There was no reply.
‘Only Rogerson had a reputation, I understand. If he’d been hassling your mother, I can see that you might both be angry…’ She let the implication drift into the air. The possible explanation for the tension within the family had only just come to her, but she thought now it made sense of Jane’s anxiety and Kevin’s resentment. It might also provide a motive for murder. Perhaps the respectable family was less comfortable than it seemed on the surface.
The boy looked up with a start. His surprise seemed genuine. Perhaps he was reflecting any young person’s horror that their parents might be sexual beings. Or perhaps he was a good actor.
‘No,’ he said at last, ‘there was nothing of that sort. Of course not.’ A pause. ‘Though it was just the sort of man Rogerson was. I mean I could see him doing that, being a nuisance with a woman. But my mother’s not like that. She wouldn’t be taken in by a man like him.’
‘Perhaps she wasn’t taken in. Perhaps he wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
But Andy only shook his head. ‘I don’t even think they knew each other.’
‘How did you know him? Was he a regular in Mareel?’ Willow was feeling her way here. She thought it would take very little to make the boy clam up altogether.
‘He came in sometimes.’
‘But he was older than your dad. I’m trying to understand what you might have been fighting about. We don’t have arguments with people we scarcely know.’
‘It wasn’t important. I’d had too much to drink and Rogerson was in my way. He was rude and shoved me aside, and I lost it. There was nothing personal. I was just being stupid.’ He was getting impatient with the questions. Willow could see that he was struggling to hold on to his temper. So, all the more reason to push him.
‘Was anyone else there, to see what was going on?’
‘I wasn’t with anyone,’ Andy said. ‘There were people in the street, but not close enough to see exactly what was going on.’
‘Why did you leave uni?’
The sudden shift in questioning threw him. He looked even more twitchy. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t like the course much. I might go back. Try something a bit different.’
‘I grew up on an island,’ Willow said. ‘North Uist. Much smaller than Shetland mainland. No facilities. Nothing like you have here. I couldn’t wait to get out.’ She paused. ‘But I found it tricky to settle away from the place. No boundaries, you see. No limits to my territory. All that space stretching out around me. It made me kind of loopy for a while. And no boundaries in the emotional sense. I could do what I liked, and there was nobody I knew to stop me. Not like the island, full of gossiping busybodies. I’d guess that even though this is bigger, it’s hard to get away with stuff here too.’
‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’ The words hard and bitter.
She gave him a moment to explain, but she could tell that he was already regretting the outburst. ‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged and took a while to answer. ‘People think there are no secrets in Shetland, but they’re wrong. We all have secrets. It’s the only way we can keep sane.’
‘What secrets do you have, Andy?’ She kept her voice soft, a little ironic. She didn’t want to sound intense and frighten him off.
He looked up at her, with a sharp, jagged grin. ‘If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets.’
She could tell that she would get nothing more from him and she let him go.
Willow saw Kevin Hay next. She thought the woman had more to tell her and it wouldn’t do any harm to let her stew. The man was big and bluff. Not stupid by any means, but with a limited outlook. He would read The Shetland Times but news away from the islands would hold no interest for him.
‘This woman who was staying at Tain…’ She smiled at him, but didn’t complete the sentence. There was an awkward silence.
‘What about her?’
‘I find it hard to believe that you didn’t know she was there. I can just about believe that your wife hadn’t realized that the place was lived in. But you? You were out on your land. You must have walked past most days. You’d have seen a light in the house. A car on the track.’
‘I saw no cars. I told Jimmy Perez the day that he found the body.’
‘You were aware of the tenant before that. Craig. You saw his car.’
‘I’ve known Craig and his family for my whole life. Of course I knew he was taking over the place for a peerie while. I helped him out with a few repairs before he moved in. When he went off to the Middle East he didn’t say anything about a new tenant.’
‘The tenant’s name was Alison Teal. Does that mean anything to you?’
His face gave nothing away. She thought he’d be a good poker player and wondered what it must be like to live with a man who was so impassive. But perhaps he was different with his wife. Perhaps he revealed himself to her.
He shook his head.
‘She was an actress,’ Willow said. ‘Quite a long time ago. She’s been to the islands before, caused a bit of a stir. She’d gone missing and turned up in the Ravenswick Hotel. Just down the road. You were living here at the time?’
That was barely a question, because she already knew the answer and again it seemed he thought it wasn’t worth speaking, because there was just a brief nod of the head.
‘You don’t remember the fuss?’ She leaned towards him. She’d arranged the chairs so that she wasn’t sitting across the desk from him, and her face was very close to his.
‘When was it?’ Still not a real answer.
‘Fifteen years ago.’
‘My wife wasn’t very well back then. She had mental-health issues. All my time was taken up looking after the family. Looking out for her. There could have been another landslide and I’d scarcely have noticed.’ He turned his face so that he was looking out of the narrow window and not at her. ‘I certainly wouldn’t have paid any attention to gossip about an actress.’
‘Rogerson.’ The name hung between them.
Again he waited for the question to come.
‘It seems a bit of a coincidence,’ she said, ‘to have two bodies within walking distance of your house.’
Still there was no comment and Willow came out with the question at last. ‘Did you like the man?’
‘I scarcely knew him. We didn’t mix in the same circles.’ For the first time Hay showed some emotion. A little sneer.
‘You must be about the same age. Did you go to school with him?’
‘He was a couple of years older. That was too much of a gap for us to be pals.’
‘Jimmy Perez had the impression that you didn’t like him.’
‘I didn’t know him personally.’ Hay paused for a moment. ‘I knew the sort of man he was.’
‘And what sort was that?’
‘One of those charmers who take folk in. A user and a taker.’
Willow leaned back in her chair. ‘You know, Mr Hay, that does sound very personal to me.’
In the silence that followed, sounds from outside came into the room. A flock of whooper swans calling from the sky. A dog barking. Still mid-afternoon, but the shadows were lengthening and soon the light would be gone. Willow let the silence grow, before speaking.
‘And your wife? Did she know Tom Rogerson personally?’
There was no response for a few seconds. Kevin Hay stared back at her. No expression at all on his face. Then he got to his feet and walked out. For such a big man, his feet made no sound at all on the stone floor.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jane wasn’t sure what to make of the female detective who turned up on their doorstep. Jane had just cleared the lunch things and was wondering if they’d have to spend all day indoors. Odd inappropriate thoughts had flown in and out of her head all morning: The first nice day for weeks and we’re not allowed out of the house. Then: What will I make for tea tonight, if I can’t get to the shop? Maybe I could invite Simon along. He’ll put all this into perspective and cheer us up. And then, a little guiltily, because she should have thought of it earlier: Should I phone Michael and let him know that there’s a dead man on the beach? Interspersed with the random thoughts, pictures forced their way into her head. She saw Tom Rogerson, lying on the shingle, only half his head left intact. Like the hill after the landslide. Recognizable, but not at all the same. And Kevin, standing on the edge of the cliff as the first light came.