Wales. The local police had informed him of Angela’s death but Perez had no information about how he’d taken it. He wished he could have been there when the constable had knocked at the father’s door, but what would he have asked?
Ben Catchpole was waiting for Perez outside the hall. Perez saw the tall figure as he walked from the road. It was playtime in the school and the children were playing in the yard; a couple of the girls were swinging a long rope for the others to jump over. Perez waved to the individuals that he recognized. They giggled and waved back.
Inside the hall, he set the tape recorder on the table and asked if Ben had any objections. The man shook his head. Then Perez realized he was terrified, so scared that he was almost frozen and could hardly speak.
‘How long have you been working at the North Light?’ Factual, unthreatening.
‘This is my third season.’
‘Isn’t that unusual?’ In Perez’s experience most of the assistant wardens just stayed for one year. He looked at Ben’s statement. Although he looked so young he was nearly thirty. ‘I mean, it’s only seasonal employment. Aren’t you looking for something more permanent?
‘You think I should be settling down, Inspector?’
Perez didn’t answer and after a pause Ben continued: ‘I grew up in a weird kind of family. I mean it didn’t seem weird when I was growing up, but it was different from other kids’. My mum was one of the Greenham women and she couldn’t settle to domesticity when she left the Common. There was always a battle to fight, strangers coming to stay, discussions into the night about politics and justice and the environment. I suppose for me communal living seems kind of normal.’
‘I’ve checked your criminal record. You were found guilty of criminal damage. Lucky not to get a custodial sentence, according to the notes. That was here on Shetland?’
Ben must have been expecting the question, but still he hesitated before answering. ‘It was the anniversary of the
Perez nodded. The disaster had made national news for weeks. Shetlanders had made a fortune out of the visiting media.
‘Nothing had changed! I mean, still people don’t take environmental issues seriously. I broke into the terminal at Sullom Voe.’
‘And did thousands of pounds’ worth of damage to oil company property.’ Perez had been working in the south at the time, but the Shetland police had still been talking about it when he joined the service there.
‘How much damage did they do to Shetland wildlife?’ Ben sat back in his chair, not really expecting an answer. ‘My mother came to court. She’d never been so proud of me.’ Perez couldn’t tell what he made of that. Would he have preferred a more conventional mother?
Perez slid Ben’s written statement across the table.
‘Is there anything you’d like to add to this?’ Perez asked.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you were close to Angela. She was more than just your boss, wasn’t she? Yet you don’t mention that in the statement.’ For a moment Ben just stared at Perez and it seemed he would maintain the poise, the pretence at confidence. Then he seemed to lose control of the muscles in his face. It crumpled. He screwed up his mouth and frowned like a child trying not to cry. Perez went on. ‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’
‘I can’t stop thinking about it,’ Ben said. ‘Finding her in the bird room. At first I thought she’d fallen asleep there. She worked so hard that sometimes that happened. I’d go into the bird room before starting the morning trap round and find her still in front of the computer. I haven’t been able to sleep since she died.’
‘That isn’t quite what I asked you.’ But Perez saw now that Ben would talk to him. The strain had come through pretending he didn’t care too much what had happened to the woman. ‘Tell me about your relationship with Angela.’
‘I worshipped her.’
And suddenly Perez saw himself as a schoolboy, intense and passionate, following his German student around the island, declaring his devotion. ‘What did Angela make of that?’
‘I expect she thought I was pathetic, ridiculous, but I didn’t care.’
‘Did she say you were pathetic?’
‘No, she called me sweet.’ Ben spat out the word.
‘You had sex with her?’
Ben flushed suddenly and dramatically. ‘Yes!’ Then, forcing himself to be honest: ‘Though not so often recently.’
‘She had sex with other men in the field centre too. And not just in the centre. Visitors, islanders even.’
The assistant warden didn’t answer.
‘How did that make you feel?’
‘I didn’t have the right to feel anything,’ Ben said. He seemed to have composed himself. Perez thought he had been through the same argument in his head many times. ‘I didn’t own her, I couldn’t dictate how she behaved with other men.’
‘That’s very rational,’ Perez said.
‘I’m a scientist. I am rational.’
Perez wanted to laugh out loud. There was nothing rational in this infatuation.
‘When did it start?’
There was a beat of hesitation. ‘My first season. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never met anyone like her.’
‘You hadn’t met her before you started work at the field centre?’
Ben stared directly at him. ‘No. Where would I have met her?’
‘Is she the reason you keep coming back?’
‘No!’
‘Where did you get together? It must have been hard in the lighthouse, with other staff and visitors about.’
‘In the Pund. That was our place.’
Perez nodded. The Pund was a ruined croft house. Once it had been set up as a bothy for campers, with a loft bed. Aristocratic naturalists had stayed there before the war but it had fallen into disrepair and was no longer used. It would be a romantic place for an illicit meeting and he could see how the young man would love the excitement of hiding away there, the sun slanting through the gaps in the roof, the charge of expectation when he heard Angela approaching.
‘You do know she was sleeping with Hugh too?’ he said.
‘He dropped hints.’ Ben kept his voice unemotional. ‘There have been other visitors and Hugh was her type.’
‘You didn’t discuss it with him?’
‘Of course not! None of my business.’
Perez had a picture of life in the North Light in the week running up to Angela’s death. The wind and rain making people feel trapped inside the building. Angela manipulating events for her own amusement, playing the young men off against each other, fuelling Poppy’s resentment, suggesting that Jane wouldn’t be welcome to return to the isle the following year. And Maurice? How would he have reacted to the mounting tension, to Angela’s games? Would he have welcomed them as one way of relieving her boredom, of ensuring that she would stay married to him? Perez thought the situation must have been intolerable.
‘Do you know which of the islanders was her lover?’
‘No!’ Ben was shocked. ‘It wasn’t something we discussed. She would have hated me prying.’ He paused. ‘If I’d asked about anything like that, she would never have seen me again.’
‘Was Angela undertaking a particular study at the moment?’
‘She was writing up the summer seabird census. I don’t think there was anything else.’ Ben frowned. How was this relevant? He seemed almost to resent the conversation moving away from his affair with Angela. He longed for the opportunity to talk about her.
‘Anything involving the collection of feathers?’ Perez asked.
