‘You glory in the commonplace made weird,’ Perez said.
‘Yeah. Something like that.’ She gave him a strange look. ‘I suppose I was thinking about it almost like a piece of art.’
‘So you manufactured a ghost.’
‘Not to mislead the television audience,’ Monica said sharply. ‘Eleanor would never have stooped to that. She was honest about her work and took it seriously. But to show how educated and rational people might become suggestible in certain situations. She wanted to persuade her friends of the reality of Peerie Lizzie and use their experience as an example in her documentary.’
‘Why did she involve Hillier and Lowrie?’ Willow stood up and stretched. The gallery ceiling was so low that she almost touched it. There was a sudden shower and the rain hit the window hard, like stones. The room became very dark.
‘Eleanor always liked a gang,’ Monica said. ‘Especially a gang of admirers. But there were practical reasons too. Lowrie knew the layout of the land. He’d grown up in Unst. Hillier’s partner had researched the background to the Peerie Lizzie story and Charles could throw in the details that might make it seem authentic. Besides, he’d been a stage magician. He had skills that we could use.’
Hillier would have loved that, Perez thought. And the chance to appear on television again.
‘And you?’ Willow asked. ‘What was your role?’
‘I was the set designer and the theatrical assistant. When we met for lunch I brought along some drawings. One was of Eleanor looking like Ophelia in her bridesmaid’s dress – you found that in my house in Cullivoe. We weren’t sure how we’d use them, and it was all very cheesy.’ A pause. ‘But mostly I was there because I could provide the ghost.’
‘Your granddaughter.’
‘Grace, yes. Her mother finds her a tricky child and I don’t think London suits her. She’s got too much energy. She spends some of her time here with me.’
Perez was looking at the painting of the girl on the gallery wall.
‘That’s my daughter,’ Monica said, ‘but the resemblance is uncanny. It’s a while since I’ve seen that and I hadn’t realized quite how alike they look, now that Grace is getting older.’
I can see how Polly was so disturbed by it, Perez thought. How she started to question her sanity.
‘You got Grace to record Peerie Lizzie’s song,’ he said. ‘But of course it didn’t sound right. She’s spent a lot of time in Shetland, but she hasn’t picked up the accent yet.’ He paused. ‘She and the Arthur boys were singing it the night Polly was lost in the fog and must have freaked her out big-style.’
‘When I went south, Grace wanted to stay with Jen Arthur and the boys and I thought another week off school wouldn’t do her any harm. Jen was happy to have her, and it’s an education in itself, isn’t it, living in Shetland? I didn’t know then that Eleanor had been killed and there was a murderer on Unst.’
‘It must have been in the papers in the south,’ Sandy said. ‘Once Hillier was killed too. Why wait until today to get in touch?’
Monica still looked out at the grey water. ‘I was scared. If you knew I was there the night Eleanor was killed – if you found my painting – you might accuse me of murder.’
‘Not if you were innocent,’ Sandy said. ‘You’d have nothing to fear, if you told us the truth.’
She turned back to face him. Her words shot towards him like the rain on the window. ‘Really? When I was a student I was assaulted by a lecturer. I went to the police that time. They believed a respectable lecturer over an unconventional art student and threatened that I could be charged with wasting police time if I didn’t withdraw the allegation. I wasn’t prepared to take the risk now.’
The room went very quiet. Behind the counter the coffee machine hissed.
‘Let’s go back to that meeting at the Hay’s Dock,’ Perez said. ‘Did you take photographs afterwards?’
‘Yes, Eleanor wanted some publicity images that we could release to the media before the show.’ Monica looked up. ‘She was already planning features in the broadsheets. How four metropolitan thirty-somethings believed that they’d seen a ghost.’
‘And one of the pictures was of her and Lowrie?’
‘Yes, Lowrie asked if he could have it. I emailed it to him. Why? Is it important?’
Perez didn’t answer. This was the photo that Lowrie had been staring at when Grusche went into his room before the party. The photo that had triggered Eleanor’s murder. ‘Tell me what happened the night of the party.’
‘Grace and I went into Unst on the ferry.’
‘You were seen by the Meoness teacher.’ Sandy seemed to wake briefly, then to settle back with his arms on the table. They’d all been awake all night. He looked like a nursery child ready to take a nap.
Monica ignored the interruption. ‘We left our car at the hall. There were so many vehicles parked there that nobody would notice. Then we camped out in the old house, Utra. Lowrie had told us we could use it, and Grace got changed there. For her it was just a game. Staying up late. Putting on a party frock. Dancing on the beach. She’s like all the women in our family – given to exhibitionist tendencies. I met Charles on the beach. We had a smoke and watched the performance. Afterwards Grace and I lit a fire and rolled out our sleeping bags on the floor, just waiting until it was time for the first ferry to Yell. Early the next morning I dropped Grace at Jen’s and drove on south.’
‘Polly thought she saw the girl on the beach and in the house at other times.’ It was Sandy again. Perez could tell that he thought this artist, with her paintings of dead women, her camping out all night in a ruined house, wasn’t fit to have care of a child.
Monica shrugged. She seemed fidgety and uncomfortable. Perhaps Sandy reminded her of the cops she’d met in the Met. Perhaps she just wanted to go outside to smoke. ‘Maybe Jen took her and the boys to play at their father’s house. He lives with his new wife in Spindrift, that hideous bungalow in Meoness. They’ve been divorced for a while, but it’s all quite amicable. The boys like to see the new baby.’
Or maybe, Perez thought, Polly conjured her own ghosts out of the air. She’d been told that her lover was having an affair with an older woman and she was emotionally frail to start with. He could imagine that she might be haunted by dreams and demons.
‘Who sent the email saying the group wouldn’t find Eleanor alive?’ Willow broke into his thoughts.
‘The plan was for Eleanor to write it, and for me to take her phone and find somewhere with a good signal to send it,’ Monica said. ‘Grace was fast asleep, so I slipped out of Utra and sent the message. We’d arranged that I’d leave the phone in the planticrub, where Eleanor could pick it up later.’
‘And then Eleanor was supposed to disappear?’
Monica nodded. ‘Charles was waiting with his car. He was going to take her back to Springfield House. There was a small room waiting for her.’
But Eleanor kept being interrupted. First by Polly, who’d joined her straight after the men went to bed. Then by Grusche. And in the end Hillier went back to the hotel alone. When Eleanor’s body was discovered, he remembered seeing Grusche coming back from the cliffs alone and knew who must have killed her.
Monica was on her feet. ‘I’m going to fetch Grace and take her home. I thought this was a good place for her to spend part of the year, but I think perhaps London is safer after all.’ At the door she stopped and turned back to Perez. ‘Don’t I know you?’
‘I met you here,’ he said. ‘At a party for the opening of your exhibition.’ He paused. ‘My partner was an artist. Fran Hunter.’ He was pleased with himself because the words came easily.