Kevin was waiting for her. ‘You’re late. I was starting to get worried.’
‘I had to give someone a lift home.’ She switched on the kettle. ‘Would you like tea? Coffee?’ She hated these brittle conversations when nothing was really said.
‘Jimmy Perez was here earlier.’
‘What did he want?’ She hovered with her hand reaching for her mug. Frozen with a kind of fear. She knew Kevin was involved in some way with the dead woman. The certainty came almost as a relief. She wasn’t making things up or going mad. But even if Kevin was a killer, she didn’t want him caught. She wanted the whole affair to be over and for Jimmy Perez to leave them on their own to work out their marriage.
‘Just some questions about Tom Rogerson. They’d found a couple of payments I’d made to him. I’ve been through the files. They must have been when he bought that piece of land out towards the school for us.’
She felt a moment of relief. Kevin was always buying parcels of land. Andy sometimes joked that he wouldn’t stop until he’d bought up the whole of Shetland mainland. It was the woman from Tain, the actress from London, who most risked their stability, even now she was dead; not business deals with Tom Rogerson. It occurred to her suddenly that she would have killed the woman herself to save Kevin and the boys.
‘Jimmy told me it was nothing official,’ Kevin said. ‘He was just tying up loose ends.’ But he didn’t look at her and she wasn’t reassured by the words.
She put a camomile teabag into a mug and poured on the water. The last thing she needed tonight was caffeine. ‘How are the boys?’
‘Michael’s up in his room. He came down a while ago for something to eat. He’s doing school work, he says. More likely sitting in front of that computer of his and watching rubbish.’
‘He spends too long in front of the screen. I wonder what he’s looking at. You hear such dreadful stories. Maybe we should keep a closer eye.’ It was a conversation they’d had before. Kevin thought she was fussing about nothing. Michael was almost a man. Settled and almost married. What did it matter what he accessed on the computer? Occasionally Jane had wandered into the office and Kevin had quickly switched off the screen, so she wondered if her husband was watching the same sort of material. Now he didn’t bother answering.
‘What about Andy?’ She’d seen his car in the yard and had thought with relief that he must be home. One less thing to worry about. The last few days all I’ve done is worry.
‘He hasn’t been here all day. I thought he must still be at work.’
‘His shift finished at five and his car’s here.’ The worm of anxiety, so familiar, was already burrowing into her brain. ‘Did you see him come back?’
Kevin shrugged as if he had more important things to worry about. ‘Maybe he didn’t take the car this morning. If he was meeting up with friends for a couple of pints after work, perhaps he decided to go up on the bus.’
She thought Kevin was right. She couldn’t remember if the car had been in the yard all day or not. It wasn’t late yet and Andy was probably in town. She phoned him all the same, though she wasn’t surprised when there was no reply. When she went to bed he still wasn’t home, but it was as if she’d lost her capacity to continue worrying. There’d been so much anxiety that her brain couldn’t take any more. She fell immediately into a deep sleep.
She woke suddenly when it was still quite dark. There was no moonlight and she knew immediately that the weather had changed again. It was as if a switch had been flicked and they were back in winter. Wind rattled through the house, battering at the windows and howling down the chimneys. No rain yet, but she could tell by the sound that the gale was north-westerly, and she knew that it would soon come. Kevin was lying beside her, still fast asleep. She looked at the radio by her bed. Nearly six o’clock. Not too early to get up and make tea.
This was a solid and well-built house, but the wind must have found its way through small cracks because she could feel the draught eddying around her ankles as she made her way downstairs. She refused to wonder if Andy was home. Much better to believe that he was still in Lerwick, having crashed at a friend’s flat. That way she wouldn’t be disappointed. Much better to make a cup of tea, sit in the warmth of the Aga and plan the small routines of the day. That way she could keep the panic at bay.
When she reached the ground floor there was a chill and the breeze was even fiercer. Sometimes a north-westerly wind blew out the Aga and she thought that must have happened again. It would be a nuisance to relight it and she thought she could do without the bother. Then she realized that the door to the yard was open. They never locked it, but the catch was strong and it had never blown open before. She shut it firmly and went into the kitchen. Andy was sitting at the table. His arms were crossed in front of him and his head was resting on them. She couldn’t tell if he was dead or just sleeping and for a moment she couldn’t move. Then he lifted his head and with unfocused eyes stared towards her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
When Sandy got to the police station Willow and Perez were already there. He checked his watch when he saw them, just to make sure he wasn’t late. Most days Jimmy tried to drop Cassie at school, so usually Sandy was at work first. They all sat in the ops room for what Willow called morning prayers, but what he knew as a briefing. She and Jimmy seemed kind of dazed. Perhaps it was because they’d been bombarded the evening before with new revelations and revised theories; Sandy soon had a sense that the direction of the case had changed completely.
‘Had you heard any of these rumours, Sandy? About Tom Rogerson arranging girls for the men in the floatels. And for anyone else who’ll pay him.’
Sandy shook his head. ‘But folk are careful what they say in front of me. You know what it’s like, Jimmy.’ Then he thought Perez might not know what it was like to have conversations in bars suddenly stop as he was approaching. Forced laughter. Over-elaborate descriptions of the stories that were being told before he’d walked in. Perez had never been very social, even before Fran’s death. Recently he scarcely left the house in the evening unless it was for work.
‘What do you think about the Shetlanders on the list? Are they likely candidates, do you think, for Rogerson’s services?’
‘Maybe.’ Sandy thought if he hadn’t met Louisa, he might have been one of the lonely men on the list in ten years’ time. ‘I’m surprised by Kevin Hay, though. I always thought he was very happy with his wife.’
‘Perhaps the happy-family thing just wasn’t enough for him,’ Willow said. ‘Perhaps that was what Agnew was trying to tell me.’
Jimmy Perez shot her a look, but he didn’t reply directly. ‘We need to get one of these men to talk. Any idea who’d be willing to speak to us, Sandy?’
‘I can’t see even the single guys who come from the islands wanting to admit that they’ve been using a prostitute.’ He felt himself blushing just at the thought of it. He wouldn’t want to interview any of them. ‘Maybe you’re best targeting the oilies.’