Chapter Twenty-Seven
Willow parked in the street at the top of the lane. A group of English men spilled out of the Chinese restaurant opposite the library and walked away towards the pier, shouting and laughing. Willow supposed they were heading for one of the floatels moored in the harbour. The barges looked like prisons and she thought it must be an odd, unnatural life, cooped up with the people you also worked with. She took the narrow path that led down to her B&B. There was a thin slice of moon and the lane was already icy. The house was separated from the path by a stone wall, with an arched wooden gate that led into a garden sufficiently sheltered to allow sycamores to grow. The bare branches of the trees were covered in hoar frost.
There was a light in the basement kitchen and she saw the couple who ran the place inside. The woman was sitting by the Aga with her feet on a low stool, her hands on her swollen belly. The man was ironing. There seemed to be a snatch of conversation between them, because the man laughed. Willow shouted down to them, so that they would know she was in, and then made her way up the stairs to her room. She couldn’t face sitting with her hosts, even though she would have liked a cup of tea and knew that they’d be great company.
There was a window in the roof that sloped almost to the floor on the longest side of her bedroom. She pulled up the blind and saw the lights of Lerwick below her, and the late ferry on its way back from Bressay. She supposed she should be thinking about the investigation, worrying over the details of alibis and motivation. But she was too distracted. Before Sandy had burst into Perez’s house, there’d been a strange moment of intimacy between her and Jimmy. It had started with a domestic crisis. She’d arrived earlier than he’d expected and she’d caught him pulling damp washing out of the machine.
‘Sorry, I’m not really ready for you.’ He’d grinned. ‘The tumble dryer’s bust. I’ll have to stick this stuff on a clothes horse by the fire. Not exactly attractive, with guests in the house, but Cassie’ll have nothing to wear for school…’
‘Sandy and I aren’t real guests!’
‘All the same…’
‘Turn off the big light and stick some candles on the table,’ she’d said. ‘Then we’ll not notice.’ He’d done as she’d suggested. ‘There you are,’ she’d said, ‘we could be having a romantic dinner now.’
There’d been a long silence before he’d spoken. ‘Perhaps we should do that one day.’
It had seemed so out of character that she hadn’t been sure she’d heard properly at first. But he’d been staring at her: all the intensity that was usually focused on work directed at her. She’d moved towards him, so she was close enough to smell the washing powder on his hands as well as the peat on the fire. ‘I’d like that,’ she’d said. ‘I’d really like that.’
‘Maybe when Cassie’s at her father’s. I’ll make sure there’s no washing in the room.’
She’d been about to say that she wouldn’t care at all about that, when they’d heard Sandy stomping up the path outside and the door had opened.
Now, she wondered if she’d misinterpreted the situation. Perhaps Jimmy Perez had been joking and when she’d taken him up on his offer, he was just being kind, to go along with it. She’d never met a man who could do kind as well as him. While she was undressing and cleaning her teeth, and when she was lying in the soft bed, she dreamed of the dark-haired man, haunted by him.
Willow woke the next morning full of energy and oddly content. The space in the loft bedroom seemed perfect for yoga and she allowed her mind to calm while she stretched and held the poses. Perez intruded only occasionally. It was too early to wake the rest of the house, but there was Wi-Fi in the room and she started in motion the bureaucracy that would enable her to access Tom Rogerson’s bank accounts. When she heard someone moving around in the room below, she went downstairs for breakfast. The man was there, and already there was the smell of coffee.
‘Only me this morning.’ John was setting cereals and fruit on the long scrubbed table. ‘Rosie had a bad night.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘Fine. It’s just a bit uncomfortable, now she’s so big, so I said she should have a lie-in. I can manage scrambled eggs, if you’d like some. My signature dish when I was a student.’
‘When’s the baby due?’
‘Not for a week. And first babies are always late, aren’t they? That’s what everyone says.’
Willow found herself hoping that the child would arrive while she was still staying with the family. She was curious to see a newborn; thought she might take a vicarious pleasure in the warmth and the strange routines. At the breakfast table, she pondered the rest of her day and decided she didn’t want to go straight to the police station. Perez might feel a bit awkward to see her, after his invitation of the previous evening. She poured herself more coffee and sent him a text:
I’m going to talk to Simon Agnew in the manse at Ravenswick. Not sure Sandy asked all the right questions. If Agnew is Jane’s friend, he might be able to throw some light on what’s going on with the Hay family.
There was an answering text almost immediately:
Sounds like a good plan. I’ll send Sandy up to Brae to chat to his contact in the Co-op. Good luck with Agnew!
She read the message several times and found herself grinning like some sort of lovesick schoolgirl. It didn’t sound as if Jimmy was offended; indeed, the tone was almost cheery. She ate the landlord’s perfectly adequate (though rather dry) scrambled eggs and left the house.
Willow drove south into sunlight. The ice on the roads was melting where the gritting lorry had passed through, but it was still very cold outside. The hire car she was using had a temperamental heating system and she shivered all the way to Ravenswick. As she passed Perez’s house she could tell that he’d already left for Lerwick; there was no vehicle parked outside. The old manse where Agnew lived formed part of the scattered settlement of Ravenswick that spread out towards the southern headland that circled the bay. It was a square grey building tucked into the bank, close to a small loch. The kirk where Mavis and Kathryn had come to morning service stood next to it. Its nearest neighbour was Gilsetter, where the Hays farmed.
Willow hadn’t phoned in advance; the decision to visit had been made on impulse and she hoped it was still sufficiently early for Agnew to be at home. There was a garage by the side of the house, but a red VW was parked on the flat grass by the front door. Willow stopped beside it, stepped out of the car and rang the bell.
The door was opened almost immediately. Willow was taller than most men, but she had to look up at Simon Agnew.
‘Can I help you?’ Easy, confident. Her father had been like that before the commune had disintegrated in acrimony and his dreams of saving the world had faded.
Willow introduced herself.
‘Another representative of Police Scotland. I’m honoured.’ Not sarcastic, but playful. ‘Come in. I’ve just made some coffee.’
‘I know you’ve spoken to my colleagues, but I’m afraid I have more questions.
‘Of course, these dreadful murders.’
He led her inside. From the outside it looked like a traditional Scottish manse, but he’d knocked through two rooms, so the kitchen was lit by three sash windows facing the loch. There was a lot of light wood and sunshine. He must have sensed her admiration. ‘I got a local guy to build the units for me.’ He poured coffee and they sat at the table.
‘Looks like a good room for a party.’
‘Well, there’ve been quite a few of those.’
‘Did Tom Rogerson come along to any of them?’