‘That doesn’t quite answer my question,’ Perez said. ‘If your partner was ambivalent about Mr Longstaff, all the more reason for you to discuss him.’
Marcus looked up sharply. ‘I don’t think Ian killed Eleanor, if that’s what you’re implying. They were a couple who enjoyed drama. The excitement of falling out and making up. Polly isn’t like that. She couldn’t understand it. She had a very safe and secure childhood. Her parents have probably never rowed since they were first married. Not in her presence at least. We tend to give a moral weight to the things with which we’re most comfortable, don’t you think?’
Willow found herself staring at him. She’d first thought him stupid, a public-school buffoon straight out of Wodehouse. Now she wondered how she could have reached that opinion.
‘Do you have any other insights into Polly’s friends?’ Perez asked. ‘Lowrie and Caroline, for example. What did you make of them?’
‘I only saw them at their wedding and then at the party!’ Marcus said. ‘They seemed at ease with each other. At home. It occurred to me that they might settle in Shetland. And they both seemed very fond of Eleanor. I can’t imagine either of them would have wanted to hurt her.’
‘The night Eleanor disappeared,’ Willow leaned forward across the table, ‘did you leave the house for any reason?’
‘Of course not. Why would I?’
‘You’re as far north as you can get in the UK and it’s midsummer. That makes people behave strangely. And you like wild places. Perhaps you took the opportunity to explore on your own.’
‘I was tired,’ he said. ‘Too tired to wander around on my own. And I can sleep anywhere. I wouldn’t be able to work as I do if I couldn’t drop off in planes, in a camp in the bush, in strange hotels. The light doesn’t bother me. I slept very well.’
‘And Polly?’
‘Ah, Polly’s quite different. She takes sleeping tablets when she travels away from home. She worries about being shattered the next day. She is rather a worrier altogether, I’m afraid. I’m hoping I’ll cure her of that. But when she takes the pills she doesn’t stir.’
Chapter Eleven
Polly hated being in the house with Ian. He’d shut himself in the room that he’d shared with Eleanor, but even through the walls she sensed his desperation and imagined a suppressed rage, pictured him pacing up and down across the stripped wooden floor. She thought she should offer him some comfort, but was nervous about approaching him. Once Marcus had left to give his statement to the police officers she made a pot of coffee and sat outside.
A young girl came onto the beach. The girl carried a bucket and a spade; she took off her socks and shoes, squatted on the sand and began to dig. Very tidily and with concentration. She seemed old enough to be at school and Polly wondered what she was doing there. Perhaps she was on holiday with her parents, though there was no adult with her. In London it would be a matter of concern to see a child alone, but here perhaps it would be less unusual. It was only when the girl stood up and ran towards the sea that Polly recognized her as the child who’d been dancing on the sand on the night of the hamefarin’. There was the same long hair and skinny limbs. But this time, instead of the white dress, she wore a red pinafore printed with blue butterflies over a blue blouse. It still looked a little old-fashioned and formal for the beach. For a moment Polly couldn’t believe her eyes. It was almost as if she’d started to believe in Eleanor’s notion of the girl as Peerie Lizzie.