‘When I found out that Simon Agnew had been in touch with Rogerson, I went back over the details of the earlier investigation. He was the only person who’d described Alison Teal as depressed and desperate. Every other witness had said the woman was cheerful in the days before her death. She’d bought a bottle of champagne. Whatever we might think of Alison’s business venture with Rogerson, it was doing well. She was making plans for the future. But why would Simon Agnew lie about Alison’s visit to the Befriending Shetland centre in Lerwick? The only reason I could think of was that he was the killer.’
‘That’s a big step to make.’
‘Which is why I wanted to talk to him. I couldn’t believe it. Even when I spoke to Jono and he described Agnew as one of Alison’s rich junkie boyfriends. They ended up in rehab together; Agnew got clean. He already had a first degree in psychology and went on to do a PhD in addiction studies. That’s why he could understand Jane Hay so well. It seemed an odd sort of friendship because they’re from such different backgrounds, but he knew what she needed.’
‘You should have told us what you were doing.’
She paused before answering. ‘I tried to phone you, Jimmy. I thought you might be avoiding my calls.’
The silence lengthened while he struggled to find the right words to apologize or explain. In the end she rescued him and went on with her own explanation.
‘We knew that Alison’s parents were addicts and that she’d had her own problems. One of the articles we read about her disappearance talked about the possibility that she’d gone back into rehab. That suggested she’d tried rehab before. That was when she was knocking around with Simon Agnew. He was much older than her, but rather glamorous then. From a smart family, famous for his exploration and his partying. And maybe she was looking for a father figure. When we were thinking about the murders, we talked a bit about shame as a motivating factor. It occurred to me that Agnew might have a past that he was ashamed of. He was happy to admit to a rackety past as an adventurer. But not as a heroin addict, who’d turned his back on his children and stolen from his wife to feed his habit.’ Willow looked at Perez. ‘Those last details only came through to my phone a few minutes ago. He’d become a psychologist, helping other people with their problems, settled and happy in Shetland. A pillar of the community. He’d be the last person who’d want that past to come back to haunt him.’
‘Did he know that Alison came to Shetland to escape her problems?’
‘I think that was a coincidence. They’d lost touch by the time she ran away from her life as an actress in a popular drama. She must have been a very young woman when he first knew her. And very lovely, of course.’ Willow hesitated. ‘I found the same self-help book in his office as the one we found in Teal’s room. It was probably standard issue at the clinic they both attended.’
Willow was thawing out a little now, engrossed in her story. ‘So Simon becomes respectable and invents a past for himself. An ex-wife who couldn’t cope with his energy and his passions. No kids. He did work as a psychologist in a teaching hospital and briefly as an academic, but he exaggerated his success in those fields. He loved Shetland. People admired him. But then Alison turned up, almost on his doorstep, wanting to take advantage of all the single men in the floatels and the workers’ hotels.’
‘Setting up in business with her old pal Tom Rogerson.’ Perez supposed he should be taking notes, but this was never going to be a formal interview. There would be time for that later.
‘Then Alison and Agnew met up somehow. By chance. Or perhaps Andy Hay mentioned one to the other. Agnew had always got on with the boy.’
‘And Alison saw another business opportunity.’ Perez saw now how neat this was, how it all hung together perfectly.
‘You think she was blackmailing Agnew?’ Willow had finished her whisky, but set her glass on the floor without asking for more.
‘Don’t you?’
‘I think it might have been more subtle than that. More complicated. Alison wanted friendship, some kind of recognition. They’d been lovers, remember. Perhaps Simon Agnew was determined to put his old life behind him. In his mind, the bad stuff never happened. Or at least wasn’t his fault.’
Perez supposed he could understand that. ‘Then Alison turned up at the Befriending Shetland office. An attempt to renew the relationship. Or demand money from him.’ He still believed blackmail was a more plausible motive.
‘And later Simon went to Tain and killed her. Perhaps he’d convinced her that they had a future together. She dressed up for him and cooked him a meal. He was worried that someone had seen Alison coming into his office in Lerwick, so he had to make up an excuse for her being there. Alison was still calling herself Alissandra Sechrest, so Agnew used that name when he described the distraught woman coming in out of the rain.’
‘What about Tom Rogerson?’
‘Simon believed that Alison had talked to Tom about him,’ Willow said. ‘Tom had been in contact with Alison since they’d first met at the Ravenswick Hotel. The note we found in her house was cementing the business partnership and he suggested that she used Sandy Sechrest’s identity to get to the island. Alison Teal’s discovery here, fifteen years ago, was a big deal and Tom worried that the name might be recognized.’
‘So Tom had to die?’ Perez thought Agnew had always been reckless and a risk-taker. He’d gambled that no connection would be found between him and the two victims.
‘Simon had served with Tom on island committees and knew Rogerson would delight in making mischief. Simon phoned him and arranged to meet him. He probably said that he knew something about Alison’s death. That would have intrigued Tom. Worried him. He wouldn’t have wanted his relationship with Alison being general knowledge in the islands. Agnew picked him up at the airport and drove him to the manse, took him for a walk so that they could talk things through. He’s always been one for exercise. He used to swim from the beach where Rogerson’s body was found.’
‘But it wasn’t so healthy for Tom.’ It was Perez’s attempt at flippancy, but he was thinking that Fran had swum from that beach too. He was wondering if she’d ever been there with Agnew.
‘That’s one way of putting it. Agnew left the body there, perhaps hoping that a high tide or a strong gale would take it away. But the weather calmed and Kevin Hay found it.’
‘Agnew would have got away with double murder, if you weren’t such a good detective.’
‘Like I said, that was all down to Sandy working his magic with the witness at the airport.’ Willow unwound the towel around her head and shook her hair loose. ‘I saw Agnew, you know, this evening. He was jogging along the road. I thought he’d be in his car and that I’d have some warning of his return. And of course he left his door unlocked – he wasn’t scared of a killer in the dark. If I hadn’t been so stupid, he would never have caught me.’
‘Would you like coffee?’ Perez wanted Willow to change the subject, not to think beyond the point when Agnew had found her in the office at the manse.
‘I want sleep,’ she said.
‘Use my bed. I’ll stay here on the sofa.’
‘Nah, come in with me.’ A grin that made him see she was stronger than he’d ever be. ‘I won’t make unreasonable demands, Jimmy. I’m not up to that tonight. And no strings. But I could use the company.’
He lay beside her and slept fitfully. She hardly stirred. The next morning he made sure he was up and dressed before Cassie was awake, and he had an excuse prepared for Willow being in his bed.