White Nights - Ann Cleeves [65]
She, it seemed, didn’t share her husband’s distress. Perez could tell she would answer his questions briskly and efficiently, but he’d never found the direct approach very helpful. People gave away more if they were allowed space to lead the conversation. It was possible then to get a glimpse of their preoccupations and the subjects they hoped to avoid.
‘This must be an interesting place to work,’ he said. ‘These people have so many stories.’
‘We’re trying to record them. Keep the tapes in the museum. Life here is changing so quickly.’
‘Isn’t that Willy in there? I knew him to say hi to at one time, when he lived in Biddista and worked on the roads, but he seemed not to recognize me.’
‘On his bad days he doesn’t recognize anyone,’ she said. ‘He’s full of stories too, but sometimes they’re just a muddle. We can’t make head or tail of them and he gets so frustrated. He has Alzheimer’s. It developed very quickly. Such a shame. He was always a lively man and even when he first moved into sheltered housing he could manage most things for himself.’
‘Could I talk to him later?’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘He’d be glad of the company.’
‘I just need to ask you a few questions first.’
‘Of course. Come through to my office. Coffee?’
The office was as neat and efficient as she was. A beech desk with a PC, clear and uncluttered, a tall filing cabinet. On the wall a planner marked with coloured stars. He wondered how she and Kenny got on together. Did he resent her career, the full days away from the croft? She probably earned more than her husband did. Did she try to organize him as she did her staff? There was a filter-coffee machine on a small table in a corner, a Pyrex jug half full keeping hot. She poured him a mug.
‘Tell me about the night the man died,’ he said.
‘I don’t know exactly when that was. Was it just before Kenny found him?’
‘We assume it was the night of the Herring House party. If not that evening it would have been early the next morning.’
‘I have nothing to tell you. I can’t help you. I didn’t go to the party.’ She sat behind her desk, her hands in her lap; not obstructive, interested, but lacking the excitement that most people seemed to feel when they were involved in a murder inquiry.
‘But you have a good view down to the shore from your house. Perhaps you saw someone leaving the party?’
‘I was in the garden,’ she said. ‘Each year I think I’ll get away with growing a great crop of vegetables, then there’s a west wind and the salt ruins them all. But still I’m optimistic and I weed and water. You can’t see the Herring House from there. Later I had some work to catch up with. I have an office in the spare bedroom. If I did all my paperwork while I was here, I’d never have time to spend with our clients. It’s at the back of the house. You can’t see much but the hill from there.’
‘Kenny thought he saw someone running up the track towards the Manse.’
‘Then I’m sure he did. He’s not one for making things up. And he was on the hill. He’d have a good view from there.’
‘Why do you think Lawrence left home so suddenly?’
The sudden change of tack caught her off guard. She frowned slightly. ‘Kenny said the dead man couldn’t be Lawrence.’
‘I know. I’m interested. It seems so dramatic. To leave like that without any warning and never get back in touch.’
‘He was a great one for the drama,’ she said. ‘The grand gesture. Then after a while, I suppose it would be hard to come back. He’d feel so foolish.’
‘Do you have any idea why he went?’
‘Kenny thought it was all about Bella,’ she said, frowning. ‘I suppose that could have been it. But he was never the most stable sort of man. Did you ever meet him?’
Perez shook his head. ‘I don’t think I did. Were Lawrence and Bella having a relationship?’
‘I’m not sure. She was always an attractive woman. A bit wilful, but men seemed not to mind that. Maybe Lawrence had hopes and Bella strung him along. She loved having admirers.’ Edith paused, looked up at Perez with a grin. ‘I think she still