Blue Lightning

‘You’re thinking about the feathers in her hair?’

‘I wondered if they’d have been in the bird room already.’ Otherwise the murderer must have brought them with him, Perez thought. And why would anyone do that? What sort of point was being made?

‘I don’t think so. I can’t remember seeing them. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. Angela was quite private about her own research. She was paranoid about people stealing her ideas, getting into publication before her.’

‘What could she hope to prove through a study of feathers?’

Ben shrugged. His interest was only marginally engaged. He was still more concerned about his own feelings. Perez thought how self-absorbed some people were. How they liked to create dramas with themselves playing the leading role.

‘An analysis would prove identification,’ Ben said. ‘Through DNA. You can also get an idea where a bird might have come from. That’s to do with trace elements found in the environment.’

There was a moment of silence. Perez found his concentration slipping. He looked around him. The hall was the place for wedding parties. He imagined bringing Fran back here as his wife for the traditional ‘hame-farin’. She’d be wearing the dress she’d worn for the marriage ceremony – that was the custom. The place would be decorated with flowers and balloons, a big banner across the stage: ‘Jimmy and Fran’. There’d be music and dancing. I wanted to marry her from the minute I saw her. That idea was new to him and the sudden realization took his breath away. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to say the words to Fran. She’d laugh at him. Shallow and sentimental, he thought. That’s me.

‘Why were you so scared to talk to me?’ he asked. ‘You were scared?’

Ben shrugged again. ‘It was the waiting. It felt like waiting for an exam to start. I’ve never been good at exams. I nearly passed out before my viva.’

‘Is that all?’

‘I thought you must have found out about us. About her men. I suppose I have a motive for murder.’

‘Jealousy?’ Perez asked. ‘Were you jealous?’

‘Horribly.’ Ben’s initial fear had quite gone. He was almost cheerful. Have I missed something? Perez wondered. What was making him so worried, so guilty? Ben went on: ‘I’d have killed Hugh Shaw if I’d thought I could get away with it. But not Angela. I’d never have harmed her.’

Chapter Twenty

Perez remained in the hall after Ben Catchpole had walked away; he was thinking about Angela. Her mischief, her games, her meddling with the emotions of the men in the field centre, all these could explain the outburst of violence that had led to her death.

What am I saying? That she asked for it? The idea shocked him. He’d always been dismayed when colleagues suggested that victims, especially women, had contributed to the crimes against them. But he was curious about Angela Moore and he wanted to understand her better. He tried to picture the woman he’d met at island functions. He’d never had the sense that she was flirting with him. Although she’d been lively and confident, he’d never been attracted to her, and he found it difficult to explain Ben Catchpole’s infatuation or to see how she caused such chaos in the lives of the men in the lighthouse.

Perhaps I wasn’t her type. Too old. Too boring. Despite himself he felt a sting of envy.

After a couple of calls he tracked down the home number of Bryn Pritchard, the officer who’d notified Angela’s father about her death.

‘He’s the community plod,’ the station sergeant in Newtown had said. ‘Been there for years. No ambition. But he knows the place like the back of his hand.’

The phone was answered by a woman. She put her hand over the receiver, but still Perez could hear her shouting. ‘Bryn, it’s for you. Work. Sounds like a foreigner.’ A voice like a foghorn.

Bryn would have stayed chatting all day. At one point his wife must have brought him a drink, because Perez could hear him slurping in the occasional gap when Perez could insert a question.

‘They’re not local, not really. They moved to the village when Angela was eleven or twelve. There never was a mother. At least, I suppose there must have been once, but we never saw her. Gossip had it that she ran off because the prof was such a difficult bastard to live with, but that could have been speculation. There was a lot of speculation because nobody could find out what had really gone on. They didn’t mix. Angela didn’t go to school, for instance. The prof taught her at home. Not that unusual here with English families, home schooling. We tend to attract the hippy dippy crowd.’ He paused for breath, a gulp of tea.

‘The prof?’

‘That’s what he was. A professor. Or had been before he retired and moved out to live with us. Professor of biological sciences at Bristol University.’

‘He must have been quite old then, to be bringing up a daughter of that age.’ Perez tried to imagine what that would have been like for the girl. Cooped up in a house with an elderly academic. No friends of her own age.

Bryn had his own opinions about that. ‘Archie Moore was about fifty-five when they moved here. It wasn’t right. I don’t know what the education welfare were thinking about allowing it. How could he provide for the needs of a teenage girl? Because that’s what she was when she left home. But they said she was receiving balanced schooling. She took all her exams a year early, passed with some of the highest marks in the country. But education isn’t only about exams, is it? He pushed her and pushed her. Not just in her school work, but music too. He sent her to Newtown for piano lessons and if you walked past in the evening you’d hear her practising. She didn’t have any sort of social life, not even with the other home-school kids. I don’t know where he bought her clothes for her but she dressed like a middle-aged woman. Who knows what sort of monster he was creating?’

Perez didn’t answer and Bryn continued: ‘No wonder she went a bit wild in the end.’

‘Wild in what way?’

‘It was the last summer, before she went off to college. She hung around with some of the bad lads in the village. The girls never seemed to take to her. There was nothing criminal, not that she was ever done for, at least. But drinking. Probably drugs. One night Archie reported her missing; she turned up a couple of days later with a hangover, looking as if she hadn’t slept for a week.’

‘Where had she been?’

‘She would never say. But with a man. There were rumours that she went off early to college so she could get an abortion.’

Perez didn’t ask how Bryn could know that. He too lived in a community where personal information leached into the public domain.

‘Did she come back to visit her father?’ Perez asked. ‘In the university holidays? After she graduated?’

‘No.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘That was the last time anyone here saw her, when she went off to uni on the coach from Newtown. I always thought that was very hard. I don’t like the man, but he’d done what he thought was best for her. Given her an education. She’d never have had all those chances without him. He didn’t even get invited to her wedding.’

‘Do you have any thoughts about why she might have stayed away?’

Another silence. ‘You’re thinking abuse?’ Bryn said. ‘Is that the way your mind’s working?’

‘I did wonder.’

‘So did I,’ Bryn said, ‘at the time. But no, I don’t think that was the reason she didn’t come home. She didn’t suffer the sort of abuse you’re thinking about anyway. She had nothing to bring her back. There was no more to it than that. The old man’s turned into a bitter old soak. He props up the bar of the Lamb from teatime to closing, talking to everyone who’ll listen about his famous, ungrateful daughter. She had no real friends here. She probably just put the place out of her mind.’