Ann Cleeves - Blue Lightning

Perez gave a tight little grin. ‘Not all of them and maybe only the stupid ones get caught. We don’t get to know about the bright ones. They get away with it.’ He looked down at Sandy. ‘Have you found out what Angela was doing in Lerwick on her day off the Isle?’

‘Well, she didn’t go to see her dentist. Nor any of the others in town.’

‘Have you checked the banks?’

Sandy grinned. ‘You do know it’s the weekend and they’re all closed?’

‘But I know you have contacts, Sandy. Like that red-headed lass that serves behind the counter of Maurice Parry and Angela Moore’s bank. The one you brought to the staff party in the summer.’

‘Angela went into the Royal Bank of Scotland in the street and withdrew three thousand pounds in cash from the joint account.’

‘We know that! Give me something useful.’

Sandy shook his head. ‘It was lunchtime. The place was busy and there was a queue. There was no time to chat. She took most of the money in fifty-pound notes – almost cleared the bank of big denominations. She folded them in half and put them into a pocket in her rucksack.’ He looked up at Perez. ‘You did check all the pockets?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Then she walked out.’

‘She came home on the afternoon plane,’ Perez said. ‘Where did she spend more than two thousand five hundred pounds in a couple of hours?’

‘Maybe she didn’t spend it,’ Fran said. ‘Maybe she had her own account with another bank and she put it into that. Cheques can take ages to clear. If she wanted the money to cover a cheque she’d already written, cash would have been more efficient.’

Perez turned back to Sandy. ‘Can you check that out in the morning?’

‘Angela was seen again that day,’ Sandy said. ‘About two in the afternoon, in the street. Coming out of Boots.’

‘Who saw her?’

‘Just an old school friend of mine. That was her I was talking to on the phone when you came in.’ He grinned again.

Fran wanted to put off their return to the south of the island and Perez’s parents. She couldn’t face Sunday tea, Sunday television, bland and boring conversation. She and Perez stood outside the centre, preparing for the walk back down the island, when she found a possible distraction.

‘Have you ever been up the lighthouse tower?’

‘Once,’ Perez said, ‘when I was a bairn. They had an open day and showed everyone round.’

‘Any chance we could have a look, do you think? There’d be an amazing view from the top.’

She saw he was considering the matter. There were times when she wanted to scream at him. Don’t you ever do anything on impulse, Jimmy? What is it with the caution? If I hadn’t proposed to you I’d still be waiting. But it seemed that he too was in no hurry to rush home.

‘Sure, if it’s open. I know Bill Murray from the Koolin has a key. He holds it for the Northern Lighthouse Board. They come once a year to paint it and service the light.’

‘Won’t Maurice have access to it? In case of emergencies?’

‘Let’s check if it’s locked before we trouble him.’ She felt he was indulging her as he might have done Cassie. There was a small arched door at the foot of the tower. The handle was stiff but eventually it turned. Inside, a stone staircase spiralled around the outer wall. There was no light, except from the door that Perez had propped open – and that grew fainter as they climbed – and then from a small window further up. Fran felt the muscles in the backs of her legs strain and stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Ahead of her Perez seemed not to feel the exertion. He continued and must have reached the top and opened a door into the lens room because suddenly the shaft of the tower was flooded with light. She followed him.

She’d been right. The view was astounding and the island was spread out beneath them like a three-dimensional map. The jagged forks of cliff made sense, the road twisted past the northernmost crofts, which she could now recognize by name. Even if we never come to live here , she thought, this is always going to be a special place for me. I kind of belong . She saw the Land Rover being used by the search team making its way back to the field centre. Then, turning to the west, she saw Sheep Rock again, from a different and arresting perspective. She took a sketchpad from her bag and began to draw, very quickly, her forehead pressed against the glass.

‘You don’t mind the height then?’ Perez said. ‘After the plane I thought you might have a problem with vertigo.’

She turned briefly to smile. ‘In the plane I thought I was going to die. A reasonable fear in the circumstances.’

Perez looked briefly over the island but soon turned his attention to the north and west. ‘You can see the lighthouse at Sumburgh Head and the Foula cliffs.’ Fran was so focused on her sketch that she hardly heard him.

When she saw him again, conscious of a silence, a lack of movement, he was peering under the wooden bench that ran round the room, under the windows. He must have sensed her looking at him. ‘What do you think that is?’

‘Don’t know. A bit of rag.’ Her head was still full of the painting she was planning. She thought it might be her best work ever. Would it be possible to exhibit it before she gave it to James and Mary?

‘White cotton certainly. A pillowcase, do you think?’

‘You’re thinking it might have held the feathers scattered over Jane’s body?’

‘It’s possible. Even the automatic lights are kept immaculate. The guys who come to check the working wouldn’t have left that here. The search team haven’t found the pillowcase yet and I asked them to look. I’ll get them up here to check the place out. Don’t touch more than you have to now. There might be fingerprints.’

Fran expected Perez to climb immediately down the stairs to fetch Sandy and the other officers but he didn’t move. ‘I think the murderer has been up here spying,’ he said. ‘I wondered how he tracked down Jane to the Pund. From here you can see everyone’s movements at least in the north half of the island. He knows exactly what we’re all doing and where we are.’

She reached out and took his hand.

As they walked south again, the late afternoon sun was almost warm. Almost. They were still holding hands, like seven-year-olds pretending to be grown up, exchanging a few words. All about themselves, how lucky they were to have found each other, plans for the future. Sentimental stuff that had nothing to do with the investigation. Fran had assumed Perez would want to stay in the tower to supervise the search, but he’d decided to leave them to it. Fran was grateful for that, and for the knowledge that the murderer could no longer be up there, looking down at them. She felt ill whenever she thought that their intimate moments together could have been observed.

Perez’s phone hadn’t rung all day. Too good to be true, Fran thought suddenly.

‘Is your mobile actually switched on?’ His phone was a standing joke. An alternative form of contraception, she said. Always ringing at the most awkward time.

‘Shit! I turned it off for the kirk and forgot to switch it back on.’ He pulled a face, pressed a button. ‘Five missed calls.’ And the romantic walk through the warm autumn light was over. He was a cop all over again.

‘So tell me…’ His phone pressed against his ear with his left hand, scrabbling for a pen and paper with the other. They’d stopped and he leaned the paper on a piece of dry-stone wall. She squatted on a flat rock, looked back towards Sheep Craig, remembering the perspective of it from the tower, thinking again about the painting she’d make. His words were like background music in a bar. She heard them but didn’t take in the meaning. Perez scribbled on the paper, filled one side with his crabby, repressed writing and turned it over. His questions weren’t much more than promptings to persuade the caller to continue talking.