‘I’m going to talk to Edith Thomson,’ Perez said. They were walking down the road now, back towards the jetty and their cars. ‘She’s Kenny’s wife. She wasn’t at the Herring House party, but she was at home that evening. She might have seen something. And she’s known Bella for years.’
‘Isn’t she the one that works in the old folks’ home?’
‘The care centre,’ Perez said. ‘I thought I’d catch her there. Would you like to be in on that?’
‘It’d make more sense if we separated,’ Taylor said. ‘I’ll stay around here, get more of a feel for the place. I might catch up with Martin Williamson.’
Perez sensed panic in the man’s refusal. He thought Taylor would dislike contact with the elderly and infirm. He would prefer not to be reminded of his own mortality. Perez was relieved to have the opportunity to talk to Edith alone. He’d met her a couple of times with Kenny and he’d thought her a proud and dignified woman. She might not respond well to Taylor’s approach either.
The care centre was purpose-built, a low modern box with long windows giving a view down the voe to the sea. A minibus specially adapted with a lift for wheelchairs was parked outside, along with the staff cars. Perez walked inside and was engulfed by a sudden blast of heat and the institutional scent of disinfectant and floor polish. In the background a surprisingly appetizing smell of cooking food. It was only eleven-thirty but tables in the dining room had been set for lunch and a woman in a nylon overall was pouring water into brightly coloured plastic beakers. She looked up briefly and smiled at him. On the other side of the front door, he saw the lounge with the long windows. People sat around the walls in high-backed chairs. Some seemed to be dozing. Three men at a table were playing cards. He thought he recognized Willy Jamieson, who had once lived in Peter Wilding’s house in Biddista, and gave him a wave, but the old man stared back blankly.
‘Can I help you?’
Edith Thomson had come up behind him. She wore black trousers and a blue cotton blouse and seemed to him very neat and professional. He saw that she didn’t know him. The voice was polite but rather distant. He held out his hand.
‘Jimmy Perez. It’s about the murder in Biddista.’
‘Of course. Jimmy.’ Now she could place him she relaxed a little. This wasn’t a work-related visit. He wasn’t a relative or a social worker. ‘Is it definitely murder then?’
‘We’re treating the death as suspicious.’
‘Poor Kenny,’ she said. ‘He was so upset when he found the body. And then he got it into his head that it might be Lawrence.’
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 does.’
Perez considered. ‘Does Bella have an admirer at the moment?’
Edith shrugged. ‘How would I know? She’s too grand for us now.’
‘You’d have heard though.’ Perez was quite certain about that. Even if Bella didn’t mix socially with the Biddista folk now, she’d be the subject of talk. And if Edith was too proud to gossip, she’d hear the news, from the staff in the care centre, the clients she worked with, from the relatives.
‘There was some gossip about her and that writer. Peter Wilding. He followed her up here, they say. Rented Willy’s old house just to be close to her.’ She looked at him again to gauge his reaction. ‘It seems a creepy kind of thing to do to me. I wouldn’t want a stranger tracking me down.’