‘I mean, Kev’s mother and father were always lovely to me, but it’s not quite the same.’

Cassie was pulling at his hand, making it clear she wanted to be on her way home. She had no interest in the adult conversation taking place above her head. Perez nodded towards her. ‘I wanted to talk to the bairn about the green burial idea.’

‘Of course. I’ll leave you to it. I’m not sure what Minnie would make of it. She was always a great one for tradition.’ A pause. ‘When you’re done, Jimmy, why don’t you bring Cassie into the house? I’ve been baking. We might find her something to keep her going until tea time.’

He nodded again, thinking that it was good to have an invitation to the Hays’ house. Much better than staring out of his kitchen window into the dark.