‘This must be like working in a goldfish bowl,’ Willow said.
‘It’s part of the deal. I get to live in Shetland, and the studio comes for free.’ Catherine paused. ‘And in winter we get few visitors here.’
‘So tell us about Monica.’
‘She’s a painter from London. A good painter, and recognized. She has a…’ the woman paused, seeking the right word, ‘… turbulent relationship with her partner. A couple of years ago she decided that she couldn’t live with him full-time. He bored her.’
Perez’s thoughts were racing. He remembered his conversation with Cilla, Eleanor’s mother. Cilla had said that Ian would bore Eleanor eventually. Perhaps Eleanor and Monica knew each other from London. Perhaps they were friends. If Eleanor already had Monica’s contact details that would explain the lack of family name or phone number in the notebook. He looked up at the potter and kept his voice calm. ‘So she moved to Shetland.’
‘She rented a house in Shetland. But she doesn’t live here all the time. She has a daughter. Grandchildren. And she still maintains a relationship with her husband. So it’s a kind of semi-detached attachment that she has with the islands.’
Another complicated family, Perez thought. Like me and Cassie and Duncan. But perhaps it’s a good thing that families have changed over the years. I think my mother suffocated in her marriage. And I kind of suffocated as a result. Now we let some air and space in and give individuals a chance to breathe and grow.
‘When did you last see her?’
Catherine considered. She was a very precise woman, Perez could see. ‘A week ago. On the Friday morning.’
The day before the hamefarin’. The day before Eleanor’s murder.
‘Could you tell us about the meeting?’
‘Monica called in here. There’d been some family crisis in London, she said. One of the grandchildren was ill. She’d decided to go home. She asked if I could let the owner of the gallery know. She’d agreed to run a workshop here later in the month and she wasn’t sure that she’d be back in time.’ Catherine looked at her watch. It was clear that she felt reluctant to spend any longer with them. ‘She seemed pleased to be going back to London. Almost excited to be leaving. She claims to love Shetland, but she misses the city, I think, and her friends there.’
‘Does Monica have any friends in Yell?’ Perez thought the woman he’d seen in the gallery with Fran had been sociable. She’d enjoyed an audience. Monica might find Annie’s questions too intrusive, but he couldn’t imagine her leading an entirely solitary life while she was in Shetland.
‘She’s very close to Jen Arthur and her parents.’
‘And they are…’
‘Jen’s a musician, a songwriter. She has a young family. Divorced.’ Catherine allowed herself a brief smile. ‘She found her husband very boring too. They met at school. Married too young, according to Jen. She had two sons with him, then decided that she’d be better on her own.’
‘Is her ex-husband Neil Arthur? Lives in Meoness in Unst? He’s a plumber.’ Willow interrupted with the questions, suddenly excited. It took Perez a moment to make the connection. Neil Arthur’s second wife was Vaila, Lowrie’s cousin. They had Neil’s sons to stay with them every other weekend. Another complicated family trying to make things work. And Vaila claimed to have seen the ghost of Peerie Lizzie. She’d also met Eleanor on the afternoon of her death.
‘That’s right.’ Catherine stood up. She’d been barely polite throughout the conversation and now she was making it clear that she wanted them to leave.
Willow and Perez got to their feet.
‘Do you like Monica?’ He asked the question without really thinking about it. There was a pause and he expected a bland and conventional answer. Instead the response was surprising and honest.
‘Not much. She’s self-centred. Unpredictable. A little arrogant. She doesn’t care about hurting people if they get in her way.’ Catherine paused for a beat. ‘But I think she would be a loyal friend. You wouldn’t want Monica as an enemy, but if she was your friend she’d fight for you until the end.’
They left the studio and returned to the main body of the gallery. Perez was drawn again to the portrait of the child in white.
‘Do you know the model for the painting? Is it her granddaughter?’
Catherine shook her head. ‘It was painted a long time ago. Monica had kept it and only brought it up for the exhibition last year. Then Roland, the owner, persuaded her to leave it. It does his credibility good to have a Monica Leaze in the gallery, even though he knows it’s unlikely to sell at the price he’s put on it. That’s Freya, Monica’s daughter. Monica was happy to hang it here because she says the girl was conceived in Shetland. She made it sound like a kind of joke.’
In the car back to the ferry terminal Perez was on the phone to Sandy. More requests. ‘Can we rouse someone at NorthLink and Flybe and see if Monica Leaze left Shetland on the day of the murder. Or the day after. The Sunday. It’d also be great to find out if Eleanor met her on her flying visit to Shetland the week before. I think Monica is friendly with the director of Shetland Arts, so Mareel might be a logical place for them to meet. Do you know any of the kids who work in the bar there? See if they remember the two women meeting. They’d have stood out. Both English, both stylish.’ He paused for breath and imagined Sandy jotting down notes, rather slowly, on a scrap of paper. ‘Did you get all that, Sandy?’
‘I went to see George Malcolmson,’ Sandy said. ‘I had an idea.’
‘What idea would that be, Sandy?’ Perez was glad that he was on the phone. The mood she was in, Willow would already have lost her temper with the younger man.
‘I was talking to Louisa about the fact that she was adopted. I wondered about Lizzie Geldard.’ He paused and Perez didn’t make any attempt to hurry him. Sandy would need time to gather his thoughts. ‘It seems she was the natural child of Sarah Malcolmson. Story is that Gilbert Geldard seduced the girl when she was only fifteen. Roberta took in the little girl, not knowing the history. I wondered how she’d feel about the girl if she found out the truth.’
‘You think Roberta might have drowned Lizzy Geldard?’
‘I don’t know.’ Sandy sounded anxious and worried that he was making a fool of himself. ‘What do you think?’
‘I can see how that might happen.’ Perez thought that an angry woman might blame the child, rather than the man she would be forced to stay married to for appearances’ sake. If Gilbert had loved Lizzie because she was his daughter, to kill her would be a terrible act of revenge. And a denial – a way of eliminating the proof of her husband’s flaws.
‘I don’t see how it could have any relevance to this case, though,’ Sandy said.
Perez didn’t answer. He was thinking that the heart of the investigation lay in complex families trying to survive.
‘How have you and Willow got on?’ Sandy asked. ‘I booked you onto the last ferry. Are you heading back now?’ He sounded nervous.
‘It was very interesting,’ Perez said. ‘We’ll fill you in when we get back. We’re hoping to get the earlier ferry, so we should see you soon.’
Willow was driving like a maniac down the narrow roads. The fog had settled again and visibility was poor. Occasionally house lights would swoop at them out of the gloom, or headlights would appear straight ahead of them so that she had to swerve onto the verge. But Perez didn’t ask her to slow down. Like Willow, he was desperate to get back to Unst. He couldn’t bear the idea that they might have to wait an hour for the last ferry. He sensed that they’d soon reach the end of the investigation and they needed to be on the most northerly island of the archipelago before there was another tragedy.