Cold Earth

Chapter Seven

Perez phoned just as Sandy was pulling into the car park to the side of the Brae Co-op. The children in the school across the road were on their mid-morning break and although there was still a bit of a drizzle, they were out in the yard, chasing and shouting. The worst of the rain had stopped, and Sandy thought they were like cows, let out after being in all winter, frisky and a bit mad.

‘The woman’s death wasn’t an accident,’ Perez said. ‘She was already dead before the landslide happened. James Grieve has it down as murder.’

Sandy took a while to make sense of that. ‘But the killer couldn’t have known about the landslip.’

‘Of course not.’ Sandy could tell that Perez was using his patient voice. People in authority, those who knew him well, had been using the same tone to Sandy since he was a boy. It wasn’t that he was stupid, but they realized he needed to think things through in his own time. ‘Perhaps the killer planned to dispose of the body and the landslide got in the way. Or perhaps the woman was left at Tain – it seems as if there were no regular visitors, and the murderer could have been away from the islands before she was discovered. We don’t even know for certain that she was killed at the house.’ Perez paused. ‘But this is a murder investigation now, Sandy. It’s even more urgent that we identify the victim. So be thorough and don’t take any crap from the manager. Come back with a name for me.’

No pressure then.

The school bell rang as Sandy got out of the car and the pupils ran inside. The shop was large and well stocked. It served the whole of North Mainland. A big new hotel had been built for oilies just down the road and Sandy assumed that would be good for business too. A couple of women were walking down the aisles and a young man stood behind the till, with the bottles of more expensive wine and spirits on a shelf behind him. He was reading a magazine that he was hiding under the counter and had the look of someone who was counting the minutes until a colleague took over at lunchtime. Sandy didn’t recognize him.

‘Where’s the manager?’

The boy looked up. The shape of his nose was hidden by an explosion of acne. He seemed suddenly more interested in the world around him. ‘Are you the police? Colin said you’d be coming.’

‘Colin?’

‘The manager. Colin Sandford.’

Sandy did recognize that name. He’d played five-a-side football with Colin for a few seasons, until work had got in the way or it had seemed too much effort to go out in the evening.

‘Can I speak to him?’

The boy pressed a button and spoke into a microphone. ‘This is a staff announcement. Mr Sandford to the tills, please.’ The message echoed through the store and the assistant beamed. Hearing his own voice was the most excitement he got in his working day.

Sandy was led to a glorified cupboard that Colin called his office. It had his name on the door and piles of toilet rolls under the desk.

‘Have you tracked down a credit-card purchase for the twelfth? We think it would have been about midday, but my boss wanted you to check an hour either side, just to be sure.’ Sandy had never taken to Colin. He was one of those English men who considered himself superior to the islanders and talked at length about what he was missing out on, by being there. His partner had come to work at Sullom Voe and Colin had followed. In the south he’d worked in a flashy car showroom, and he usually managed to squeeze into the conversation the fact that he’d been salesman-of-the-year three times running. And that he’d had a company Beamer.

‘I have checked.’ Colin smirked. He’d had the same expression every time he’d scored a goal in the Clickimin Leisure Centre, turning round as if he expected applause from a non-existent crowd. ‘The only credit-card use within those two hours was for multiple purchases.’ He paused and as Sandy was about to ask another question, he added: ‘None of the customers bought any champagne. It must have been a cash purchase.’

‘Were you on duty that day?’

‘Yes, but I wasn’t on the shop floor all the time.’

Hiding out in here, while your minions did all the work.

‘Did you see this woman?’

Perez had got an artist friend of Fran’s to do a drawing from the photograph they’d taken of the dead woman’s face. No gashes or broken skin. The original drawing had sat on Perez’s desk after they’d scanned and printed out copies. Sandy had caught the inspector brooding over it.

Colin stared at the picture. ‘Is she foreign?’

‘We don’t know! We haven’t got an identification for her yet.’

‘We get some foreign workers in here. They work at the new hotel as chambermaids or waitresses.’ He sniffed. ‘It’s hard to tell them apart.’

‘We think she lived in Ravenswick,’ Sandy said. ‘She was swept out of her house by the landslide.’

‘I don’t recognize her.’ Colin was prepared to be definite now.

‘Was that lad on the till here on Tuesday?’

‘Peter. Yes, but you won’t get much sense out of him. He’s thick as mince.’

‘Can you take over from him, so I can chat properly?’ Sandy hoped there’d be a sudden rush of demanding customers as soon as Colin got behind the counter.

‘I don’t do the tills unless there’s an emergency. Carolynn’s stocking up. I’ll get her out front. You can talk to Peter in the staffroom.’

The staffroom was a slightly bigger cupboard, with a Formica table, a kettle, an ancient and very grubby microwave and a small fridge. They were still surrounded by towers of toilet rolls and tins of soup. Peter had become a cocktail of anxiety and excitement. Sandy thought he’d probably watched too many US crime shows.

‘What am I supposed to have done?’

‘Nothing at all.’ Sandy nodded towards the kettle. ‘Any chance of a coffee? I bet you could do with one too.’

‘My break isn’t for another forty minutes. The boss’ll be expecting me back.’

‘Well, this is police business and it might take a while. I won’t tell him about the coffee, if you don’t.’

Peter switched on the kettle and pulled a jar of instant coffee from a cupboard. He spooned it into stained mugs. He seemed happier moving. Sandy wiped the table with a tea towel, before putting the drawing of the dead woman in front of the man.

‘We think she was in here on Tuesday. Do you recognize her?’

‘What’s she done?’ Peter’s eyes flicked around the room. He seemed very twitchy. It occurred to Sandy that he might be into drugs. Or perhaps he was just desperate for a cigarette.

‘She’s dead,’ Sandy said. ‘We found her body after the landslide on Wednesday night, but we don’t know who she is. We need to track down her relatives.’

Peter stared at her. ‘Aye, she was in. She bought a bottle of champagne.’

‘Anything else?’

The boy screwed up his eyes, a pantomime of thinking. ‘A packet of couscous.’

‘You can remember that? After all the customers you serve?’ Sandy was all admiration. He knew how little praise it took for an insecure person to feel grateful.

‘Aye well, I’ve always had a good memory. Besides, she was striking, you ken, with that long black hair.’ He blushed. ‘I mean she was old enough to be my mother, but it still made me feel good just looking at her.’

‘Did you chat at all?’

‘Not really. There was a queue behind her. Just while I was ringing up the items. I asked her if the champagne was for Valentine’s Day, and I said her man should be buying it for her.’ He blushed again. ‘Soppy, huh? But the boss says we should engage with the customers.’

‘What did she say?’ Sandy thought how lucky he was that he didn’t have a boss like Colin.

‘She said she didn’t need a special occasion to drink champagne.’

‘Accent?’

‘Not local, but I didn’t notice. Not really.’

‘I can tell you’re more a visual person.’ Sandy turned on the flattery again. ‘Can you tell me what she was wearing?’

Peter screwed up his face again, but it seemed he did have a visual memory. ‘A coat. Long and dark blue, and reaching almost to her ankles. Kind of stylish, like you might wear in the city. Not waterproof, like most of the women here would wear. Black boots with a narrow heel. A blue silk scarf.’

‘So office clothes?’

‘Smart, yeah. I couldn’t see what she was wearing underneath the coat.’ He blushed again.

Sandy was thinking that he’d seen a coat like that in the cupboard at Tain. Another confirmation that they had found the right woman.

‘Had you seen her before? I mean, is she a regular customer?’

‘No, not a regular. I’ve seen her before, though.’ Peter had reached into a drawer for a packet of biscuits and dunked one into his coffee. It fell apart before he could get it into his mouth, and soggy crumbs fell back into the mug. He swore under his breath.

‘In the shop?’

‘Nah, in Lerwick. In the bar in Mareel. Upstairs. I was waiting to see a film.’

‘When was this?’ Sandy sipped the coffee as if he had all the time in the world.

‘A week ago. The Friday night. I was going to meet some friends, got there a bit early. Perhaps that’s why I noticed her when she came into the shop the other day; I knew I’d seen her before.’

‘Was she on her own?’

‘No, she was with a bloke,’ Peter said. ‘Smart. Jacket and tie. Not a suit, but he’d made an effort.’

‘You didn’t know him?’ Because Sandy thought the boy would have blurted out a name if he’d had one. He’d want to show off.

Peter shook his head. ‘He was older, you know. He wasn’t someone I’d have gone to school with.’

‘Anything else that might help us trace him?’

‘Sorry.’

Outside the rain had stopped and a faint, milky sunlight filtered through the gloom. Instead of turning back towards Lerwick, Sandy headed towards Sullom Voe and stopped at the new hotel that had been built just outside the village of Brae. Its accommodation was used solely for oil, gas and construction workers and had been full since it had been slotted together like a giant bit of Lego several years before. Sandy had been inside once for the Sunday-lunch carvery. It had felt a bit like going abroad and wandering into another world. There were foreign voices, loud and confident, and even those who spoke English were sharing jokes he couldn’t understand.

Now reception was crowded with men waiting to check out. They stood with their holdalls at their feet, impatient. Sandy supposed they’d been stranded because of the restricted flights and were anxious to get home. He waited until the queue had cleared and then went up to the desk.

‘Do you know this woman?’

Sandy thought he saw a spark of recognition, but the receptionist shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

‘She doesn’t work here?’

‘No, I’m certain about that.’ The man had an accent too. Sandy thought it was probably Eastern European, but his English was just as good as Sandy’s.

‘You know all the staff?’

The receptionist nodded. ‘Most of us live in. Those who aren’t Shetlanders – and she doesn’t look like a local. So if she worked here I would recognize her.’

‘You’ve never seen her as a guest in the bar or the restaurant?’

This time there was a brief hesitation. ‘I don’t think so. She’s not a regular. But lots of people wander through, and I’m stuck on the desk.’

‘She’s kind of striking,’ Sandy said. ‘I think you’d notice.’

Another pause. ‘Sorry, I really don’t think I can help.’

The queue had built up behind Sandy again. He could hear muttered comments and felt intimidated by the oil men’s bulk and hostility. He nodded to the receptionist and walked outside. The cloud had lifted even further, so now he could see down the voe towards the terminal. He thought he’d achieved very little. He had one snippet of fresh information from Peter – that the woman had been in the bar in Mareel a week ago with a smartly dressed man – but they still had no clue what she was doing in Shetland. And they still had no name for her. Sandy knew that Jimmy Perez would be disappointed in him.