White Nights - Ann Cleeves [59]
There was a giggle in her voice. Like she was saying, Weird coincidence, huh?, but not believing that it really could be Jeremy. Martha couldn’t speak, found she could hardly breathe.
Kate must have sensed something was wrong. ‘Martha, what is it?’
‘My boss, Jeremy. He seems to have disappeared.’
‘My God! Don’t move. I’m coming to get you now.’ Martha knew this wasn’t just about Kate coming to support a friend. It was Kate smelling a story a mile off and wanting to be on it before anyone else found out.
Chapter Twenty-one
It was the apparent lack of urgency around the investigation that got under Roy Taylor’s skin, made him fidget and itch. There was so much to do and these local guys seemed to think there was all the time in the world. In his own patch he’d have shouted and ranted and soon got his staff moving. And he’d have felt better for letting off steam. Here he knew he had to contain his temper, and that added to the tension and the impatience.
He arrived at Biddista a quarter of an hour before he’d arranged to meet Perez, but still he felt irritated because the man wasn’t there. At the jetty the scene tape had been removed and any of the locals could get in now to fetch out their gear for fishing. Waiting for Perez to arrive, Taylor thought fishing would be like torture to him. Being on the sea in a small boat. Not being able to move. Having to remain quiet. Wanting to throw up as soon as they left dry land. He knew he wouldn’t be able to bear it. He’d end up diving into the water to escape, just to be moving. Then he realized that Perez’s car had pulled up beside him. Five minutes early. He had a moment of disappointment; he would have liked an excuse to criticize, even inside his head. He had to be so pleasant to Perez that it hurt.
They sat for a moment on the low wall that bordered the road.
‘Got anything for me?’ Again, as Taylor asked the question he hoped, in a perverse way, that there was nothing. Every relationship for him was a sort of competition and he liked winning, even here when it was part of the job to be cooperative. The last Shetland case had ended with Perez as a local hero. Taylor would never let it show, but it still rankled. That wasn’t how events should have played out. He should have been the one to make the difference, to reach the conclusion. The stranger coming in to clean up town, like in all those cowboy films he watched on the telly when he was a lad. He knew it was pathetic and childish, but he couldn’t help it. The fact that his work had been recognized more widely within the force helped, but each case was a challenge. He needed to succeed every time.
‘A couple of things,’ Perez said.
‘Great,’ Taylor said, shaking his head up and down to prove how pleased he was. ‘Great.’
‘I’ve found a witness who thinks she might have seen the victim being dropped off here. I’ve got Sandy tracing the driver. And the same woman says that the plastic mask over the victim’s face could have been bought at the Middleton Sunday teas last week.’
‘Sunday teas?’
Perez considered. ‘I suppose the English equivalent would be a village fête.’
‘We didn’t have many of those in Liverpool.’ Taylor wasn’t sure where he’d feel more alien – here, miles from anywhere, surrounded by sea, or in an English village with a vicarage, spinsters on bicycles, duck ponds. He thought he didn’t really feel at home anywhere. Perhaps he should go back to Merseyside. Just for a long weekend. See how it felt. He still wasn’t sure he could contemplate a permanent move.
‘How do you want to play it today?’ he said. He had to ask. Whatever he felt about being the boss, this was always going to be Perez’s show. His patch. Besides, by now Taylor didn’t really care who they saw first, he just wanted to make something happen.
Perez hesitated and Taylor made the decision for him, couldn’t help himself.
‘Let’s go and see the artist. Bella Sinclair.’ From everything he’d heard,