He almost ran up the steep wooden stairs to the attic. He couldn’t find a switch on the sloping wall and turned on a standard lamp. It threw odd shadows in the room, made the colours rich and exotic. Still no sign of the Fiscal. Against the wall were some of Agnes’s canvases. Paintings she’d been working on in the last stage of her illness. On one wall there was a sketch that Perez hadn’t noticed on his first visit, and he only saw it now because the lamp shone directly onto it. He recognized it immediately as a drawing of the painting that hung in Rhona’s bedroom in the Old Schoolhouse. The large seascape. Had Henderson given it to Rhona after Agnes died? A parting gift? It seemed quite out of character for the man he thought he’d come to understand. Again, he thought this case was much more complicated than he’d realized. But there was no time to consider that now.
Outside, the drizzle had turned to rain. It flattened his hair and ran down his collar, but he hardly noticed. It was a weird thought that a few miles up the road the world was continuing as normal. People chatting about the weather and last night’s television, sitting in living rooms and kitchens, getting bored and drinking coffee. Out here, and in Jimmy Perez’s head, it was hard to believe that anything would be normal again. In his head there was a picture of Evie Watt, looking young and bonny, smiling. Then Evie Watt as a scarecrow in a make-believe wedding dress. His phone went. Reception was dreadful and he struggled to make out the words. He walked back up the hill until he found a spot where the call became clearer and spoke for a few minutes, then switched the phone off and almost ran down the road towards the pier.
His was still the only car there. No sound at all except for water. The rain on the stone pier and the tide slapping against the harbour wall, so high that it almost washed over the top. It seemed that even the fishing boat had disappeared. Maybe the boys were at home now, sharing a beer. He walked on along the track towards the old salmon hatchery, to the building that would become an electricity substation when Evie’s grand scheme was played out. It had turned to mud and he slithered and tripped in one place. Shining his torch towards his feet, he saw at least two sets of footprints. But no car tracks. Even in this weather it would be possible to get a four-wheel-drive vehicle down here, but there was no sign of that having happened.
As he approached the old hatchery he sensed he wasn’t alone. There were voices. He supposed they were coming from inside the building. He’d reached it without realizing and switched off his torch immediately, hoping the light hadn’t shone through a crack in the door, through the crumbling stones. He couldn’t make out the words. The walls of the building were thick. Then there was silence, so he wondered if he’d imagined the sound, if his depression had created the voices and they were inside his head and not out there in the real world.
He stood where he was, incapable of moving or of coming to a decision. He must look ridiculous, standing here in the wet. Impotent. And suddenly he experienced the rage he’d felt when Fran had been killed, the desire to make someone – anyone – pay. A blind, confusing anger.
‘What are you doing here, Jimmy?’ The voice was like an echo of the voice in his head. There was the same bewilderment and the same madness. For an instant Jimmy didn’t respond because he thought he was imagining the question, just as he’d thought he’d imagined the voices in the shed.
The boat, he thought. Not boys out after creels. Of course the killer came by boat. A stab of sanity.
The voice persisted. ‘Why don’t you just walk away, Jimmy? Back to your car and the real world. You know what it’s like to need justice done.’ Besides the weird feelings of disconnection, Perez experienced a sense of triumph, because he recognized the voice and realized he’d been right about the identity of the killer. He was still good at this business. His brain was working.
He found it impossible to pinpoint the direction from which the voice was coming. And for a moment he was tempted. What business was this of his, after all? He could get in his car and drive to Duncan Hunter’s house, which was only a couple of miles away as the crow flew. He could sweep Cassie into his arms and take her home with him and first thing in the morning they could get a plane south. He even began planning where they should go. To see Fran’s parents, of course. They were lovely people and always eager to see their granddaughter. He imagined the warm welcome there would be. Hot chocolate for Cassie and tea for him. Toast and honey.
Then he heard another sound, a moan stifled by the weather. He thought it must come from the hatchery, but it was impossible to tell. He shouted. ‘Where are you?’ and felt the sound of his voice vibrate around the place, washed away by the rain.
‘This won’t look like murder.’ The killer’s voice was reasonable. ‘This will be put down as an accident at sea. You know how many ships have been lost out here on the Rumble. You know what the tide would do to a body in this water.’
And suddenly Perez’s mind cleared and thoughts were firing into his brain, fast and sharp. It was adrenaline perhaps. A need to survive. Not for himself, but because he had an obligation to Fran’s child. The killer would have left the building and would be standing between him and his car; the invitation to walk away was a trap. Of course Perez wouldn’t be allowed to leave here alive. Not now that he knew the identity of the murderer.
‘Rhona Laing is a fine sailor,’ Perez said. ‘Nobody will believe in an accident. Not in calm weather like this.’
‘Suicide then.’ The killer was dismissive. ‘Why not? Even better because folk will think she killed Markham and Henderson.’
Another silence. Perez strained to pick up the slightest noise. A footstep or a clearing of the throat that would mark the presence of the murderer. This was a horrifying version of Blind Man’s Bluff. But the ground was so soft that boots would make no noise. Perez kept as still as he could. The tide must be on the turn, because the water washed against the pier now and not over it. The sound was quite different. It sucked on the shingle on the beach.
Then he heard the cry again, this time louder. A woman’s voice, reminding him again of Fran by the edge of the pool in Fair Isle. And, very close to him, the faint rustle of a waterproof jacket. He held his breath. No rational thought now. The killer couldn’t see him and had no idea that Perez was so near. Another sound. Wheezing. Perez launched himself towards the sound and pulled the killer to the ground, had his arm around the man’s neck, could feel his hair against his own face and the man’s skin, the hardness of bone and teeth through his own cheek. Perez tightened his grip and felt the man grow weaker.
Then suddenly everything was light. Blinding, so that Perez had to shut his eyes. Only two fierce torches, but still after the thick darkness the white light was shocking. And that was when he heard Willow’s voice.
‘That’s enough, Jimmy. We’ll take over now.’ And, when he kept his grip around the man’s neck, ‘Let him go, Jimmy. That’s enough.’
Chapter Forty-Six
‘So,’ Sandy said. ‘How did you know that Evie’s father killed Markham and Henderson?’
It was a full day later and they were in Perez’s house in Ravenswick. A fire in the grate and another bottle of Willow Reeves’s Hebridean whisky on the table.