Shetland 05: Dead Water (17 page)

Willow was early and drove along to the ferry terminal to kill time. The NorthLink ferry was still in, but the place was quiet. A sudden squall blew up as she was crossing the car park to the Tollclock, and she knew she would look like a witch blown in by the gale, her hair wild. And Evie Watt did look astonished when Willow landed at her table.

‘Brilliant place!’ Willow said. She carried a plate filled with salads, hummus and pitta bread. ‘Just what I needed. Odd to find something like this in Lerwick. Not at all what I expected.’

‘Oh, we’re quite civilized really.’ Evie smiled. Willow thought that already she had the woman hooked, that Evie was disarmed and ready to talk.

‘Look, I’m sorry to trouble you,’ Willow said. ‘You must be frantic! A wedding on Saturday and so much to organize. I’m surprised you look so calm.’

‘It’s a very relaxed and informal do. And I’ve delegated most of the organization to other people. But I’m not sure how I can help you. I told Jimmy Perez everything I know.’ Evie had chosen a seafood salad, but had eaten very little. Willow wondered if she was worried about putting on weight before the wedding.

The detective leaned forward. She could have been a friend, a bit older than Evie and not as pretty – no competition. They could be sharing gossip. ‘I’m trying to follow Markham’s movements on the day he died. He spent Thursday night in the Ravenswick Hotel. Friday morning he was drinking coffee in the Bonhoga with a middle-aged woman. Any idea who that might have been?’

Evie shook her head. ‘Unless it was his mother. They were always very close. It was a sacrifice for Maria to let her son go south. She understood his ambitions, but she adored him. It always seemed a weird relationship to me – they were more like lovers than mother and son. I mean, I get on well with my dad, but our relationship isn’t as intense as that. Peter must have felt left out at times.’

Willow nodded. She hadn’t considered that Maria might have been Markham’s companion. A mistake. ‘We know he had lunch, on his own, in a chip shop in Brae.’ Sandy had come up with that information. The owner had recognized Markham. ‘Then he had a meeting with the press officer in Sullom Voe. Andy Belshaw. Why would he do that?’

‘I suppose Andy would be the natural first place to start, if he was writing an article about the terminal.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Sure. He runs the junior football team with John, my fiancé. He has sons of the right age, and John has always got on well with kids.’ She paused. ‘John’s wife couldn’t have children. An effect of the cancer treatment. She became ill in her thirties and was being treated for it most of their married life. John nursed her all that time.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact and Willow couldn’t tell what she made of all that, what it felt like to be engaged to some sort of saint.

‘So he missed out on a normal family life,’ Willow said. ‘And now he’s getting a second chance.’

‘Aye, perhaps. We both want children, certainly.’

‘Then Markham was supposed to meet an action group about a tidal-energy project. Was that anything to do with you?’

Evie looked uncomfortable. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There are a handful of people in the islands who think the tidal project would spoil the environment around Hvidahus, where we’re planning to bring the power ashore, but really it would have very little impact.’

‘So they’re like a lobby group?’

‘Aye,’ Evie said. ‘Something like that.’

She turned her head slightly and Willow thought she couldn’t push the point without alienating the woman. ‘Tell me about Andy Belshaw,’ she said. ‘I only met the man briefly and I wasn’t sure what to make of him.’

‘I don’t think he’s that complicated! He loves his family, a few beers at the weekend with his pals, running the kids’ football team. A bit competitive. He likes the team to win, and I have the sense that he’s ambitious at work. He and John get on well, but they’re quite different.’

‘Your John is a bit more complicated then?’ Willow kept her voice light. This was a strange conversation to be having with a suspect in a busy cafe. Her boss in Inverness would have forty fits if he knew.

Evie considered. Or perhaps she was thinking up a response that didn’t give too much away. ‘I don’t know.’ She laughed again. ‘I hope I have years to find out!’

‘And Andy Belshaw’s wife? What’s she like?’ Now, Willow thought, this really did feel like gossip with a friend.

‘Oh, Jen is lovely. She’s the school cook at Aith. A bit older than Andy. Motherly, you know. Passionate about traditional crafts.’

Willow nodded.

‘I should get back to work.’ Evie tidied the plates into a pile. ‘I’m having Friday off, and there’s a lot to do this week.’

‘Anything specific?’ Willow realized she was enjoying the company of this woman and didn’t want their encounter to end just yet, that she had a sudden and irrational dread of being left alone in a strange place.

‘I’m trying to persuade a university research team to contribute to the project to develop Shetland as an experimental site for tidal energy. There’s a place in North Mainland that would be perfect. The council could help with transport and accommodation costs, but the scientists seem to think Shetland is at the end of the known world. I’ve organized for the team leader to come and see the place for himself. I was onsite in Hvidahus this morning with a working party of interested islanders, talking through our plans. So that’s the rest of my week taken up. That and writing the place settings for the wedding, and doing a pile of baking for the party in the evening.’ She got to her feet and Willow thanked her and let her go. At the door Evie stopped and turned back. ‘You should come along to the party, if you’re still around,’ she said. ‘You’d be very welcome. A traditional Shetland wedding is something special.’

For the first time since she’d arrived, Willow found herself driving along the road north on her own. It was early afternoon and the road was quiet. Gusts of wind caught at the car and forced her to concentrate on the driving. But all the time she was running through the events and the people surrounding Jerry Markham’s death in her head. Andy Belshaw, who worked at Sullom Voe, managing the news and spinning the image of the place. Evie Watt, who lived close to the terminal. John Henderson, who was based just across the water from there and piloted the huge tankers in and out of Sullom Voe terminal. Mark Walsh, who was Henderson’s neighbour and opposed to tidal energy. Willow had marked them all on a map on the operations-room whiteboard in the police station in Lerwick. And the lay-by where Markham was killed, and the marina at Aith where his body had been found by Rhona Laing.

By now Willow had arrived at the lay-by. Vicki Hewitt, the CSI, and Sandy Wilson were both wearing scene-suits. The blue-and-white tape twisted and pulled at the fastenings in the wind. Willow stood outside the cordon and shouted in to them.

‘So, Vicki, is this our crime scene, do you think?’

The woman looked up and grinned. ‘Hey! Give me a chance. I don’t work miracles in my spare time.’

Willow knew she should be patient, but in her head time passed, ticking like a metronome. Soon her boss would decide that she’d had long enough and would fly in himself to take on the case, like a lone sheriff to save the day. She yelled that she’d see them back in Lerwick for the evening briefing and got into her car. She tried Perez’s phone again and this time it rang out. Perez answered, but the signal was weak and she could hardly hear him.

‘I’ll be on the ferry from Yell soon. If you can meet me at Toft in half an hour we can talk then.’ In the background she heard engine noise and gulls. She wondered what he’d been up to and felt a small stab of anger. Did he think he had the right to play private detective and ignore her completely? But she was curious and knew she’d do exactly what he said. She looked at her map and headed north again.

On the road towards Sullom Voe terminal she saw the stuffed images of Evie Watt and John Henderson, the life-size photos still intact on the faces despite the weather, held around the heads with thin elastic. Evie’s had slipped a bit and the straw was spilling out of the pillowcase. Willow remembered that there’d been a discussion of Evie’s hen party in the bar at Voe and thought the same friends must have made the models for a laugh. Willow wondered briefly who she’d invite to
her
hen party, then decided the question was academic: she wasn’t the marrying kind.

She’d slowed down to look at the dummies dressed up in the wedding finery and was about to continue when something made her change her mind. Instead she pulled her car onto the verge, got out and walked back to look at them more closely. She was interested to know what Evie’s fiancé looked like and she still had twenty minutes before she’d arranged to meet Jimmy Perez. Walking through the long grass, she saw there were irises and marsh marigolds in the ditch. Not in flower yet, but in a few weeks they’d look magnificent. She wouldn’t see them because she’d be long gone by then, the murderer in custody. She hoped. Getting closer, she thought the hen-party lasses had gone to a lot of trouble. Real shoes on the feet. A frilly white dress on the girl model. But on the other – not a suit as she’d expected, but navy-blue trousers and jacket. On the jacket a red-and-white lapel badge. The male dummy, which had previously been propped up on the bank, had slipped and was lying in longer grass. It was only as she looked down at it that she saw real hands and, behind the photographic mask, real skin, real hair.

A moment of panic. This was too close to a horror movie, to childhood fairy stories of a puppet coming to life. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Then she lifted the mask gently with the end of her pen, stretching the elastic that fixed it in place. The face beneath it coincided exactly with the glossy picture on the photograph. John Henderson was lying dead beside the figure of his bride-to-be.

Chapter Twenty-One

Willow stood by the side of the road and made phone calls. To Sandy Wilson, asking him to bring Vicki Hewitt along as soon as possible, keeping her voice even, betraying none of her earlier panic.

‘And
what’s
happened?’ Sandy Wilson sounding out of his depth.

‘John Henderson’s dead. And someone stuck a photo over his face. So not an accident, and not suicide. Unless he put on the mask before stabbing himself in the chest.’

‘Right.’

But Willow thought it wasn’t right. This was planned and horrible and running out of control.

Next call was to Jimmy Perez, who was already at Toft where the roll-on, roll-off ferry from Yell had arrived at the Shetland mainland. Another explanation. This time the response wasn’t a question, but a statement. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ And the thought brought her comfort. Suddenly she wished she’d asked Perez to interview Henderson over the weekend. Even ill and depressed, Perez would have got more out of the man than Sandy had. And now it was too late. It was an error of judgement that she knew she’d come to regret over the coming days.

Perez arrived first. He stayed on the road with his shoulders hunched into his jacket and didn’t even ask to look at the body. Following procedure to the letter, or because he couldn’t face staring at a dead man? Willow couldn’t decide. She couldn’t tell how close to the edge he was. She wished they could get very drunk together; then she might find the nerve to ask all the questions that were bubbling into her mind.

‘Somebody should tell Evie Watt,’ he said. ‘Before the news gets out. You know what this place is like. There are no secrets here.’

Except the identity of a murderer.

‘Will you do it?’ she asked. Only as the words came out did she realize how crass that was, but they’d been spoken and it was too late to take them back. And if Perez was working, he should be up to the job.

There was a silence. ‘I’m not sure if I’m the right person.’

They stared at each other. Like dogs. Or lovers having their first row, neither wanting to set a precedent by backing down first.

‘I was thinking I should take a look at Henderson’s house,’ he said at last. ‘Hard to tell, but I wouldn’t have thought the man was killed here by the road. It would be too great a risk. There’s no fog this time.’

‘Where did he live?’ Willow asked. She’d seen the address written down, but again she felt hindered by her lack of knowledge of the geography of Shetland. And undermined by having a colleague who knew the place and its people better than she ever would.

‘Hvidahus, on the east side, not far away. It’s a newish bungalow. Henderson built it when his wife was first ill.’ Perez looked up at her. ‘And we should talk to the harbour master. Those are work clothes. Henderson was either getting ready for his shift at Sullom Voe or he’d just finished. It’d help fix the time of death to know when he was working.

They stared at each other again, and this time it was Willow who broke the silence. ‘Wait till Sandy gets here and I’ll come with you to Henderson’s place. I want to see where he lived. In the meantime, see if you can get the harbour master on the phone.’

Perez nodded and walked away from her to make the call.

Willow made the final phone call on her mental list: to Rhona Laing. A polite and distant male voice said that the Fiscal wasn’t available. When pressed, the man said that she had taken a couple of days’ leave. He was her assistant. Perhaps he could help?

Sandy Wilson and Vicki Hewitt turned up and then it was like any murder investigation. The same routine and the same questions: questions Willow knew the CSI would refuse to answer with any certainty.

‘Cause of death?’

‘Looks like a stab wound, as you said on the phone. I’d guess he was killed elsewhere, though.’

‘How long has he been dead?’ Again Willow found it impossible to be still. All those days in the big barn in the commune – the daily meditation, lying on her back, staring at the beams in the ceiling, learning to relax her body and focus her mind. All that for nothing here, when she should be calm, and every nerve and muscle tensed and twanged and she hopped from foot to foot like a kid needing a wee.

Vicki looked up and grinned briefly, gave the old and practised response. ‘Tell me when he was last seen and I’ll let you know. Between then and when you found him. Otherwise, wait for the pathologist. He’ll tell you what the man last had to eat.’