Thin Air

Chapter Thirty-Four

Perez tried to re-create the evening of Monica Leaze’s exhibition in his head. He hadn’t particularly wanted to be there; the discussion about the trip to the Yell gallery was the nearest he and Fran had come to a real row. He’d faced up to her in the small house in Ravenswick: ‘I never know what to say to that arty lot, and I’m working an early shift tomorrow. You don’t need me there.’ He often felt awkward with her friends – shadowy, not a person in his own right. Sometimes they patronized him. But in the end he’d agreed to go with her. In the end he always did what he knew would make her happy.

‘I’ll drive,’ she’d said. ‘Then you can have a few glasses of wine, and anyway there’ll probably be somebody there that you know.’ And she’d run her finger down his neck, the promise of future compensations.

The gallery was new and seemed to rise organically from the pebble beach. One side was tucked into the hill, the other had a big window that enclosed the exhibition space and let in the clear northern light. The building had won an architectural award for its eco-design. They’d seen the artist outside on the way in. She’d been nervous and sneaking a quick cigarette before the public arrived. Fifty-something with wiry dark hair and button-eyes. Her nervousness had endeared her to Perez.

And so had her art. They were domestic pieces. Mostly interiors of ordinary rooms. Sometimes with a fragment of a person: a leg with a thick, wrinkled stocking and a slipper in front of an old-fashioned gas fire; a hand pouring milk from a plastic container in an untidy kitchen. In the paintings there was often an object that shocked. In an old-fashioned parlour set for afternoon tea – sandwiches with the crusts cut off, a tiered plate of iced fancies – a line of cocaine on an octagonal mirror. In an elderly woman’s bedroom, on a dusty dressing table, a gun.

He’d been fascinated by the paintings, and while Fran caught up with her friends he’d stared at them. He’d decided they were like the photographs of crime scenes. Each piece held a narrative, a history of the room’s owner. Then he’d come to the portrait of the child and he hadn’t known what to make of it. At first sight it was a child from a different era. Dark hair twisted into loose ringlets and tied with white ribbons. A white dress. But the girl had a contemporary face. Knowing. A smile that might have been mischievous or complicit. Perez had stood and looked at it for a long time, and despite his reluctance to talk about art with Fran’s friends – he was always anxious that he would show himself up in front of them – he’d sought out Monica to ask her about the painting. But Monica was standing with a glass in her hand, flushed and talkative, laughing a little too loudly, and he knew this wasn’t a good time. So despite telling Willow that they’d chatted for a while, there’d been no real conversation. He’d stood on the edge of the crowd, listening, while she talked about her inspiration: ‘I glory in the commonplace made weird.’

Instead the gallery owner had come up to him. Perez had met him once at a similar occasion, when Fran had turned out again to support one of her colleagues.

‘What do you think of them?’ The owner frowned.

‘I like them.’

‘I don’t think they’ll do well here. We sell mostly to tourists, and these are too urban. Or suburban perhaps. I’ll keep a few pieces, though. Leaze is a big name after all. And the portrait of the girl. At first glance that’s a traditional work and it might appeal to a grandparent. Something a bit odd about her, though, don’t you think? Disturbing.’

Perez had agreed that there was. Then the evening was over and they’d driven to get the last ferry to Shetland mainland. And three months later Fran was dead. It occurred to him now, in a moment of complete madness, that the painting – so like the image of Peerie Lizzie described by the Sletts women – had somehow foreshadowed the tragedy.

He blinked quickly, dragged his attention back to the kitchen at Springfield and tried to describe the exhibition to Willow and Sandy. ‘Monica Leaze made this painting of a child. White dress and white ribbons. Just like everyone describes Peerie Lizzie.’

‘So you think she saw the ghost too? And painted her?’ Willow leaned forward across the table and her long hair brushed his arm. He tried not to jerk his hand away.

That hadn’t been the way he’d been thinking, but he considered the idea. ‘Maybe. I suppose it’s one explanation.’

‘And Eleanor had tracked Monica down and arranged to meet her when she was coming north?’

‘I think they must have met at some point,’ he said. His mind was racing, chasing wild notions that refused to be pinned down.

‘Eleanor must have had a busy afternoon the day of the party.’ Willow sounded unconvinced. ‘Vaila Arthur turned up to tell her story into the recorder; we think Charles Hillier might have tried to catch up with her at some point, either during the day or later in the evening; and now you decide that Eleanor and Monica had a meeting too. Just in the couple of hours that her friends took to walk along the cliff path. And knowing that they could come back at any time. It would only take a sudden rain squall to send them back to the house.’

They sat for a moment in silence.

‘Maybe the party wasn’t Eleanor Longstaff’s first trip to Shetland.’ This was Sandy, nervous that he might be making a fool of himself, looking up from his mug. ‘I mean she was always travelling on business, wasn’t she? So why couldn’t she have come here? If she’d thought her husband would laugh at her for believing in Peerie Lizzie, she could have pretended she was in Brussels…’ he paused, struggling to think of another suitable destination, ‘… or New York. Their only contact would be by mobile phone and the calls could come from anywhere.’

Another silence. Now that the words were spoken, Perez thought how obvious this was.

‘Sandy Wilson, you’re a bloody genius, and when this is all over I’m going to take you out and get you pissed.’ Willow was laughing. ‘Contact the ferry terminal and the airport. Let’s see if we can track down if, and when, Eleanor arrived. She’d most likely have flown from London via Aberdeen to save time, and she’d have needed photo ID even for domestic flights, so she’d have used her own name. Then we track her movements. Who did she meet when she was here? And why have none of the buggers come forward when they heard about her death?’ She stood up.

Perez thought he’d never seen her so excited. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to Yell to track down the mysterious Monica. And you’re coming too.’

They knew it would be a rush to get there and back that evening. The last ferry north to Unst on a Friday night was always busy, so they’d want to avoid that. It would be full of kids who’d been to parties or down to friends in Lerwick. Couples who’d made the trek south for the sort of dinner out they’d not get in the North Isles. And late in the evening there’d be fewer ferries. The last thing they’d need would be to be stuck in Yell, or having to leave the car there and come back as foot passengers. And if Monica split her time between London and Shetland there was no guarantee she’d be there.

‘Perhaps we’re better leaving it until the morning,’ Perez said. The only contact they had for Monica Leaze was at the gallery, and it was possible that nobody was there at this time. Of course Sandy should be able to track down a home address for them before they arrived in Yell. Mary Lomax would probably know. But Perez hated the idea of turning up at the artist’s house, breathless and ill prepared. She was crucial to the investigation, and she was famous. It seemed the worst kind of rudeness to barge in on a Friday night.

‘We don’t have time to wait,’ Willow said. ‘It has to be this evening.’ He knew she was desperate to move the case forward before the soothmoothers left the islands. He saw that there would be no reasoning with her.

Still, in the car at the ferry terminal in Belmont he had another go at persuading her to put off the visit until the following day. ‘Perhaps we should speak to Polly and Caroline first. Eleanor might have spoken to them about Monica. Or she might have dropped a hint that this wasn’t her first trip north.’

But now he saw that Willow was caught up in the moment of the chase. She was enjoying the frantic drive to the pier, and the sense of movement was a reaction to the frustration of sitting in Springfield House running through the details of the case in her head. Perez thought again that she was obsessed by the passing of time; this was her attempt to stop the clock.

‘We can’t piss about, Jimmy. This might be our breakthrough.’ Her eyes were gleaming. She was like a skua about to dive on an injured lamb.

By the time they arrived in Yell, Sandy had an address for them. Monica Leaze lived in Cullivoe, not too far from where the ferry came in. They turned off the main road and ahead of them the evening sky was red like flames, as if the sea was on fire. Everything was still. The banks on each side of the road were wild with flowers and grasses, the colours intense in the strange evening light. Willow was driving; she was too tense and fidgety to be a passenger.

When they found the house it was undistinguished, grey and small, a little ugly. There was no land attached, apart from a small square garden at the front, separated from the neighbour’s by a slatted wooden fence. There were other, newer homes along the same road. A couple were squat bungalows and the rest were Norwegian kit houses in coloured wood. Willow pulled the car into a passing place and they climbed out. Outside Monica’s front door stood a couple of terracotta pots, one containing mint and the other rosemary, but the lawn was overgrown. Willow opened the gate and knocked at the door.

No reply. Looking through the window, Perez thought the living room was too tidy. There was a Sunday paper neatly folded on a small table, but from the headline he could tell that it was at least a fortnight old. The cushions were piled symmetrically on the couch. It was oddly impersonal. No indication that an artist had lived here. No drawings on the wall. No paints. He stepped back a couple of paces and looked at the roof. There were Velux windows cut into the tiles, so perhaps Monica worked in the room in the attic.

An elderly woman was bringing in washing next door. She stood with a plastic basket at her feet, folding the clothes, but her eyes were fixed on the visitors. At last curiosity got too much for her and she came up to the fence. ‘Can I help you?’ She was all bone. Her face seemed to have been sculpted by the weather.

‘We’re looking for Monica Leaze.’

‘Nobody’s there. I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks. She comes and goes, though. It’s more like a holiday place for her. I’m told she still has a house in London.’

Perez approached her. She’d probably respond better to his voice than to Willow’s. ‘Do you look after the place when she’s away?’

‘She never asked.’ Perez sensed there was no love lost between the neighbours. Had Monica, tense and anxious and used to the anonymity of the city, resented the intrusion of a bored, elderly woman? ‘Who are you?’

‘We’re police,’ he said. ‘Investigating the murders in Meoness.’

Her attitude changed at once to a manic excitement. ‘Come in, come in. You’ll take a cup of tea.’ And they found themselves in her kitchen. The kettle already humming and a plate of home-made flapjacks on a plate. Her payment for a story that would be retold by telephone to family and friends as soon as they left: You’ll never guess who was in my house this evening.

‘How long has Monica lived next door?’ Perez was asking the questions. Willow was standing with her back to the window, trying to contain her impatience.

‘She moved in about a year ago. She doesn’t own it. It’s rented from Johnny Jamieson in Lerwick, who bought it for holiday lets. I used to go in and clean for him once a week after the visitors left. He didn’t pay much, but it helped out with the pension.’

Perhaps this was part of her resentment. With next door turned into a permanent rental, she’d lost her little job. She was continuing her story. ‘I called round on her first day there, in case I could help at all. You know what it’s like when you first move in – you can’t find anything. She didn’t even invite me across the threshold.’

‘Does she rent it ready furnished?’ That might explain the bland sofa and the bare walls.

‘Yes, and that seemed kind of strange. If she was planning to live here full-time you’d think she’d want her own belongings. She didn’t have much stuff at all. A couple of suitcases and a box with all her paints.’ The woman sniffed. ‘She calls herself an artist.’

‘So you went round to see her,’ Perez said. ‘Can you tell us what she’s like?’

‘Kind of nervy. Skinny and a smoker. Dresses younger than she really is. All flowers and bright patterns.’

‘Is it just her living there?’ Willow interrupted. Perez saw her glance at the clock on the wall. ‘No man or family?’

‘I think she had a bairn here a couple of times. Young. Maybe a grandchild. But not living here fulltime.’

‘Boy or a girl?’ Perez asked

The woman glared. ‘How would I know? I don’t snoop. I just saw them playing outside once.’

‘But you might have some idea.’ He smiled at her.

‘I think it was a lassie. Though once she had a couple of lads to play with her too. They might have been local, because they didn’t stay the night.’

‘Can you remember when you last saw Monica? The exact date would be very helpful.’ Perez again, coaxing her as if he was a favourite nephew.

‘Exactly a week ago,’ the woman said at last. ‘So she hasn’t been away as long as I thought.’

The day before the hamefarin’. Perez wondered if that had any significance.

‘She might have been around since then, though,’ the woman went on. ‘I’ve been away at my daughter’s down in Brae, so I wouldn’t know.’ A sniff. ‘Not that Monica’s bothered to cut the grass, if she has been there.’

‘I suppose she locks her house when she goes out,’ Perez said.

‘I’m sure she does. She’s never once asked any of the neighbours inside. I offered to go in occasionally when she was away, just to air the place, but she refused. “I value my privacy, Annie.” It made me wonder at times what she has to hide in there.’ The woman gave a theatrical shudder.

‘Only we’re a bit anxious about her,’ Perez said. ‘As she’s not been seen for a while. It would put our minds at rest if we could take a look inside. And we’d prefer not to break a window to get in.’

‘No need for that.’ Annie gave a wide smile and paused for dramatic effect. She got to her feet. ‘I’ve still got a key, from when I was cleaning for Johnny Jamieson. The woman might have been mad about security, but I doubt if she got round to changing the locks. Not even Monica would be that paranoid.’

She reached out and took a key from a hook on the dresser and held it out to them triumphantly.