Ann Cleeves - Blue Lightning

The music started and they swung into a hymn. Sarah Fowler had a sweet voice and seemed to know the words. The couple were sitting just in front of them and Perez could make it out over the rest of the congregation. Beside him, Fran was singing too, but she could never hold a tune. It was something they laughed about.

After the service the islanders stood outside in the sunshine and chatted. No talk of the murders. The conversation was about when the bairns would get in from the Anderson High, a sixtieth birthday party to be arranged in the hall. Perhaps the Fowlers’ presence constrained them. The couple stood for a moment too on the edge of the crowd, rather awkwardly.

Fran went up to talk to them: ‘Did you walk all the way from the North Light?’

‘It’s a lovely day,’ John said. ‘And we wanted to get away for a while. I’m sure you understand.’

‘I’ll give you a lift back,’ Fran said. ‘That is OK, Mary? I can use the car?’

Mary looked for James as if the decision wasn’t hers to make, but Perez answered for her. ‘Sure, no problem. Take it. But come straight home or you’ll be late for lunch.’ He didn’t like the idea of Fran without him at the lighthouse.

He was still furious at his father’s hypocrisy; how dare James preach about self-control? Perez thought he couldn’t sit down for another meal with the man until the matter of Angela Moore had been discussed. Even if he’d got the whole thing wrong, if he made a complete fool of himself, he had to know.

Mary hurried away after a few words with her friends. She had the meat to get into the oven. Fran went with her, followed by the Fowlers. She muttered to Perez as she went: ‘If I don’t get out of these clothes soon, I’ll almost believe I’m a Sunday school teacher or a member of the WI.’

‘I’ll hang on for my father,’ Perez said. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘Of course not. You don’t see him often enough.’

James was still playing at being minister, shaking hands and asking after his flock. At last the rest of the congregation drifted away and the two men were left in the bright autumn sunshine, their long shadows making strange shapes on the boggy grass.

‘That sermon.’

James turned to face him. They’d started to walk slowly away from the kirk. ‘Yes?’ Pleased that his son was showing an interest.

‘I really don’t know how you’ve got the nerve.’

‘What do you mean?’ Big James’s face was dark and impassive. No reaction other than a slight frown.

‘Did you show much self-control when it came to Angela Moore?’

His father stopped suddenly in the road. What had Perez been expecting? Bluster and denial? A plausible explanation, which would make him seem ridiculous? Certainly not this stillness. He stopped too, waited for a moment for some response, then looked into the man’s face. James was struggling to compose himself. There was no sign now of the fluent preacher, the spiritual leader of the island. James could find nothing to say.

Perez waited. All his life he’d been scared of this man and now his father was stuttering like a child caught in some petty mischief.

‘You were having an affair,’ Perez said at last.

‘No!’

‘You slept with her.’

‘Once,’ James said, his voice high-pitched with stress. Then, more controlled: ‘Yes, I slept with her once, but there was no sort of relationship.’

‘You gave her presents. Jewellery.’

‘I fancied myself in love with her.’ The man paused. ‘But it was lust. I see that now.’ He began walking very quickly down the road. Perez followed until they were marching in step.

‘And what did my mother make of that? She was happy, was she, that it was only lust?’

James stopped abruptly. ‘You have no right to pry into another man’s marriage.’

‘I have every right!’ Perez realized he was yelling so loudly that the back of his throat hurt. ‘I’m investigating a murder and you’re a witness. You’ve corrupted a crime scene!’

‘Always the detective, aren’t you, Jimmy? Can’t you leave the police out of this for once?’

They stood for a moment, staring at each other, the hostility sparking between them.

‘All right then,’ Perez said eventually. ‘Let’s leave the investigation out of it. For a while at least. Let’s keep it personal. All my life you’ve given me the morality lecture, the guilt trip. Tell me how you justify sleeping with another woman. How can you live with yourself after that?’

‘With my head I knew it was a shameful, stupid thing, but it was that woman.’

‘So you’re blaming her? She forced you to have sex with her, did she?’ Perez felt the anger returning. He couldn’t bear to see his father so cowed, so pathetic. The least he could do was take responsibility for what had happened.

‘It was after a do at the North Light,’ James said. ‘About this time last year after all the visitors had left. A bit of a party, music. Jane put on a magnificent spread – a real sit-down supper. It was to thank the island for its support over the season. Angela claimed it was her idea, but I think Jane and Maurice hatched it up between them.’

‘Go on.’

‘There were a few drams before the meal and wine with it. I’m not really used to wine.’

Perez said nothing. Let his father make his excuses.

‘She took me into the bird room, made a big show of locking the door behind her. I…’

‘Mother was still in the building!’ Perez interrupted because he couldn’t face hearing the details of his father and Angela Moore having sex. That was more information than he needed. But still he imagined it. The smell of wood and birds, the hard desk, the excitement and the urgency, the need to have it over before they were missed.

‘And that was the only time?’ Perez asked. He supposed his father was right. One hurried encounter hardly counted as an affair. Fran and her London friends would probably dismiss it as a trivial mistake.

‘I dreamed about it happening again,’ James said. ‘I wanted it to. But it never did.’

‘You tried to persuade her?’

‘I made a fool of myself. I see that now.’ He looked at Perez. ‘We’d chatted at parties before it happened, flirted a bit. I hadn’t thought she would do that with me if she didn’t care for me.’

Perez saw for the first time that his father was an unworldly man. Throughout his childhood he’d thought of James as having great knowledge and experience. But of course his father had never lived away from the Isle. He’d been too young for National Service, had never been to university. Angela would have found him an easy target.

Perez found his anger was already starting to fade, replaced by the inevitable understanding. He didn’t want to understand – that was for social workers, for weak indecisive people who made excuses for criminal behaviour. But he could never quite find it in him to condemn. Perez saw that as a failure, a kind of cowardice. Now he began to see how his father had been tempted. A long marriage. A life of routine – the rhythm of the croft, the boat, the kirk. And along had come a young woman, sexy and famous, appearing to find his father attractive. Of course he’d deluded himself.

James continued: ‘She was all games. This was a boring place for her. She needed more excitement in her life. I told her I loved her, bought her presents. I suppose it was a kind of amusement for her. Maybe she was flattered by it.’

‘Did she ever talk about her other men?’

Silence.

‘You must have known there were others.’

‘It seems that I knew nothing about her.’ James paused, turned to Perez again, his face scarlet. ‘I told her I’d leave my wife for her.’