‘If you’re a reporter, Miss Sinclair isn’t speaking to anyone.’
Taylor thought the woman could be a member of Perez’s team, an officer he hadn’t yet met. He introduced himself and she invited him in. As if she were doing him a favour, not that he was there by right.
‘We haven’t met,’ she said. ‘I’m Edith Thomson. I thought Bella needed someone with her.’
‘Of course. A time like this she’ll need her friends.’
Edith looked at him thoughtfully. ‘We’re not exactly friends. But I couldn’t leave her alone at a time like this. I was imagining how I’d feel if I’d lost one of my children.’
‘He was her nephew,’ Taylor said. ‘Not quite the same.’
‘It felt the same to her.’
‘Your husband found the body. Both bodies.’
She looked at him. Through him. Decided to ignore the challenge under the words. ‘I know. It’ll haunt him for ever. He’s already having nightmares.’
‘Can I speak to Miss Sinclair?’
She shrugged. ‘You can try. She’s been drinking.’
They went into a room Taylor hadn’t seen before. A rather grand living room at the front of the house with a view over the water. The windows were long, with folded shutters in the French style. The furniture was old and a little shabby. Bella was half sitting, half lying on a chaise-longue. There was a small table with a glass and a bottle beside her. She was drinking whisky.
When she saw Taylor, she half stood, an attempt at the old charm, then fell back on to the seat.
‘Inspector.’
‘Would you like me to leave you alone?’ Edith asked.
‘No, stay.’ Bella made an extravagant gesture with her arm. ‘Please stay. Edith and I have known each other for years, haven’t we? Do you remember when you first came to Biddista? Weren’t we all pals, the six of us?’
‘Six of you?’ Taylor was still finding it hard to come to grips with the relationships within the place. I should write it all down, he thought. Make a chart. The sort of list Wilding had on his desk for all his characters.
‘My brother Alec, Aggie Watt, Kenny and Edith and Lawrence and me.’
Taylor turned to Edith. ‘Who’s Lawrence?’ The name was familiar but he couldn’t place it.
‘He’s Kenny’s brother. He left Shetland years ago. We’ve lost touch.’
‘Of course. I should have remembered. Your husband thought he might be the man who was hanged. Why did he leave Shetland? Some sort of family feud?’
‘No,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘They think it was my fault that Lawrence left.’ It was Bella, talking too loudly, as if she were giving a performance. ‘They think he was madly in love with me and I spurned him and he was so heartbroken that he ran away.’
‘Well?’ Edith asked. ‘Wasn’t it a little like that? Kenny could never understand why Lawrence left like that, so suddenly. He still misses him. When the phone rings he thinks it could be his brother. He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell what he’s thinking.’
Taylor had a picture of Kenny Thomson standing in the mortuary, his relief when he discovered the body looked nothing like his brother.
‘No,’ Bella said. ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’
‘So tell us,’ Taylor said. ‘What was it like?’
‘I loved Lawrence. If he’d asked me to marry him, I’d have accepted. I had my wedding dress designed in my head, and the hymns for the service chosen. But he never asked me. We were great friends, but he wasn’t the marrying kind. He wanted to see more of the world than Shetland and I wasn’t going to leave. The islands were my inspiration, and besides, I had Roddy to think about. If Lawrence was crazy about me, as everyone says, why didn’t he want to settle with me and make a family with me?’
She looked at them with a haunted desperation, which was only partly to do with the drink. Taylor thought how much energy she must have put in over the years, putting on a brave face. It suited her for people to think she’d been the one to reject Lawrence Thomson. At least that way she’d managed to maintain her pride.
‘He never contacted you either?’ Edith asked.
Bella shook her head. She’d started to cry. ‘Kenny’s not the only one who has a flicker of hope every time the phone rings.’
She wiped her eyes. Taylor found himself thinking that part of her was enjoying the drama. He wished he knew how much of it was real.
‘Tell me about your relationship with Mr Wilding,’ he said.
‘I don’t have a relationship with him.’
‘He’s your tenant?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s Willy’s house,’ Edith said.
‘It’s Willy’s house but I gave him the money when the council gave him the right to buy. He gave me the house when he moved into the sheltered housing. All legal and above board. I wanted to give him a bit of security. I didn’t need his rent. I told him he was looking after my investment for me.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘There are lots of things about me folk don’t know.’ Bella dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. ‘I gave him the money. He got into a state when the council gave him the right to buy, thought they might throw him out. He said he wanted to stay there until he died. Such a shame he couldn’t manage on his own in the end. It was Roddy’s idea to give him the money to buy the house. He loved Willy. The nearest he ever had to a grandfather, I suppose. You know how good he was with the children.’
‘Yes,’ Edith said. ‘He was the same with Kenny and Lawrence and then with our two. Perhaps it was because he’d never quite grown up.’
‘Why did you suggest Mr Wilding live there?’
‘Willy had moved out and I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want to sell. Not while Willy was alive. I always told him it would be there for him to move back when he felt more himself. And I suppose I hoped Roddy would want to settle in Shetland one day. It would be a good home for him to start with. Then I had the email from Peter Wilding asking if I knew anywhere he could rent for a short while. He’d not been well and he needed somewhere quiet to stay. I thought why not?’ She paused. ‘Besides, he was a fan. As you get older, it’s good occasionally for the ego to have an admirer close at hand.’
‘How did Roddy get on with him?’
‘I don’t think Roddy liked him particularly. Sometimes he took against people for no reason. Roddy said it always made him feel sad to think of that house without Willy in it, but that was hardly Peter’s fault. Roddy loved the old man and visited there whenever he came home from tour. Take a bottle of whisky and stay up half the night talking about old times. He said he’d heard Willy’s stories hundreds of times but he never tired of them. He still kept in contact even after Willy moved into the sheltered housing. That’s a part of his life the press never picked up on.’
Suddenly she got to her feet, more sober than she’d seemed throughout the rest of the encounter. She carried the whisky bottle to a sideboard and put it away. ‘I’m going to make coffee,’ she said. ‘Would anyone like one? Edith, you don’t need to stay, you know. I’m quite used to being on my own.’
Chapter Thirty-two
The appointment Perez couldn’t miss was the final performance on The Motley Crew. He’d invited Fran and Cassie before Roddy’s body had been discovered. Fran would understand if he cried off but he’d decided, suddenly, sitting listening to Dawn, that he should be there. If he pulled out this time it would set a precedent for other occasions, other times when there were pressing things to do at work. He wanted to be part of a family again.