Dead Water

Chapter Twenty-Five

Rhona Laing closed the door gently behind Jimmy Perez and stood for a moment, leaning against it, as if blocking the way to other unwelcome intruders. Then she went upstairs and stood, hidden by the curtain like some nosy Shetland wife, to watch him walk back down the bank. Only when she saw his car drive up the hill towards Bixter did it feel as if she was breathing again.

Has it come to this? That I hide in my house like a common criminal?

Her plans for the day – to take out the boat with a picnic, to explore the voe and to moor up at a little beach for lunch – now seemed impossible. She had once represented a client with agoraphobia, and although she’d been professional throughout the court proceedings, her impulse had been to shake the woman. What was wrong with this person? Was it such a huge step to open the front door and walk out onto the pavement? Now, for the first time, Rhona Laing began to understand the irrational fear of the space outside one’s home. The stranger’s face. The unfriendly buildings. The threatening landscape. It would be easy to curl up in her chair with her back to the window. To drink tea or whisky. To shut out the world.

But to start down that path would be the worst possible mistake. Rhona could see that. And if she were in the house she’d be trapped, at the mercy of telephone calls and people knocking at her door. Perez might come back. Willow Reeves with her wild, untidy hair and her staring eyes might turn up with questions. Rhona thought she could mislead Perez, but the woman from the Hebrides would be harder to deceive. She couldn’t face it.

So she went into the kitchen and finished preparing a packed lunch. She cut the sandwiches with a good, sharp knife so that the edges were neat and wrapped them in foil. She put fruit and biscuits into a bag and made a flask of coffee, poured milk into a little jar that she kept for the purpose. Pulled her oilskins from the cupboard under the stairs and went to her bedroom for a spare jersey, because in Shetland the weather could change in a second. And then she left the house, locking it behind her, and walked swiftly down to the marina, keeping her eyes on the path. She had a sense that only on the water could she come to terms with what had happened. The water was where she felt safe. It felt as if she was running away forever.