Blue Lightning

anything these days. I seem to have gone out of favour. And I didn’t write much for the dailies: only occasionally features on natural history.’

Perez supposed he would have to trust the man but he thought every journalist would like a story in a big paper, his name in bold, next to the headline. And Fowler would be very quickly back in favour if the nationals realized he was here. ‘So why was Angela at the publisher’s party?’

‘It was to celebrate the launch of her book. They were hoping for publicity. A review.’

‘That was when Angela’s book on the curlew was published?’ Perez felt he was having to prise information from the man. Perhaps the tape recorder was a mistake and there would have been a more relaxed conversation without it.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you write a review?’

‘I did. I’m afraid it was less than generous.’

‘It’s not a good book?’

‘You’ll have to read it, Inspector, and judge for yourself.’ He looked up and gave a brief smile.

‘Did Angela recognize you when you arrived at the lighthouse?’ Perez asked. He still didn’t know where these questions were leading. Again he thought this was a world about which he knew nothing. He could talk to crofters about their sheep and fishermen about the piltock, but these writers and birdwatchers were strange and incomprehensible to him.

‘She knew my name, but probably didn’t remember having met me.’

‘And you got on all right, despite the poor review?’

‘Of course, Inspector. She had become a famous woman. She had no reason to bear a grudge. She no longer needed my approval.’

It seemed to Perez that Angela was a woman who might bear a grudge for a long time. He looked at the sheet of paper on the table in front of him and saw he’d written nothing.

‘How do you make your living now?’ he asked.

‘Still through books, Inspector. But now I collect them and sell them, I don’t write about them. I have a little natural history bookshop. Most of my work is done over the Internet these days of course, but there are still devoted customers who like to browse. I’m very fortunate to be able to indulge my passion and call it work.’

Perez wondered if that was what he did. Did he indulge his passion, his curiosity at least, and call it work?

‘You were at the party here last night,’ he said. The Fowlers had introduced themselves, offered their congratulations and said how lovely it was that all the guests had been invited, but he had no memory of them dancing. Perhaps they’d stayed long enough to be polite, then gone to bed. ‘How did Angela seem to you then?’

Fowler shrugged. ‘Much as she always was. Driven, abrasive, entertaining.’

‘Why would anyone want to kill her?’ It had seemed to Perez, despite the strange show with the feathers, that this was a crime with a rational motive. Apparently, there’d been no sexual assault on Angela. He didn’t believe they could blame a madman enraged by the storm.

‘I don’t think I’m the right person to ask, Inspector.’ Fowler’s voice was quite distant now, though he was as polite as ever. It was as if the interview was beginning to bore him. ‘I hardly knew the woman.’

Perez took a break before calling the next witness into the dining room. He poured another mug of coffee and on impulse carried it outside for a moment in an attempt to raise his energy level. He had to put his weight behind the door to get it open and even in the lee of the building, the force of the wind made him gasp for breath. The noise of the sea thundered and echoed, driving speculation about the case from his brain. It was replaced by a moment of despair. I can’t do this. Not on my own. He’d never found formal interviews, the sterile question-and-answer session with the witness defensive and on guard, particularly useful. Here, he thought, he had no control at all and no sense of what the suspects were thinking. This was his island, but in the North Light the writer, the scientists and the birdwatchers were on home territory. They had the advantage. Somehow he had to shift the balance of power.

He walked briskly into the common room. They had heard his approaching footsteps on the wooden floors and when he entered the place was quiet; everyone seemed to be concentrating on the papers in front of them. They looked up. Who would be next?

‘A change of plan,’ he said. It seemed to him that his voice was unnaturally loud. ‘I have to go back to Springfield. There’s been a call from Inverness. We’ll continue tomorrow, but I’ll set up base in the community hall. Then I disrupt the working of the field centre as little as possible. I’ll phone when I’m ready. If I could collect your statements now…’

He stalked away, the papers in one hand, feeling like a teacher in a rough school struggling to maintain authority in his class. He had reached his car when Jane called after him. He saw her in the light that spilled out from the lobby. She had thrown a coat over her shoulders but was still wearing indoor shoes. She ran to join him. ‘Jimmy, can I talk to you? I’ve remembered something. Probably not important, but I thought you should know.’

They sat in Big James’s rust-pocked car, battered by the wind. Occasionally he had to ask Jane to speak up so he could hear her.

‘It was something Angela said at lunchtime the day before she died.’ Jane was looking ahead of her through the windscreen, though it was quite black outside. Perez had switched on the interior lamp, had been astonished when it worked, so they talked in that pale, rather flickering light. ‘She said someone had been into the bird room and disturbed her papers. Something she was working on. She was furious. I mean, incandescent. It wasn’t unknown for her to manufacture rage, just because she was bored, but this was the real thing.’

‘Can you remember anything else about the conversation?’

‘I think a paper was missing. She accused one of us of having taken it.’

‘Anyone in particular?’ Perez asked. He turned to look at the woman, at the thin, intense face. Why did this matter so much to her?

‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘At least it didn’t seem so to me at the time.’

‘Thank you.’ He assumed she would get out now, that the conversation was finished, but she sat where she was. He waited, thinking that waiting was one of his skills. He could do it better than anyone else he knew.

‘You should speak to Ben Catchpole,’ she said at last. ‘Hugh too, perhaps. Angela liked pretty young boys.’

‘You’re saying she slept with them?’ He heard the surprise and disapproval in his own voice. How Fran would mock him if she’d been listening in! She was always telling him he was narrow-minded, prudish. And if they’d been talking about a man, would Perez be equally shocked?

There was no direct answer. ‘She was predatory,’ Jane said. ‘She needed admirers. I don’t know for certain about Ben and Hugh, but it certainly happened last year. She took up with a young visitor and really screwed him up.’ She continued to stare ahead of her into the darkness.

‘What did Maurice make of the arrangement?’

‘I would guess,’ Jane said, ‘that he pretended not to know. Maurice likes an easy life. And more than anything he wanted Angela to be happy.’

‘Thank you,’ he said again, and this time Jane did get out of the car. Through the back windscreen he watched her run towards the lights of the field centre.

In Springfield they were watching television. The thick curtains were drawn against the storm. There was a fire of peat and driftwood and he could smell that as soon as he walked into the house. His mother got up when she heard him come in and made him coffee, brought out a plate with oatcakes and cheese. His father poured him a glass of whisky. Fran was alone on the sofa, her legs curled under her, and he bent and kissed her head. He smelled the shampoo she always used, along with the peat smoke.

‘We weren’t expecting you back so early,’ she said. ‘Is it all over?’

‘No, but I couldn’t go on this evening. I wasn’t getting anywhere. Plenty to do tomorrow though.’

‘We’ve just seen the forecast,’ his father said. ‘The weather should start to change in the morning. There’s a high pressure coming in.’

‘You’ll get the boat out then?’

‘Not just yet. There’ll still be too much of a swell. And I can’t see the plane making it either. The chopper