Thin Air: (Shetland book 6) (17 page)

‘I suppose we should.’ She wondered why she was as reluctant as Sandy to talk to the people at Sletts. She turned in her seat. ‘Did you believe Vaila? Did she see her ghost?’

He paused for a moment. ‘I’m with her husband. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t think she was making it up. Not deliberately. She was desperate for a baby and she saw what she wanted to see.’

Chapter Twenty

In the house on the shore at Meoness, Polly thought she was unravelling just as she’d suspected Eleanor of doing when anger and depression at the loss of a child had made her so low. It was the fog closing them in, and the sense that they were all trapped. Her nerves were fraying and she was finding it impossible to sleep, even when she took pills. She was haunted by the light nights and by the horror of all that had happened. She couldn’t understand why the men didn’t make more fuss about the possibility of their leaving. Now she was desperate to return to London, to busy streets and colour, to daily newspapers that arrived on time and regular visits to the gym. To the comfort and routine of the Sentiman Library.

They sat in Sletts, looking occasionally out at the grey world beyond their window. The detectives had returned their laptops and phones and the men both seemed to be engrossed in the screens. Marcus was planning a trip for another rich client who was obsessed with climbing Kilimanjaro before he died, and she supposed that Ian was working too. He was checking his emails and suddenly turned into the room, frowning. ‘All these ghouls sending messages about how sorry they are that Eleanor’s dead. It’s nonsense, of course. They just want to be part of the drama. She’d upset half of them, and the other half were embarrassed when she had the miscarriage.’

Polly thought that was probably true. She was trying to read, but couldn’t concentrate and sneaked a look at Marcus’s screen. He was putting together information for his client and there were images of lush vegetation and stunning views from his previous trips to Tanzania. She wondered again what this man who was so well travelled and attractive could have seen in her. Now he was leaning back and had his feet on the rungs of a dining chair. He was wearing the sandals he’d had on when they first met, and his feet were brown, long and bony. She longed to reach out and stroke them, but realized how insensitive that would be when Ian must be coming to terms with the idea that he’d never have physical contact with Eleanor again.

Marcus had burst into her life like a being from a different planet. She’d booked the trip to Morocco in the middle of the winter. An impulse when she’d been with Caroline and Eleanor one night, and their lives had seemed so much more exciting than hers. It had been just before Eleanor had lost the child and her friend had been full of fun and mischief: ‘Go on, Pol! What have you got to lose?’ One click of the mouse sent her credit-card details into the ether, and a fortnight later she’d arrived at Agadir airport and there was Marcus, holding a card with her name on it, leaning against a pillar and grinning in a way that was ironic and welcoming at the same time.
I’m just playing at this tour-leading shit, but I’ll make sure that you have a good time.
And he did. The other members of the party were elderly Germans who went to bed at eight-thirty every evening and spoke little English. In the warm evenings she and Marcus explored the walled city of Taroudant and watched the swifts soaring overhead, and it felt quite natural when he put his arm around her shoulders on the way back to the hotel. She was dazzled by the place and the man. And by the fact that she’d had the courage to respond to him. Her boyfriends at college had been shy and earnest and she’d always imagined that she’d end up with someone like that, an academic or a research scientist who spent his working life in a lab coat. Not an adventurer with brown, bony feet who wandered the world. Someone who’d been to public school and who’d grown up in a grand country house.

She’d returned to England at the end of the holiday with no expectations of seeing him again. This was a holiday fling and she’d be grateful for the memories. She imagined telling the girls about Marcus and showing them her photos. ‘This is the night we stayed in the Berber village. Here we are on a trek through the mountains.’ He’d bought her earrings in a souk and waited while she had henna painted on her hands. ‘So that you don’t forget me.’ As if she ever would. At his request she’d entered her mobile number into his phone, but she’d put his asking down to a form of politeness. Or the collection of trophies. Perhaps he had a list of numbers of the women with whom he’d slept when he was leading his tours.

He’d phoned two days later. ‘That’s spooky,’ she’d said, making every effort to keep the excitement from her voice, ‘I was just thinking about you.’ And that was quite true, but it would have been so whenever he’d called. She couldn’t
stop
thinking about him.

‘Would you like to meet up?’ His voice had faded away at the end of the sentence and it had occurred to her for the first time that he might be nervous too, that phoning his customers out of the blue for a date wasn’t his usual way of operating.

‘Yes.’ Because what else was there to say; and he’d told her one night, sitting outside in the warm darkness, that he loved the fact that she never wasted words.

And a few weeks later he was practically living in her flat when he was in England, and she became used to him kissing her goodbye in the early mornings, and returning from work occasionally to find that his rucksack was parked just inside the door and he was sitting on the little balcony outside her flat, his brown feet on the rail, drinking tea or beer. He’d jump up to greet her and begin asking her about her work. Only when he’d listened to her tedious stories of eccentric researchers into rural English myths would he begin his travellers’ tales.

She’d thought at first that he might be with her for her money, the security of a London crash pad when he was in the UK. She had no confidence in her ability to attract a man. Her parents had died one after the other within six months, leaving her the house in Manchester, so she had some savings as well as the flat in London. His tours were pricey, but he wasn’t travelling continuously and sometimes he only had a couple of clients. They provided a way for him to see the world, but would never make his fortune. Then he’d taken her to see his mother and she’d seen that money probably wasn’t an issue. There were paintings on the wall worth more than her parents’ suburban home.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Marcus said, amused, when she asked one day what he saw in her. ‘What will it take me to persuade you that you’re a wonderful woman? I’ve never met anyone so compassionate and wise. You’re just fishing for compliments. There are women you play with, and women you settle down with. I want to be with you for the long term.’

When she’d suggested that he might like to come with her to Shetland she wasn’t sure what his response would be. He’d have to take a couple of weeks off work, and in the summer he sometimes organized lucrative day-trips for American visitors to the UK, but he’d agreed without hesitation. Now, holed up in this house, she longed to have him to herself. She felt cheated because she’d imagined the stay in Shetland would be a romantic time for them. That was why Marcus had brought his own car, so that they could explore on their own, find empty beaches for picnics, ancient historical sites. She’d even had the wild fantasy that he might propose to her. Instead they were locked up in this place on the beach, haunted by the memory of Eleanor, shut in by the weather and the hill where her body had been found. It rose behind the house and its shadow was always with them.

The knock on the door surprised them all. The fog was so dense that it was hard to believe any world existed outside the house. Ian got to his feet and flung open the door. Two police officers. Not the dark detective this time, but the tall, untidy woman and Wilson, the younger man. Without a word Ian stood aside to let them in. Marcus put his feet on the floor and stood up. The officers’ clothes and hair were covered with fine droplets of water, so they looked grey too, as if they’d brought the drizzle in with them.

‘I’ll make some coffee,’ Polly said. ‘Would you like some?’ And she escaped into the kitchen before they could reply.

When she returned to the living room the officers had taken off their jackets and looked more human, though the woman’s wild hair made Polly think of a mermaid from a kid’s story book. There was an awkward silence and she realized they’d been waiting for her before they started any meaningful conversation.

‘We’ve discovered that Eleanor had made contact with some local people to discuss her documentary,’ Willow Reeves said. They’d settled around the dining table. It was as if the discussion required something more formal than the easy chairs. ‘I’m wondering why she never mentioned that to you. As she was so excited by the project.’ When nobody responded she probed again. ‘Why the need for secrecy, do you think?’

‘She might have mentioned it to me,’ Ian said. ‘She talked about her work all the time, but I didn’t always listen. I have my own work. Sometimes she seemed not to realize . . .’

‘But she lied to you.’ Willow’s voice was gentle. Polly thought she might have made a good psychiatrist. ‘That afternoon when she claimed to be tired and the rest of you went for a walk, she met up with a woman who said that she’d seen Peerie Lizzie. The spirit of a drowned child.’

There was a moment of stunned silence. The detective looked at them each in turn. ‘She didn’t discuss this with anyone?’

They looked at each other and Polly could see that they were all trying to readjust to the idea of a different Eleanor. That the straightforward, up-front Eleanor they’d all known might have told lies.

‘Nell might have been embarrassed.’ Polly reached out to pour more coffee. ‘I mean, she knew we could never believe in stuff like that.’ Though now, she thought, she could sense irrational ideas drifting into her own brain like flotsam swirling around in the tide. Now she might be more sympathetic to Eleanor’s talk of ghosts.

‘And you thought that Eleanor might believe it?’ The detective’s voice was non-committal, but Polly could sense the scepticism.

‘Six months ago I’d have said it was impossible.’ Ian tapped his fingers impatiently on the table. ‘But recently? I don’t know what to think. She’d been behaving so strangely. I should have been more sympathetic about the baby. I should have given her my full attention. Insisted, at least, that she stay in hospital until they were ready to discharge her.’

‘How did she seem when you came back from the walk that afternoon?’ Again Willow addressed the question to the whole group.

Ian’s fingers still rattled on the table. Polly wanted to put her hand over his to stop the noise, to calm him.

‘Fine. Didn’t she?’ Polly tried to remember. They’d come in, full of the walk and the things they’d seen. Puffins flying onto the ledges of the cliffs. Being dive-bombed by the skuas. Seals. Eleanor had seemed rested, better than she’d been for months. ‘We were all looking forward to the party. It was like being kids again preparing for a night out. She and I sat in her bedroom and painted our nails.’

‘So that would have been a time when she might have confided in you,’ Willow said. ‘When it was just the two of you together.’

‘Yes.’ Polly paused. ‘But she didn’t.’

Willow turned towards Marcus. ‘You haven’t said much, Mr Wentworth. Do you have anything to add?’

‘I didn’t really know her. We met properly for the first time on the boat from Aberdeen. My sense was that she seemed . . .’ He paused. ‘Playful, perhaps. That everything was coming together for her and she was determined to have fun.’

Looking outside, Polly saw that the fog had almost disappeared. It was possible to see as far as the horizon and a milky sunlight was catching the water. She felt a bubble of gratitude to Marcus for bringing the old Eleanor back to life for her.

The younger detective’s phone rang. A ridiculous call sign: the
Captain Pugwash
theme tune. He blushed and hurried outside with a muttered apology. The rest of them grinned, enjoying the break in the tension. Willow Reeves took one of the biscuits that Polly had set out on a plate.

‘When can we go home?’ Polly asked suddenly. Again she had a longing for her ordinary life, for popping to the local Waitrose for a treat for their supper, and for evenings of theatre or the cinema. For her and Marcus walking along their street on the way back to her flat. Knowing that when they arrived they’d make love lazily and lie in bed afterwards listening to the sounds of the city. That’s what she loved about London: everything was familiar, but anonymous.

‘Whenever you like,’ Willow Reeves said easily. ‘We have no power to keep you here. It makes life easier for us, of course, if you stay locally in case we have more questions.’

‘I’m staying,’ said Ian, pugnacious and determined. ‘For the week that we’d booked at least. Maybe for longer than that. Until we know what happened.’ He hesitated. ‘I can’t stand not knowing. I can live with anything else.’

‘That would be helpful.’ Willow smiled towards Polly as if she sensed her restlessness and discomfort. ‘Of course there’s no need to stay in Unst. Do some trips to Shetland mainland and to Lerwick. After a few days in the sticks it will seem truly metropolitan. A good cappuccino and a restaurant meal and you might not feel so eager to get home.’

The young detective came back into the house, still apologizing, saying he thought he’d switched off his phone. He stood, making it clear that he thought they should leave, and when Willow made no sign of moving he leaned towards her. ‘That was Jimmy.’

Now the woman did get to her feet and they both trooped outside into the pale sunshine. Polly thought that Willow Reeves might be the senior investigating officer in the case, but if anyone was to find out who’d killed Eleanor it would be Jimmy Perez.

Chapter Twenty-One

After speaking to Eleanor’s mother, Perez thought he had no reason to stay in London. He’d done all that Willow had asked him. He could get on a plane and be home that afternoon, ready to drop Cassie back at Duncan’s before arriving in Unst by the last ferry. And ready to share a glass of whisky with Willow before she disappeared to bed. The thought tempted him. But he’d promised Fran’s mother a whole day with their granddaughter and knew he couldn’t leave the city yet.