Blue Lightning

the cook’s murder. She’d known the killer had been in the tower. Had he hidden something else there?

They sat for a moment in silence. ‘Were you never tempted to go up there?’ Perez asked at last. ‘To see where Angela was going, to see who she was with? You’d get a view from there of everything that was going on.’

Maurice set down the glass so violently that some of the liquid spilt on to the polished table. ‘You don’t get it, do you, Jimmy? I didn’t want to know where she was going or who she was meeting. As long as she came home to me every evening I didn’t care.’

Sandy was in the common room, drinking beer, talking to the three single men. Perez hoped Sandy realized he was in the North Light to work; this wasn’t a few days’ unofficial leave from the routine of the office. Immediately he decided that the thought was unfair; these days the Whalsay man took his job seriously. No one would be better than Sandy at getting these men to discuss Angela Moore and her relationships.

Perez helped himself to a coke at the bar and slipped some money into the honesty box. He took a seat just outside the circle of chairs. There was a pyramid of empty beer cans built on the coffee table in the middle. Hugh Shaw was at the end of a story – something about a birdwatcher in a brothel in Tashkent. He nodded to acknowledge Perez’s presence and continued to the tagline. Sandy almost choked, he was laughing so much. The others were more restrained; Perez guessed they’d heard it before.

Sandy saw Perez look at the empty cans. ‘These aren’t all ours,’ he said. ‘The boys from the search team were here earlier. They’ve only just gone to bed.’

‘Could I have a few words, Sandy?’ No point his sitting there drinking with them. They’d never accept him as one of the boys.

They returned to the bird room, the closest thing they had to an office here, the memory of a woman’s body still lying over the desk between them.

‘Did the team find anything in the tower?’

‘You were right. That was a pillowcase and the lining of the pillow itself. There are small fragments of feather still left inside. Nothing else. No fingerprints. The handrail going up the steps and round the lens had been wiped clean.’

‘The screwed-up pillowcase would have gone in a pocket. The killer must have gone straight up to the tower after murdering Jane.’ Perez pictured the killer, looking down the island. Had he seen Perez walking towards the Pund? Had he been already aware that the body had been found before Rhona Laing and the rest of the team arrived in on the plane?

Perez nodded vaguely in the direction of the common room. ‘Do any of them admit to having been up the tower?’

‘No, they all claim to have assumed it would be locked.’

So all it would take, Perez thought, would be one piece of forensic evidence linking a field centre resident to the lens room and we’d have our murderer.

‘What do your drinking pals say about Angela Moore?’ Perez wondered if the three men had considered themselves rivals. They’d all been bewitched by the woman. Had the spell been broken now she was dead?

‘That she was a cruel and wonderful woman.’

‘Specifics would be good, Sandy.’

‘I have the feeling that they’re all relieved she’s dead. Like, they say how fantastic she was, but I think they were a wee bit scared of her. They didn’t know how to stand up to her.’

‘Did they all feel like that?’

‘Maybe Dougie, the fat one, a bit less than the others.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Sandy shrugged. ‘I think he enjoyed her company. He wasn’t so intimidated.’

‘He wasn’t having sex with her,’ Perez said. ‘It was more about the shared interest. The birds.’

‘But occasionally she got things wrong.’ Sandy had brought his beer with him and took a swig from the can. ‘That’s what Dougie told me. “She was a great birder, but not quite as great as she thought.”’

‘He didn’t tell me that.’

‘Well, he’d not have wanted to look disloyal. He said it wasn’t unknown for her to take credit for identifying a bird found by someone else. And the others agreed. Not really a motive for murder but you said you wanted the detail.’

Perez considered, tried to imagine this flawed, driven woman. She wouldn’t bear being wrong. She would hate it. Perhaps that was a motive for murder after all.

‘What did they make of Jane Latimer?’

‘That she was a brilliant cook. Nothing else about her mattered to them.’

‘Angela Moore was pregnant,’ Perez said. ‘Which of those boys would you put down as the father?’

There was a moment of silence while Sandy considered. He was much better these days at keeping his mouth shut until he had something worth saying. ‘Hugh,’ he said at last. ‘I mean, she wasn’t looking for a man to stand by her, was she? She had that already with Maurice. If it was just the sperm she was after, Hugh would make less of a fuss.’

‘It couldn’t be him,’ Perez said. ‘He’s only been here for a few weeks and Angela was two months’ pregnant. Unless he’s telling us lies and he’d known her before. I suppose she could have met him on one of her trips south.’

‘Couldn’t we get them to do a blood test? That way we’d know for sure.’

Perez supposed they could but he wasn’t sure it would help them discover who had stabbed the women. He always thought of the victims as women in the plural. Because, despite his warning that they should all keep an open mind, he was convinced there was just one killer.

When Perez arrived home, Fran had gone to bed but his mother was still up, on the computer in the office that had once been a small bedroom. Recently, she’d become a demon Internet freak. She emailed friends all over the world and had even started her own blog: Notes from a Fair Isle. James had at first felt threatened, then become resigned. He was happy for Mary to save the croft accounts on the PC and to order in feed and seeds online. He still resented the time Mary spent on the computer though, the notion that she had an exciting life in which he played no part. Perez sensed it had caused arguments.

Perez pushed open the office door. Mary’s glasses had slid down her nose and there was a mug of tea, cold on the desk beside her.

‘Mother, you’re obsessed,’ he said, only half joking. ‘Go to bed.’

‘I thought you might be interested in this…’

He pulled up a kitchen stool, ready to indulge her. He knew she enjoyed the times they had alone together. The two of them had always been close. He was grateful she’d taken so easily to Fran. Some mothers would become petty and jealous. He was tempted to ask her about James. How could his mother be so generous about his encounter with Angela? But she wouldn’t want it discussed and would hate to think that Perez knew about it. Better to leave it to his parents to deal with in their own way.

‘What is it?’ He thought his voice sounded forced, unnaturally cheerful.

‘An article about Ben Catchpole.’

‘How did you find it?’

‘I Googled him.’ She blushed. ‘I tried it with all the folk staying at the North Light. Just out of interest, you know. You can’t blame me for that.’

‘Did you come across anything else?’

‘Some bits and pieces,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised you’ve not tried it yourself. But this seemed the most important.’ She pushed her chair out of the way so Perez could read the screen. The article was in the Scottish edition of The Times online and had been written six years before. The piece ran:

Green Activist Arrested in Braer Protest

To commemorate the environmental disaster caused by the running aground of oil tanker the Braer in southern Shetland ten years ago, Benjamin Catch-pole, research student and green activist, broke into the oil terminal in Sullom Voe and caused tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of criminal damage. He received a suspended custodial sentence when he appeared in court earlier this week. Police sources say they believe Catchpole had help within Shetland to carry out the crime, and it seems likely that other charges will be brought.