‘The girl’s name was Annabel Grey.’
‘Oh?’ As if that was the only response she could give. As if anything else would have taken too much effort. Then Rhona frowned as if the name was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
‘I think you know Annabel’s father, Richard.’
A flash of surprise. Genuine? Willow thought so, but she wouldn’t have sworn to it. It wouldn’t do to underestimate Rhona Laing.
‘Ah, Richard Grey. I haven’t heard from him in years.’ She pushed away the coffee mug, still half-full. A gesture of dismissal, Willow thought. And to show that this place wasn’t good enough for her, though Willow had already decided there was nothing wrong with the coffee.
‘He’d obviously been following your career,’ she said. ‘He knew you were working here and asked us to pass on his good wishes.’
Rhona sat in silence. Willow thought this last scrap of information had pleased her. She was glad to have been remembered. At the other side of the room a mother shouted at a child to give back another girl’s toy.
‘It would help us if you could fill in some of the background to Richard Grey,’ Willow said at last.
‘You can’t think Dickie’s a suspect.’ Rhona Laing laughed. ‘He’s always managed to get exactly what he wants, without resorting to murder.’
‘Just background,’ Willow said. ‘You know how important that can be.’
‘Very well then, Inspector. The background to the Grey family.’ And it seemed that this was a story the Fiscal would enjoy telling, that the memories were pleasant. That she was happy to revisit them. Perhaps, the inspector thought, they distracted her from other anxieties.
Willow nodded and waited.
‘Richard Grey was very much a golden boy of his generation,’ Rhona said. ‘His family was reasonably well off. Not flash, you understand. Not new money. No horrible city traders or developers of green-field sites. But well connected. A family of writers and academics, liberal and interesting. Richard was bright. And charming. He had more charm than any man had a right to. It gave the impression that he was superficial, but that was a false impression, I think.’
Willow wasn’t sure what she made of this, but she said nothing. It was better to let the woman talk. She was more likely to give away an important detail if she was allowed to ramble.
Rhona pulled back the coffee mug and drank from it. ‘Then he married Jane. She was wild and beautiful, with an appetite for drugs and booze. The first woman to stand up to him. She refused to be taken in by his charm or his money. I genuinely think he adored her, worshipped the ground she walked on, but that didn’t prevent him from treating her badly.’
‘It sounds as if you knew him quite well,’ Willow said.
‘I worked with him. Or I suppose for him. My first real job as a barrister. And I fell for him. I was one of his serial affairs.’ The woman looked bleakly across the table. ‘I should have realized that nothing would come of it. There were so many stories of his adultery. But we all think that we’re different, don’t we? We all think we can change the man we love.’
Like Annabel, Willow thought. She believed she could change Jerry Markham.
It was almost as if Rhona were reading her thoughts, because she continued, ‘Annabel was very young then. Five? Just starting school, I think. I remember Dickie showing me a photo of her looking very cute in her uniform. A blazer and a hat. I should have been conscious-stricken. How could I risk breaking up his family? But of course I wasn’t. You’re so selfish when you’re in love. Entirely self-absorbed. And really there was no risk. Dickie was never going to leave Jane. The more badly she behaved, the more infatuated he became.’
Willow wished she’d recorded this conversation. Sandy and Perez would never believe the Fiscal could talk like this.
‘I came to my senses eventually.’ Rhona gave a sad little smile. ‘Resigned myself that I wasn’t a woman to play Happy Families anyway. So I moved back to Edinburgh. Retrained for the Bar in Scotland.’
‘Were the Greys regular church-goers then?’ Willow found it hard to reconcile Richard Grey’s image of himself as a respectable family man with Rhona’s story.
‘I think Jane went to church.’ The woman gave a tight little smile. ‘Maybe she saw it as a sort of insurance policy? To compensate for the parties and the exhibitionism. If I go to church, I’ll be redeemed anyway. Or perhaps she saw it as a kind of safety net.’ Her voice was dismissive, implying that she didn’t need such a crutch.
‘Then she ran away.’ Willow watched the Fiscal, wondering what her reaction would be.
‘Yes,’ Rhona said. ‘It was the last thing anyone expected. Death by overdose we might have understood, but not that she would suddenly disappear. We thought she liked the lifestyle that Dickie had provided, and he’d never tried to restrict her. And by all accounts Dickie became a changed man when Jane ran off. He devoted himself to his daughter. No more one-night stands or flings with young and beautiful lawyers. So my London friends tell me. I’m not convinced. Perhaps he just became better at keeping secrets.’
‘He didn’t get in touch with you while he was here?’ Willow wasn’t sure this was getting her anywhere. She was gaining a fascinating glimpse into the Fiscal’s past, but nothing relevant to the present investigation. Except, perhaps, the knowledge that Richard Grey wasn’t to be trusted, and she’d already worked that out for herself.
‘No.’ But for the first time Rhona seemed less certain.
‘Are you sure?’ The Greys had had an evening to themselves. There had been nothing to prevent Richard hiring a taxi to Aith, turning up on the Fiscal’s doorstep, looking for comfort or a rekindling of youthful excitement.
‘We didn’t meet, Inspector.’ The Fiscal smiled sadly. ‘I rather wish that we had.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Perez arranged to meet Willow for lunch. He wanted to tell her what they’d learned from Jen Belshaw and from the check-in guy at Scatsta, but not as a formal presentation with all the team listening in. He was feeling his way through this investigation and scraps of theory were blowing around his brain. Motes of dust in a sunbeam. He thought they’d disappear if he put them into words, but a gentle discussion might help him to organize his ideas.
They met at the Bonhoga and took a table in the conservatory, looking out over the burn. It was late, so the place was quiet.
‘So, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘What do you have to tell me?’ Willow was smiling and girlish and he thought she must have information for him too, but wanted to hang on to it for a while, to hug it to herself.
He was eating a bannock with smoked salmon and watercress and it was so good that he had to give it his full attention for a moment. Willow had her back to the light, so the wild hair looked almost red. She was completely absorbed in the task of drinking soup. Smelling it. Tasting it. Then she smiled again.
‘Wow! This is something else. He’s a brilliant cook.’
He loved the fact that something as simple as good lentil soup could make her happy. Her arm was on the table, her sleeve rolled up a little, so that he could see fine hairs on her arm. In this light they looked red too. Today she was in a baggy sweatshirt and he caught himself wondering what shape she was underneath it, and then imagining her completely naked. Small breasts. Flat stomach. Larger hips, slightly out of proportion. The picture appeared from nowhere and shocked him, but gave him a thrill of excitement too. What would it feel like to run his hand over the body? Horrified, he banished the image from his mind. The power of the picture he’d conjured frightened him. This wasn’t art – a nude that Fran might have created with a few charcoal sketches – but real flesh, muscle, hair. He felt that his imagination and his body were out of control.