White Nights - Ann Cleeves [61]
Perez didn’t answer directly. Taylor sensed that Perez didn’t like her, but couldn’t work out how he could tell the antipathy was there. Certainly Perez was perfectly polite.
‘This is Roy Taylor from Inverness,’ he said. ‘He’s in charge of the investigation.’
She looked at Taylor, held him in her gaze. She stared at him as children stare at very fat people, or at people with a deformity, with a look that was at once frank and curious.
‘Come up to the studio. We can talk while I get on with the prep.’
It was one of the corner bedrooms, not a huge, clear space as Taylor had imagined, but rather cluttered. There were two windows, one looking north on to the hill and the other west over the sea. There was a tall Victorian chest of drawers which reached almost to the ceiling. One of the lower drawers was half open and revealed a pile of white paper. An easel leaned unused against one wall; on another was a stainless-steel sink which looked as if it had been installed recently. Although she made a show of preparing to work, Taylor thought her heart wasn’t in it. She wanted to impress them, to let them know how valuable was her time, but really she was desperate to know what they were there for.
‘Is there any news?’ she asked. ‘Do we know yet who that poor man was?’
The only place to sit in the room was a Shetland chair, made of driftwood, a rough drawer built under the seat. On it was curled a black and white cat. They all remained standing and it made the conversation seem awkward, hurried, as if they’d just met on the street and were about to move on in opposite directions.
‘We think he was involved in spreading the word that your exhibition had been cancelled,’ Taylor said. ‘Seems a weird thing for a stranger to do.’
Bella looked at him with the same curious gaze.
‘I’ve already explained to Jimmy that I didn’t know who he was.’
‘So why would he do it?’ Taylor was persistent. ‘Sounds to me like someone with a grudge.’
‘If he had a grudge, I don’t think it was against me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It wasn’t only my exhibition. It was a shared project. I was working with a new artist – Fran Hunter.’ Taylor noticed that she didn’t look at Perez during this conversation. He was meant to notice.
Bella continued. ‘Fran’s English. It seems the stranger was English. More likely, surely, that she knew him than I did.’
At that point Perez interrupted. ‘Did Fran give any indication that she recognized the man?’
‘I’m not sure she noticed him. She was too busy talking to Peter Wilding.’
There was a silence. Taylor couldn’t understand what might have caused the awkwardness. What was Perez keeping from him?
‘Is Roddy around?’ Perez asked. ‘I think DCI Taylor would like to talk to him too.’
‘Roddy’s leaving today,’ she said. ‘This was only going to be a flying visit. He’s off to Australia next week.’
‘You’ll miss him.’ Taylor couldn’t tell if Perez meant the words. It sounded almost as if he was mocking her. But Bella answered without question.
‘I will. And I’m not sure when he’ll be back. Each time he comes he seems less at home here. Maybe it’s easier for him to be a Shetlander when he’s away from the islands.’
‘Where will we find him?’ Perez asked.
‘He was packing, but I think I heard him go out.’ She paused. ‘You might find him in the graveyard. He goes there sometimes, usually just before he leaves, to say goodbye to his father.’
Chapter Twenty-two
Roddy Sinclair was just where Bella had said he’d be. The graveyard was a bleak sort of place and Taylor thought he wouldn’t want to end his days here, right next to the sea, drowned with salt spray during the gales and picked over by seabirds. Most of the headstones were very old and misshapen, looking, Taylor thought, like a mouthful of crooked teeth. Roddy had moved away from the graves and was standing by the low drystone wall, looking out over the water. He wore a bright yellow sweatshirt