‘I’m looking for Mrs Williamson.’ Perez hovered at the door. Even this school was much bigger than the room in Fair Isle where he’d sat to do his lessons, but the smell was familiar.
‘Are you one of the dads?’ The man was polite enough, but hardly friendly. Perez wondered what it was about schools that made him uneasy. Maybe all adults felt exactly the same way. Too big and clumsy for a place built for children. He supposed a stranger walking into his working environment would be intimidated too. Then he thought he would love to be a dad. It was something he’d always wanted. He wouldn’t mind then the effort of coming into school, of attending parents’ evenings and nativity plays.
The man had turned from the board and was waiting for him to reply.
‘No,’ Perez said. ‘No, I’m not.’ He was thinking how to explain his presence without causing Dawn problems when he heard footsteps on the corridor behind him and he saw her walking towards them, a mug of what smelled like herbal tea in one hand. She was a little older than Martin, he thought. Early thirties, curly red hair, a wide mouth.
‘Mrs Williamson,’ Perez said. ‘Could I have a word? It’ll not take long.’ He couldn’t tell if she recognized him. Perhaps she thought he was a parent too.
She took him into a classroom and he sat on one of the children’s desks, feeling a moment of wickedness because when he’d been a boy sitting on the desks wasn’t allowed.
‘I’m Jimmy Perez,’ he said. ‘I’m looking into the death of that man in the Biddista hut.’
She nodded as if to say she knew who he was. ‘Is it about that mask that Alice was wearing? Aggie said you were interested in it. Maybe I should have got in touch with you before, save you dragging all the way out here, but I don’t think I’ll be of much help. Is it important?’
He couldn’t think of any reason not to explain. ‘We’re treating the death as suspicious. He was wearing a mask just like the one Alice was wearing. It might help us trace him.’
He saw that he’d shocked her. She seemed suddenly very pale.
‘Can you remember where Alice got the mask?’
‘It was the Middleton Sunday teas,’ she said. ‘I bought it for her there.’
The Sunday teas had become a Shetland institution, almost a tradition, though Perez couldn’t remember anything like that happening when he was a boy. Then, Sunday had just been a time for the kirk and the family. Now local ladies would provide tea and home-bakes in the nearest community hall on Sunday afternoons in the summer. There were always plants for sale and a bring-and-buy stall. It was a place to meet friends and catch up on gossip, and funds would be raised for a good cause.
‘Do you remember who was selling it?’
‘Some lass I didn’t recognize. She must have got them cheap when she was south, because she had a whole load of them. Animals mostly, then there were the clowns. I tried to persuade Alice to go for a cat but she wasn’t having any of it.’
‘Was anyone else from Biddista there that afternoon?’
‘No, we were on our own. Aggie usually comes with us, but she wasn’t feeling well. Martin was working in the Herring House. It was quite nice to spend some time with Alice, just the two of us.’
‘It can’t be easy living so close to your mother-in-law.’ Perez was thinking of his ex-wife Sarah’s mother, a formidably competent woman who ran the Women’s Institute and won prizes for the spaniels she bred. And again he was distracted by thoughts of how Fran would get on with his own mother. Sarah had found her unconventional, rather intimidating. He thought Fran might like her.
Dawn gave a little smile. ‘I should be grateful. I wouldn’t have been able to come back to work full-time if she hadn’t offered to mind Alice. But families are never easy, are they? Aggie thinks I’m bossy and I should be a better wife to her son. She never quite says it, but I know that’s what she’s thinking. Martin laughs it off. He doesn’t see it as a problem. I don’t usually, but it was good for Alice and me to run away to Middleton together.’
‘Was anyone else you recognized there?’
‘Some of the families from school. As I said, nobody else from Biddista. That doesn’t mean they weren’t there later, though. We went in early, just as it opened, and we didn’t stay long.’
Some of the children had arrived in the yard. Through the window Perez watched two boys chasing each other, grabbing hold of each other’s jerseys, rolling over on the ground. Did boys always end up fighting?
‘How did you land up here in Shetland?’ Probably it had nothing to do with the case, but he was always intrigued by the different routes incomers took to the islands.
‘I did my education degree in a college in West Yorkshire. So close to home that I could take my washing back at the weekends. I wanted to see a bit more of the country. When I saw this job advertised, I thought, Why not go for it? I only expected to be here for a couple of years. Now I know I’ll never live anywhere else.’
‘That’ll be down to Martin.’
‘Oh,’ she laughed, ‘I fell for the islands before I fell for him. I’d rented a place in Scalloway when I first moved here. Aggie and Andrew ran the hotel there then and Martin worked in the bar. He made me laugh. We started going out… Before I knew it, I was married with a child on the way.’
‘You look well on it.’
‘I love it all. Teaching in a place like this still has its challenges, but if I think of some of the schools where I did my teaching practice, there’s no comparison. And Martin is pretty much in charge of the cafe and restaurant at the Herring House. Bella doesn’t interfere too much.’
‘How do you get on with her?’ he asked.
Dawn shrugged. ‘We don’t usually mix in the same circles. She likes to give the impression that she’s rooted in the community, but she’s away a lot of the time. She and Aggie grew up with each other; now she talks to Aggie as if she was some sort of servant when she comes into the post office. Or she’s so patronizing she makes me want to throw up.’
‘I understand tact isn’t really her thing.’
Something in his voice made her realize what he was on about. He saw she was a very bright woman. Nothing would need spelling out. The kids would get away with nothing in her lessons.
‘You’ve heard about her putting me down at the art class then.’
He hoped she wasn’t going to ask who’d told him. ‘All sorts of things come up during the course of an investigation.’
‘She just made herself look a bit daft,’ Dawn said. She turned her back on him and continued talking as she wrote on the whiteboard. He wished he could see her face, judge her reaction to what she was saying. ‘It was an amateur show. A bit of fun. Why did she take the thing so seriously?’
‘Why do
‘God knows. Maybe she’s not as confident as she makes out and she needed to come across as the grand artist by showing us up. Pointless. We all know we’re not in her league.’
‘Do you think she recognized it as your painting?’
She put down the marker pen and turned back to face him. ‘I’m sure she did. I was doing the sketch for it out on the hill one evening after Alice had gone to bed. Suddenly I found she’d come up behind me and was looking over my shoulder.’
‘Did she comment on it then?’
‘Not really. I think she made another put-down comment, like it was nice for me to have a hobby, a break from the family.’ Dawn paused. ‘I know it sounds stupid, but sometimes I wonder if she’s jealous of me. I
‘Congratulations.’ Sarah had been pregnant once. Perez too had been thrilled to bits. Then she’d had a late miscarriage and it had seemed like the end of their world. It
‘Thanks.’ He saw that she couldn’t help bursting out in a huge grin.
‘Do you think Roddy is a substitute child for Bella?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps. But he’s not much to be proud of, is he?’
‘Lots of people would think so.’
