Thin Air

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Throughout the interview with the detectives Polly wanted to ask if they would still be allowed to leave the following day, but she felt it would seem selfish to press the point. She sensed the officers’ disapproval already: they considered the group at Sletts as spoiled incomers whose lives were too affluent and too easy. In the end it was Marcus who put the question, when Perez and Willow were on their feet on their way to the door.

‘Polly and I have to start home tomorrow. We need to be at work on Monday and we’re booked onto the overnight boat south. I suppose that is OK.’ Not tentative as she would have been, but breezy, confident. ‘I mean, it’s not as if we knew the man, and we’re not even sure yet that it wasn’t an accidental death.’

The detectives looked at each other. They seemed to have a way of communicating that didn’t need words.

‘Of course,’ the woman said at last. ‘We have no reason to keep you here. What time were you planning to leave Unst?’

‘We told our landlady that we’d clear the house by one o’clock,’ Marcus said.

Another look flashed between the officers and Polly sensed they were giving each other a deadline for making progress. Or for catching the killer.

‘And you, Mr Longstaff?’ Willow asked. ‘Are you planning to leave tomorrow too?’

Ian paused for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It seems like a kind of desertion to go while there’s still no news about what happened to Eleanor. But I can’t stay at Sletts. There are other guests due in the house.’

He looked at Lowrie and Caroline, a plea for help. There was no immediate reply and Polly thought that the couple had already discussed this. She suspected Lowrie would have been happy to offer Ian a bed in Voxter for a few nights, but Caroline disliked the idea. Even now the woman remained impassive and there was a moment of awkward silence.

‘So I’ll probably go back with Marcus and Polly then,’ Ian said at last. ‘It seems as if I have no choice.’

They followed the police officers outside. The female detective drove off and Perez and Lowrie set off along the beach towards Voxter. Polly wondered what they might be saying to each other and thought again that if anyone was to find Eleanor’s killer, it would be Jimmy Perez. Marcus and Ian wandered back into the house, to their laptops and their phones.

‘You must be desperate to get away,’ Caroline said to Polly as soon as they were alone. ‘You’ve had a dreadful week. I’ve only sat in there for an hour and I feel so claustrophobic I want to scream. Perhaps it’s the hill behind the house that makes this feel so shut in. I always think of Shetland as a place with long views and low horizons. That’s what I love about it, the sense of space, and you don’t really get that here. It’s why I fell for our place in Vidlin – the fact that it’s so light.’

‘I do feel as if I’m going a bit crazy.’ Polly wasn’t sure how much she could say to Caroline, how much she should confide. Caroline wouldn’t imagine girls in white dresses dancing in derelict houses. She was entirely sane.

‘Why don’t we escape for a couple of hours?’ the other woman said. ‘I’d planned to visit the gallery in Yell anyway and it has a nice coffee shop attached. We can have lunch and look at the art. Pretend we’re back in London. Lowrie and I were given a voucher for the place as a wedding present. You can help me choose something for our new home.’

‘Yes,’ Polly said. She felt suddenly lighter, less depressed. For a couple of hours at least she could go back to the time before Eleanor’s death. She and Caroline would look at beautiful things and drink coffee, and the talk would be of selling and buying houses, holidays and office gossip. And when they returned to Unst there would be just one evening to sit through and she could spend that time packing and preparing to go home. Life would be normal once more.

‘Should we ask Grusche to come with us?’ Caroline frowned. ‘Of course there’s no problem if you’d rather it was just the two of us, but she would love it.’

For a moment Polly was hurt. It seemed as if Caroline had already shifted her allegiance to her new family in the islands. Then she thought it would be good to take Grusche with them. If it was just her and Caroline they might end up talking about Eleanor after all. And she liked the older woman, with her sharp wit and laughter, her ability to sum up a character or a situation with a funny expression and a few words. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why not?’

It was the small ferry carrying them across the Sound to Yell, so there was no passenger lounge and they stood on the deck next to the cars. Grusche and Caroline chatted to the crew, calling them by name. Polly looked back at Unst. There was still a breeze and the water was chopped into small white-peaked waves. Back in the vehicle, waiting for the jaw of the ferry to open and let them out, Grusche and Caroline were still talking as if they were old friends – allies at least – and she was the stranger. Polly was sitting in the back of the car and Grusche turned to speak to her. ‘The ferry boys said that Sumburgh’s closed because of fog. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? That the weather down there could be so different.’

‘Will the fog come here again?’ Polly hated the mist and the way it shut everything down. The way it made her imagination run away with her.

‘Who knows? It depends on the direction of the wind.’ Grusche turned again and continued her conversation with Caroline about plans for the move. Polly wondered if she’d ever have that sort of friendship with Marcus’s mother.

The gallery was new and built in the shelter of a small bay. The walls were of rough stone and rounded, so Polly thought of the sheep crus and planticrubs she’d seen on the hills at Unst. Of the place where Eleanor’s mobile had been found. The owner was English, it seemed, and had made his money from a graphic-design company. This was his hobby and his indulgence. He’d brought a local potter in to run it for him, and she had her studio in the same building. Through a glass wall they could watch her at work. The owner was nowhere to be seen.

‘No expense spared, apparently,’ Grusche said. ‘That’s the way it is with some incomers. David and poor Charles must have spent a fortune at Springfield. That was such a big job, and they wanted it just so.’

They’d decided it was lunchtime and had found places in the cafe. Two elderly women were eating at the table next to theirs and Grusche greeted them and started talking about a mutual friend. The view from the big, curved window was of a pebble beach and hills beyond the bay. Inside there were examples of the gallery’s art on the wall. Polly’s attention was suddenly drawn to the painting of a young girl dressed in white. While the others looked at the menu, she stared at the painting, wondering if her imagination was playing tricks. The outline was misty, indistinct, and the background was all shadow. It was impossible to make out the features, but the dress and the ribbons in the hair looked horribly familiar.

‘Who’s that?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Grusche had noticed that Polly was staring. ‘Though the name of the artist sounds familiar. Of course it doesn’t have to be anyone local. The gallery stocks work by people from all over the country. That painting’s rather old-fashioned, don’t you think? Maybe something that’s been done with the tourist market in mind.’

Polly thought there was nothing of the chocolate box in the picture. The way the girl looked out at the viewer was disturbing, a kind of challenge.

‘I think I saw that child.’ Polly saw there was no escape from the nightmares even here. ‘On the beach during the wedding party.’ She looked at them, hoping for reassurance. Perhaps Caroline and Grusche, with their strength and their common sense, would have a rational explanation for her unease, her sense of being followed and undermined.

‘You mean it looks like the ghost of Peerie Lizzie?’ Caroline couldn’t keep the mockery from her voice. ‘Really, you can’t let your imagination run away with you, Pol. It’s being locked up in that dreadful house.’

A young waitress came with bowls of soup and bannocks and they began to eat.

Grusche frowned. Perhaps she thought Caroline was being unkind. ‘There’s only one painting of Lizzie Geldard and that’s in the museum in Lerwick. She doesn’t look anything like that girl, you know. I think you must be mistaken. All these dreadful things that have been happening… it’s easy to let your imagination run away from you.’

‘I’ve seen the portrait in Lerwick.’ Polly thought Grusche was treating her as if she were a child who needed to be humoured.

‘I always think the girl in the museum painting is very plain,’ Grusche said. ‘This lassie is quite different, don’t you think? She’s very bonny.’

‘Do you believe in the ghost?’ Polly looked up from her soup and waited intently for the reply, her spoon poised above the bowl.

‘Not at all!’ Grusche gave a little laugh. ‘I’ve lived in Meoness for thirty-five years and I’ve never seen her. Though I have a sneaky suspicion that George is a believer. He claims not to be, but men who’ve worked close to the sea are terribly superstitious and he has some strange ideas. He doesn’t talk about her, though. He thinks her death reflects badly on her family.’

‘Why does he think that?’ Caroline had already finished her soup and was spreading butter onto the remaining bread with brisk efficiency. Polly thought she’d never seen Caroline being dreamy or idle. Even her pursuit of Lowrie, when they were all students, had been carried out with a ruthless precision. She’d fancied him from the moment she first saw him and had decided she would make him ask her out. She’d just seen his infatuation with Eleanor in their first year as a challenge.

Grusche was answering. ‘Because her nursemaid was Sarah Malcolmson, who was George’s aunt, and she should have taken better care of the girl. There are different stories to explain Lizzie’s death, but one of them is that Sarah was distracted from her duties, and her carelessness caused the accident. She was talking to her sweetheart, who worked in the garden at Springfield House, and didn’t notice that the girl had run down to the shore in the mist. It’s probably a pack of lies, but everyone loves a romance.’

‘And she lived with her family in the house that’s almost derelict now.’ Polly was remembering her encounter with Charles Hillier and the strange smile on his face as he’d passed on the information. Looking back at the painting, she thought the girl in white had the same knowing smile.

‘The house was called Utra,’ Grusche said. ‘We have photos of it before it fell into disrepair, if you’re interested. George’s mother as a young woman, just married, sitting outside it, knitting.’

‘Why didn’t they stay there?’

Grusche shrugged. ‘Because it was so small. When old George married he’d want his own space. Imagine them all crammed in together. Old George – that’s Lowrie’s grandfather – built Voxter before they started their own family.’

Polly pushed away her bowl and stood up to get a closer look at the painting. But as she got nearer, the girl seemed to disappear into the texture of the background. It was only when she moved back again that the figure became clearer, and once more there was another shock of recognition.

‘Really, she does look just like the girl I saw on the beach outside the hall on the night of your party.’ The words came out before she could stop them, and she gave a little laugh to show that she didn’t really believe in the vision as a ghost. ‘She has the same mouth and eyes. Some coincidence, huh?’

‘Perhaps the child you saw was someone local,’ Caroline said, ‘and she acted as a model for the painting. Are you sure you don’t know her, Grusche?’

Grusche stood up too to get a closer look, but shook her head.

Again Polly’s eyes were drawn back to the painting on the wall. The background was of woodland and quite unlike Shetland. She knew she was being quite ridiculous. ‘I thought I saw her another time,’ she said. ‘In the old house that’s derelict. Utra. It was the night we’d all been to supper at your house. A girl dressed in white twirling round on her toes.’ She snapped her mouth shut before she could say any more, but felt relieved that she’d told them about the visions. It felt good to have the words out in the open. She’d been wrong to bottle up her worries in her head. That way madness lay.

‘You think you saw Eleanor’s ghost-child in Utra?’ Caroline looked at her strangely as if she was crazy already.

‘Well, it obviously wasn’t a ghost.’ Polly gave little self-deprecating smile, but really she wasn’t sure. Perhaps that was what she had seen. The idea had been creeping up on her over the last few days, tugging at her reason, so she felt her rational thoughts unwinding like a hank of yarn. What other explanation could there be for the dancing child? A child whom nobody in Meoness recognized. She looked up at the other women. ‘But somebody was inside.’

‘That could have been anyone.’ Caroline was dismissive. ‘It must have been almost dark when you walked past. And we were all pretty spooked after Eleanor’s murder.’

Not you! You’ve never been scared in your life. And I’ve been scared for most of mine. Not of being haunted, but of saying the wrong thing, causing embarrassment. Showing myself up. That’s why I’m pretending now. Suddenly she longed for Eleanor, who would have listened to her without preaching or looking disapproving, whose solution to the ills of the world was laughter and another bottle of wine. ‘I expect you’re right. My imagination playing tricks in the weird light.’

Grusche gave her a strange look, but Caroline hardly seemed to hear. She’d wandered away to the gallery. Grusche followed, and Polly could hear them talking about curtains and colours, and whether an abstract painting inspired by Muckle Flugga would look well in a room with a polished wooden floor. ‘I think that’s the one Lowrie would prefer,’ Grusche was saying. ‘That’s the one you should get.’

Polly heard the words, but they seemed to come from a long way off. She stood in front of the painting of the girl. There was an artist’s signature in one corner. Monica Leaze. The name meant nothing to her, but she didn’t need to make a note of it. She knew she wouldn’t forget.

In the ferry on the way back to Unst they stood on deck once more and Polly felt a sense of foreboding as the island drew closer. She told herself that she just had to survive for one more night. When the vessel turned to inch its way to the pier she had a view south to Yell and saw a grey bank of fog on the horizon. It was as if the route of her escape had been closed behind her. By the time they’d driven back to Meoness the light had gone again.