‘Did you see anything unusual? Any strange car on the track?’
Sandy thought Sue was about to answer, but Mark got in before her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing like that.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
When they met up in the operations room it was already starting to get dark. At Hvidahus they’d have set bright lights shining into the garage to conduct a proper search. Vicki Hewitt and her colleagues would be there, and the place would be taped off. The organized buzz of a crime-scene investigation. James Grieve, the pathologist, had been called back from Aberdeen. He’d sounded relieved that he’d missed the last plane in and he’d have one night at home. Willow had the impression that Shetland wasn’t his favourite place in the world.
‘Do me a favour, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Find this killer quickly.’
At least now they were working there without an audience. By morning maybe sightseers would turn up. They’d be pretending to walk a dog, or to hike along the coast path, but they’d be there for a ghoulish glimpse of blood, to watch the police at work.
In the police station they’d set up a conference link with Inverness, but the boss listened to what was going on without saying much. How could he grasp what was happening in the most northerly place in his patch? He only visited a few times a year for meetings and official functions and seldom ventured far from Lerwick. Willow soon forgot about him and focused on the people in the room. On the whiteboard there were more photos and there was a new name at the centre.
‘John Henderson,’ she said. ‘Widower, skipper of the oil-terminal tugs, voluntary youth worker and all-round saint. Apparently. And fiancé of Evie Watt, whose former lover just happens to be Jerry Markham. So what’s going on here?’ A pause. She turned to Sandy, who was sitting on a desk at the back of the room. ‘You broke the news to Evie. How did she seem?’
‘She was calm enough,’ Sandy said. ‘But so tense you have the feeling that she could snap at any time.’
‘Could she have killed him?’ Willow asked the whole gathering. ‘I mean, I know it sounds mad, but she’s the only link.’
‘She doesn’t have an alibi for early this morning.’ Sandy spoke again. ‘From eleven she was out on a site visit, checking out the place up north where she thought the tidal-energy plant might work. She was onsite with two witnesses, but she has no alibi before that.’ He paused. ‘The witnesses were Joe Sinclair and Ms Laing.’
‘What the hell would the Fiscal know about water power?’ Willow thought the woman was all over this case like a rash, but it seemed there was no way to pin her down.
‘Apparently she was a member of the working party. Some sort of legal advisor?’
Perez had been quite still and quiet throughout the preparation to the meeting and sat a little apart. There was coffee on the desk in front of him. Now he raised his hand. Willow nodded across to him.
‘But Evie’s not the only link between the two men, is she?’ His voice was very low, so they had to concentrate to hear the words.
‘Tell us what you’re thinking, Jimmy.’ Willow leaned back against the desk and waited.
‘Jerry Markham seems to have been planning a story around Shetland’s energy. He asked his father to set up a meeting for him at Sullom, and he’d agreed to attend the action meeting called by the Walshes. He was sniffing around about the new gas terminal. And John Henderson worked as a pilot on the oil tankers. Another link. Not so personal. But more likely maybe than Evie Watt disposing of her men like a black-widow spider.’ He paused. ‘Maria Markham said he was working on something secret and he was planning to tell them the night that he died.’
‘So we’re back to Jerry Markham’s story,’ Willow said. ‘The one that was going to make his fortune. Except, according to his editor, there was no story.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that too.’ Perez was still tentative. It was as if, after standing up to her earlier in the afternoon, he didn’t want to come across as pushy or to undermine her further. She wanted to tell him to get over it – she wasn’t the sort to feel threatened by a colleague. But part of her still resented the fact that he was the one coming up with the new ideas.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘What if the story wasn’t for publication, if he was researching for quite a different reason?’
‘Like?’
‘I did wonder,’ Perez said slowly, ‘about blackmail.’
As soon as the word was spoken it seemed so obvious that Willow was astonished, horrified that it hadn’t occurred to her. How had she ever thought she could do well at this business? Markham was a greedy man and he’d thought he could squeeze money from former contacts. But still she kept her voice even and didn’t let on what she was thinking. Years of practice, when the Uist kids laughed at her hippy clothes and called her names. ‘Well, yes, Jimmy. Of course that does make sense. So who was blackmailing whom here? And how does John Henderson fit in?’
Perez leaned forward now, joining in the circle, less of an outsider looking in. ‘As I see it – ’ his voice was hesitant and still so quiet that she struggled to make out the words – ‘Markham was the blackmailer. His blackmail victim was the killer. And Henderson guessed what was going on. Or was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was driving past, maybe, when Markham’s car was forced off the road.’
‘That holds together,’ she said. ‘It works as a theory, for the moment at least.’ She looked at the group. ‘But we won’t get seduced by it, huh? We’ll keep open minds until we get more evidence. That OK with you, Jimmy?’
He nodded and gave her that reluctant, out-of-practice smile. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I would say just the same myself.’
On the whiteboard she wrote Blackmail? Then: Who and why? What was the story? ‘So what was the blackmail about? Something to do with Sullom Voe, Jimmy? Is that the way your mind’s working?’
‘Maybe,’ Perez said. ‘Or maybe something to do with the tidal energy. Why else would he agree to go to the meeting at Vatnagarth? It might explain why Markham was so keen to talk to Evie when he was home this time.’
There was a moment of silence and then she turned to Sandy. ‘Was Evie planning to go home tonight?’
‘Her parents came to collect her,’ Sandy said. ‘They’re taking her back to her house for tonight, then home with them on the first ferry tomorrow.’
‘I talked to her parents earlier,’ Perez said. ‘Jessie and Francis. That’s what I was doing in Fetlar. That’s where they live.’
‘And why did you feel the need to do that, Jimmy?’ She heard the sharpness in her voice and didn’t care.
‘To get a handle on Evie Watt and Henderson,’ he said. Answering the question, refusing to acknowledge her anger. ‘To find out what they made of the marriage.’
‘And what did they make of it?’
‘They seemed happy enough. Henderson had been a friend. There was the age difference, but they thought he was a good man.’
‘You can tell me all about it in the car,’ she said suddenly, ‘on the way to Evie Watt’s house. I’d like to speak to her myself.’ She didn’t want this conversation in public. She sensed Perez’s hesitation. ‘That is all right with you, Jimmy? No childcare problems tonight?’
She thought she was being a bitch, but it was too late to take back the words. Jimmy picked up his jacket. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Cassie’s having a sleepover with a friend. No childcare problems tonight.’
Willow let Perez drive and still hadn’t found the words to confront him when they were out of Lerwick and on the way north. In the end he was the one who broke the silence.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have headed out to Fetlar to speak to Evie’s parents without talking to you first. It was wrong.’ A pause. ‘Rude.’