‘What did you do then? After you’d thrown her cloak and shoes over the cliff and you’d torn the photograph into little pieces.’
‘I went home,’ Grusche said. ‘I lay next to my snoring husband. I went to sleep.’ She reached out and took one of the biscuits, then nibbled it as if she was judging its quality. Willow was astonished at how calm she seemed. There was another minute of complete silence.
‘Did you tell Lowrie what happened?’ Perez’s voice was sharper now. ‘I mean, has he known for the last week that his mother is a murderer?’
‘No!’ The same explosive retort. ‘Of course not.’
‘But you must have asked him what he was doing with Eleanor in Lerwick. You would have wanted to know.’
For the first time Grusche seemed less sure of her ground. ‘He said he was there as a friend, helping Eleanor with some project at work. I told him that he must keep that secret, that you would suspect him of killing her if you knew that he’d met her in Lerwick without telling anyone.’
‘And Lowrie did what he was told,’ Perez murmured. ‘Of course he did. First you and then Caroline making decisions for him. He’d never had to think for himself.’
Willow wondered if Lowrie had guessed at his mother’s involvement in Eleanor’s death. Perhaps she was so perfect in his eyes that he couldn’t contemplate the possibility of her being a murderer. Certainly he hadn’t asked Grusche any awkward questions. Willow was reminded of the way that Charles and David had kept their relationship intact by ignoring unpleasantness – anything that was difficult or uncomfortable.
‘What about Hillier?’ Perez was saying. ‘Why did he have to die?’
‘He was there that night,’ Grusche said. ‘He saw me walk up the path with Eleanor. And come down all alone.’
‘He was blackmailing you?’
‘And that shows just how ridiculous he was!’ Grusche spat out the words. ‘As if we’d have any money to give him.’
‘Did Hillier tell you that he was in Lerwick for that meeting in the museum? With Lowrie and Eleanor and Monica Leaze?’
She nodded reluctantly. Willow had no idea what Perez was talking about. He seemed to her like a magician himself, fanning random cards on the table until they made sense, at least to him. But she knew better than to interrupt. Let him explain to her later.
‘So you’ll know that Eleanor was telling you the truth,’ Perez said. ‘That there was no affair. Lowrie was there as her friend.’
‘That wasn’t how Lowrie saw it.’ Again she was almost screaming. ‘You didn’t see the way Lowrie stared at that picture. He would have done anything for that woman. He was as infatuated now as when he first met her.’
‘Even if he was,’ Perez said and his voice was sad, ‘I don’t think it was your place to interfere.’ Then he changed his tone. ‘Hillier. Tell me what happened.’
‘I arranged to meet him on the shore at Springfield. I said I had some savings, a family inheritance, and we might be able to do a deal. I went to the book club in Baltasound as usual that night, but I stopped at Springfield on my way home.’
Willow was tempted to ask what the book group had been reading. She was feeling light-headed and a little giddy. She’d believed that Grusche was a dignified and intelligent woman. She hadn’t recognized the obsession that had gripped her.
But Grusche was still talking. ‘Hillier was waiting for me on the sand. The mist was coming in again. It wasn’t hard to dispose of him.’ Then she snapped her lips shut. ‘I’m not talking any more, Jimmy. Not to you, and not in this place. I know my rights. You can take me to Lerwick now, and Lowrie will find me a lawyer. Lowrie will look after me.’
Chapter Forty-Six
‘I still don’t understand why the Malcolmson woman went after Polly Gilmour,’ Sandy said. ‘And that stuff about Peerie Lizzie. Was the lassie on the sand just a figment of the English folk’s imagination?’
They’d stopped in the North Light Gallery for lunch on their way south through Yell. Willow’s idea. Perez would have preferred to go straight back to Lerwick so that he could be home when Cassie came back from school. The painting of the girl in the white dress was still hanging on the gallery’s wall. Catherine Breton was in her glass bubble making pots. The gallery with its cafe was unusually quiet. It was a breezy day, with the wind blowing cloud-shaped shadows across the water outside and loose sand against the windows.
He was about to answer when the door opened and a woman walked in. Perez thought Willow had been expecting her, that this was a pre-arranged meeting. The newcomer stood just inside the door, then approached them. She was wearing a bright-red coat, heavy brown boots and carried the smell of cigarettes with her.
‘I went to the police station this morning as soon as the ferry came in.’ Monica Leaze had the same nervous energy that Perez remembered from the launch of her exhibition. The same wiry hair and chestnut eyes. ‘They told me to talk to you here.’
‘So now we’re in a position to explain to Sandy about the ghost.’ Willow’s voice was light until she turned to the artist. Then she was fiercer than Perez had ever seen her. ‘If we’d understood earlier that you were involved, we might have prevented Hillier’s death.’
‘Of course I should have come before.’ Monica was playing with a napkin on the table, folding it into smaller and smaller squares. ‘But when I left Shetland I didn’t know Eleanor had died, only that she was missing, and that was always part of the plan.’ She turned to stare out of the window. A waitress brought coffee without her noticing. ‘It started out as a bit of a hoot, and a way to get Nell out of a financial mess. Nobody was really supposed to get hurt.’
‘Perhaps you could talk us through what happened.’ Perez thought he knew most of it, but Sandy was sitting on the other side of the table looking bewildered. The man had worked well on this investigation and his own version of the real Peerie Lizzie story was probably close to the truth. He deserved some answers to the make-believe one. ‘You met here in Shetland a couple of weeks ago. You and three others.’
‘Well, I’d known Eleanor for ages. We moved in the same arty circles, I suppose – my husband’s a director. I hadn’t come across Charles or Lowrie before. We came together that day; we were Nell’s team, her secret weapon. The four of us had lunch in the Hay’s Dock. It seemed like great fun at the time, a bit of a party, as if we were on some kind of secret mission.’ Monica paused. ‘That was the last time I saw Eleanor. Lowrie and Eleanor had flown in on separate planes, very cloak-and-dagger – Lowrie from Edinburgh and Eleanor from Glasgow, though they both started off in London. I was already here in Yell and Charles Hiller gave me a lift down to Lerwick.’
‘And what was the meeting about?’
‘To arrange the scam, of course: the Peerie Lizzie haunting. Nell needed her documentary about ghosts to be a big success. The company, Bright Star, had been leaking money – there’d been a couple of poor shows, and Eleanor was distracted when she lost the baby. Not on top of her game. This was the last chance to avoid bankruptcy. She wasn’t prepared to take any chances.’
‘And you?’ Perez asked. ‘What would you get out of it?’
She seemed startled for a moment, as if the answer was so obvious that it needed no explanation. ‘Fun,’ she said. ‘Like I said. And Nell was a mate who needed help. Besides…’ She paused again.