He walked more slowly. There was no vehicle parked at the end of the short track. Whoever was inside Tain had walked, like him. The light was in the space that had once been the bedroom and was still relatively intact. Perez slid closer, then moved round to the side of the house that faced the sea, treading carefully because there was still debris underfoot, shattered crockery and smashed furniture. There was no glass in the window here and he could hear at once that there were two people inside. This was a conversation between a man and a woman.
‘You haven’t been staying here?’ Jane Hay’s voice was strained and tense, but she was reining in her emotions and trying to keep calm. ‘What’s been going on?’
Perez shifted position so that he could see inside. The mother and son were standing, uplit by a candle which had been stuck onto a saucer and placed on a plain wooden chair. Jane had a torch in her hand, but that had been switched off.
‘No,’ Andy said. ‘I haven’t been staying here.’ He seemed lost inside a big parka, and in the candlelight looked even thinner than Perez remembered. Skeletal. Perez could see the bones in the boy’s face and in the long fingers that never seemed to rest. The piercings near his eyebrow glittered. ‘I told you. I was staying with a friend.’
‘Why didn’t you come and see me at home tonight?’ She was trying not to sound accusing, but the words came out as a cry. ‘Why all this drama and mystery?’
There was a moment of silence. Because he’s a young man, Perez thought. And because he’s always been attracted to melodrama.
‘I couldn’t face Dad.’ Andy looked directly at her. ‘I needed to talk to you first.’
‘Your father isn’t even at home.’ She was growing impatient now. ‘He took Jimmy Perez and his daughter home and then went straight to the Henderson house to watch the footie. There’s a Scotland game.’
The ordinary, banal words seemed almost to offend Andy. Perez thought again that he preferred the tension and the high drama.
‘So why don’t we just go back to Gilsetter?’ Jane went on. ‘You can explain everything to me in the warm.’
‘I used to come here.’
‘I know you used to come here. You came with me to see Minnie Laurenson. She had a tin of toffees and home-made fudge and she told you stories.’ Perez saw that Jane was smiling. It was probably easier for her to think of Andy as a small boy, eager to please. She didn’t know what to make of the angry young man.
‘No!’ He sounded frustrated now. ‘I mean I came to Tain recently. While Alis was living here.’
‘Alis?’
‘Alison,’ he said. ‘Alison Teal.’
Of course. Perez should have known all along. Kevin Hay hadn’t been Alison’s client. The regular visitor to Tain, paying Tom Rogerson with his father’s stolen debit card, had been Andy. Not Kevin. Andy, the boy teased for his lack of sexual experience and his attraction to older women, would have been easy prey. Hay must have guessed why the payment had been made in his name and was protecting his son. Perhaps he believed that Andy had killed the woman. And perhaps, Perez thought as the idea chased around his head, perhaps that made sense.
Jane seemed to be following the same logic. ‘Did you kill the woman?’
‘No!’ The boy was screaming. ‘I loved her.’
Again there was a moment of silence.
‘She was a prostitute,’ Jane said. ‘You do know that?’
And how did you know? A wild guess? Been listening to the same rumours as Craig Henderson? Or did Kevin tell you?
‘Of course I knew. She wouldn’t have had sex with someone like me if I hadn’t paid her. But it didn’t matter. She made me happy.’ He looked round the filthy room. ‘She made this place seem special. And she did like me.’ A pause. ‘I brought her a kitten from the farm to keep her company. She was going to cook me a meal on Valentine’s Day.’
‘Did your father know what you were up to?’ The woman’s voice was even now.
‘Not at the time.’ The boy’s bony fingers continued to move. Perez couldn’t stop staring at them, flexing and twisting as if they had a life of their own. ‘I think he followed me down one night, but he couldn’t see what was going on. He worked it out later, when the police started asking about the money.’
‘So after they were both dead?’
‘Of course after they were dead!’ Andy was howling now. ‘You can’t think Dad would commit murder?’
‘Of course not.’ But Perez could tell that the woman had considered the possibility. ‘Where have you been staying, Andy?’ Her voice was quiet. ‘Where have you been running away to, the nights you didn’t come home?’
For a moment Perez thought the boy would refuse to answer, that like a petulant child he would stand in the flickering candlelight with his mouth clamped shut. But Andy shrugged and began to speak. The answer wasn’t unexpected, but it triggered a shift in perception for Perez, an entirely new way of looking at the investigation. He remembered why the bad weather on the day of Rogerson’s disappearance was so important. He moved away from his hiding place and through the hole in the wall where once the back door had been.
Jane and Andy stared at him in horror, as if he was an apparition, and then they both began to speak at once. At the same time he must have chanced upon a patch of mobile reception, because his phone started to go wild with electronic sound.
Chapter Forty-Five
Willow drove south out of Lerwick. The roads were quieter now and she scarcely passed any traffic. There was a light in Jimmy Perez’s house and she was tempted to stop, but after a moment’s hesitation she continued on her way. He might have personal reasons for not answering her calls, and she had too much pride to turn up unannounced on his doorstep. She slowed down to avoid a jogger in a high-vis jacket running north. Willow wondered at the dedication that drove people to exercise in weather like this and at this time of night. She checked the clock on the hire-car dashboard. It was only seven. Not so late after all, although it had been dark for hours.
The building appeared before she was quite expecting it. Her headlights swept across it and it appeared as a solid black shadow. She had decided against a clandestine approach. She wouldn’t be able to hide the car and, besides, she was only here to ask questions. There was no need to make a big issue of the visit. The building was unlit, as far as she could see. Perhaps she’d misjudged her timing and had made her dramatic chase south for nothing. She could have called ahead and saved herself a wasted journey. All the same, she got out of the car and knocked at the door. Silence. She turned the handle and it opened. That struck her as odd. Shetlanders might not usually lock the doors even of their work places, but there had been two murders within a few miles of this place.
‘Hello! Anyone at home?’
She walked further inside. It had the air of a place that had been left recently. There was a kettle, warm to the touch. In the office a file left open on the desk, and the PC on standby. The occupier could be home any minute, but Willow thought she would have some warning. There hadn’t been a car parked outside and she’d see the headlights coming down the track, hear the engine noise. The office faced out towards the road. Willow would have time to move back to the other room and pretend that she was just waiting out of the weather. She’d left on the hall light and could see well enough just from that. A light in the office would show that she’d been snooping.