Jen poured coffee. She seemed in no rush to get back to the kitchen. Sandy thought she was one of those competent women who could knock up a good meal in about ten minutes, and who was never flustered.
‘The bus picked us all up in our homes,’ she said. ‘Evie first, and then the rest of us. We started drinking in the Busta House hotel in Brae. We thought we’d better start there because it’s kind of grand and, though Veronica had said it was OK, we didn’t want to seem rowdy in front of their guests. So we just had the one drink, rattling the collecting bucket round the bar, and most of us were still quite sober.’
Perez nodded. ‘And you were all dressed up in pairs?’
‘Aye! Crazy!’
‘How was Evie?’
And it seemed to Sandy that this was the important question and that the others had been to get Jen relaxed and ready to answer.
There was a pause.
‘Was Evie quite herself?’ Perez persisted. ‘Only I heard that she got very drunk, and I wouldn’t have thought that was in character.’
‘It was a pub-crawl,’ the woman said. ‘Of course she got drunk!’
‘But she organized it.’ Perez’s voice was reasonable. ‘I’d have thought she’d have paced it so that she didn’t overdo things. Or had someone thought it would be funny to spike her drinks?’
And that was when Jen started talking, the words spilling out despite herself, as if they’d been building up for days and now some kind of dam had burst. A mixture of relief to be sharing the worry, and guilt that she was betraying her friend. ‘I don’t know what came over her. I think she’d been drinking in the afternoon. I asked if she’d been out with her mates at the office, but she said not. She was wild. I’d never seen her like that before, and I’ve known her for years. She was drinking vodka and she never usually touches spirits. The others thought it was funny. Evie’s usually the one telling us to slow down. But I didn’t like it. I stopped drinking after a bit, so that I could look after her.’
‘Why do you think she was behaving so unusually?’ Perez gave an encouraging smile. ‘Last-minute nerves, do you think, before the wedding?’
Jen shook her head. ‘She’d been besotted with that man from the first date. She’s always wanted to marry him. No second thoughts there. And who could blame her? He was a lovely man.’
‘Any idea then? You must have asked her.’
‘Well, it wasn’t exactly an ideal situation for a heart-to-heart. A bunch of lasses singing filthy songs in the back of the bus, and Evie threatening to throw up every five minutes.’
‘But maybe you had some idea?’
‘Jerry Markham was back,’ Jen said. ‘That was what had really freaked her out.’ She looked at them. ‘You know he got her pregnant when she was a kid?’
‘Had she met him?’ Perez asked. ‘Is that why she was so upset? Had he tracked her down at work? Bumped into her by chance?’
The woman shook her head. ‘I have no idea! By the time I’d got that much out of her she was so drunk that she was making no sense at all. I mean, slurring her words and hardly able to stand. You asked if anyone was spiking her drinks. It was the other way round. I was buying her tonic water and telling her there was vodka in it.’
‘So what exactly did Evie say about Jerry,’ Perez asked. ‘If you could remember word-for-word, Mrs Belshaw, it would be brilliant.’ That smile again, which made the recipient feel as if they were the most important person in the world.
‘Oh, I can remember word-for-word.’ Jen gave an embarrassed, little laugh. ‘“Fucking Jerry Markham!” That’s what she said – over and over again. I’d never heard her swear before. It was shocking. Like hearing your grandma cursing. Or the minister.’
‘But no more detail?’ Perez said. ‘Nothing more than that?’
Jen shook her head.
‘Can I take you back to the events of that evening then,’ he said, as if Evie’s state of mind was of minor importance and he wanted to return to the main reason for their being there. ‘Where did you head for after the Busta House? And it would be very helpful, please, if you could give us the timings for that.’ Sandy thought he sounded like the person at headquarters who checked their expense sheets, a very boring little man called Eric, who only cared about the detail. Perez made Sandy write everything down and then read it back to Jen. He asked more than once about the red Alfa Romeo.
‘I’ve already told you that I didn’t see it,’ she said. ‘I know it ended up in the car park at Vatnagarth, but beyond that, I know nothing about it. We were in the bars for a lot of the time. It could have driven down the road while we were inside and we would never have noticed.’
An electronic bell rang then, and it was so loud that it made Sandy jump in his seat. They heard the children running out into the playground for their break.
‘My God, is that the time?’ Jen got to her feet. Sandy thought she was glad of an excuse to get away from them, and he couldn’t blame her. ‘I’ll never get that pie cooked by dinnertime if I don’t go now.’ And she ran out of the room, leaving them to find their own way to the car park.
They sat in the car outside the school for what seemed like an age – Jimmy Perez staring ahead, although there was nothing to see except a brick wall. Sandy shuffled in his seat. Maybe he should just drive off back to Lerwick. He didn’t like to disturb Perez when he was lost in thought. At last he couldn’t bear the silence any longer and was forced to speak.
‘Which way then, boss?’
And Perez turned slowly to look at him, kind of surprised, like some sort of animal waking up after hibernation. A bear, Sandy thought. With all that shaggy black hair, he could be a bear.
‘Let’s head up towards Sullom Voe,’ Perez said. ‘I’ve had a bit of an idea and I want to get a feel for the lie of the land again. But we’ll stop at the Old Schoolhouse on the way through, just in case the Fiscal’s at home.’
Rhona Laing’s car was still not parked outside her house, but Perez asked Sandy to pull in anyway. Sandy waited in the vehicle while Perez went up to the front door. He banged hard, but there was obviously no reply. Perez walked round the garden, looking through all the downstairs windows, and at last emerged from the other side of the house and came back to the car. ‘It all looks tidy enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll give her a ring at work when we get back to the station.’
Just as he was about to drive off Sandy looked back towards the house. For a moment he thought he saw a shadow at an upstairs window, a curtain moving. But the window was open, and it must have been the breeze blowing the fine cloth. He was imagining things. He didn’t say anything. The inspector thought he was stupid enough as it was.
They drove through Brae and took the road that ran along the side of Sullom Voe and would eventually end up at Toft and the North Isles ferry. Before they reached the terminal Perez asked him to turn off towards Scatsta Airport. Sandy had never driven down here before; all the traffic at Scatsta was oil-related, so there was no reason to. A helicopter took off and hovered for a moment before heading out towards the North Sea and the rigs. They seemed very close to the aircraft and surrounded by the noise. Sandy thought he could feel the power of the rotor blades rocking the car.
‘Down there.’
It was a track and beside it an old sign, reading ‘Authorized vehicles only’. There was no gate blocking the way, though, and it led to the end of a low headland that jutted out into the water. The area was covered with flat sheets of concrete, so it looked as if buildings had once been there and only the floors were left. Now the concrete was cracked, and weeds and even little bushes had pushed their way through. Sandy parked so that they were facing north.
‘I think this was a military station during the war. Air-force, I suppose.’ Still Perez sat, looking across the water to the oil terminal, the tanks and the flare, and to the lorries that carried rock over the newly constructed road to the gas plant. ‘I suppose they flattened it when there was no further use for it.’