White Nights - Ann Cleeves [30]
‘If Alice can’t help, maybe you could mention it to Dawn,’ he said.
‘I will.’
‘And I don’t want news of this getting out just yet. I’d like to inform the relatives first.’ If we can ever find them.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll not tell anyone and I’ll ask Dawn to keep it to herself.’ She spoke with a quiet assumption that her request would be honoured. Perez couldn’t imagine Fran being as compliant with his mother’s wishes. She’d had a successful career before she moved to Shetland. Her confidence had taken a bit of a knock recently, but she still knew her own mind. Fran and my mother, he thought. How will that work?
Aggie set down the mixing bowl and walked with him to the door. He realized for the first time that she was anxious for him to be gone.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Perhaps this is difficult for you. The way Andrew died . . . I should have realized.’
She gave him a long, hard stare. ‘My husband’s death was an accident. Not like this at all.’
‘Of course.’ He could feel his face become red, turned away quickly and walked out.
Back in the street he heard the distant sound of a foghorn. Here the sun was still shining and he thought at first they were testing it. Sometimes they did that and it always shocked him, hearing the great booming noise in full sunlight. Then out to sea he saw the thick bank of mist. It was just below the horizon but it was rolling closer. Further south it must already have hit the land.
Sandy had strung the tape around the hut. Blue and white. POLICE. DO NOT ENTER. There was a police car parked, blocking off any vehicular access to the jetty. Now Perez could send Sandy back to Lerwick. It was just a matter of saving the scene from any further contamination before the CSI arrived. He wondered if Sandy had thought to tell the doctors that the CSI would need their shoes, and maybe their clothes for comparison. It was his fault; he should have reminded him.
He was halfway along the road when his phone rang. Morag, one of his team. He’d set her to book places on the last plane for the Inverness team.
‘What’s it like there with you?’
‘Sorry?’ Was she being polite? Passing the time of day? Did she have no sense of urgency?
‘I’ve just had Sumburgh on the phone. They’ve got thick fog.’
‘Any chance of it lifting this afternoon?’
‘I’ve just been on to Dave Wheeler.’ Dave was the met. man who lived in Fair Isle. He took all the weather readings for the shipping forecast. ‘Highly unlikely, he says. And the airport say they’re not expecting any more planes in or out today.’
Perez switched off his phone and stood for a moment. The sun was already covered in a milky haze. So the team from Inverness wouldn’t be in today. If the fog stayed down and they had to get the ferry tomorrow evening they wouldn’t arrive until seven o’clock the following morning. He was in charge. It was his investigation. He’d thought it was what he always wanted.
His phone rang again. ‘Jimmy. It’s Roy Taylor here. From Inverness.’
So, not his case at all.
‘This is how I want you to play it until we arrive.’
Chapter Eleven
Singling neeps was the sort of job you could only do if your mind was somewhere else. It hurt your back, and thinning out the tiny turnip plants took no concentration or thought. It was mindless. The worst thing was when you looked up, thinking that by now you must have nearly finished, done half the field at least, you’d see you’d hardly started and there were rows and rows still left ahead of you.
When they’d been boys, Kenny and Lawrence had played games to make it less boring. Had races, working