Yet two days later he found himself on the Good Shepherd on his way home. He still wasn’t quite sure how he’d allowed himself to be persuaded. He’d arrived back at his house by the harbour after the interview with Rhona Laing, exhausted. It was as if he’d relived the nightmare days on the island; he felt again the claustrophobia, and the tension hit him as a headache, so fierce that he could hardly see.
His father had greeted him with the small whisky that had become a habit. They both allowed themselves just the one. ‘Your mother phoned.’
‘Oh, aye.’ Mary phoned every evening. She’d been a bit earlier than usual, but that was hardly worthy of comment.
‘She wants us home.’
That was hardly worthy of comment either. Mary liked her men around her; she thought they were incapable of caring for themselves.
‘You go if you like,’ Perez had said. In fact he felt a sudden panic. Left to himself he thought he would sink into a depression he’d never get out of. But in the end, he thought, did that really matter? And his father couldn’t live with him for ever. The Shepherd crew would need their skipper back and though it wasn’t a busy time for the croft, there was always work to do.
‘You come,’ James said. ‘Just for a day. We’ll make sure you get off on the plane on Wednesday. One night. You can stand that.’
In the end Perez hadn’t found the energy to fight them. His father drove them south to Grutness in Perez’s car. They had to pass Fran’s house in Ravens-wick, could see it down the bank. Hunter’s 4x4 wasn’t there. Perez hoped Cassie was in the school close to the beach, that somehow with her friends and her teacher she was coping.
‘That’s where Fran lived,’ Perez said. ‘That little house. The old chapel.’
‘Do you want to stop?’
‘No!’ He thought Fran’s parents might be inside. He got on with them well enough. They were friendly, intelligent. But he couldn’t think what he might say to them. They’d left a message on his phone asking if he’d ring them, but he hadn’t responded. He couldn’t imagine what might be worse: that they blamed him openly for their daughter’s death or that, prompted by their liberal principles, they were sympathetic and understanding.
The Shepherd was already at the jetty when they arrived. The crew were loading sacks of mail from the post van, and boxes of vegetables for the shop. They stopped when they saw Perez and one by one, put their arms around him. No words needed. It was a chilly afternoon with a bit of a northerly breeze, but fine enough for him to sit outside on the deck all the way across. James took his place in the wheelhouse and Perez watched Fair Isle approaching over the water with something like dread.
Mary met them at the North Haven with the car. Maurice and Ben were there to unload the boxes for the field centre; Ben had flown back to the Isle as soon as the police in Lerwick had finished with him. He and Maurice were the only people left in the North Light, there would be no more visitors now until the spring. The men had shared the woman who had dominated their lives; now they seemed to have negotiated a way of living together. Perez thought he should ask Maurice about Poppy. Had she settled back into life at school? What had happened with the unsuitable relationship? But he wasn’t sufficiently interested to make the effort to form the question. These days he didn’t bother if folk thought him rude.
At home, Mary made them tea. She looked as if she’d been baking for days, all his favourites. They took their usual places at the table and sat for a moment looking out over the South Harbour. Perez sensed his mother was building up to saying something. He thought: Oh, please! Not a speech about Fran. Nor a plea for me to come home to live. If that happened he’d have to walk away. Otherwise he’d say something he’d regret later. They sat in an awkward silence, until James nodded towards his wife, prompting her to get on with it. This was something his parents had cooked up between them.
‘I need to show you this.’ Mary set a big notebook in front of him. It was Fran’s sketchpad. She’d been working in it all the time they were on the island. Notes and doodles and ideas for paintings. Including the picture of Sheep Rock she’d planned to make for his parents.
Perez was relieved. They’d found the book and thought he would want it as a memento. Then worried that it might upset him. No big deal. Nothing he couldn’t handle. He’d found scraps of her work all over his house. There’d be more in her place in Ravenswick. One day, perhaps, he’d collect her stuff together, have an exhibition in the Herring House gallery in Biddista.
‘I was tempted just to throw it away,’ Mary said, ‘but James said I shouldn’t. He said we should leave the decision to you.’ She opened the book and turned the pages, put it back on the table again.
It was a page of writing, large and bold and obviously Fran’s. Done in charcoal. She’d often left notes for him in the kitchen at Ravenswick in exactly the same form. Just dropping Cass at Duncan’s. Wine in the fridge. Can you make a start on supper? For a moment he couldn’t bring himself to read it. It brought her so close to him, made him realize all over again what he’d lost. And when he did read it he could hear her speaking in his head. Making a joke, but serious at the same time:
To whom it may concern. In the event of my sudden death, for example in that bloody little plane or if the boat should capsize, I entrust my daughter Cassandra to the care of James Alexander (Jimmy) Perez. He thinks of her as his own and I can think of nobody better to look after her.
Then came the signature that Scottish art experts and gallery owners would recognize.
That was it. Two sentences. Perez could hear the gulls calling outside. He said nothing. Had Fran realized that he thought of Cassie sometimes as a replacement for his unborn child? They’d never discussed it. Too mawkish, he’d thought. Too daft.
‘I think it’s too much to ask,’ Mary said crossly. ‘To become legal guardian of another man’s child. Besides, Hunter would never stand for it. Just tear this up. Who would know?’
For a moment Perez was tempted. This was the last thing he wanted, not because he didn’t care for Cassie. He adored her more now than ever; she was all he had left of Fran. But because the only way he could cope with the gut-wrenching guilt was to become dead himself. Not to feel. Not to think. You couldn’t bring up a child if you were emotionally dead.
‘I’d know,’ he said. And he thought Hunter would stand for it. He was a pragmatic man, not given to sentiment. He loved Cassie but he wouldn’t want to wash her clothes or clean up her snotty nose if she had a cold. And it made sense in another way. The alternative would be for Fran’s parents to take Cassie south with them and Hunter wouldn’t want that either. It would be a muddle and Perez would have to involve Hunter again in his life in a way that would be a daily penance, but they could make it work. He took the paper from his mother’s hands. ‘It’s the least I can do for Fran, don’t you think?’
It was almost as if he’d been in court and a life sentence had been handed down. He felt the relief of reparation, but the pain of facing the real world again. For him there could be no escape into drink or manual labour. No turning wood or keeping sheep. He’d keep his job to provide for Cassie. There’d be no involvement this time in his work though. No empathy. Jimmy Perez the detective was coming back to life, but he’d be a harder, less forgiving man.
Ann Cleeves
