Thin Air: (Shetland book 6) (32 page)

‘The gallery’s not open in the evenings.’ She had a European accent that Perez couldn’t quite make out. French?

‘We’re police officers.’ Willow was already holding out her warrant card. The woman stood aside to let them in. Inside the space was quite different from how Perez had remembered it, and the unreliability of his recall troubled him for a moment. How could it be so altered from the picture he’d kept in his head? It seemed smaller and more drab. Perhaps it had seemed grander on the night of the opening exhibition because of Monica Leaze’s energy and the sense of occasion. Because Fran was there with him.

He saw the painting of the girl in the white dress on the far wall and went straight towards it, leaving Willow to engage with the woman. The murmur of conversation behind him didn’t distract him. The girl in the painting at least was as he remembered her. There was the knowing smile, and the curls. She was just as Polly Gilmour had described the child she’d seen on the beach. He turned back to join the women.

‘This is Catherine Breton,’ Willow said. She frowned as if she resented his lack of attention. ‘She’s a potter. She has a studio here and looks after the place.’

‘Do you know Monica Leaze?’ Perez felt foolish as soon as he’d put the question. It was the first thing Willow would have asked.

‘Of course. She’s a painter. She exhibits here.’ The woman was dark and heavily built, with muscular arms. There was clay under her fingernails. Perez sensed that she just wanted to get back to work.

‘Do you have any idea where she is now?’

She shrugged. ‘Monica has a complicated domestic life. I’m never sure exactly where she is.’

‘Tell us about that.’

She must have realized that they wouldn’t go away because she led them into her studio. At one end there was a beaten-up sofa and a low table. She sat them down there. A glass wall showed through to the gallery.

‘This must be like working in a goldfish bowl,’ Willow said.

‘It’s part of the deal. I get to live in Shetland, and the studio comes for free.’ Catherine paused. ‘And in winter we get few visitors here.’

‘So tell us about Monica.’

‘She’s a painter from London. A good painter, and recognized. She has a . . .’ the woman paused, seeking the right word, ‘. . . turbulent relationship with her partner. A couple of years ago she decided that she couldn’t live with him full-time. He bored her.’

Perez’s thoughts were racing. He remembered his conversation with Cilla, Eleanor’s mother. Cilla had said that Ian would bore Eleanor eventually. Perhaps Eleanor and Monica knew each other from London. Perhaps they were friends. If Eleanor already had Monica’s contact details that would explain the lack of family name or phone number in the notebook. He looked up at the potter and kept his voice calm. ‘So she moved to Shetland.’

‘She rented a house in Shetland. But she doesn’t live here all the time. She has a daughter. Grandchildren. And she still maintains a relationship with her husband. So it’s a kind of semi-detached attachment that she has with the islands.’

Another complicated family
, Perez thought.
Like me and Cassie and Duncan. But perhaps it’s a good thing that families have changed over the years. I think my mother suffocated in her marriage. And I kind of suffocated as a result. Now we let some air and space in and give individuals a chance to breathe and grow
.

‘When did you last see her?’

Catherine considered. She was a very precise woman, Perez could see. ‘A week ago. On the Friday morning.’

The day before the hamefarin’. The day before Eleanor’s murder.

‘Could you tell us about the meeting?’

‘Monica called in here. There’d been some family crisis in London, she said. One of the grandchildren was ill. She’d decided to go home. She asked if I could let the owner of the gallery know. She’d agreed to run a workshop here later in the month and she wasn’t sure that she’d be back in time.’ Catherine looked at her watch. It was clear that she felt reluctant to spend any longer with them. ‘She seemed pleased to be going back to London. Almost excited to be leaving. She claims to love Shetland, but she misses the city, I think, and her friends there.’

‘Does Monica have any friends in Yell?’ Perez thought the woman he’d seen in the gallery with Fran had been sociable. She’d enjoyed an audience. Monica might find Annie’s questions too intrusive, but he couldn’t imagine her leading an entirely solitary life while she was in Shetland.

‘She’s very close to Jen Arthur and her parents.’

‘And they are . . .’

‘Jen’s a musician, a songwriter. She has a young family. Divorced.’ Catherine allowed herself a brief smile. ‘She found her husband very boring too. They met at school. Married too young, according to Jen. She had two sons with him, then decided that she’d be better on her own.’

‘Is her ex-husband Neil Arthur? Lives in Meoness in Unst? He’s a plumber.’ Willow interrupted with the questions, suddenly excited. It took Perez a moment to make the connection. Neil Arthur’s second wife was Vaila, Lowrie’s cousin. They had Neil’s sons to stay with them every other weekend. Another complicated family trying to make things work. And Vaila claimed to have seen the ghost of Peerie Lizzie. She’d also met Eleanor on the afternoon of her death.

‘That’s right.’ Catherine stood up. She’d been barely polite throughout the conversation and now she was making it clear that she wanted them to leave.

Willow and Perez got to their feet.

‘Do you like Monica?’ He asked the question without really thinking about it. There was a pause and he expected a bland and conventional answer. Instead the response was surprising and honest.

‘Not much. She’s self-centred. Unpredictable. A little arrogant. She doesn’t care about hurting people if they get in her way.’ Catherine paused for a beat. ‘But I think she would be a loyal friend. You wouldn’t want Monica as an enemy, but if she was your friend she’d fight for you until the end.’

They left the studio and returned to the main body of the gallery. Perez was drawn again to the portrait of the child in white.

‘Do you know the model for the painting? Is it her granddaughter?’

Catherine shook her head. ‘It was painted a long time ago. Monica had kept it and only brought it up for the exhibition last year. Then Roland, the owner, persuaded her to leave it. It does his credibility good to have a Monica Leaze in the gallery, even though he knows it’s unlikely to sell at the price he’s put on it. That’s Freya, Monica’s daughter. Monica was happy to hang it here because she says the girl was conceived in Shetland. She made it sound like a kind of joke.’

In the car back to the ferry terminal Perez was on the phone to Sandy. More requests. ‘Can we rouse someone at NorthLink and Flybe and see if Monica Leaze left Shetland on the day of the murder. Or the day after. The Sunday. It’d also be great to find out if Eleanor met her on her flying visit to Shetland the week before. I think Monica is friendly with the director of Shetland Arts, so Mareel might be a logical place for them to meet. Do you know any of the kids who work in the bar there? See if they remember the two women meeting. They’d have stood out. Both English, both stylish.’ He paused for breath and imagined Sandy jotting down notes, rather slowly, on a scrap of paper. ‘Did you get all that, Sandy?’

‘I went to see George Malcolmson,’ Sandy said. ‘I had an idea.’

‘What idea would that be, Sandy?’ Perez was glad that
he
was on the phone. The mood she was in, Willow would already have lost her temper with the younger man.

‘I was talking to Louisa about the fact that she was adopted. I wondered about Lizzie Geldard.’ He paused and Perez didn’t make any attempt to hurry him. Sandy would need time to gather his thoughts. ‘It seems she was the natural child of Sarah Malcolmson. Story is that Gilbert Geldard seduced the girl when she was only fifteen. Roberta took in the little girl, not knowing the history. I wondered how she’d feel about the girl if she found out the truth.’

‘You think Roberta might have drowned Lizzy Geldard?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sandy sounded anxious and worried that he was making a fool of himself. ‘What do you think?’

‘I can see how that might happen.’ Perez thought that an angry woman might blame the child, rather than the man she would be forced to stay married to for appearances’ sake. If Gilbert had loved Lizzie because she was his daughter, to kill her would be a terrible act of revenge. And a denial – a way of eliminating the proof of her husband’s flaws.

‘I don’t see how it could have any relevance to this case, though,’ Sandy said.

Perez didn’t answer. He was thinking that the heart of the investigation lay in complex families trying to survive.

‘How have you and Willow got on?’ Sandy asked. ‘I booked you onto the last ferry. Are you heading back now?’ He sounded nervous.

‘It was very interesting,’ Perez said. ‘We’ll fill you in when we get back. We’re hoping to get the earlier ferry, so we should see you soon.’

Willow was driving like a maniac down the narrow roads. The fog had settled again and visibility was poor. Occasionally house lights would swoop at them out of the gloom, or headlights would appear straight ahead of them so that she had to swerve onto the verge. But Perez didn’t ask her to slow down. Like Willow, he was desperate to get back to Unst. He couldn’t bear the idea that they might have to wait an hour for the last ferry. He sensed that they’d soon reach the end of the investigation and they needed to be on the most northerly island of the archipelago before there was another tragedy.

Sandy was looking out for them. It was nine o’clock. As they opened the main door to the Springfield House the long-case clock in the hall chimed the hour. He had the light on in the kitchen and had been peering out at the shadowy courtyard to check that the car he’d heard belonged to them. He’d looked like an anxious child, left alone in the house for the first time, waiting for his parents to return.

‘I need tea.’ Willow slumped in one of the chairs and took off her shoes. Perez saw that there was a small hole in the toe of her hand-knitted sock.

Sandy switched on the kettle. ‘So, did you find Monica?’

Perez explained about the empty bungalow and the visit to the gallery.

‘So you think she was away before the killings?’ Sandy said. ‘I can’t confirm that. Nobody from North-Link or Flybe will be available until seven tomorrow morning.’

‘She can’t have left on the Friday.’ Willow had her hands cupped round the mug of tea and Perez thought she looked exhausted. ‘She saw Eleanor’s body.’ She explained to Sandy that they’d seen a sketch of the dead Eleanor in Monica’s house.

‘That’s not necessarily true, is it?’ Perez had been thinking about that. ‘She didn’t need to see Eleanor’s body to make the drawing. She just needed to know that it would be there.’

‘The murderer confided in her beforehand, you mean?’ Willow looked up sharply. ‘If you’ve got a theory about this, Jimmy Perez, now’s the time to share it.’

Perez hesitated. He wasn’t sure what to say. His phone started to ring and he took it out of his pocket. Cilla, Eleanor’s mother. He’d saved her number when he was in London.

‘Inspector Perez.’ She sounded very old and her voice was slurred. She’d been drinking. ‘I’ve been thinking about our conversation.’

‘Yes?’

‘I wasn’t entirely honest with you.’ She paused. He imagined her in the room in Pimlico, looking out at the small garden, a large glass in her hand. Mourning her daughter in the only way she could. As far south as London it would already be dark; moths would be attracted to the light in the window. Perez wondered whether he should prompt her again, but at last she continued. ‘I think I know why Nell wanted to talk to me that day before she set off for Shetland. I know what was on her mind.’

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Willow couldn’t work out to whom Perez was talking on his mobile. The Shetlander got up suddenly and walked away from her. He opened the kitchen door and continued the conversation there in the doorway, facing outside. She could only see his back, which was hunched slightly. The open door let in the chill air. The call would be about Cassie, Willow decided. She was the love of his life, these days. Fran reincarnated, another kind of ghost. It was a lot for the girl to live up to.

Sandy was talking and he pulled her attention back into the room. ‘I’m pretty sure that I have proof Eleanor was in Shetland before, and that she met up with Monica Leaze.’

‘How do you know that, Sandy?’

‘I did as Jimmy suggested and talked to a friend who works at Mareel arts centre. She couldn’t help, so I contacted the manager at the Hay’s Dock, the restaurant at the museum.’

‘And?’

‘She knows Monica Leaze. She remembers Monica having lunch there with three other people. One of them was a woman with dark hair. I emailed my mate the photo that Polly Gilmour let us have and she confirmed that it was Eleanor.’

Willow forgot about Jimmy Perez for a moment. Monica Leaze
must
be the ‘Monica’ of Eleanor’s notebooks. ‘Did your friend recognize any of the other people?’

Sandy shook his head. ‘Two men. That was all she said.’

‘I don’t suppose the restaurant manager overheard any of the conversation?’

‘No.’ Sandy was disappointed because he couldn’t contribute more. ‘The women seemed like good pals, though, and greeted each other like old friends. It didn’t look like the first time they’d met.’

Willow wasn’t sure that meant anything. She had arty friends too and their natural form of greeting, even to a stranger, was a hug, kisses on both cheeks, exclamations of delight.

‘Monica had a portfolio with her,’ Sandy went on. ‘The group looked at some paintings. Had them spread over the table.’

‘Then what?’

‘They went outside. They’d had wine with their meal and they were laughing. Like it was a sort of celebration. My friend was looking out of the window a bit later and saw the group taking photos of each other on that decking between the museum and the dock.’

Willow’s brain was fizzing with ideas and snatches of memory. She fetched her laptop and fired it up. ‘This is a scrap of a photo found on the hill near Eleanor’s body. Look at the blown-up image. Could that be the outside of the museum, do you think?’