‘I’d like to talk about the time your sister disappeared, Jono. Could you cast your mind back to then?’ A pause. ‘It was a while ago, I know, but let’s go through the details again.’
A mumbled response.
‘Anything – however trivial – might help us find Alison’s killer. You do want to do that?’
‘Of course.’
‘It was 2002: you in the army, Britney Spears at the top of the charts. Alison at the height of her fame in that drama on TV.’
‘I remember like it was yesterday. Good times.’
‘Brilliant, Jono!’ Willow felt as if she’d caught him now. In his mind he was fifteen years younger, still with a purpose and a famous sister. Contacts and parties when he was home on leave. ‘What might have happened, do you think, to make Alison run away and give it all up?’
‘She was pretty messed up.’
‘Man trouble?’
‘Oh, she could never keep a decent man. Always wanted more than they could give. And she never took to the good ones. It was always the losers, the druggies and the wasters. The older ones who reminded her of Dad. Or the exciting ones who promised her the world.’
Willow was about to ask another question when Jono spoke again, and she could tell that he was back with his sister, sharing the glamour and the heartache. The stories spilled out. Details he’d probably forgotten for years. Names and places and the parties they’d been to, the meals they’d eaten. No need for Willow to ask leading questions, to tease out the facts. The recorded conversation might be used in a future court case, so she had to be careful. All the same, she felt in total control of the exchange.
Twenty minutes later Sandy knocked quietly and looked in, but seeing that she was still talking, he went away again. At last, when she could think of nothing else to ask and the man at the end of the line had fallen silent, she thanked Teal and told him they were done. The assistant governor came onto the line again.
‘I hope that was useful.’
She assumed he’d been in the room all the time, listening in. ‘Terrifically. All confidential at this stage, of course.’
‘Oh, absolutely. You can trust me.’
‘I’m sure that I can.’
There was a pause. Willow was impatient to end the call so that she could consider the implications of the conversation with Teal, but the man spoke again.
‘Perhaps we could meet up next time I’m in Shetland.’ He sounded nervous, almost as if he was inviting her out on a date. Perhaps he was. She imagined it would be hard to meet many women in his profession, and birdwatching seemed to be a predominantly male activity.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I probably won’t be here when you next visit. I don’t actually belong here.’ Replacing the receiver, she thought that was true. Whatever Jimmy Perez decided, she would never truly belong in Shetland.
She found Sandy in the ops room, staring out of the window down at the street below. The traffic was heavy; it was just after five and this was the nearest Lerwick got to a rush hour. The rain made everything look slick and shiny in the headlights. He turned back to face her. ‘Well?’
‘Listen to the call yourself. I want to know what you think.’ She paused and came to a sudden decision. ‘I’m going out. I’ve just tried to get Jimmy on the phone, but there’s no reply: no reception on his mobile and he’s not answering the landline in his house. He was picking up Cassie from school, but he should be home by now.’
‘So you’re going south?’
‘Yes,’ she said, already almost out of the room. ‘I’m going south.’
Chapter Forty-Four
Kevin Hay dropped Perez and Cassie right outside their door. He’d talked Cassie through the vehicle’s controls and let her switch on the indicators on the drive back from Gilsetter. She was squeezed between the two men on the front bench seat and Perez didn’t speak at all. There was no mention of the murders until the Land Rover had stopped and Kevin had let Cassie out of the driver’s door to run inside. Then the two men were alone, standing in the drizzle on either side of the van.
‘I wasn’t very civil last time we met, Jimmy. I’m sorry.’
‘No problem. It’s a stressful time for everyone.’ Perez was in a hurry to join Cassie; he didn’t like her being alone even for a few minutes, and this was no place for a useful conversation. ‘Thanks for the lift.’ He turned away to walk to the house.
‘Jimmy!’ Perez looked back and Kevin Hay continued, ‘These killings have nothing to do with my family. We all make mistakes, but we’re good people.’
Perez wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he just raised his hand in farewell. Inside, he saw there were missed calls from Willow on his mobile and his landline, but when he tried to call her there was no reply. He felt a moment of relief. He still wasn’t sure what he would tell her. Perhaps they could work out a compromise, a way of staying close without disrupting Cassie’s life. But he thought Willow wasn’t a woman who would be comfortable with compromise. Besides, he wanted more than that.
He made scrambled eggs for Cassie’s supper and then realized he was hungry and made more for himself. The dark outside was dense now, the remaining daylight had long gone and there was no moon. But still he stared out of the window down the valley towards Tain and Gilsetter. Partly because it was what he’d been doing all day and had become a habit, partly out of a kind of superstition. If he stopped looking, something dreadful might happen. The cluster of lights must come from Gilsetter, from the polytunnels and the house itself. They were familiar, a part of the night-time landscape. He wondered what was happening there, pictured Jane and Kevin at the kitchen table, discussing the case. Making plans. Inventing excuses for themselves or their sons.
He dragged his attention back to the child, bathed her and prepared her for bed. Cassie seemed to pick up on his mood and was quiet and a little subdued, making no protest when he said it was time for her to go to sleep. He went back to his seat by the window and noticed that it was still raining. He could hear that the ditch running past the house where Magnus Tait had once lived was full. It crossed his mind that perhaps he and Cassie should move away for a while and stay with friends in Lerwick, in case the hill was still unstable and likely to slide again. But he couldn’t bear the thought of the disruption to both their routines.
When he was sure Cassie was asleep he went outside to put rubbish in the bin by the track. The lights in Gilsetter remained, but now there was another light a little way to the south. At first Perez thought it might come from a stationary car on the main road, but it wasn’t a usual place for a vehicle to park. The light taunted him. He couldn’t ignore it and kept staring, trying to fix it in his mental map. It didn’t shift. He went back inside and phoned Willow again and still there was no response. On impulse he picked up the phone once more and called Maggie, the friend who usually cared for Cassie after school.
‘Sorry to be a pain, but is there any chance you could babysit? It’s a work thing. I shouldn’t be long, and Cassie’s in bed.’
‘No bother, Jimmy, and be as long as you like. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ Her voice was comforting and normal and made him believe he was overreacting.
By the time Maggie had arrived, though, he’d convinced himself that the light was in Tain. Where else could it be? There were no other houses in that part of Ravenswick. The only other building was the manse, and that was east of Gilsetter. The school was further north. When his neighbour tapped at the door, he had his boots and waterproofs on and his car keys in his hand. Outside, he changed his mind about driving. It was only quarter of an hour’s walk down the hill and he didn’t want to warn whoever was in the ruined croft of his presence.
It was muggy and unseasonably mild. The low cloud seemed to hold in the smoke from the settlement’s open fires and the smell of peat mixed with the compost scent of damp vegetation. He almost ran down the bank to the road, crossed it and looked over the valley towards the coast. His eyes had adjusted to the murk. Occasionally cars passed behind him. The Gilsetter lights were clear from here and spilled outside onto the sycamores that surrounded Tain. The trees were bare now and Perez could see quite clearly that there was a light inside the ruins. Not the same constant brightness of the glow in Gilsetter, but uneven, flickering. A candle or a torch.