Текст книги "Blue Lightning"

Автор книги: Ann Cleeves

Соавторы: Ann Cleeves
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Chapter Sixteen

In the field centre kitchen Jane made a cottage pie. Easy to prepare and also Maurice’s favourite. She’d do a veggie chilli for Ben. Jane was starting to worry about Maurice, who was still holed up in the flat and who hadn’t really eaten anything the previous day. The community nurse had come up to the lighthouse the morning that Angela had been found dead and offered sedatives, but Maurice had refused to see her: ‘I don’t need her pills. I don’t need tranquillizing. I don’t want to forget my wife.’

Now, Jane wondered if she should get the nurse back. The woman was chatty, easy-going and she was probably the source of many of the rumours floating round the island about Angela’s murder. She’d be happy enough to call in. But it was unlikely that Maurice would be persuaded to see her, and Jane didn’t want to provide more fodder for the Fair Isle gossip machine. She put the pie in the larder to keep cool and phoned Mary Perez. Mary had been the island nurse before she became a full-time crofter and Maurice had always got on well with her. No reason why Jane shouldn’t invite her to the North Light for coffee and try to persuade Maurice out of the flat to meet her.

While she waited for the woman to arrive, Jane went upstairs to make beds and tidy rooms. In the height of the season they’d employed a young woman from Belfast to do the cleaning, but now Jane looked after all the domestic chores. It wasn’t too onerous this week. Two rooms: the small dormitory where Dougie and Hugh slept and the twin belonging to the Fowlers. The staff looked after themselves, though sometimes Jane took pity on Ben Catchpole and did his laundry.

The dormitory had the stuffy, sweaty smell of men living in close proximity, even though two of the beds were empty and the men were sleeping at opposite ends of the room. Jane straightened sheets and folded duvets, cleaned the sink, opened the sash window just a little to let in fresh air. She wondered if Perez had searched in here. Would that be the normal procedure in a murder investigation? Surely he’d have to get permission first and he certainly hadn’t asked her if he could look round her room. She thought she would have known if he’d been there, looking through her drawers, prying in her things. Again she felt the investigation as a sort of challenge, an impersonal puzzle that had nothing to do with the reality of the murdered Angela. Jane had always been competitive and now she wanted to pit her intelligence against that of Perez, to come up with the identity of the killer before he did. She’d become an amateur sleuth, like a character in the detective stories she’d read as a child.

Of course it was presumptuous to think she might succeed ahead of the police, but she could get away with behaviour that would be impossible for the inspector. Who would know, for example, if she looked through guests’ personal belongings? She had every right to be in their rooms.

The chest of drawers next to Dougie’s bed contained underwear, a couple of folded T-shirts and a pile of socks. On top, next to a bottle of whisky that was three-quarters empty, there was a field identification guide to the birds of America. This, it seemed, was Dougie’s only bedtime reading. Hugh’s possessions were more interesting. They were still piled in his rucksack and in such an untidy and random way that he would never tell that anyone had been looking. A torn envelope file made of pink card had been slipped end on by the side of a tangle of clothes. Jane pulled it out. There was a moment’s hesitation before she opened it. Really, what right had she to pry? But by now she was so curious that it was impossible for her to replace it before reading the contents. Besides, she had a sense that here, in the lighthouse, they were living outside the normal rules. She knew Hugh would be on his way down the island for his interview with Perez. She wouldn’t be disturbed.

The file seemed to contain all Hugh’s recently received correspondence. There was a bank statement still in its envelope. It had come in on the plane with Jimmy Perez and Fran, redirected from home; Jane had collected the mail from the post office that day. It was unusual for visitors to receive post and she recognized the envelope. It showed that Hugh had been seriously overdrawn until the week he arrived in Fair Isle, when £2,500 had been paid into his account. The indulgent parents bailing him out again, Jane thought. There were a couple of copies of his CV. Jane had worked in HR and picked up the lack of experience, the unexplained gaps, despite the creative description of his short adult life. She wouldn’t have hired him as a tour leader. At the bottom of the file there was a handwritten letter from Hugh’s father, saying he felt he had supported Hugh financially for long enough. They would continue, of course, to provide advice and support but Hugh would have to earn his own living. The letter had been written some months before. Why had Hugh kept it? And where had the £2,500 come from? Had Hugh charmed his parents into providing one last handout? Or had he actually done some paid work? She looked for a name on the statement but it seemed to have been paid in cash. It was something the police would be able to check easily enough and as she straightened she supposed she should pass this information on to Perez. But then she’d have to confess to snooping and the thought of it made her blush. Surely if the police were looking for a motive they’d look into their suspects’ bank accounts.

The Fowlers’ room was always orderly. They made their own beds each morning. Sarah’s nightdress was folded on one pillow. There were matching toothbrushes in the glass on the shelf by the sink. In the top drawer next to Sarah’s bed there was a diary. Jane left it where it was – despite the temptation to read it, she thought that was a step too far. There was something about Sarah’s closed expression, her jumpiness, which made Jane think there had been a tragedy in her personal life. They’d never visited Fair Isle before and it was unlikely to have anything to do with Angela Moore. It seemed that John had brought work with him. A laptop computer in a case leaned against the wall and a pile of files and books were piled on the bedside table. The files contained magazine articles, printed pages that looked like work in progress. After reading halfway down the pile Jane stopped. She couldn’t spend too long here; she might be missed and although she knew Perez was interviewing the Fowlers, she couldn’t bear the thought that she might be caught snooping. There was a catalogue for Fowler’s bookshop. He’d called it something fancy in Greek, that meant nothing to her. How pretentious, she thought. She blinked at some of the prices being demanded for rare and out of print books. She supposed he must operate mostly with dealers.

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.

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.’

‘Did you realize she’d gone into the bird room to work after the party?’

‘No. It was a lovely party and we felt honoured to be invited, but I did sense we were intruding on a private celebration. We went to bed straight after supper was served.’

‘Do you have any idea who might have killed her?’ Perez thought that of all the guests, this woman might have an idea. Her business was about watching people and understanding them. She wouldn’t participate. She’d have sat in a corner throughout the dancing, watching the dynamics of the group playing out.

‘As Hugh said, I suppose the most obvious suspect is Angela’s stepdaughter. I could see her throwing an adolescent tantrum and lashing out with whatever was at hand. She seems rather unhappy, unpredictable.’

Perez said nothing. He thought it would suit all the adults if Poppy were found to be responsible. Most have them had disliked Angela Moore and that would be making them feel guilt as well as shock and sadness in their response to her death. A speedy resolution to the case would allow them to move on and feel better about themselves. He had nothing else to ask the woman and watching her walk away he felt the interview had been a failure. He wanted to call her back and start again, to ask her all the irrelevant questions that were rattling around in his mind. To understand her better.

Hugh Shaw had been waiting outside, smoking a cigarette. He must have seen Sarah Fowler leave the hall, but although he knew it was his turn to be questioned next he still waited to be summoned. Perez saw him through the open door and felt a sudden impatience. Was the young man’s indolence, his leaning against the wall and finishing his cigarette although he knew the detective was waiting for him, an attempt to make a point? Or had the pose become so much of a habit that he couldn’t help himself? Perez couldn’t face sitting here, prising answers from this arrogant youngster who acted as if he owned the place. He grabbed his coat and rucksack and went outside.

‘Come on. Show me this rare swan. We can talk as we go.’

Perez felt better just in the physical activity of walking. After the rain, the colours of the landscape – the grass and the muddy bog water and the lichen on the walls – seemed very sharp and bright. He led Hugh away from the road and towards the airstrip. He didn’t want to meet anyone else from the field centre and he also wanted to prove to the man that this was his place. If Hugh came here every autumn for the rest of his life he wouldn’t understand the island as well as Perez. Hugh wasn’t at all disconcerted by the unusual interview technique. He seemed perfectly at ease as they made their way north over the hill and kept up with Perez stride for stride over the heather.

‘Were you sleeping with Angela Moore?’

Again, perhaps he’d hoped to shock the boy, to jolt him from the self-assured confidence that Perez found such a barrier. It didn’t work.

‘Well, we didn’t do a lot of sleeping.’ Hugh stopped and looked down over the island. They could see each of the croft houses, set out like a child’s drawing. The clarity of the light made the perspective look wrong. Everything was flat and too close. Hugh took out another cigarette, the only sign that he might be nervous. ‘How did you know?’

‘Someone told me Angela liked pretty boys.’

‘She picked me up the first night I was here.’ Hugh had a smile, wide and welcoming, but fixed; there was somehow, even when he was talking, a shadow behind the words. It gave Perez the sense that he would take nothing seriously. ‘I was last up in the common room. I’d been drinking all evening. I’d wanted to visit since I first heard about the Fair Isle field centre; it was so cool to be there finally. I felt like celebrating. And Angela wandered through from the flat and found me there. “Let me give you a tour of the island.” It was a clear, still night, just before the westerlies started. Cold. There was ice on the windscreen. Unusual so early in the year, apparently. She took me up to the west cliffs and pointed out the lights of Foula right in the distance.’

‘You had sex?’

‘Twice that night. Once in the back of the Land Rover, parked on the airstrip, and once in an empty room in the North Light when we got back. It was three in the morning when she left me.’ He paused, added with admiration: ‘She was up at dawn to do the trap round.’

‘And on other occasions?’

‘Not every night. She’d made it quite clear we met up on her terms. She’d come and find me when she wanted me.’ Hugh spoke without apparent resentment. He wasn’t like Perez with his first lover; it seemed Hugh had no interest in forming a permanent relationship. The smile remained in place.

They’d reached the peak of a ridge and now had a view north. The only sign of habitation from here was the lighthouse and that was almost obscured by a fold in the land; only the tower and the lens were visible. Perez remembered when the lighthouse was manned: there’d been a Glaswegian couple with a little boy who’d come to the island school, a bluff retired merchant seaman as senior keeper and they’d all lived in the whitewashed buildings at the foot of the tower. Then the field centre trust had taken it over, raised the money to convert it. From this position he became aware again of how isolated it was.

‘Did she come to find you?’ Perez asked.

‘Oh, yes. At odd times. Once in the middle of the day when everyone else was having lunch. We were in the dorm. Dougie could have come in at any time. But that was what she liked. The excitement. The danger.’

And you? Perez wanted to ask. Did you like it too?

But he could see that Hugh would have found the question ridiculous. Of course he liked it. Sex without complications. Wasn’t that the dream of every young man? And why shouldn’t a woman enjoy it too? Perez would have liked to discuss Angela’s attitude to men with Fran. He suspected Fran would accept it without question. Very little shocked her. He found Angela’s need for pretty boys not so much shocking as depressing. What did it say about her marriage? That it bored her? That she had to find her excitement elsewhere? Did that make Perez boring too, with his plans for marriage, a settled family? Would Fran think him tedious after a couple of years?

Now they were both out of breath and they stopped. Perez took a flask of coffee from a small backpack and handed Hugh a slice of the sticky chocolate concoction that the islanders called peat. His mother had made a batch the evening before. They sat on a flat rock that stuck out of the heather, looked down on the bright blue sea and the wild white waves.

‘Did Angela talk to you?’ Perez asked.

‘Of course we talked.’ Hugh regarded Perez with patronizing amusement. ‘We got on. We were good mates.’

‘You didn’t seem very upset by her death.’

Hugh shrugged. ‘To be honest, it was never going to be a long-term thing, was it? I mean, I can’t imagine we’d have kept in touch once I’d left the Isle. I’m sorry she’s dead, but I can’t pretend to be devastated. I can’t bear shallow sentimentality.’

Perez wondered if that was what he was. Sentimental and shallow. A brief affair followed by no contact didn’t fit his definition of being a good mate.

‘Did she seem anxious about anything? Concerned for her own safety?’

Perez had expected an immediate flip remark, but Hugh considered the question. ‘Something was bugging her,’ he said eventually. ‘The last couple of days she’d seemed tense, not her usual self.’

‘What was the problem?’

‘She wouldn’t talk about it,’ Hugh said. ‘Told me it was none of my business. That was OK with me. I didn’t want to pry. I thought the weather was getting her down. The lack of good birds. Or Poppy. The girl really got under her skin.’

‘Did she discuss her husband with you?’ Perez looked out over the blustery water. The air was so clear that he could see Shetland mainland, the outline quite sharp on the horizon, the first time it had been visible since they’d arrived on the island. He found the sight reassuring, a connection at last with the outside world. The next day the boat would go out and Vicki Hewitt and Sandy Wilson would come back in with it. He would no longer be working alone.

‘Oh, Maurice wasn’t bothering her,’ Hugh said with a little laugh. ‘Maurice would let her do whatever she wanted as long as she stayed married to him.’

‘He knew about her affairs?’

‘Probably. Or didn’t look too hard at what she was doing because he didn’t want to know. As I said, she resented Poppy being here. I think it was the first time Maurice had ever stood up to her. Angela had said the autumn was a bad time for the girl to visit – after the seabird ringing it was her busiest time. He’d insisted, said his daughter had to come first for a change. Angela was shocked. She usually got her way. But I’m not sure that was what was worrying her. It was only temporary, after all. Eventually the wind would change and the girl would get out.’

Hugh stood up and brushed the crumbs from his jacket. ‘I thought you wanted to see this swan.’ He turned on the inevitable smile and walked very quickly down the bank towards Golden Water. Perez had almost to run to catch up with him.

The swan was on a shingle beach at the side of the pool. It looked to Perez like any of the swans that came into the island in long skeins in the winter. ‘Show me what all the fuss is about,’ he said again.

Hugh set up his telescope on a tripod and let Perez look. ‘It’s the black beak that’s important. That and the American ring, which proves it hasn’t escaped from a collection somewhere.’ He straightened. ‘There’ll be hundreds of birders in Shetland mainland waiting to come here to see it.’

Perez had a sudden image of an invading army preparing for battle. How would a sudden influx of visitors affect the investigation into Angela Moore’s murder? And was there anything he could do to prevent it?

‘Will folk really go to all that effort?’

‘Believe me,’ Hugh said. ‘People would kill to get that bird on their list.’