Dead Water

Chapter Forty-Two

When Willow returned to the police station Perez was back in position in the incident room, sitting at his place at the corner of the conference table. It was as if he’d never left. He was wading through a pile of newspaper cuttings.

‘Did you track down the elusive Ms Laing?’

He shook his head.

‘Anything wrong, do you think?’ There were times, she thought, when she wanted to shake Inspector Jimmy Perez. She didn’t care that the woman he’d loved had been murdered. She wanted him to communicate with her as if she were another human being.

‘I’m not sure.’ Now he looked up from the cuttings and frowned. ‘And I’m not sure what I should do next. The door to her house was unlocked.’

Willow thought of her childhood in Uist. ‘That’s not unusual, is it? In a place like this.’

‘Maybe not.’ A pause. ‘I think she might be out on the water. If she was troubled, that would be what she’d do. And I can’t see her fancy boat in the marina.’

‘So that’s OK then, isn’t it? She’ll just come home when she’s hungry or it gets dark. She’s playing hookie from work, but we’ve all done that at one time or another.’

‘Aye, perhaps. I’d be happier if I could speak to her, though.’

‘You’ve tried her mobile?’ Willow wondered how she’d come to be involved in this conversation. She needed the team to be checking out the consortium of investors in the water-power project. She felt as if Perez was sucking out all her energy.

‘I got her personal number from Heather in the Fiscal’s office. No reply.’ Perez paused again. ‘There was one of those postcards on her desk. Nothing written on the back.’

That caught her off-guard. ‘What do you want to do, Jimmy?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Not yet. Like you say, we’ll wait until it gets dark. She should be home by then.’

Willow was struck by another thought. ‘This boat of hers, could it travel long distances?’

He looked up at her. ‘Aye. A Contessa 26 was sailed round the world in the Eighties. Single-handed, by a teenage lass.’

‘Has she done a runner then, Jimmy? Should we be alerting the coastguard?’

‘No need for that yet.’

But she thought he didn’t sound very sure.

Willow stood by the whiteboard and led them through the visit to the tidal-energy site. ‘I made Joe Sinclair take us back to his office so that we could get a list of investors from him.’

She’d already printed off enough copies for everyone in the room to have one, and she handed them round. ‘More than 200 people in Shetland put money into the project. They bought shares and contributed anything from £200 to £2,000 each. Investors included Evie Watt, John Henderson and Rhona Laing. Peter and Maria Markham are also on the list, so I think we can assume that Jerry knew all about it. The philosophy was that this should be a community venture, and that everyone who believed in it and could afford to should have a stake in the scheme.’

She paused and looked round the room. ‘Of course this might be coincidence. But I think we can put together a credible theory here. If Jerry discovered some financial malpractice, then we might finally have found the new and exciting story that brought him to Shetland. That would explain why he agreed to go to the Save Hvidahus meeting – he’d want the action group to give him more ammunition. You can imagine the possible headlines – Green energy not so clean after all - and the embarrassment that might cause to the people involved. They call the project Power of Water, and it’s considered a flagship scheme for renewable energy. I’ve already got a team of forensic accountants on the case, but if we discover that a substantial percentage of the invested cash disappeared into one individual’s pocket, I’d say we have a motive for murder.’ She paused for breath. ‘Markham’s decision to attend the meeting of the opposition group fits in with the theory.’

Across the table Sandy raised his hand, frowning.

‘Yes, Sandy?’

‘So you think Markham was killed to stop the story getting out?’

‘It’s a possibility, isn’t it? He was murdered on his way to a meeting where he might have shared the information he’d gained.’ She was starting to lose patience. She’d expected them all to be as excited as she was by the idea. Perez hardly seemed to be listening. His attention was still focused on the newspaper cuttings spread on the table in front of him. ‘Jimmy, what do you think?’

He looked up slowly. ‘You’ll find Fran’s name on the list,’ he said. ‘Fran Hunter. She invested £500 in Power of Water. Her contribution to saving the planet, she said.’ He paused and seemed to choose his words carefully. ‘Just because all our witnesses and suspects invested in the scheme, we can’t assume that’s what led to the killing. That many investors and a population this small, most households in the islands are probably linked to the project.’

Well, thanks very much for your contribution, Inspector Perez.

‘All the same,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s worth following up, don’t you think?’

‘Oh aye,’ he said. ‘It’s worth following up.’ But his attention had wandered back to the newspaper articles in front of him.

When the rest of the team had dispersed she stood behind him. ‘What are all those things?’ There was something strangely obsessive in the way he pored over the newsprint. She saw that his fingers were stained grey from the ink.

‘Peter Markham brought them in this morning.’ Perez didn’t take his eyes off the table. ‘Maria kept the cuttings. All Jerry’s stories. Peter wondered if they might be helpful.’

‘And are they?’

Before he could answer, his phone went. He looked at the number. ‘It’s Peter Markham,’ he said.

‘Then you should take it!’ Again she felt impatient, with the desire to scream at him.

He nodded and pressed the button. She couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation and had no idea from the inspector’s expression whether Markham had anything useful to contribute.

‘Well, thank you, Peter. It was good of you to get in touch.’ Perez switched off the phone and sat for a moment in silence.

‘Well?’

‘I’d asked him to check if one of those postcards of the three fiddlers had been sent to the Ravenswick Hotel.’ Perez frowned.

‘And had it?’

‘No.’ He paused for a moment and turned to her with a sudden and brilliant smile. ‘But still relevant maybe, eh? Like the curious incident of the dog in the night. The Sherlock Holmes story. The dog that didn’t bark.’

‘So because the Markhams didn’t receive a postcard, one of the people at the Ravenswick Hotel could be sending them?’ She wanted to yell at him not to speak in riddles, but was so relieved that he was talking to her again, and so seduced by the smile, that she held her tongue.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘That would be one interpretation.’

‘And the other?’

He seemed surprised that she hadn’t grasped the logic of his thinking. ‘That the Markhams aren’t involved in this at all, except as grieving parents.’

‘Is that what you believe?’ She waited and realized how much she valued his opinion.

There was another long silence. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said at last. ‘I need to speak to Rhona. I’ll be glad when she sails back into the marina at Aith.’

If, Willow wanted to say. If she sails back. But there was no need. He was thinking the same thing too.

She nodded back to the newspaper clippings. ‘You didn’t say what’s so interesting here.’

‘As I see it, Jerry Markham wrote longer pieces.’ Perez moved the pieces of paper round the table. ‘This one is about life in a children’s home – he did it after a child-abuse case. This is an investigation into river pollution. So you can see how a Power of Water story would appeal to him, especially as there’s such interest in renewable energy. But why did he keep it secret? Why not at least pitch it to his editor to get a free trip north? I don’t understand that.’

Willow picked up the pollution piece. It seemed well written and she read it all, just to find out how the case ended.

‘Then there’s this,’ Perez said. ‘Why would Maria keep this?’ He slid a small cutting across the table to Willow.

It was obvious from the style and content that this wasn’t from the broadsheet for which Jerry Markham had worked. It was from the personal column of a local paper.

‘It doesn’t say,’ Perez said, ‘but it’s from the Shetland Times. The announcement of Evie Watt and John Henderson’s engagement.’

Willow read it. It was very formal and old-fashioned. ‘Francis and Jessica Watt are delighted to announce the engagement of their daughter Evelyn Jean to Mr John William Henderson of Hvidahus, North Mainland.’ She looked at the date. ‘This only went into the paper three months ago,’ she said. ‘I don’t know much about these things, but isn’t that a very short engagement? What was the rush?’

Perez didn’t answer her question. ‘Why would Maria go to the trouble of cutting this out of the Shetland Times? Why did it matter so much to her?’

‘Perhaps it didn’t,’ Willow said. ‘Perhaps she thought Jerry would be interested because of the Evie Watt connection. She cut it out so that she’d remember to tell him.’

He looked up, transfixed. ‘Of course! Of course that was how it happened.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m off to Aith,’ he said. He was already struggling into his jacket, feeling in his pocket for his car keys.

‘You’re going to wait for the Fiscal?’

‘Not just that. There’s something I need to check.’

And before she could ask him what he meant, he’d already left the room.