White Nights - Ann Cleeves [29]
‘We don’t have all the details yet. He’s hanging from one of the rafters.’ He paused. ‘You weren’t there, at Bella’s party.’
Not a question, and she picked up on that. ‘But you were? I’d heard you’d become friendly with Duncan Hunter’s wife.’
‘She’s not his wife any more, Aggie.’ Why had he felt the need to say that? He was annoyed that he’d reacted to the comment. Perhaps it was because she made him think of his mother, and he’d always needed to justify himself to her.
‘Aye well, none of my business anyway.’ She hesitated. ‘Bella asked me to go along, but you ken, Jimmy, it’s not my thing. All sorts of folk I don’t know.’
‘Not my kind of thing either, really.’
‘And I find Bella kind of scary. Even after all these years.’
He smiled. He understood what she meant. He found Bella scary too. ‘You must have grown up together. Here in Biddista.’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘We all lived in these houses. Willy was in the end one. He never married and his mother had died by the time we were old enough to notice. The Sinclairs were in the middle house. And I lived in here with my mother and father.’
‘So you’re back where you started.’
‘I never really wanted to move away.’
‘Bella just had the one brother?’
‘Alec, Roddy’s father.’
‘What was he like?
‘Oh, he was a quiet man. Not at all like his son. He had cancer, you know. So sad for such a young man. He got very thin in the end. It must have been terrible for Roddy. Maybe that explains why he turned out so wild.’
Perez thought he could see a faint flush on her face and wondered if she had felt something special for Alec Sinclair, but perhaps that was just the heat of the kitchen. ‘Kenny Thomson was at Skoles then too,’ she went on, eager, it seemed, to change the subject. ‘Him and his parents and his brother Lawrence. So nothing much has changed at all. Lawrence moved into Lerwick and then he left Shetland all together.’
‘You haven’t heard of any strangers around? Maybe one of the houses on the way to Middleton has started taking paying guests?’
She shook her head. ‘Not that I’ve heard.’ She cracked one of the eggs against the bowl and used both thumbs to pull the shell apart. ‘It couldn’t have been Peter Wilding? He’s the man who’s taken over Willy’s house. He’s an Englishman.’
‘Martin would have recognized him. He met my stranger last night.’
‘Then I can’t help you.’
‘Have you had any visitors into the shop in the last few days?’
‘A few. A group of young Australians at the beginning of the week wanting cold drinks. And there was a tour bus yesterday. It stopped at the Herring House so folk could have coffee. Most of them walked down here afterwards to stretch their legs, buy postcards and sweeties. But they were all elderly people. How old is your man?’
‘Not that old. Forty. Forty-five.’
‘Not old at all then.’ Another egg went into the bowl. She sifted a spoonful of flour on top, folded it in carefully.
Perez waited until she’d finished before asking, ‘Where did Alice get the clown’s mask?’
‘Why do you need to know, Jimmy? Do you want to get one for Fran Hunter’s lass?’ A faint mischievous smile, hoping to make him react again.
‘No, not that.’ He paused, then thought there was no harm in telling her. Word would get out soon enough.
‘The dead man was wearing something like it.’
She stood quite still, the bowl under one arm, the spoon in her other hand. Perhaps she had the picture in her head of a man she didn’t know, the kiddies’ mask around his head. ‘I didn’t buy that thing for Alice.’
‘Neither did Martin.’
‘It must have been Dawn then. If you like I’ll talk to the child. See if she remembers. If you think it’s important . . .’
He shrugged. ‘It might help us identify him. There’s not much else to go on.’
He was thinking that he might ask Dawn about the mask. She’d know more about it than Alice. He was intrigued by the coincidence and was tempted to drive to Middleton to talk to her. But he couldn’t justify the time. He wanted an incident room ready and waiting when the Inverness boys got in. He didn’t want them thinking the Shetland team couldn