Thin Air

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Willow couldn’t work out to whom Perez was talking on his mobile. The Shetlander got up suddenly and walked away from her. He opened the kitchen door and continued the conversation there in the doorway, facing outside. She could only see his back, which was hunched slightly. The open door let in the chill air. The call would be about Cassie, Willow decided. She was the love of his life, these days. Fran reincarnated, another kind of ghost. It was a lot for the girl to live up to.

Sandy was talking and he pulled her attention back into the room. ‘I’m pretty sure that I have proof Eleanor was in Shetland before, and that she met up with Monica Leaze.’

‘How do you know that, Sandy?’

‘I did as Jimmy suggested and talked to a friend who works at Mareel arts centre. She couldn’t help, so I contacted the manager at the Hay’s Dock, the restaurant at the museum.’

‘And?’

‘She knows Monica Leaze. She remembers Monica having lunch there with three other people. One of them was a woman with dark hair. I emailed my mate the photo that Polly Gilmour let us have and she confirmed that it was Eleanor.’

Willow forgot about Jimmy Perez for a moment. Monica Leaze must be the ‘Monica’ of Eleanor’s notebooks. ‘Did your friend recognize any of the other people?’

Sandy shook his head. ‘Two men. That was all she said.’

‘I don’t suppose the restaurant manager overheard any of the conversation?’

‘No.’ Sandy was disappointed because he couldn’t contribute more. ‘The women seemed like good pals, though, and greeted each other like old friends. It didn’t look like the first time they’d met.’

Willow wasn’t sure that meant anything. She had arty friends too and their natural form of greeting, even to a stranger, was a hug, kisses on both cheeks, exclamations of delight.

‘Monica had a portfolio with her,’ Sandy went on. ‘The group looked at some paintings. Had them spread over the table.’

‘Then what?’

‘They went outside. They’d had wine with their meal and they were laughing. Like it was a sort of celebration. My friend was looking out of the window a bit later and saw the group taking photos of each other on that decking between the museum and the dock.’

Willow’s brain was fizzing with ideas and snatches of memory. She fetched her laptop and fired it up. ‘This is a scrap of a photo found on the hill near Eleanor’s body. Look at the blown-up image. Could that be the outside of the museum, do you think?’

Sandy stared at it, frowning. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘It’s hard to tell, but yes, I think it is. But why would that picture make someone commit a murder?’

‘If we knew that, Sandy, we’d have the case closed and be on our way home.’

Willow looked towards Perez to share the news, but he wasn’t there. He’d finished his call, wandered out into the courtyard and was standing quite still. The public bar was closed as a mark of respect following Charles Hillier’s death, so there were no lights to shine on the yard. Through the window Willow saw his silhouette. He seemed lost in his own world. Again Willow thought there must be some domestic crisis concerning Cassie. Anyone who took on that man would have a whole heap of baggage to deal with too.

She heard a sound from inside the house, a door being quietly shut, the rustle of clothing, and she walked through into the grand lobby. The only light came from a long sash window next to the front door and was milky, filtered by the mist. David Gordon stood at the top of the curved staircase. He was still in the clothes he’d been wearing during the day and it seemed that he’d made no attempt to sleep. She wondered how long he’d been there and if he’d heard any of the conversation.

‘David, are you OK? Can I get you anything?’

He muttered something that she couldn’t make out and turned away. It was only then that she saw that his hair was covered with fine droplets of water and there were wet footprints on the parquet floor where she was standing. David had been outside. She imagined him standing on the terrace and looking down over the shore to the spot where he’d found his lover’s body. Willow was about to ask where he’d been, but he’d already disappeared back into his room. She hesitated, unsure whether to follow him, when she heard Jimmy Perez come back into the kitchen. Willow thought how disengaged he seemed. She had an urge to shake him. Leave the past behind, at least while you’re working. In the end it was Sandy who asked who’d been on the phone.

‘Eleanor’s mother, Cilla,’ Perez said. He frowned and Willow saw that the content of the call had been preoccupying him. So she’d been wrong. He was entirely focused on the case. She felt a twinge of guilt.

‘Anything useful?’

‘It could be.’ But he didn’t seem happy or excited. This was a different Perez from the one who’d sat beside her in the car in Yell, urging her on down the narrow roads to look for Monica Leaze and then to catch the ferry.

‘Perhaps you could tell us what she wanted then, Jimmy. It’s getting late.’ Willow was losing patience once more. This wasn’t the time for games. She thought she needed a large drink and remembered there was a bottle of Chablis in the fridge. Monica’s tipple. She set it on the table with three large glasses. ‘Come on, Jimmy. We won’t be going out again tonight. Pour us both some wine and tell us what this is all about. We have important information too. There’s a lot to discuss.’

‘Cilla has been having an affair,’ he said. ‘She thought Eleanor had found out about it, suspected that was why she’d asked Cilla to meet her for lunch the day before they all set off for Shetland.’

‘And Eleanor was upset? I don’t quite see how that’s relevant to her murder.’

‘The affair was with a younger man.’ He turned so that he was staring out of the window again. Willow hoped he wasn’t going to go moral and God-bothering on her. With Perez she never knew exactly how he would react. He looked back into the room and directly at her, weighing his words. ‘With Marcus Wentworth. Cilla’s field of expertise is Middle Eastern and North African art. He runs occasional cultural tours. That was how they met. The fact that Polly and Eleanor were friends was just a weird coincidence.’

‘But he must be half her age!’ Sandy sounded horrified.

Suddenly Willow felt wide awake, and she thought again that they could now look at the facts of the case from an entirely new perspective. ‘Well, that gives us a very strong motive, doesn’t it?’

Perez nodded. ‘I think Marcus was the man Eleanor met in the Bloomsbury restaurant. She was trying to persuade him to end the relationship with her mother. She knew how upset Polly would be if she found out. And Eleanor took a phone call from him when she was in the Sentiman. Again she was telling him to sort out the situation.’

‘Marcus has got Polly all lined up for the role of wife and mother,’ Willow said. ‘The woman to step into his mother’s shoes and become lady of the manor. Very aristo. He’s not going to be best pleased if Eleanor threatens to spill the beans to her best friend.’

‘I’m not sure how Polly would respond to the news, either. She seems fragile already.’

Willow looked at him sharply, uncertain exactly what Perez meant by the comment. She breathed deeply. ‘For the first time we’ve got a credible motive in this case. We’ll bring Marcus in first thing in the morning.’ She felt a rush of relief. In the end this would turn out to be an ordinary case with a human motive. Peerie Lizzie had nothing to do with it. ‘I feel like celebrating. Let’s have that glass of wine.’

But as she reached out for the corkscrew and the bottle, her mobile rang. It occurred to her again that this was like the operations room of a wartime mission. Phones ringing constantly from different agents in the field. New information arriving all the time and needing to be assimilated. Her caller was breathless, female and English. Willow recognized the clear tones and the academic precision. Caroline, Lowrie Malcolmson’s new bride.

‘We need your help, Inspector. It’s Polly. She seems to have disappeared.’