‘Maybe it would be for the best if you and Poppy got away for a while.’ Mary reached out to pour herself another mug of coffee. ‘Is there somewhere you could stay?’
‘Poppy will go back to her mother’s,’ Maurice said. Jane saw how clever Mary was, gently persuading him to consider the practical, to form constructive thoughts from the mess of emotion in his brain. ‘They’ve already discussed it. Someone will come up to Shetland to collect her. I’ll phone her this afternoon and make sure it’s arranged.’
Fran had finished her coffee and was on her feet, looking out of the window down past the low wall all the way towards the havens. Jane thought Fran would rather be out there, walking along the beach, climbing out on the rocks at the point of Buness. She wouldn’t get on with the endless round of social calls that made up island life, especially in the winter. She wouldn’t settle here.
‘Would Poppy like to spend the rest of the day with us, do you think?’ Fran asked, turning back to the room. ‘She might be glad of some time on the island, especially if it’ll be her last day. That’ll be all right, Mary, won’t it? She could have lunch with us? It would get her out, away from the lighthouse for a while. It must be weird for her here. There’s no one of her own age.’
‘Yes,’ Maurice said. ‘I think she’d like that. I’ve been no help to her.’
‘I’ll go and ask her then, shall I? Is it just through here?’ Before Maurice could reply she was away, down the corridor towards the flat. Jane wondered what Fran was up to. Had Perez set her up to this? Or was she playing her own game?
There was a moment of silence in the kitchen. Mary turned back to Maurice.
‘And what about you?’ she asked. ‘What are your plans? You must have friends who’d put you up?’
‘I don’t know. I lost a lot of friends when I married Angela. They thought I was mad: to leave my wife, to give up my job and move up here. They thought she’d put some sort of spell on me.’
‘But they’d be glad to help you now,’ Mary persisted.
‘Now she’s dead, you mean?’ Maurice looked up and his voice was bitter. ‘Oh, yes, there’ll be lots of people glad that she’s dead.’ But he drank his coffee, picked up the scone and ate it.
The field centre phone rang. It was Perez to say the coastguard helicopter was on its way to take out Angela’s body; he wondered if Maurice would like to be there to see her off. When Jane passed on the information Maurice shook his head. ‘I couldn’t,’ he said. ‘I can’t face it.’
Chapter Seventeen
Perez stood at the South Light and watched the helicopter circle to land. He’d wondered, when the coastguard had first phoned, if his sergeant Sandy Wilson would travel in with it, but the helicopter had come from Sumburgh and the flight had been too quickly arranged to allow for passengers. At least Angela’s body would be off the island. The forensic examination would begin. The plane should make it the following day. As the helicopter took off again and he closed his eyes tight against the wind from the rotor blades, Perez wished for a moment he was going with it. He had a sudden desperate desire to leave Fair Isle and the complications of this particular case behind.
On the way back to the community hall, he noticed that the weather was changing. The wind was still there but it was intermittent, dropping at times almost to nothing, and the sky was brighter behind the cloud. In the hall he had to wait twenty minutes for Sarah Fowler. She’d arrived at her appointed time, but after hearing the helicopter overhead when he was interviewing Dougie, Perez had sent her back to the field centre.
‘Have a coffee. I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’m sorry.’ He hadn’t wanted sightseers when Angela’s body was being lifted into the aircraft.
Now she hurried in with a tight little smile of apology for keeping him waiting.
‘We got a lift back down the island. The lighthouse is such a long way from everything else, isn’t it?’ Her husband stood at the door of the hall looking in and she turned and gave him a wave as if to say she was fine. Perez thought the man would have liked to come in with her, to sit beside her holding her hand while the questions were being asked, but Fowler turned and shut the hall door behind him. Throughout the interview, Perez caught glimpses of him waiting outside. He stood there patient and still, occasionally raising his binoculars to his eyes.
Inside, Perez sat opposite Sarah Fowler and tried to find a way to make her relax. He felt constrained; perhaps it was the name, but she reminded him too much of his first wife to push her for answers about Angela Moore’s death. It wasn’t her physical appearance – his Sarah had been softer and rounder – but the air of anxiety, unhappiness even, that she carried around her. Her tension was contagious and when he took up a pen to make notes he saw his own hand was trembling slightly.
‘I’m sorry to have disrupted your holiday like this.’
She looked up sharply. It wasn’t what she’d been expecting.
‘You didn’t commit the murder, Inspector. You’re just doing your job.’ The words sounded brusque but he thought she was abrupt only because she was so nervous. He understood why her husband felt the need to protect her.
‘Has it been very awkward for you to extend your stay? I presume you too have work to get back to. Or are you involved in your husband’s business?’ To Perez, this felt less like a formal interview than an attempt to make small talk with a reluctant stranger.
‘Good lord, no! He hardly earns enough from selling books to keep himself.’ She paused. ‘I manage a Sure Start children’s centre on a council estate in Bristol. Challenging but I enjoy it.’ She paused. ‘At least until recently, when things got on top of me. The management thing is rather stressful, though the children make up for the bureaucratic hassle. I have great staff. They’ll cope without me.’
He stumbled to find something to say. The loss of a baby must have been almost unbearable for a woman who so much enjoyed the company of children. He found it hard to imagine this shy woman in charge of a bustling, noisy centre.
As if she was reading his mind she continued. ‘They’re used to managing without me. I’ve had a couple of months off work sick this year. Depression.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘My husband and I have been under a lot of pressure recently, Inspector. This holiday was an attempt to mend the relationship, bring us back together. I wasn’t sure coming to Fair Isle was a good idea. John’s rather a figure of fun in the birdwatching world. He made a couple of highly publicized mistakes. Embarrassing when previously he had such a high profile. I know I shouldn’t care what people think but I find all that more awkward than he does. But we’d enjoyed our stay very much until Angela died.’
She looked up at him. He saw she was waiting for the real questions to begin. Perez would have liked to know more about the events that had brought the couple to the island, but of course he should move on.
‘Did you know Angela Moore before you came to Fair Isle?’
‘I’d never met her,’ Sarah said. ‘I’d heard of her of course, seen her on the television.’ She paused. ‘I read her book.’
‘What did you make of it?’
‘It was interesting.’ She paused again. ‘If somewhat egocentric.’
‘And Fair Isle,’ he said. ‘What do you make of that?’
She gave a sudden smile so unexpected that it changed the character of her face. ‘It’s beautiful now the sun’s shining. You’re very lucky to have been born here.’ The sudden switch of mood disturbed him. He found it impossible to pin her down. How would he describe her to Fran, for example?
‘Tell me what you thought of Angela Moore.’
The smile disappeared as she considered the question, frowning. Precision mattered to her. He wondered what her background was. Health? Teaching? Social work? ‘She didn’t take much notice of us. She was obviously involved in her work. Very charismatic, of course, as you’d expect from the television performance, but she wasn’t very kind. I’d guess she could be a bit of a bully to the people who worked for her.’
