White Nights

Chapter Eighteen

Cassie was already in bed when Perez turned up at Fran’s house. He’d phoned earlier to ask if he could call. ‘It might be late. If you’d rather not be disturbed…’ She’d been surprised by the effect his voice had on her. A sensation that the floor had disappeared beneath her feet.

‘No,’ she’d said quickly. ‘It doesn’t matter how late you are. I never get to bed before eleven and this time of year it’s impossible to sleep anyway.’

She was sitting on a white wooden bench by the side of her front door looking out over Raven Head when he arrived. She’d had one glass of wine and was thinking she might help herself to another when she heard the car on the road. He pulled in to the verge and walked up the short path, then sat beside her. He looked very tired.

‘I’ll fetch you a drink,’ she said. ‘Beer? Wine? Whisky?’

‘Could I have some coffee?’ She thought then that he wouldn’t be staying. She supposed it would be less complicated. There was Cassie to think about. The night of the exhibition, Cassie had been staying with her father. She didn’t want Cassie to wake up and find Jimmy in her mother’s bed. Not yet, not until she’d had a chance to explain to Cassie what was going on. But all the same Fran was disappointed.

She left him sitting outside and put on the kettle. When she carried out the mug he was still sitting in the same position, his hands on his knees, his head slightly bent. It was as if he was too exhausted to move.

‘It must be that sleepless night catching up on me,’ he said. ‘Strange. I didn’t feel so bad yesterday.’

‘Sorry.’ She was still standing and stooped to put the mug on the bench beside him.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Don’t be sorry. I wouldn’t have missed it. Not for the world.’ Then he lifted his head so she saw the shadows under his eyes, and a couple of grey strands that she’d never noticed before in the hair which always seemed to need cutting.

‘Nor me.’ She tried to form the words to tell him what the night had meant to her, but he cut in on her thoughts.

‘I have to ask some questions. Work. I’m so sorry it has to intrude.’

‘It always will, won’t it?’ she said.

‘Perhaps. Sarah could never cope with it.’ Sarah was his ex-wife, married now to a doctor, living happily in the borders with children and dogs.

‘I don’t think it’ll be a problem,’ she said. ‘I could never understand someone who wasn’t passionate about their work.’

‘Am I passionate?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I can testify to that.’

He laughed, and she felt some of the tension go from the situation.

‘Ask away,’ she said. ‘But I’ll get some more wine first.’ She was glad she still felt easy with him; really nothing between them had changed. When she returned she sat beside him again.

‘It’s about the exhibition,’ he said. ‘Why would anyone want to spoil it for you?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Unless it was some warped idea of a joke. And then I don’t think I would be the target.’

‘You’re thinking of Roddy Sinclair?’

‘Perhaps. He’s the only person I can think of who might go to those lengths. He has a theatrical sense of humour.’

‘According to the tabloids,’ Perez said.

‘You’re right, of course.’ She looked at him across her glass. ‘We can’t assume that anything they say is true. I’ve met him a couple of times through Bella, but I don’t really feel I know him at all.’

‘We think the murder victim distributed the flyers cancelling the show. In Lerwick at least. He was seen handing them out to passengers coming off a cruise ship.’

‘But he was a stranger. Why would he want to spoil things for us?’

‘He was a stranger to you. Are you sure Bella didn’t know him?’

‘If she did, she didn’t let on.’

‘Has she made any enemies? People in the business maybe?’

‘Come off it, Jimmy. That sounds a bit melodramatic. Are you saying some artist she might have offended went to all that bother just to spite her?’

‘Is she in the habit of offending people?’

Fran chose her words carefully. ‘She’s never been particularly diplomatic about expressing her opinions.’

‘Meaning?’

‘If she hates a piece of work she’ll say so. To whoever will listen. Big style.’

‘Has she upset anyone in particular?’

‘Not recently as far as I know. Not a professional at least.’

‘Who then?’

When she didn’t answer immediately, he took her hand. ‘Look, you know I’ll find out. It’s impossible to keep that sort of thing secret here.’

She almost said that her ex-husband Duncan had kept his affair secret, but that wasn’t true. She hadn’t known about it, but the rest of the islanders had. Of course that had made the whole separation much more humiliating.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘This is murder. Loyalty to a friend doesn’t come into it.’

‘I’ve never thought of Bella as a friend. That seems a dreadful impertinence. Like saying Albert Einstein was a best mate! She’s a superstar.’

‘She’d love to hear you saying that.’

Fran thought he understood Bella better than she did. She’d known all along she’d tell him and she began the story. ‘You know I teach an adult-education art class. I’ve been running it since Christmas and some of the group are really very good. And they all enjoy it. We decided to have a midsummer show. Just a bit of fun, I thought. A chance for family and friends to see what the group had been up to. We took over the hall in Sandwick and had a meal together afterwards to celebrate. I invited Bella along to give some feedback. It was a mistake. She wasn’t as tactful as she might have been.’

‘What happened?’

‘She took the pieces one by one and gave a critique of each. I thought she was unnecessarily harsh in her criticism. I’d expected her to give some pointers for improvement, to be encouraging. I didn’t think she’d lay into my students. I felt terrible afterwards.’

‘Did she have a go at anyone in particular?’

‘There was one piece. A watercolour. It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d do myself, but I actually rather liked it. It was a landscape. Delicate and detailed. For some reason Bella took against it. She said it was bland. “Sickly and disgusting”. The artist should just give up. She had no sense of artistic vision. No courage. It was quite an outburst. Terribly embarrassing.’

‘Who was the artist?’

‘A teacher from Middleton. Dawn Williamson.’ Fran saw Perez give a small flicker of interest. He paused for a moment. She thought he was wondering how much to say to her.

‘You know Dawn’s husband is Martin Williamson?’ he said at last.

‘The chef at the Herring House?’

‘Aye, they live in Biddista. Maybe a bit of a coincidence. Bella is Martin’s boss. Do you think there was something personal in her attack on the painting?’

‘There couldn’t have been. The paintings were unnamed. How would she know?’ But again Fran thought this was a place where people did know things. Word got out in a way that was almost like magic.

‘How did Dawn react to the criticism?’

‘She was obviously upset. Who wouldn’t have been in such humiliating circumstances? But she was very dignified. I mean she didn’t shout or threaten revenge. She went very red and thanked Bella for taking the time to look at the piece.’

‘So at that point Bella knew who’d painted it?’

‘Yes. Dawn made a point of standing up and saying it was her work.’

‘Did Bella seem surprised? Embarrassed because she’d been slagging off a neighbour, the wife of an employee?’

‘No. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. You know what Bella’s like. Suddenly she came over all grand-artist. She had another appointment. Her agent was coming up from London. She had to rush off. Perhaps that was to cover her awkwardness.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘About ten days ago.’

‘Have you had a class since?’

‘No, I put off this week’s because of the exhibition.’ Fran drank the wine slowly. Now they were sitting in shadow. She saw everything in soft focus. Like some cheesy photo for a women’s magazine, she thought. No hard edges here. Perhaps it was the drink. ‘I think Dawn’s quite fond of me,’ she said. ‘I mean, she knew how much the exhibition meant to me. More than it did to Bella. All my class did. I don’t think she would have ruined it for me, even if she’d wanted to get back at Bella.’

He didn’t respond and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep, sitting upright just where he was. Then he said abruptly, ‘Shall we go inside?’

‘I’m sorry. Are you cold?’

‘No. But we’re a bit public here. A night like this everyone will be out.’

‘They all know we’re friends.’

‘I thought,’ he said, ‘we were rather more than that.’

He took her glass from her hand and led her into the house.

He was very quiet and almost painfully restrained. It was quite different from the last time. Then they’d had the house to themselves and they’d both acted like irresponsible teenagers. Every now and then he would ask, ‘Is this all right? Are you sure you’re OK with this?’ They stayed in the kitchen, and she drew the curtains, although this time of year nobody drew curtains in a living room. Anyone driving past would see Perez’s car and know just what they were up to. She knew he was thinking about Cassie, but wished he wasn’t quite so thoughtful. He should have been thinking about her, be so caught up in the delight of her that rational thought was impossible. Besides, the sheepskins she threw on to the floor from the sofa and the back of the rocking chair weren’t as soft as they looked. The bed would have been so much more comfortable.

Yet afterwards she thought this was as good as she’d known. How strange that is, she thought. How we play tricks with our minds.

She poured herself more wine and watched him dress. She wanted to tell him what she was feeling but sensed he wouldn’t be one for post-match analysis. Perhaps he was suddenly aware of her looking at him because he stopped, one leg in his trousers, stooped and gave her a grin.

She wished she had a camera, but knew that the image would stay with her for ever.

It was eleven o’clock. She pulled back the curtains. There was still enough light to see colour and she could make out the line of the horizon and the shape of Raven Head. A huge container ship on its way south. She made more coffee, though her mind was already more alert than it had been all day. She felt as if she’d just woken up.

‘Do you think Dawn hired someone to spoil the exhibition for us? It seems so elaborate. Not like her at all. She’s a down-to-earth Yorkshirewoman.’

‘I don’t know.’ Now he seemed reluctant to talk about work.

‘And even if she did, what has that to do with the murder? Are you saying Bella found out what was going on, strangled the man and strung him up to teach him a lesson? It’s ridiculous.’

He said nothing.

‘Of course it could have been me,’ she teased. ‘If I’d found out what he’d done. This was my first major exhibition. I had more to lose than Bella did.’

There was a pause. She didn’t think he was going to reply.

‘Of course I know it wasn’t,’ he said lightly. ‘You’re the one person it couldn’t have been – I was with you all night.’ He went up to her and put his hands on her shoulders, pulled her towards him and kissed her forehead. ‘I’ll always remember that evening. Not for the murder – that was work and in time it’ll be an interesting case, nothing more – but because it was the first night I spent with you.’

He rinsed out his mug under the tap and set it carefully on the draining board. She stood at the door and watched him walk to his car. Soppy git, she thought. Then, So he is serious about me, after all. That she found a little scary. She stared out over Raven Head, lost in thought, until he drove away.