White Nights - Ann Cleeves [109]
‘Would you be able to put me together a couple of flasks of coffee?’ he asked. ‘Some sandwiches. Of course I’d pay.’
‘I don’t know. This is Martin’s business.’
‘He wouldn’t begrudge us a couple of rounds of sandwiches.’
She flinched at the sharpness in his words.
‘I expect I can find you something,’ she said.
She didn’t invite him in, but he followed her into the restaurant and through into the kitchen. He thought she seemed at home there. ‘Do you help Martin out often?’
‘If he’s busy. Preparations for events.’
‘Did you help out before the opening of Miss Sinclair’s exhibition?’
‘Just arranging tables in the afternoon. Folding napkins, that sort of thing. Not on the night. I used to help Bella when she had parties at the Manse, but always behind the scenes.’
He thought she would be too timid to serve the public. ‘What were the parties like?’ he asked. ‘I guess they’d be grand affairs.’
‘You could never tell.’ She gave a little smile. ‘Sometimes I’d turn up expecting champagne and canapés and they’d all be eating beans on toast round the kitchen table. I’m not sure what her guests made of it.’
‘Do you remember any of the guests?’
‘No, not after all this time. The big parties stopped long ago.’ But she spoke so quickly that he wasn’t sure he believed her.
‘Did everyone from Biddista go too?’
‘Mostly it was the men who got the invites,’ she said. ‘Alec, of course, when he was well enough. He was Bella’s brother. And Kenny, though he wasn’t so keen. And Lawrence. Bella always preferred the company of men.’
‘Tell me what it was like,’ he said, ‘growing up in a place like this. I just can’t get my head round it. Everyone knowing your business.’
‘Oh, we all hang on to our little bit of privacy. It’s the only way we keep sane.’
She seemed embarrassed then to have spoken so freely and opened the door of the big fridge. ‘I could do a round of cheese and a round of ham. Maybe some pâté if you’d like it.’
‘Can you make it a couple of each? There are a few of us.’
‘I thought you’d finished up on the hill.’ She was slicing bread and stopped, the knife poised, watching for his answer.
‘Not quite,’ he said easily. Then added, just to see her reaction, ‘Something’s come up.’
‘Why?’ she asked quickly. ‘What have you found?’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t discuss the investigation with anyone.’ He tried to smile reassuringly. She was so anxious, he wanted to put her at her ease, even though he’d provoked the response. He could feel the tension in her like an infection which he was already catching. ‘Is there anything you think we should know?’
She bent her head over the sandwiches, so he couldn’t see her face. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not. We just want it to be over.’
He wondered if he should push it, imagined again the whole valley in a conspiracy of silence. But she seemed so closed off from him that he didn’t think it would be any use.
She made a flask of tea and another of coffee and wrapped the sandwiches in foil and cut half a fruit cake from a tin. She wouldn’t take any money. ‘I’m sure Bella would want me to help you.’
She stood at the door of the gallery and watched him walk up the road, as if she wanted to be sure that he’d really gone.
By the time he got back to the hill a large piece of jawbone had been found. This fragment had two teeth attached. But the climbers said they’d only just started. Perez was on the phone to track down a generator and lights. They thought they’d be at it well into the night.
Chapter Thirty-seven
When Perez arrived at the house in Ravenswick it was half-past midnight, but Fran was still up. She’d said that she would be. There’d been a brief guarded phone call with Taylor listening in. He was on the hill and his mobile reception was dreadful, so her words kept breaking up.