Dead Water

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Willow found Rhona in her office. It didn’t take her long to get there: the court and the police station were in the same building, though the Fiscal’s office was grander than any of the rooms used by the police. Rhona Laing was sitting behind a large desk, reading a pile of papers. The room was brown. Brown wood, brown carpet and a brown leather armchair in one corner. On the wall a large painting of the sea in moonlight, an oil.

‘Inspector. What are you doing here?’ Laing sounded surprised to see Willow, although her receptionist must have warned her that the detective was on her way.

‘I was wondering if you might help me.’

‘Of course, if I can.’ She took off her expensive designer spectacles and Willow thought how tired and strained she looked. The woman was controlling herself, but with such an effort that it was impossible for her to relax for a moment. Again Willow thought that Rhona must be involved in this case. She was too tense to be just a witness who had strayed upon a body by coincidence. Perez and Sandy had described the Fiscal as an honest and honourable woman, but Willow could sense her fear and her desperation, like a smell. She thought it wasn’t time yet to put Rhona under too much pressure. The woman still had fight in her and Willow was worried that she might run away. She had money and it would be easy enough for her to hop on a plane and fly south. She’d have friends in high places to protect her, once she was away from the islands.

‘I’d like to update you on the investigation, of course.’ Willow made her voice polite, but not grovelling. That would only make Rhona suspicious.

‘No need for that, Inspector. I have no official status in the case.’

Willow continued as if the Fiscal hadn’t spoken. ‘And it seems that someone you know has a peripheral link to the inquiry. I’d value your opinion.’

‘Oh?’ Rhona Laing was hooked now. She looked up from the papers and seemed to give Willow her full attention for the first time.

Willow smiled and looked around the room, making a pantomime of taking in its grandeur, the wood panelling, the heavy door. ‘I wonder if I could buy you coffee? I’m not used to sitting at a desk for a whole day, and I imagine you find it tricky too. Everyone tells me what a great sailor you are.’ She paused for a beat and glanced at the painting. ‘This must seem like a prison.’

‘Coffee? Why not?’ Rhona making it clear that she wouldn’t be so easily intimidated. She stood up, took a coat from the stand in the corner and followed Willow out of the building.

Willow had chosen her destination carefully. The Islesburgh Community Centre was in a building a short walk from the Fiscal’s office. All these streets, named after Norwegian kings and princes, were rather grand. Grey, granite houses that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a prosperous Aberdeen suburb, looking out over a well-tended park. But the Islesburgh was more democratic. It housed youth and community groups, meetings for young mothers, teenagers playing pool. Sandy had brought her here for lunch one day. ‘It’s fine,’ he’d said, ‘if you don’t mind something cheap and cheerful.’

The cafe was self-service, there was a smell of chips, and toddlers were playing noisily in the small area reserved for them. Willow thought that here Rhona would be well outside her comfort zone. But it was anonymous too. Surrounded by steam from the coffee machine and with a background of chat, nobody would take any notice of two women sitting in a corner, away from everyone else. The other customers might have them down as social workers needing some privacy to discuss their clients.

Willow settled Rhona at a table and queued at the counter. She returned with coffee, to find the Fiscal clearing crumbs from the table with a paper napkin. Grinned to herself, but said nothing.

‘So what is this about, Inspector?’ Rhona’s voice was shrill. ‘I do have to work.’

‘Two days ago we had an interesting phone call. From a young woman. A student at Oxford. She claimed to have been Jerry Markham’s girlfriend. In fact, his fiancée.’

‘Oh?’ The Fiscal sipped her black coffee and pretended not to be interested. But Willow thought she would want to hear the rest of it. Everyone was taken in by a love story. If that’s what this was.

‘The girl’s name was Annabel Grey.’

‘Oh?’ As if that was the only response she could give. As if anything else would have taken too much effort. Then Rhona frowned as if the name was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

‘I think you know Annabel’s father, Richard.’

A flash of surprise. Genuine? Willow thought so, but she wouldn’t have sworn to it. It wouldn’t do to underestimate Rhona Laing.

‘Ah, Richard Grey. I haven’t heard from him in years.’ She pushed away the coffee mug, still half-full. A gesture of dismissal, Willow thought. And to show that this place wasn’t good enough for her, though Willow had already decided there was nothing wrong with the coffee.

‘He’d obviously been following your career,’ she said. ‘He knew you were working here and asked us to pass on his good wishes.’

Rhona sat in silence. Willow thought this last scrap of information had pleased her. She was glad to have been remembered. At the other side of the room a mother shouted at a child to give back another girl’s toy.

‘It would help us if you could fill in some of the background to Richard Grey,’ Willow said at last.

‘You can’t think Dickie’s a suspect.’ Rhona Laing laughed. ‘He’s always managed to get exactly what he wants, without resorting to murder.’

‘Just background,’ Willow said. ‘You know how important that can be.’

‘Very well then, Inspector. The background to the Grey family.’ And it seemed that this was a story the Fiscal would enjoy telling, that the memories were pleasant. That she was happy to revisit them. Perhaps, the inspector thought, they distracted her from other anxieties.

Willow nodded and waited.

‘Richard Grey was very much a golden boy of his generation,’ Rhona said. ‘His family was reasonably well off. Not flash, you understand. Not new money. No horrible city traders or developers of green-field sites. But well connected. A family of writers and academics, liberal and interesting. Richard was bright. And charming. He had more charm than any man had a right to. It gave the impression that he was superficial, but that was a false impression, I think.’

Willow wasn’t sure what she made of this, but she said nothing. It was better to let the woman talk. She was more likely to give away an important detail if she was allowed to ramble.

Rhona pulled back the coffee mug and drank from it. ‘Then he married Jane. She was wild and beautiful, with an appetite for drugs and booze. The first woman to stand up to him. She refused to be taken in by his charm or his money. I genuinely think he adored her, worshipped the ground she walked on, but that didn’t prevent him from treating her badly.’

‘It sounds as if you knew him quite well,’ Willow said.

‘I worked with him. Or I suppose for him. My first real job as a barrister. And I fell for him. I was one of his serial affairs.’ The woman looked bleakly across the table. ‘I should have realized that nothing would come of it. There were so many stories of his adultery. But we all think that we’re different, don’t we? We all think we can change the man we love.’

Like Annabel, Willow thought. She believed she could change Jerry Markham.

It was almost as if Rhona were reading her thoughts, because she continued, ‘Annabel was very young then. Five? Just starting school, I think. I remember Dickie showing me a photo of her looking very cute in her uniform. A blazer and a hat. I should have been conscious-stricken. How could I risk breaking up his family? But of course I wasn’t. You’re so selfish when you’re in love. Entirely self-absorbed. And really there was no risk. Dickie was never going to leave Jane. The more badly she behaved, the more infatuated he became.’

Willow wished she’d recorded this conversation. Sandy and Perez would never believe the Fiscal could talk like this.

‘I came to my senses eventually.’ Rhona gave a sad little smile. ‘Resigned myself that I wasn’t a woman to play Happy Families anyway. So I moved back to Edinburgh. Retrained for the Bar in Scotland.’

‘Were the Greys regular church-goers then?’ Willow found it hard to reconcile Richard Grey’s image of himself as a respectable family man with Rhona’s story.

‘I think Jane went to church.’ The woman gave a tight little smile. ‘Maybe she saw it as a sort of insurance policy? To compensate for the parties and the exhibitionism. If I go to church, I’ll be redeemed anyway. Or perhaps she saw it as a kind of safety net.’ Her voice was dismissive, implying that she didn’t need such a crutch.

‘Then she ran away.’ Willow watched the Fiscal, wondering what her reaction would be.

‘Yes,’ Rhona said. ‘It was the last thing anyone expected. Death by overdose we might have understood, but not that she would suddenly disappear. We thought she liked the lifestyle that Dickie had provided, and he’d never tried to restrict her. And by all accounts Dickie became a changed man when Jane ran off. He devoted himself to his daughter. No more one-night stands or flings with young and beautiful lawyers. So my London friends tell me. I’m not convinced. Perhaps he just became better at keeping secrets.’

‘He didn’t get in touch with you while he was here?’ Willow wasn’t sure this was getting her anywhere. She was gaining a fascinating glimpse into the Fiscal’s past, but nothing relevant to the present investigation. Except, perhaps, the knowledge that Richard Grey wasn’t to be trusted, and she’d already worked that out for herself.

‘No.’ But for the first time Rhona seemed less certain.

‘Are you sure?’ The Greys had had an evening to themselves. There had been nothing to prevent Richard hiring a taxi to Aith, turning up on the Fiscal’s doorstep, looking for comfort or a rekindling of youthful excitement.

‘We didn’t meet, Inspector.’ The Fiscal smiled sadly. ‘I rather wish that we had.’