Roddy continued. ‘If that scene at the party was a stunt to hurt Bella, it was all rather pointless, wasn’t it? The Englishman didn’t succeed in wrecking the show. All my aunt’s London friends were there. They’ll still write reviews. The paintings will go back to the galleries. It was just a gesture. An anticlimax.’ He smiled again. ‘Inspector Perez accused me of being behind the flyers to cancel the party, but if I’d wanted to sabotage the exhibition, I’d have made a far better job of it.’
‘Your aunt says you’re planning to leave Shetland.’
‘I was going to get the ferry tonight, but I don’t think I’ll make it now. I can’t see me getting my act together. I’ve started packing, but suddenly it all seemed too much hassle and I came out here. Maybe I will. I prefer the boat. Otherwise I’ll take a plane first thing in the morning. That would give me another evening. A chance to say goodbye properly to folks here.’
‘Is there something urgent to take you south?’
‘There’s always work of course, but I think it’s more that there’s nothing to keep me here.’
Taylor thought the boy sounded like an old man, disillusioned and world-weary. Roddy leaned against the wall and looked at the two men, waiting for more questions to come. Taylor couldn’t think of anything else to ask.
‘If there’s nothing more,’ Roddy said, ‘I’ll go, get on with the packing.’ Without waiting for a reply, he ran through a gap in the wall and down the grassy slope to the beach. They watched him jog along the tideline until he’d joined the Williamsons. He lifted the little girl on to his shoulders and they walked together towards the houses.
Taylor turned back to find Perez standing by one of the graves.
‘This is it. This is where his father is buried.’
The headstone looked less weathered than the rest. The words were still fresh and easy to read. IN LOVING MEMORY OF ALEXANDER IAN SINCLAIR. HE DIED TOO YOUNG.
Taylor thought the same could be said of the Englishman lying on the table in the mortuary. But it seemed there was no one yet to grieve for him.
Chapter Twenty-three
Perez wasn’t sure what to make of the conversation with Roddy Sinclair. He thought in a way it had been like talking to a criminal, one of those old offenders who’ve been questioned so often by the police that they know how to play the game. Roddy spent his life fending off awkward questions from the media. He knew what impression he wanted to give and he stuck to his story. Fran had said she’d met the musician a few times but didn’t feel she really knew him. Perhaps he’d been taken in by the hype too, had lost a sense of his own identity. Perez wished Taylor hadn’t been there at the graveyard. He’d had a sense that there were things the boy had wanted to say, but Taylor’s abrasive style had put him off.
‘I’m going to talk to Edith Thomson,’ Perez said. They were walking down the road now, back towards the jetty and their cars. ‘She’s Kenny’s wife. She wasn’t at the Herring House party, but she was at home that evening. She might have seen something. And she’s known Bella for years.’
‘Isn’t she the one that works in the old folks’ home?’
‘The care centre,’ Perez said. ‘I thought I’d catch her there. Would you like to be in on that?’
‘It’d make more sense if we separated,’ Taylor said. ‘I’ll stay around here, get more of a feel for the place. I might catch up with Martin Williamson.’
Perez sensed panic in the man’s refusal. He thought Taylor would dislike contact with the elderly and infirm. He would prefer not to be reminded of his own mortality. Perez was relieved to have the opportunity to talk to Edith alone. He’d met her a couple of times with Kenny and he’d thought her a proud and dignified woman. She might not respond well to Taylor’s approach either.
The care centre was purpose-built, a low modern box with long windows giving a view down the voe to the sea. A minibus specially adapted with a lift for wheelchairs was parked outside, along with the staff cars. Perez walked inside and was engulfed by a sudden blast of heat and the institutional scent of disinfectant and floor polish. In the background a surprisingly appetizing smell of cooking food. It was only eleven-thirty but tables in the dining room had been set for lunch and a woman in a nylon overall was pouring water into brightly coloured plastic beakers. She looked up briefly and smiled at him. On the other side of the front door, he saw the lounge with the long windows. People sat around the walls in high-backed chairs. Some seemed to be dozing. Three men at a table were playing cards. He thought he recognized Willy Jamieson, who had once lived in Peter Wilding’s house in Biddista, and gave him a wave, but the old man stared back blankly.
‘Can I help you?’
Edith Thomson had come up behind him. She wore black trousers and a blue cotton blouse and seemed to him very neat and professional. He saw that she didn’t know him. The voice was polite but rather distant. He held out his hand.
‘Jimmy Perez. It’s about the murder in Biddista.’
‘Of course. Jimmy.’ Now she could place him she relaxed a little. This wasn’t a work-related visit. He wasn’t a relative or a social worker. ‘Is it definitely murder then?’
‘We’re treating the death as suspicious.’
‘Poor Kenny,’ she said. ‘He was so upset when he found the body. And then he got it into his head that it might be Lawrence.’
She, it seemed, didn’t share her husband’s distress. Perez could tell she would answer his questions briskly and efficiently, but he’d never found the direct approach very helpful. People gave away more if they were allowed space to lead the conversation. It was possible then to get a glimpse of their preoccupations and the subjects they hoped to avoid.
‘This must be an interesting place to work,’ he said. ‘These people have so many stories.’
‘We’re trying to record them. Keep the tapes in the museum. Life here is changing so quickly.’
‘Isn’t that Willy in there? I knew him to say hi to at one time, when he lived in Biddista and worked on the roads, but he seemed not to recognize me.’
‘On his bad days he doesn’t recognize anyone,’ she said. ‘He’s full of stories too, but sometimes they’re just a muddle. We can’t make head or tail of them and he gets so frustrated. He has Alzheimer’s. It developed very quickly. Such a shame. He was always a lively man and even when he first moved into sheltered housing he could manage most things for himself.’
‘Could I talk to him later?’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘He’d be glad of the company.’
‘I just need to ask you a few questions first.’
‘Of course. Come through to my office. Coffee?’
The office was as neat and efficient as she was. A beech desk with a PC, clear and uncluttered, a tall filing cabinet. On the wall a planner marked with coloured stars. He wondered how she and Kenny got on together. Did he resent her career, the full days away from the croft? She probably earned more than her husband did. Did she try to organize him as she did her staff? There was a filter-coffee machine on a small table in a corner, a Pyrex jug half full keeping hot. She poured him a mug.
‘Tell me about the night the man died,’ he said.
‘I don’t know exactly when that was. Was it just before Kenny found him?’
‘We assume it was the night of the Herring House party. If not that evening it would have been early the next morning.’
‘I have nothing to tell you. I can’t help you. I didn’t go to the party.’ She sat behind her desk, her hands in her lap; not obstructive, interested, but lacking the excitement that most people seemed to feel when they were involved in a murder inquiry.