Cold Earth

Chapter Four

Perez knocked on the Rogersons’ door and waited. If he’d known the people better, he might just have gone in, but perhaps he would have waited all the same; this was the town and they did things differently here. The house was solid and stone, and could have been in Aberdeen or Edinburgh. It looked out over the play park where the galley had recently been set alight for Up Helly Aa. The curtains were drawn, so he couldn’t see inside. He heard footsteps on the other side of the door and it opened. The young teacher stood there. She’d changed out of her work clothes and looked even younger in jeans and a sweatshirt. She wore no shoes and her socks were striped pink and blue.

‘Mr Perez.’ She stood aside to let him in.

‘Jimmy, please.’

She gave him a little shy smile. ‘Cassie’s in the kitchen. She’s been helping Mum with the cooking.’

The house seemed very warm to him, coming in out of the chill drizzle. There was a smell of meat and vegetables. Plain and no-nonsense, but comforting. Mince and tatties. Kathryn led him to the back of the house. A plump middle-aged woman was stirring a pan at the stove, and Cassie was on a high stool cutting circles out of pastry. She looked up and saw him. ‘I’m making jam tarts,’ she said. Then she added, ‘Do you remember? I used to do this with Mum?’

He had a flashback so vivid that he could smell the slightly burnt sugar and Fran’s perfume, the pervasive background scent of turpentine and paint, because the Ravenswick kitchen had been Fran’s studio too. In his mind that’s where they were: in the house overlooking the water, where he still lived with Cassie. On impulse he’d come to call, one of his first social visits to Fran’s home. It had been early spring. Fran had looked over to him and smiled towards a younger Cassie, who’d been spooning jam into pastry cases. ‘They’ll taste disgusting, but you’ll have to eat one.’ Her voice too low for Cassie to hear. ‘Otherwise she’ll never forgive you.’

Now, in the Rogerson house in Lerwick, Cassie was looking at him, waiting for an answer. ‘Of course I remember.’

‘You’ll have to eat one of those very special tarts,’ Kathryn said and there was another jolt of memory, because the words were almost the ones Fran had used. ‘We’ll have them instead of pudding after our supper.’

Perez had his excuse already prepared for making a quick exit before supper, but he heard Fran’s voice in his head again and just nodded. ‘That would be splendid.’

There were just the four of them for the meal. Tom Rogerson was at an emergency council meeting; the lawyer was a councillor for Shetland Islands Council, and a popular politician. The conversation at the table was of the landslide and the inconvenience it had caused.

‘Such a shame for those folk who live in the south and can’t get to town for their work.’ Mavis Rogerson was an Orcadian and her voice rose and fell with an accent that sounded more Welsh than Shetland. ‘Do you know when the road will be clear, Jimmy?’

‘They’re hoping to get one lane open by late tomorrow morning.’ Perez had hardly slept the night before, and the warm kitchen and starchy food were making him drowsy. ‘It’ll mean traffic lights and delays for a couple of months while they work on shoring up the bank, but at least we’ll have access to the airport.’

‘I’ve been told the school will stay shut until after the weekend.’ Kathryn was clearing the plates and stacking them on the draining board. ‘Would you like us to have Cassie tomorrow, Jimmy? Really, it’ll be no bother. You can just drop her in on your way to work.’

If he’d been less tired, Perez would have thought of an alternative. He could see how eager the teacher was to help, and it crossed his mind even then that it might not be kind to encourage her. Then he thought he was probably fifteen years older than her, and a bonny lass like Kathryn would surely have a boyfriend. He was flattering himself if he believed she had romantic feelings for him. And besides, Cassie was looking at him with eyes as big as a seal pup’s and he still found it hard to refuse her anything she really wanted.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘If you’re sure.’

When they arrived back at the house in Ravenswick it was Cassie’s bedtime. Further south, the men were still working to clear the road and there was a background rumble of heavy machinery, but Cassie slept much better these days. There were fewer nightmares.

Jimmy had made tea and a fire, when Sandy phoned. ‘What have you got for me, Sandy?’

‘I wondered if I could come round. There’s something I’d like you to see.’

‘Why not?’ It no longer felt like an intrusion to have colleagues in the house that he’d shared very briefly with Fran. ‘But tell me, have we got a name for our woman in the red dress?’ He wanted a name – a little dignity for her.

‘One name,’ Sandy said. ‘Or maybe part of a name.’

He arrived more quickly than Perez had expected. He must have been ready to leave home just before phoning. There was a gentle tap on the door and then he came in, carrying a small wooden box and a couple of bottles of Unst beer. Sandy preferred lager himself, but he knew Perez liked White Wife.

‘We’re lucky to live north of the landslide,’ Perez said, ‘or we’d be stranded too, with no chance to get into town.’ He knew Sandy didn’t like to be rushed into giving information. It took Sandy a little time to get his thoughts in order, so the small talk was about giving him some breathing space.

‘I went down to Tain earlier,’ Sandy said. ‘The boys had cleared it just enough to make it safe to get in.’

‘Did they find anyone inside?’ But Perez thought even Sandy would have passed on a fact like that straight away.

‘Nothing human. The body of a cat.’ Sandy paused. ‘And that seemed kind of weird. I mean, if it had been a holiday let?’

Perez thought that was a sensible query. ‘We need to find out who’s in charge of letting the place. A priority for tomorrow. Maybe they advertise privately through the Promote Shetland or Visit Scotland website. Someone must have a phone number for the owner in the US.’ A pause. ‘But you’re right. A cat actually inside the house does seem a bit strange.’

‘I think the woman’s name was Alis,’ Sandy said. ‘Spelled with an s. If it is a proper name. I didn’t find anything useful like a passport, but there was this.’ He set the box very carefully on the table, as if it was a valuable gift. ‘It was inside a cupboard and it wasn’t damaged at all by the landslide.’

Alis. Surely that was an abbreviation. Perez lifted the lid and took out two photographs. The first was of an elderly couple sitting on a white wooden bench in a garden. The bench seemed to stand on sandy soil. The woman wore a flowery summer dress and the man had a brown face, creased like old leather. She looked rather stern, even hostile, with her feet flat on the ground. His legs were slightly splayed and he had a wide, gappy smile. Both squinted slightly because they were looking into bright sunshine.

‘Where do you think that was taken? Somewhere hot, I’d say. Greece? Spain?’ Perez hoped it was Spain. He wanted to believe that Alis came from the country of his ancestors. He imagined a landscape that smelled of thyme and olive oil.

Sandy shook his head. He didn’t know anything about hot countries. How could he, when he’d never lived away from Shetland?

‘I don’t know. It could have been taken in a sunny garden anywhere in the world. The background’s all blurry. It could even have been taken in Shetland on a fine day in midsummer.’

But Perez’s imagination had taken him to Spain. ‘Are they her parents, do you think?’ They’d be the right sort of age.’

‘Aye, maybe.’ Sandy drank his beer slowly and watched Perez take the other photo from the box.

Two children aged about five and seven, not on the bench, but on swings in a play park. There was the same sandy soil beneath the swing. The girl was the older. She was wearing shorts and a jumper and stared defiantly at the camera. She’d lost almost as many teeth as the old man, but Perez supposed that she’d get new ones. The boy had curly hair and a smile that must have charmed old ladies. ‘And are these Alis’s children?’

Now it was clear that Perez was talking to himself, and Sandy made no attempt to answer. Perez turned both pictures so that he could look at the back, hoping for a name or a date, but there was nothing. ‘So how did you get a name for her, Sandy?’

‘From the letter.’ Sandy nodded back to the box. ‘I haven’t read it all. I thought I’d wait for you.’

Perez laid the letter on the table in front of him. There was no address from the sender at the top. The writing was precise and rather formal. He thought it must have been written some time ago. Even older people now used email and texting. Everyone had forgotten the art of writing, and any handwritten notes he received these days were sprawling and untidy.

My dearest Alis

What a joy to know that you’ll be back in the islands again, after so many years! I’ve so enjoyed our rare encounters on my visits south and I know you’re the same beautiful woman who first attracted me when we first met. I’m sure we can make a go of things and that we’ll have a wonderful future together.

There was no signature at the bottom, just a row of kisses, and Perez wondered what that suggested. Perhaps this was a married man who didn’t want to leave any evidence of his adultery. Someone cautious, keeping his options open, despite his promise of a future with the now-dead woman. Or perhaps the writer felt that a name was superfluous. Of course Alis would know the identity of the writer.

‘And this was all you could find?’ Perez tried to keep his voice free of irritation, but he found these brief glimpses into the woman’s life frustrating. He could make up a story about the dark woman, about her parents and her children and the island man who’d fallen for her, but that would be a fiction. He needed something more concrete to help identify her.

‘There’s this book. I thought we might get fingerprints.’

‘Which will only help if she’s on our system.’

‘I was very thorough, Jimmy.’ Sandy had taken the words as criticism, despite Perez’s efforts. ‘Tain is a small house and there was very little left inside. If we search through the debris left in the garden, we might have more success.’

Perez didn’t answer immediately. ‘Was there any response to the Radio Shetland appeal for information?

‘Jane Hay called in,’ Sandy said. ‘She thought she might have seen someone of that description in the Co-op in Brae a week ago. I was thinking I’d go and see her tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘She seems like a sensible woman. I can’t see that she’d make up something like that.’

‘No, I’ll talk to her.’ Perez wanted to be the person to breathe life into the dead woman. It was ridiculous but he couldn’t help himself. ‘I can call in on my way to work. She’s a neighbour. The Hay place is right next to Tain. Kevin said he hadn’t seen anyone in the house, but Jane might have done.’

Sandy stood up and Perez led him out. Usually it would have been quiet and dark. There were no street lights here, and Magnus’s house was still empty. But further south the men were working to get the road clear for the following day, and the powerful arc-lights threw strange shadows across the hill.