White Nights - Ann Cleeves [54]
‘Do you think Dawn hired someone to spoil the exhibition for us? It seems so elaborate. Not like her at all. She’s a down-to-earth Yorkshirewoman.’
‘I don’t know.’ Now he seemed reluctant to talk about work.
‘And even if she did, what has that to do with the murder? Are you saying Bella found out what was going on, strangled the man and strung him up to teach him a lesson? It’s ridiculous.’
He said nothing.
‘Of course it could have been me,’ she teased. ‘If I’d found out what he’d done. This was my first major exhibition. I had more to lose than Bella did.’
There was a pause. She didn’t think he was going to reply.
‘Of course I know it wasn’t,’ he said lightly. ‘You’re the one person it couldn’t have been – I was with you all night.’ He went up to her and put his hands on her shoulders, pulled her towards him and kissed her forehead. ‘I’ll always remember that evening. Not for the murder – that was work and in time it’ll be an interesting case, nothing more – but because it was the first night I spent with you.’
He rinsed out his mug under the tap and set it carefully on the draining board. She stood at the door and watched him walk to his car. Soppy git, she thought. Then, So he is serious about me, after all. That she found a little scary. She stared out over Raven Head, lost in thought, until he drove away.
Chapter Nineteen
Perez arrived at the school in Middleton at eight-fifteen. He reckoned Dawn should already be there by then, but the kids wouldn’t have arrived. He didn’t want to talk to her in Biddista with Martin in attendance, though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because Martin would try to lighten the conversation, would shy away from any serious discussion. Perez knew the teacher by sight but he’d never spoken to her. She hadn’t been a part of the family when Martin’s father drowned.
The school was a low modern building, with a football pitch to one side and a playground to the other. It looked over a narrow inland loch. A bit of a breeze had blown up and the water was whipped into small waves. The children came from the houses scattered over the surrounding hill and from settlements as far as the coast. Like all the Shetland schools Middleton was well maintained and well equipped. The oil had brought problems to some communities but it had its benefits too. Shetland Islands Council had negotiated a good deal with the companies to bring the oil ashore and the income had been channelled into community projects.
There was already a line of cars parked in the yard and the main door was unlocked. No one was in the office and he wandered through to one of the classrooms. A young bearded man was writing on the board.
‘I’m looking for Mrs Williamson.’ Perez hovered at the door. Even this school was much bigger than the room in Fair Isle where he’d sat to do his lessons, but the smell was familiar.
‘Are you one of the dads?’ The man was polite enough, but hardly friendly. Perez wondered what it was about schools that made him uneasy. Maybe all adults felt exactly the same way. Too big and clumsy for a place built for children. He supposed a stranger walking into his working environment would be intimidated too. Then he thought he would love to be a dad. It was something he’d always wanted. He wouldn’t mind then the effort of coming into school, of attending parents’ evenings and nativity plays.
The man had turned from the board and was waiting for him to reply.
‘No,’ Perez said. ‘No, I’m not.’ He was thinking how to explain his presence without causing Dawn problems when he heard footsteps on the corridor behind him and he saw her walking towards them, a mug of what smelled like herbal tea in one hand. She was a little older than Martin, he thought. Early thirties, curly red hair, a wide mouth.
‘Mrs Williamson,’ Perez said. ‘Could I have a word? It’ll not take long.