Jane opened the laptop and switched it on. There was no password and she clicked on ‘recent documents’. There was a letter from John pitching an article about the diet of wading birds for a scientific magazine. He seemed excited by a new study of mole crickets in saltpans in the Middle East. The rest of it made little sense to her. There was no Wi-Fi in the field centre so she couldn’t check his emails, which was rather a relief. That would have seemed a terrible intrusion.

In the corridor outside the room a door banged. It was the fire door at the top of the stairs. Even though she had every excuse to be here, Jane felt the sort of glorious terror she’d not experienced since playing hide and seek as a child. What if the Fowlers had come back early from their interview with Perez and were on their way into the room? She replaced the computer in its case, wiped a cloth around the sink to justify her presence and left. The corridor was empty. It must have been Dougie or Hugh on his way to the dormitory.

Mary arrived just as Jane reached the lobby. She’d brought Perez’s fiancée with her. Jane thought Perez and this Englishwoman made a strange couple; Perez was so straight and silent, very Shetland despite the dark hair and olive skin, and Fran so full of energy and questions, stylish in a bohemian sort of way. She could quite easily have been a colleague of Dee’s, would have fitted in perfectly at one of the Richmond parties.

‘You don’t mind me turning up too?’ Fran said now. ‘I don’t want to gatecrash.’

‘Of course I don’t mind. It’s a treat to have someone new to talk to.’ She thought she and Fran might become friends and the thought cheered her. She led them through to the kitchen, put the kettle on for coffee. ‘I’ll see if I can persuade Maurice to join us.’ She looked at Mary. ‘I’m worried about him. He’s not eating and he hasn’t been out of the flat since Jimmy took Angela’s body away. I thought you might have a chat with him.’

Mary nodded and Jane saw she wouldn’t have to explain her misgivings about calling in the regular island nurse. Mary had understood.

Jane knocked at the door of the flat and when there was no answer she went in. The curtains in the living room were still drawn. She opened them and was almost blinded by a sudden flash of sunshine. The clouds had parted to let a biblical shaft of light onto the sea. She could hear the television in Poppy’s room.

‘What are you doing here?’ Maurice’s voice seemed unnaturally loud.

She started. Maurice had been sitting in one of the armchairs; perhaps he’d been there all night. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before.

‘I did knock,’ she said. ‘I’m making coffee and thought you could use some.’

‘No, thanks.’ The words were aggressive, almost violent.

‘You can’t sit here all day. You’ll make yourself ill and you’ve got Poppy to think about.’ I’m a bossy cow, she thought. I always sound like a middle-aged nanny. She saw he was crying, that tears were rolling silently down his cheeks. She took a tissue from her apron pocket and wiped them away. He sat quite still like an obedient child having his face cleaned. ‘Come on. A change of scene will do you good. Mary Perez is here. You’ve always liked her. But everyone else belonging to the centre is out on the island. You won’t have to face them.’ She took his arm and helped him to his feet, giving him no real choice. She felt the stiffness in his joints, thought again that he’d probably been there all night.

In the kitchen she poured coffee, cut a freshly made scone in half, buttered it and set it before him.

‘The boat’s going out tomorrow,’ Mary said. ‘James and the boys will be up later to get it into the water.’ She turned to Maurice and asked gently: ‘Will you go out with it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘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? But you won’t come to the solution before me, Jane thought. Because an idea had come to her suddenly when she was talking to Maurice, like the flash of sunlight on the green waves.

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.