careful with each other, too polite. There was none of the banter and bickering he saw in his married friends. No laughter. Had they always been that way or had something happened to make them so tense? Sarah seemed to depend on her husband, without enjoying his company. With an unusual insight, Dougie thought perhaps they’d come to Fair Isle to mend their marriage.
Jane stuck her head round the door into the dining room and broke into his thoughts. ‘Would you mind giving Hugh a shout, Dougie? Jimmy wants to talk to everyone.’
Dougie hesitated. He didn’t think Hugh would be pleased to be dragged downstairs to hear what an islander might want to say. He was usually polite enough, but he did just what he wanted.
‘Please, Dougie.’ Jane had a way of speaking that made you respond immediately.
Jimmy Perez sat with them, but he didn’t start talking until they’d finished eating. He didn’t do anything. He just sat, watching and listening. Although Dougie had seen him the evening before at the party, he only recognized him now. He remembered meeting Perez when the man had worked occasionally on the boat. He’d always been quiet, dark-haired and dark-skinned like the skipper. Dougie usually came into the island on the mail boat. He didn’t like small planes and anyway the
Just one table had been laid up so they all sat together. Jane was the only member of field centre staff present and Dougie thought that was odd. Where were Maurice and Ben? Perhaps because Perez was there, a silent observer, the conversation was stilted. Nobody asked why the man was with them or what he wanted. Even Hugh, who usually managed to keep the conversation going, didn’t have much to say. It was a relief to them all when Perez stood up to speak.
He was strangely formal. ‘I’m here in my capacity as Inspector with Highland and Islands Police.’ He spoke slowly as if he was worried they might not understand his accent. Dougie remembered then that the man had gone south to become a cop. He’d heard old man Perez talking about it once in the
‘Angela Moore is dead.’
The words cut into Dougie’s memory of the huge mammals swimming beside the vessel. He looked at Hugh, who only blinked once. Then there was absolute silence in the room.
‘I’m sure you’ll cooperate with our efforts to find out what happened to her.’ Perez leaned back against a table and seemed to be waiting for them to respond.
‘How did she die?’ Dougie was surprised that it was John Fowler who asked the question. Usually he contributed little to the general conversation.
‘She was murdered. I’m sure you’ll appreciate why I can’t give any details at this point.’
‘Who killed her?’ Fowler again.
‘That’s what I need to establish.’
‘It’s obvious, surely.’ Hugh looked around the room and they all waited for him to speak. He had that way of getting people to listen to him. A storyteller, Angela had called him. Or ‘my storyteller’ when she wanted him to entertain her, to sit beside her in the common room and relive one of his adventures. Though Dougie had never been quite sure what Angela had made of Hugh. It was as if the pair of them had been playing a dangerous game. They were both chancers, adventurers. Now the young man’s voice was relaxed and easy, as if he was about to start one of his traveller’s tales. He was wearing denims and a grey rugby shirt. It was odd how the details of his fellow guests were fixed suddenly in Dougie’s head. It was as if he was in the field looking at a new bird, branding the way it looked in his memory. Hugh continued: ‘Poppy and Angela were arguing last night. We all saw that. Poppy lost her temper once and must have done it again.’ He paused, repeated again, almost apologetically: ‘Obvious.’
Perez hesitated and chose his words carefully. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that’s true at all. Not obvious. In a murder investigation, nothing’s ever quite that simple.’
Chapter Eight
Perez stopped outside Maurice and Angela’s flat and listened. Nothing. He tapped on the door and went inside, walking straight into a large room, with an original fireplace facing the door and windows on two sides. One looked south, through the gap in the surrounding wall, towards the pool the islanders called Golden Water, the other out to sea. For a moment he was aware of the outside reality of sky, wind and water. Talking to the visitors in the dining room, he’d been so focused on the people that he could have been in any of the bare rooms he’d used to interview witnesses during his career. There could have been city roads outside. He thought again that this case was too close to home. In normal circumstances he would have stepped away, handed the investigation to a colleague who was less involved. This was all wrong; it felt twisted and unnatural.
Maurice Parry and his daughter sat on a low sofa, which was covered by a woven throw. They were lit by a small lamp on the table beside them. It was barely light outside. There was a plain brown carpet, with a scattering of sheepskin rugs on the floor. The curtains were the same as in the public rooms in the field centre. Even though this was Angela and Maurice’s personal space they’d done little to make it their own. Poppy was wearing a dressing gown, pink, too small for her. Perhaps it had been left here when she was a child. Last night’s make-up was streaked on her face. Her hair was still stiff with gel. She was crying and Maurice held her in his arms. He frowned when he saw Perez looking at them.
‘Couldn’t you give us a little more time?’
Perez shook his head. ‘Sorry.’ If Poppy was going to confess to killing her stepmother, best that it happen quickly. He could be on the phone to the Fiscal and explain that there was no mystery here, no need for drama. A disturbed adolescent with a knife. In big cities almost a commonplace. They could make arrangements for Poppy’s care on the island and decide what would happen to her once they were able to get her off. Then he could start worrying about what he should do with Angela’s body.
‘I’m so sorry.’ The girl looked up at him with smudged panda eyes. He said nothing. Let her tell it in her own words and her own time. He supposed he should caution her, but this was hardly a formal interview and her father was with her to protect her interests.
‘I spoiled your engagement party,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to. It was stupid. Childish.’
‘Angela’s dead,’ he said. ‘More important than a party.’
‘I’m sorry about that too.’ She looked up at her father. ‘I didn’t like her much but she didn’t deserve to be killed. I can’t apologize for that, though. I didn’t do it. I wasn’t responsible.’ Her voice was very quiet but it was reasonable. It was hard to believe that this was the overwrought young woman who’d caused such a scene the night before.
‘I know, sweetheart.’ Maurice stroked the hair away from his daughter’s face. ‘I know you couldn’t do anything like that.’
Perez watched. He imagined how tense and claustrophobic it must have been in this apartment in the days leading up to Angela’s murder. An enclosed space inside the enclosed space of the lighthouse. Sealed off from the rest of the island by two lots of walls. And inside, three people tied by family, but pulled apart by opposing desires and needs. The stress, he thought, must have been unbearable. There would have been little reason in the conversation then. His mind flicked again to the child who would soon be his stepchild. Fran’s daughter Cassie was six and having a holiday with her father now. Would Perez still be able to love her if she was a large, awkward teenager?
‘Did Angela want children?’ The question was directed at Maurice, over Poppy’s head, and was out before he’d had time to consider the tactlessness of asking it in the girl’s presence.
‘No. I explained earlier, she wasn’t the maternal type. Far too selfish.’ Maurice looked up at Perez and gave a little smile. ‘I still thought of her as a child herself. A brilliant, adorable, precocious child.’
‘I need to talk about Angela. About why someone might have wanted her dead.’
‘Of course you do, Jimmy.’ There was something patronizing in the tone.
‘It must be important to you too.’
