The woman looked sceptical. Willow supposed she wasn’t most people’s idea of a police officer. She pulled out her warrant card.
‘Only you can’t be too careful.’ The woman’s voice was sing-song Orkney. ‘That Reg Gilbert from The Shetland Times was here earlier, weaselling for an interview with Mavis.’
‘You’re not Mrs Rogerson?’
‘I’m her sister. Joan.’
‘Could I speak to her?’ Willow inched towards the open door. They were still on the step.
‘She’s not here. It’s her day for the Red Cross shop and she insisted on going. I told her nobody would expect it, but she said she’d rather be there. She was a bit hysterical when I tried to stop her, and I thought it was best to let her go for a couple of hours, if it made her feel better. Maybe the routine would be good for her.’ Joan stepped away from the door so that she could look back at the town-hall clock. ‘She’ll be finished in five minutes, if you want to wait. It’ll not take her long to walk up from the street.’
But Willow thanked her and headed away. She was in no mood for waiting.
She arrived at the charity shop just as Mavis Rogerson was leaving. The woman was like a more square and solid version of her sister. Despite the sun, she was wearing a heavy overcoat and sheepskin boots. Willow waited outside until Rogerson’s widow was on the street.
‘Mavis, my name’s Willow Reeves. I’m a detective from Inverness and I’m part of the investigation team working on your husband’s death. I wonder if I could ask you some questions.’
‘Do you want to come back to the house?’
‘We could do that if you like, or we could just have some coffee and chat.’ Willow wanted to keep this informal. ‘I don’t expect you’ve eaten much today. I hear the Peerie Shop Cafe does very good cake.’
Mavis gave a little smile. ‘Tom and I went there every Saturday morning when he was free. A little treat.’
‘We all need a little treat.’
The lunchtime rush at the cafe was over. A few people sat smoking on the chairs outside, but there was nobody upstairs. Willow sat Mavis there and went down to the counter to order. The woman was docile when Willow helped her out of her coat, as if she was grateful that someone else was taking charge. Willow ordered cappuccinos and lemon-drizzle cake for two. It had been a long time since the scrambled eggs in the guest house. She wondered fleetingly if there was any news of a baby.
‘I need to talk to you about Tom.’
Mavis nodded, but she hardly seemed to hear what Willow was saying.
‘We’re looking for reasons why someone should want to kill him.’ The detective fell silent while a young waitress brought their order; then she continued. ‘We’ve been checking his bank accounts. It’s something we’d do routinely in a case like this. You do understand?’
Mavis nodded again. She seemed incapable of speech, but had cut through the lemon cake and put a large piece into her mouth. Willow understood that. Shock made her hungry too.
‘Did Tom ever talk to you about money?’
‘He was never good with his finances.’ The cake seemed to have brought Mavis to life. ‘He was a good earner, but there was never any cash to spare.’ She paused and then felt the need to explain. ‘He always needed to be liked. It was a kind of compulsion with him. It didn’t always come naturally, though, and sometimes he had to buy his friendships. With gifts. Loans that were never repaid. If ever we went out for a meal with another couple, Tom insisted on picking up the bill. In the end folk came to expect it.’
This time Willow nodded to show that she understood. Mavis took another bite of cake.
‘There are some unexplained payments into your husband’s account,’ Willow said. ‘Can you think what they might be? Perhaps they came from people paying back earlier loans.’
Mavis considered. ‘I don’t think that’s likely. Like I said, Tom was always the one who coughed up. Nobody felt the need to pay back.’
‘Could Tom have been doing some legal work that wasn’t going through the company’s books?’
Mavis shook her head. ‘Paul Taylor was a junior partner,’ she said. ‘Tom liked him. He wouldn’t have tried to defraud him.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant. I’m trying to explain these payments.’
But Mavis seemed to have lost concentration again. Willow hadn’t touched her cake and Mavis was staring hungrily at it.
Willow swapped plates, so the cake was in front of Mavis. ‘You’ll be doing me a favour. I’m supposed to be going out for a late lunch. It’ll only spoil my appetite.’
Chapter Thirty
The meeting with the Fiscal took longer than Perez had thought and he expected Willow to have gone for lunch without him. But when he hurried into the ops room, she was still waiting for him.
‘I have a lot of news. Mostly down to Sandy’s persistence and hard work.’ She’d swept her wild hair to one side so that he could see the bare skin of her neck on the other.
Perez looked away. ‘Have you eaten?’
She shook her head. ‘I ordered lemon cake in the Peerie Shop Cafe, but I sacrificed it to a greater good. I’m starving.’
He tried to think of a good place to take her to eat, but in the end they bought fish and chips and ate them out of the wind in the shelter of the Garrison, hidden from view in a corner between two grey walls. He put his jacket down so they could sit on the grass and felt suddenly that he was in one of the dens that he’d built when he was a bairn. There was the same sense of being hidden away from the rest of the world. ‘Shall I start?’
‘Why not, Inspector?’ She was licking the grease from her fingers, rolled the paper into a ball and carefully put it into her pocket.
‘Did Sandy tell you his contact recognized two men who were in Mareel the night Alison was there?’
Willow shook her head. ‘He was too distracted by the information that came in later.’
‘Alison was having a drink with Rogerson’s partner, Paul Taylor, but Kevin Hay was in the building too. Sandy and I chatted to Taylor in his office.’
‘And?’ A gust of wind blew a strand of Willow’s hair across her face.
‘Taylor claims it was a chance meeting with Alison in Mareel. He was there because he’d had a bad day at the office, and she was lonely and looking for a sympathetic ear.’
‘Sounds like a weird coincidence,’ Willow said. ‘Do you believe him?’
Perez thought about that while he watched the herring gulls in the clear sky above them. ‘I think I do.’
He listened while Willow described her conversation with Simon Agnew in Ravenswick. ‘He wasn’t giving away much about the Hays, but I had the impression he thought the relationship wasn’t as perfect as they liked to make out.’
‘So it could be relevant that Kevin Hay was in Mareel at the same time as Alison?’
‘You think he might have been following her?’ Willow said. ‘Stalking even?’
‘I don’t think we have enough information even to make a guess.’
‘Could Alison have had a relationship with Kevin when she ran away to Shetland fifteen years ago? We’ve assumed that the letter in Tain was written by Rogerson, but we haven’t had confirmation back on the handwriting yet.’
Perez considered. ‘The Hays were living in Gilsetter then. Two small bairns, and Jane was still drinking. It wouldn’t have been an easy time. You can see how he might have fallen for an attractive stranger staying in the hotel.’
‘Why don’t you talk to him, Jimmy?’ Willow leaned forward and again he could see the skin on her neck. There was a light scattering of freckles. ‘He might open up more to a man.’
‘Cassie’s father’s back in Shetland today.’ Duncan Hunter was Cassie’s natural father and he’d been away from the islands for some weeks. ‘She was going to stay with him tonight anyway. I’ll call down to the Hays this evening and see if I can talk to Kevin on his own.’