‘That was Jessie Watt. Brian, who runs the cafe, thought it might have been Evie, but they look very similar. It was Jessie, dressed up and smart. Markham had already phoned the Watts about Henderson’s affair. The meeting was Jessie’s attempt to persuade him to keep the matter quiet, but he refused. He said Evie should know the sort of man she was about to marry.’
‘So Jessie knew that her husband was a murderer?’
Perez shrugged. ‘She must have been a part of it – of Markham’s murder, at least. The two of them left Fetlar together. The ferry boys said they hadn’t seen the Watts leave the island that day, but Francis took his own boat out. He kept an old van in Vidlin for picking up tools and wood, to use on the mainland. Francis drove Jessie to the Bonhoga, where she had a last attempt to persuade Markham to go south and leave them all alone. Afterwards they followed Markham to Sullom Voe. That must have been a time of decision for them. They could have driven away and caught the ferry home, but Francis wasn’t a man to let him go. By then he was furious and desperate to stop Markham telling Evie about Henderson’s affair and to stop him writing about Power of Water.’
‘Jessie says she tried to persuade him.’ Willow said. She stretched. ‘Stupid, weak woman. She can’t have tried very hard.’
Perez thought that Jessie had spent her life believing that Francis was right. It would be hard to stand up to him about this.
‘So they came back to the Lunna junction to wait for Markham, knowing he’d have to come that way to go home. They won’t have known that he’d arranged to meet Henderson near Scatsta.’
Perez imagined the couple waiting in the tatty white van. There were always vehicles parked at that junction – it was a meeting place for car-shares into town. Nobody would take any notice of them. Perhaps Jessie had prepared a picnic. Something traditional of course: bannocks with reestit mutton, home-bakes. Had the plan just been to scare Markham? To send him on his way? You’ve already broken our girl’s heart once. Now you want to do it all over again. She has a chance for happiness, for a new life with a good man. Or were the elaborate travel arrangements evidence that Francis Watt was already contemplating murder? Perez thought the couple would have spent the waiting time talking about Markham, winding each other up, persuading each other of his wickedness. The tension must have been unbearable as the light faded and the visibility grew poorer.
‘How did they know it was Markham’s car?’ Sandy broke into Perez’s thoughts. ‘The fog would have been so thick by then that they wouldn’t have seen it coming.’
‘But they’d have heard it, wouldn’t they?’ Willow was lying on her side, propped up on one elbow. Her hair had changed colour in the firelight. ‘That engine. There’d be nothing else like that in Shetland. Worth taking a chance on, anyway. Worth starting the van and driving out, causing the oncoming car to swerve into the lay-by. If they’d got the wrong car, they could pretend it was an accident.’
Perez nodded. And again he ran the scene in his head. Markham would have been shocked, and even the new, changed Markham would have been angry. He’d have climbed out of his car shouting and swearing. Anyone would. And Francis Watt, shut off from the real world by the fog, his nerves taut from the waiting and his wife’s endless talking, had lashed out. He’d taken a spade from the back of the truck and hit out.
Perez hadn’t taken part in the interview of Francis Watt. He hadn’t trusted himself to stay calm and professional, but he would have liked to ask how Francis had felt at that point. Had he enjoyed the sensation of power? Was that why he’d decided to kill again?
‘Then what happened?’ It was Sandy again, wanting to move things on. Perhaps he had an appointment in town. A lass to meet, or there were friends waiting for him in a bar, ready to celebrate the end of the case. Perez got to his feet and fetched him a beer from the fridge.
‘They didn’t want to leave Markham there.’ Willow sounded cheerful now. The case was over and she hadn’t screwed up. ‘Soon traffic would be coming back from Lerwick and people would be collecting their cars after work. So they put him in the back of the van. Of course it was Francis’s idea to take him to Aith. The Fiscal’s home territory. An indirect message to the scarlet woman. In the interview Francis told me he thought it would be fitting to set Markham afloat on the water. So they loaded the body into the yoal. He looked in Markham’s briefcase before they pushed the boat into the marina. Of course there was nothing much in there, because there wasn’t much of a story at that point. Just a pile of postcards Markham had picked up from the Bonhoga that morning. Jerry must have posted one to Annabel Grey in Brae when he stopped there for his lunch. Francis took a few of them. Mementos.’
Another indication, Perez thought, that Francis had enjoyed the killing and wanted an object to trigger the memory of it.
‘Late that night they drove Markham’s car to Vatnagarth and then they steamed back to Fetlar,’ Willow said. ‘To make their boats and knit their jerseys and finalize plans for their daughter’s wedding. As if nothing had happened.’
‘But Markham had met John Henderson,’ Perez said. ‘And John suspected that Markham’s murder was connected to the story. The old story of his affair with the Fiscal. I think he’d decided that he had to tell Evie all about it.’
‘Even though she’d probably guessed some of it, guessed at least that Markham was in Shetland to pass on some gossip about Henderson. And she can’t have cared, can she? She went out, got pissed and then decided it didn’t matter. The next day she was behaving just as normal. She loved him and was going to marry him anyway.’ Willow looked up at the men. ‘Such a dreadful waste! What did Markham think he would achieve?’
‘Henderson made the mistake of phoning Francis first,’ Perez said. ‘To warn him that Evie might be too upset to marry him. He’d have thought it was the honourable thing to do. The men were old friends. And perhaps something in Watt’s response to the call made John suspect he was the killer.’
‘So Henderson had to die too.’
‘He did. And perhaps by then Francis saw himself as a kind of avenging angel. He must have convinced himself that this was for the best, that Evie didn’t deserve an adulterer like Henderson after all. This time there was an even more elaborate crime scene. Henderson next to his wife-to-be, with the mask over his head.’
Willow took another drink. ‘A forensic psychiatrist will have a fine time with that!’ She looked into the fire. ‘Jessie had nothing to do with that killing. Francis left home early and was just home by the time you visited them that afternoon, Jimmy. Jessie was working in the fields all day. She didn’t ask where Francis was going in his boat. She didn’t want to know.’
They sat for a moment in silence.
‘In the end I think Watt blamed Rhona Laing for everything,’ Perez went on. ‘She seduced Henderson, not caring that his wife was dying. She began the whole business. In Francis’s head, she’d even turned him into a killer.’
Perez sat back in his chair. ‘I saw Evie this afternoon,’ he said. ‘She’s staying with Jen and Andy Belshaw.’ He thought of the young woman’s fury, her blazing eyes and violent words. Hatred of her parents was helping her through her present grief, but that wouldn’t last.
Perez wanted his visitors to go now. He was tired and needed to be left with his own thoughts and his own memories. The others must have realized that, because suddenly they were on their feet, and the door was open, and the chill night air was in the house.
Sandy went ahead of them, almost running down the bank to the car. Perez decided that he definitely had an appointment with a woman. Willow stood for a moment. ‘I’m away south tomorrow,’ she said. ‘My father’s birthday. I’m off on the first plane, so I’ll not see you.’