Shetland 05: Dead Water (24 page)

She thought that was what he was doing here – conjuring a story of the Greys’ perfect lives: the house on the edge of Hampstead Heath, the country retreat in Dorset, Annabel’s academic brilliance. Not necessarily to deceive his audience in any way, but to convince them to treat his daughter gently. And because he wanted Willow and Perez to like him, to be swept along by the energy of his narrative. He was seductive. In her parents’ world of the commune, he would be welcomed as a guru.

‘So you’d met Jerry Markham on many occasions,’ Perez said to start them off. ‘You knew him well?’

But, like his daughter, Richard wanted to describe events in his own way. ‘First,’ he said, ‘a little family history to set events in context. For the last ten years it’s just been Annabel and me. My wife left me when our daughter was eleven. I adored Jane, but she was an impulsive woman, given to strange moods and depressions. She always resisted seeking psychiatric help, but I should have persisted. I see that now. She was obviously mentally ill.’ He paused and looked wistfully into the distance. Willow felt like applauding his performance. She wondered if Grey believed that his wife’s antipathy towards him could be considered a symptom of psychiatric disorder. If so, Willow was a sufferer too. Perez said nothing and waited for Grey to continue.

‘Jane ran away with a younger man. She had some notion that she might take Annabel with her, but she soon realized that would be impractical. She could hardly look after herself, never mind a child.’ Another dramatic pause. ‘Besides, without Annabel to care for, I’d have fallen apart completely.’

It occurred to Willow that Perez might sympathize with Richard Grey. Without Cassie to look after, would he have survived Fran’s murder? Perhaps that was why he was so tolerant of the man’s posturing.

‘Jane was a regular church-goer from before I met her,’ Grey said. ‘I think she liked the theatre of it – the dressing up and the ritual. And there was always someone around to offer her sympathy and give her attention. She used to take Annabel to Sunday School. I never understood the attraction, but Annabel still went, even after Jane disappeared. Perhaps she hoped that one day her mother would turn up in the congregation; of course that never happened. Jane lost all contact with us a couple of months after she ran away. Then, when Annabel was fifteen, St Luke’s appointed a new vicar. He was young and evangelical and he appealed to the younger parishioners. I suppose faith became more real to Annabel then and she took a more active part in the worship. In the whole life of the church. It’s influenced her deeply ever since.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Perez said, the famous patience finally wearing thin. ‘I don’t quite understand what this has to do with Jerry Markham.’

‘It explains her infatuation,’ Richard Grey said. ‘When Jerry turned up at the advent course that day – challenging, screwed up, but very attractive – she thought she could save him. He was like a male version of her mother. Annabel is young and passionate, and Jerry Markham became the most important thing in her life. More important than her friends, or her academic study at St Hilda’s.’

‘And what did you make of him?’ Willow asked. ‘You must have realized that he had a reputation as a journalist. He was known to be ruthless and very ambitious. And he was a lot older than Annabel.’

Grey frowned. ‘He wasn’t the man I’d have chosen for her, but sometimes you have to let go. To allow the people you love to make their own mistakes.’

‘So you thought Jerry Markham was a mistake?’

Grey hesitated. ‘He seemed pleasant enough. Devoted to my daughter. Prepared to go along with the whole thing – baptism, confirmation – just to please her. He made her happy.’

‘But you didn’t feel you could trust him?’

‘I didn’t know,’ Grey said. ‘I suppose I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t get hurt. He reminded me too much of my ex-wife.’

There was a knock at the door and Morag was there, looking apologetic because they were back so soon. Annabel rushed ahead of her, flushed from the walk. ‘I’m so glad that we came,’ she said. ‘I feel that I’ve met Jerry all over again. It’s as if I’ve bumped into him in the street and followed in his footsteps along the waterfront.’ She stood behind her father and kissed his head lightly. ‘Thank you so much for bringing me.’

They continued the conversation standing by the marina in Aith, though now Annabel was with them, so it was difficult to revisit the subject of Jerry’s suitability as a husband. A weak sun provided no heat and Willow had given Annabel a spare jersey, which covered her dress and looked on her like a designer outfit, something weird and boho seen on the catwalk. Richard had pulled a Berghaus jacket from the holdall and seemed perfectly at home. Out in the voe some kids were having sailing lessons at an after-school club, skittering over the water in tiny dinghies. Annabel had asked if she might see where Jerry had died. Perez had said immediately that they could take her to where the body was found. Willow admired his tact. This place, by the water, with the hills on all sides, would provide a better memory for the woman than a lay-by next to a busy road.
She
wouldn’t have been so thoughtful. But then
she
wasn’t taken in by long legs and innocence. To think that she’d believed Perez would be immune to that sort of charm!

Now Annabel sat on an upturned wooden crate looking out over the sea. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘More bleak than I was expecting, but bigger, more open. Jerry had shown me photos, but you can’t really tell from those. You don’t get an idea of the scale.’

‘What did Jerry tell you about his life on the islands?’

Still Perez was leading the discussion. Willow had decided to let him get on with it – she’d worked out that Annabel was someone who would respond better to men.

‘He talked about his parents, working so hard in the hotel,’ Annabel said. ‘He was very close to his mother. No siblings, so we had that in common, and with his dad so tied up with the business, I suppose that was natural. I know Maria phoned Jerry almost every day.’

‘And Jerry didn’t mind that?’ Perez was standing beside Annabel’s makeshift bench and, like her, he was staring over the water, so there was no eye contact. ‘He didn’t find it intrusive?’

‘No. As I said, they were very close. I think he welcomed the way she kept in touch.’

‘Who would Jerry have talked to if he had a problem?’ Perez asked. ‘His mother? You?’

Now Annabel turned so that she was looking directly at him. ‘I didn’t see it as a competition,’ she said. ‘Dad and I are very close, but Jerry didn’t resent that, either.’

Willow looked at Richard Grey. No response at all.

‘I’m not suggesting that you resented Maria.’ Perez gave an awkward little laugh. ‘But in this case it’s important to know if Jerry confided in anyone. We need to know what brought him to Shetland. Maybe he had a close male friend? Here or in London?’

‘Jerry didn’t find it easy admitting to problems,’ Annabel said. ‘And he certainly didn’t like asking for help. A sort of macho thing. He thought he should be able to deal with stuff himself.’

‘Did he ever talk to you about Evie Watt?’ Perez asked. ‘She’s a young Shetlander. She and Jerry were lovers before he left the islands for London.’

‘I’m sure Jerry had lots of girlfriends before he met me.’ Annabel stared back at the sea. ‘But this was going to be a fresh start for us both.’

Willow couldn’t believe that the girl had never asked about Jerry Markham’s past. That was what lovers did: shared their intimate secrets. It was part of the game.

‘Evie’s boyfriend was the second murder victim,’ Perez said. ‘So you do see how this is relevant.’

‘You think Evie Watt killed them both?’ The question came from Richard Grey. He’d been leaning against the harbour wall, apparently just enjoying the air, but Willow saw that he’d been following the conversation closely.

‘No!’ Perez said. ‘There’s no evidence for that at all. But it’s a connection. A link that we have to explore.’

In the voe one of the dinghies tipped on its side and a young boy with bright-red hair climbed onto the hull, spluttering and laughing.

‘Jerry talked about betrayal,’ Annabel said. ‘Late one night. We’d been out for a meal and he was walking me home. It was early January, before I went back to St Hilda’s, a sharp frost, and he had his arm around me. We’d shared a bottle of wine. I asked about Shetland. Would he ever go back to live? He said it wasn’t the paradise that people from outside believed it to be. When you trusted people and they let you down, that was the worst sort of betrayal.’

‘Did he say who’d betrayed him?’ Willow asked the question and felt that she was intruding into a private conversation. But this was
her
case, her chance to make a mark.

Annabel shook her head. ‘That was all he said.’

Chapter Thirty

All evening Perez had the images of the women in his mind. He drove south to Ravenswick and collected Cassie from his neighbour’s house. He ran her bath and listened to her chatting about her friends and her day at school, and still the images were with him. Two women, both attached to Jerry Markham. One a student, pale and fair, at home in the city. One small and dark, living in the islands. Opposites. Shadows of each other. Yet sharing a faith. A passion for God and for Markham. A belief that they could save him from himself.

When Cassie was asleep he made a fire with scraps of driftwood that he’d collected earlier from the beach. There was one dense piece of pitch pine that would last most of the night. Then he prepared for his visitors. This time he’d invited Willow and Sandy to come to his house to discuss the case; he hadn’t waited for Willow to invite herself. A week ago he would never have imagined doing that. He would never have considered opening up his house,
Fran’s
house, to visitors. He’d have slammed the door in their faces.

There’d still been soup in the freezer; it had been made by a neighbour at some time over the winter. And a home-made cake. All the women in Ravenswick had decided that he needed feeding in the months following Fran’s death. He wiped down the patterned oilcloth on the table, laid it with cutlery and glasses and put the soup on to heat through. There were oatcakes from the Walls Bakery and he’d stopped in the community shop in Aith for bread and beer. He didn’t see Willow as a woman who would drink wine. Not with veggie soup, at least. Then there was a sudden desire to run away, not sure after all that he could face the intrusion.

It was a still night and he heard their car stop at the bottom of the bank. He took a deep breath and had the door open to welcome them by the time they’d walked up the path. It was almost dark now and he could only see them as silhouettes, Willow taller than the Whalsay man. On the hill at the back of the house there were sheep like small white ghosts in the gloom. And in Perez’s head more ghosts: of the woman who had allowed him to share this place with her, and of two dead men. Markham and Henderson. Like the women who had loved them, as different as it was possible to be.

The detectives followed Perez quietly into the house, not wanting to wake the child sleeping in the next room. They ate like old friends. No need for conversation at first. Perez hoped that meant the awkwardness between him and Willow was forgotten. Later, when he had made coffee and brought out the cake, they talked through the investigation.

‘So do we really believe in Markham’s conversion?’ Willow said. ‘Can people change like that? Suddenly. A clap of thunder. Saul on the road to Damascus.’

‘I can kind of believe it.’ Perez felt warm and easy and wondered if that was some sort of betrayal, here in Fran’s house. The idea of betrayal had become central to the investigation. Betrayal and transformation. But Fran had loved parties, people eating and drinking and talking, so he decided he could enjoy the conversation in tribute to her. ‘In this case at least. Markham had a stressful job. Not many friends, from what we can gather. A small rented flat on his own in the big city. Homesick, maybe, though he’d never have admitted it. He was successful enough, but it must have been hard being a small fish in a big pool. Here in Shetland he was a star reporter, and everyone knows the Markhams of Ravenswick Hotel.’ Perez paused for a moment and collected his thoughts. ‘Jerry might have been quite low, don’t you think, alone in London? That was the impression his editor gave. So he went into that church one lunchtime. Just to shelter from the rain, as Annabel said. Or in search of something. And he found friendship. A welcome. A way of belonging. To the church, but also to the Grey family. They even invited him home for Christmas’

‘And he found a beautiful woman,’ Willow said. ‘Don’t forget that. We know how Markham liked the ladies. Especially if they were young.’

‘And money.’ This was Sandy, joining in too. ‘A flash house in London. He was always impressed by stuff like that. Class.’

‘So perhaps he wanted to believe.’ Perez hoped he was making sense. He felt he was groping towards some sort of answer. ‘Perhaps he
wanted
the whole conversion experience. To please Annabel and the rest of them. To become the centre of attention again.’

‘Then why did he come back to Shetland?’ Willow was sitting on the floor, though there were chairs enough for the three of them. She was stretched on a couple of sheepskins in front of the fire and her face was red with the heat. She’d taken off her sweater and was wearing a striped T-shirt, frayed at the neck. ‘Why did he run away from his new girlfriend and all his new friends and bring himself back here?’

‘To tell his parents that he was going to be married?’ Perez remembered Maria’s insistence that Jerry had something important to tell her. ‘But not just that. He’d have told them straight away, if that was the sole reason for the visit.’

‘Could it be that he was here to write a story, like he told everyone?’ Sandy had been following the conversation, frowning with concentration. ‘When he was working on the
Shetland Times
perhaps he’d come across something in the islands that wasn’t right. I don’t know – corruption. People on the fiddle. And this was his chance to prove to his new friends that he was a good man. A good Christian.’