‘And the woman?’ Perez said again. ‘What can you tell me about her?’
‘She was middle-aged. Smart. It looked as if it could be a work meeting. She was dressed for work, you know. Skirt and jacket. But that’s not so unusual. People do arrange to meet here to discuss business. It’s central. I thought she might have something to do with the gas. There are lots of strange faces around now.’ Brian seemed to enjoy seeing himself on the side of law and order.
‘Would you know Rhona Laing, if you saw her?’
‘Who?’
‘The Procurator Fiscal. She comes here for coffee, I’m told.’
Brian shook his head. ‘Sorry, Jimmy. There are lots of people who come in for coffee. I don’t know them all.’
Perez pulled a newspaper cutting from his pocket. A piece from the Shetland Times. He wasn’t sure why he’d kept it. To show Cassie when she was old enough and had questions about her mother’s death. It was the report on Fran’s murder, and Rhona Laing had made a statement. There was a photo to go with it. ‘This is her,’ he said. ‘Was this the woman who was with Jerry Markham the day he died?’
Brian put the paper on the counter and smoothed it. Perez hoped he wouldn’t comment on the content of the story. He didn’t need this man’s sympathy, didn’t think he could bear it. He would have to walk away or he might lash out. Pick up his coffee mug and hurl it against the wall. But Brian was focused on the task in hand. He narrowed his eyes and stared at the slightly grainy picture. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘She looks familiar, but if she comes in anyway… Sorry, Jimmy. I can’t be sure.’
‘That’s great,’ Perez said. ‘Really. You don’t know how many people pretend or stretch the truth because they’re so eager to help. Better to be straight.’
For almost the first time since he’d known the man Brian smiled. Perez pulled a couple of coins from his pocket to pay for the coffee, but Brian waved them away.
In the car Perez was tempted to reread the Shetland Times article about Fran. He knew it almost off by heart, but still he was tempted. Instead he put it back in his pocket. He took out his phone and looked at it for a long time before calling the neighbour who’d offered to look after Cassie for him.
‘Sure,’ she said when he asked if Cassie might go to her house to play after school.
‘It might be late. I’m planning a trip to Fetlar and I haven’t checked ferry times.’
‘Look, it’ll be fine.’ A pause. ‘She wanted to come before, you know, but she said you might be lonely. Why doesn’t she come for a sleepover? Then you’ll not have to rush back.’
He drove north very fast, thinking all the time about Cassie and what his neighbour, Maggie, had said. What a self-centred oaf he’d been! It wasn’t Cassie’s place to care for him. He thought he needed to lighten up when she was around, bring more laughter into the house. Put on more of a show.
Having made the decision to travel to Fetlar, he hated the idea that he might just miss a ferry. As he drove into Toft the Yell boat was in, and his was the last car on board. It seemed like a sign. In Yell he had time for a bacon sandwich in the Wind Dog cafe before the ferry to Fetlar arrived. He wondered what he was doing here. What was it all about, this hunger? This sudden need for action? He decided it was some sort of escape. He’d spent too long in that small house in Ravenswick. And he needed information to give to Willow Reeves. The desperation was the result of pride, or something like it. All he had yet was the fact that Markham had turned down his mother’s loan. That seemed a big deal to Perez, but what did it mean? That Markham had suddenly become a more responsible man? Or that he’d discovered another form of income? And there was the secret that Markham had promised to share with his mother on the night of his death. Was that relevant or just one of Maria’s fancies, a way of feeling closer to her dead son?
It was a couple of years since he’d been to Fetlar. The trip had been part of his courtship of Fran. She’d had a friend from the south to stay, and Perez had taken them both to see the breeding red-necked phalaropes on the loch there. Then it had been sunny and there’d been a promise of better times, a burning realization that this woman was special. Why was I so cautious? She’d have married me sooner. And he remembered what Evie had said about John Henderson. About him being a gentleman and not rushing her.
There was no sign from the road to show where Francis Watt had his boat-building business. Perez found it in a big shed beside a low white croft-house. The shed had windows at one end to let in the natural light and the view of a sweep of white sand, curving so that the bay formed the best part of a circle. It was a beautiful spot and he could see why Evie would be attracted to stay on the islands after growing up here. Perez had left his car on the road and walked up the track, buffeted by the wind and enjoying the exercise. In a small field beyond the house someone was working, bent double, planting tatties, but too far away to hear when Perez shouted, so he’d knocked at the door of the house and, when there was no reply, he’d wandered across the yard to the shed.
He heard the sound before he reached it. Metal on metal, regular and explosive. Through the open door Perez saw a yoal, almost finished, its keel held in a clamp, the curved sides regular and perfectly symmetrical. A work of art. A sculpture. The floor was scattered with wood shavings and sawdust and the smell of wood filled the place. At the far end of the shed stood a pile of planks, stacked so that the air could move through them. A middle-aged man, dressed in a fisherman’s smock, was hammering grooved copper nails into the overlapping planks, the fit so tight that they’d be watertight. He was bending into the hull and it looked like awkward, back-breaking work. Perez waited until the man straightened. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you.’ He felt that Francis Watt was like an artist who needed to concentrate on his craft.
Watt squinted against the light. ‘How can I help?’
‘Jimmy Perez. I’m here about Jerry Markham.’
‘Ah, Jimmy.’ The voice serious. The man was remembering that Jimmy had been bereaved, and for the second time that day Perez hoped there would be no mention of Fran.
‘Sorry about the noise,’ Francis said. ‘The clinking. Jessie hates it. She says she can hear the vibration even inside the house.’
‘Worth it,’ Perez said, ‘to make a boat like that.’
Watt nodded to acknowledge the compliment and smiled. ‘Come away into the kitchen. I’m ready for tea, and Jessie will be in soon too.’
The kitchen was cluttered and comfortable. A Rayburn with a basket of peat beside it, a scrubbed table under the window and a battered sofa against one wall. Francis cleared a pile of plans and drawings from the sofa so that his visitor could sit down.
‘I’ve read your column in the Shetland Times,’ Perez said. ‘You have very strong views.’
‘I think we’ve become too used to an easy life,’ Francis said. ‘It’s made us greedy. Uncaring.’ He gave a quick grin. ‘I’m not popular for saying those things.’
He put a kettle on the range and took a cake tin from a shelf. Inside home-made date slices. No shop-bought biscuits here.
‘Do you have strong views about tidal power?’
‘It’s one of the few things my daughter Evie and I argue about,’ he said. ‘It’s fine to make Shetland self-sufficient in energy, but I have no interest in exporting it. I abhor that big new wind farm, hate driving past it on my way to Lerwick. There are too many people with vested interests here who hope to make their fortunes. There hasn’t been a development in Shetland that hasn’t had corruption at the heart of it. My Evie’s honest as the day is long, but I’m worried that the taint of greed will stick to her too.’