Thin Air

Chapter Three

Jimmy Perez walked Cassie down the hill to Ravenswick School. Some days he let her go by herself, but then he watched from the house, picking out the red Fair Isle bonnet knitted by his mother and worn by Cassie whatever the weather, until it disappeared inside. His paranoia was the result of guilt and the fact that Cassie wasn’t his child. He’d been charged to care for her and he felt the duty like an honour and a burden.

He was on late shift, so he walked slowly back to the converted chapel that had once been Fran’s home, and thought again that he should do something with his house in Lerwick. He wasn’t sure that he could bring himself to sell it, and besides he had it in his head that it would provide some sort of security for Cassie if anything should happen to him. Her natural father always seemed to have money, but Perez thought he was feckless. The Lerwick house would see Cassie through university perhaps or give her the deposit for her first home. Properties in town fetched more than those in the country. But it seemed criminal that it should be lying empty when folk needed places to stay and, with nobody living there, it would soon get damp. He decided to call into an estate agency in the street before he started work, to see about getting it rented out. When Fran had died the year before, small tasks like that had seemed insurmountable and he felt a stab of pride that he could consider dealing with the business now.

He was opening the door when his phone started ringing. Sandy Wilson, his colleague. It was only recently that Perez had started thinking of the man like that. Before that he’d seen Sandy as a boy to be instructed and protected.

‘There’s a woman gone missing in Unst.’ Even now, it seemed, Sandy was incapable of giving detailed information without being prompted.

‘What sort of woman?’ A couple of months ago Perez would have been angry and would have let his irritation show. He could still get moody. Late at night when he couldn’t sleep, eaten away by grief and guilt, he hated the world, but when he made breakfast for Cassie he had to be sane. And, like everything, sanity came more easily with practice.

‘A tourist. Name of Eleanor Longstaff. Aged thirty-six and from Battersea.’ A pause. ‘That’s London. She was staying in a holiday let in Meoness with her husband and another couple. They’d been at Lowrie Malcolmson’s hamefarin’, then went back to the cottage for a few drinks around midnight. The others left Eleanor sitting outside when they went to bed, and when they woke up this morning there was no sign of her. She’d disappeared into thin air.’

Perez considered. ‘Her husband didn’t notice that she hadn’t come to bed?’

‘I did ask that.’ Sandy could be touchy; he was always thinking he was being criticized. ‘He’s a heavy sleeper. And, like I said, they’d all had a bit to drink.’

‘Could she have slept in a spare room? On a sofa? And just gone out this morning?’ In which case there was no reason to panic. Even if they couldn’t find Eleanor in Unst, the ferries would be operating by now. Perhaps she’d just felt the need to be on her own, or the wild hadn’t suited her and she’d run back to the city. Perhaps there’d been a row with the husband. But if she’d disappeared late at night there would be no ferries; no escape from the most northerly island in the UK. In the early hours of the morning a woman who’d been drinking could wander away from the path and lose her way on the cliff. The strange light of the simmer dim could be almost hallucinatory.

‘I don’t know about that,’ Sandy said. ‘I spoke to the husband, Ian. He said she hadn’t been herself lately. She’d been depressed. Something about losing a baby.’

‘He’s thinking she might have committed suicide?’

‘He didn’t say that, but I think it’s on his mind. He sounded upset. He wanted us there straight away.’ Sandy paused. ‘I told him we’d be with them as soon as we could. It’s Mary Lomax’s patch, but she’s away south, so I’ve asked the coastguard to start a search. Was that OK?’

‘Perfect.’ Perez was thinking it was a good day for a trip to the North Isles, clear and still. ‘Book us onto the ferries and I’ll pick you up in Lerwick on the way through.’

The ferry was already at Toft when they arrived and theirs was the second car in the booked lane, waved aboard almost immediately. They drank dreadful coffee from the machine in the passenger lounge, and Perez watched the fulmars flying low over the water. It felt like a day off. Truanting. He looked at his phone and asked Sandy to check his. Reception came and went here, so they might not hear even if the woman had turned up. He hoped that when they arrived at Meoness she would be there. He pictured how she would be, offering them coffee or lunch to make up for their inconvenience. Embarrassed to have caused so much fuss. A little angry with her husband for overreacting. He and Sandy would turn round and drive back to Lerwick, with only half a day wasted. But even when they arrived at Yell and the phones were working again there was still no news. Perez drove north across the island very quickly, feeling a strange sense of urgency. When they got to Gutcher a ferry was pulling out from the pier and they had to wait for the next one to arrive. He could feel the tension mounting in his forehead and across his shoulders. Fran had been thirty-six when she had died.

When they landed at Belmont in Unst a group of children was waiting to board the ferry south. He thought they must be on their way to Lerwick for some end-of-term outing. Some of them were in fancy dress. They giggled as they boarded the coach to take them to Shetland mainland. Perez was going to ask Sandy if he knew what it was about – Sandy read The Shetland Times as avidly as a gossipy woman – but the sergeant had a map open on his knee, concentrating on getting them there, and Perez thought it better not to interrupt.

The holiday house was long and low and whitewashed, and sat right on a beach with a crescent of sand and pebbles at its back. Once perhaps it had been a croft house with a byre attached, but the renovations had been well done, with the holiday market in mind. There was wooden decking between the house and the beach and a couple sat there, waiting. Perez looked at them as he got out of the car. The woman was skinny and pale. An interesting angular face, which Fran would have wanted to draw. Long hair tied back at her neck. Jeans and a cotton jumper. She walked out to greet them. ‘Is there any news? Ian has taken the car out to look for her, but that was ages ago and we haven’t heard anything since.’ Her eyes were grey and slanted like a cat’s. She had a faint north-of-England accent.

Perez introduced himself.

‘Polly Gilmour. This is my partner, Marcus Wentworth.’

‘And you were staying here with Mr and Mrs Longstaff.’

‘Yes, we came for Lowrie and Caroline’s wedding party. The four of us thought we’d make a holiday out of it, a kind of retreat.’ The eyes were almost unblinking.

‘Did Mrs Longstaff need a retreat?’ Perez had reached the deck and took a wooden chair on the other side of the table from Marcus. Sandy leaned against the wall of the house and tried to look inconspicuous.

There was a silence. Perhaps it wasn’t the sort of question they were expecting.

‘I mean,’ Perez said, ‘was there any reason why she might have taken herself away? If she’d been going through a bad time?’

Polly hesitated. ‘She had a miscarriage late in pregnancy,’ she said. ‘She’s been a bit low lately and had a spell in hospital. Ian thought it would help her to get away from London.’

For a while Perez didn’t speak. He’d been married before he met Fran, and his wife had suffered three miscarriages. He’d been devastated by each one, but determined to hold himself together. Sarah had thought him uncaring and had walked away from the marriage.

‘Is Eleanor still seeing a doctor for the depression?’

Polly shook her head. ‘She signed herself out of hospital and has refused treatment since. She said it was natural to feel sad at the loss of a child; you’d be ill if you didn’t. And she’s been much better recently. Almost back to her old self.’

There was another silence. Perez could sense Sandy’s impatience. It seemed Marcus was unnerved by it too, because he stood up. ‘Coffee? It’s a long drive from Lerwick. I don’t think I realized the scale of the place before we arrived – how much distance there is between communities.’ He sounded easy, confident, a man who’d been to a good school and expected to get what he wanted.

‘Coffee would be grand.’ Perez waited until he’d disappeared into the house and then turned again to Polly. ‘Tell me about Eleanor.’

Now the woman did blink. ‘We’re friends. Really close. There are three of us: Eleanor, Caroline and me. We met on our first day at university. Eleanor took me under her wing. You could tell that she would do well, even then. She was always beautiful, of course, and that still helps, doesn’t it? Especially if you want to work in the media.’

‘What was her work?’

‘She did drama at uni and found work in television as soon as she left, first as a runner, then as a script editor. Recently she’s set up her own TV production company. Mostly documentaries for Channel 4 and the BBC.’

‘Sounds stressful.’ Perez gave a little laugh. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to run a company or live in London. Through the open door into the kitchen he smelled coffee. Good coffee still reminded him of Fran.

‘Nell thrived on the stress. It was what made her feel alive. And, as far as I know, the company was doing well. But not getting pregnant was different. Outside her control. And I think it was the first time she’d ever failed at anything.’

‘Do you think she’s killed herself?’

The question seemed to stun her, but the response was immediate. ‘Not for a moment. Nell’s a fighter. She wouldn’t give up. She’s in the middle of a project at work and she would never leave anything half-finished.’

‘What’s the project?’ Perez felt that he was out of his depth. He knew nothing about the media and only watched TV with Cassie. CBBC or Disney.

‘A film about ghosts. Contemporary hauntings. That’s why she was delighted when I told her the story of Peerie Lizzie.’

‘How did you know it?’ Perez hadn’t realized that anyone outside Shetland had heard of the ghost of Peerie Lizzie.

‘I’m a librarian,’ Polly said. ‘I specialize in folk stories, British myths and legends.’ She paused. ‘Nell never stops working. I guess she’s kind of obsessive. She thought that while she was here she could interview people who’d seen the girl. She even brought a digital recorder with her.’

Peerie Lizzie was a little girl who was supposed to haunt the land around Meoness in Unst late at night. It was claimed she was the spirit of a child, the daughter of the big house, who’d been drowned close by in 1930. The child had been especially precious because the parents had been middle-aged when she was conceived, and some stories had it that her appearance foretold a pregnancy. Perhaps that was why Eleanor had been so interested. Perez was a sceptic. Most people who reported the sightings were young men with a few drinks inside them, or attention-seekers looking to get their name in the paper. As far as he knew, nobody had got pregnant as a result.

He had the sense that Polly was going to say more, but she turned away and looked at the beach, so he resumed the conversation.

‘Do you think she might have wandered up the road last night in the hope of seeing the ghost?’

Marcus appeared with a tray, a pot of coffee and four mugs. Polly waited to answer until he’d set them on the table.

‘It’s more likely than a notion that she would have killed herself.’ A pause. ‘As I said, she was obsessed with the idea of the documentary, so yes, it’s just what she might have done.’ The woman looked up at her partner. ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘I didn’t know her. Not like you did. A couple of supper parties and then a night together when we came up on the boat from Aberdeen… But I certainly wouldn’t have had her down as a potential suicide risk.’

‘Do you have a photo?’ Perez still couldn’t get a handle on the missing woman and thought that a picture in his head might make her more real for him. ‘It would help, if we need to widen the search.’ He’d show the boys who worked on the ferry to Yell. If she’d been out early in the morning, and on foot, they’d have noticed her.

‘Not a print,’ Polly said, ‘but there are some on my laptop. I took some pictures on the boat from Aberdeen, so they’re recent. The house has Wi-Fi. Come inside.’

The interior of the house was tasteful and simple. Only the sheepskins in front of the wood-burner and the prints of puffins and gannets on the walls reminded visitors they were in Shetland. And the spectacular view from the window. Polly’s laptop was open on the coffee table and she switched it on. With a few clicks she’d reached the file of photos.

Eleanor Longstaff was dark-eyed. Long hair was being blown by the wind away from her face. She could have shared ancestors with Jimmy Perez, whose forebears were shipwrecked off Fair Isle during the Spanish Armada. The photo had been taken on the deck of the NorthLink ferry. Eleanor was dressed in a waterproof anorak and was leaning back against the rail. She was laughing. No sign here, at least, of stress or depression.

‘I can email you a copy, if that’s any good,’ Polly said.

Perez nodded and handed her his work card with his contact details. He’d get the photo printed in Unst’s small police station. Mary Lomax, the community police officer, might be away, but Sandy had brought a key to the building.

Polly’s narrow fingers were tapping on the keyboard when she stopped suddenly and looked round at them. She seemed paler than ever. Horrified. ‘I’ve had an email from Eleanor. It arrived this morning. Sent at two a.m., so not that long after we went to bed. It must be from her iPhone.’

‘Open it!’ Marcus was looking over her shoulder.

She looked at Perez for permission. He nodded and moved so that he had a better view of the screen. Polly double-clicked on the message and it opened.

No greeting and no sign-off, not even the obligatory x. Just one line. Don’t bother looking for me. You won’t find me alive.