Ann Cleeves - Blue Lightning

‘No,’ Sarah said. Fran thought the answer came too quickly. ‘No,’ Sarah repeated, then paused. ‘Look, we’re all done here for lunch and for dinner. There’s no need for you to stay.’

‘What were you planning for the rest of the morning?’ You’re not getting rid of me that easily.

‘I thought I’d strip the beds in the big dormitory where the policemen from Inverness have been staying. Apparently they’re leaving today and it’ll be one less thing for Maurice to think of.’

‘Sounds like unskilled work,’ Fran said. ‘Just my bag.’

The big dormitory held six beds in two rows of three. With the high ceiling, Fran thought it looked like an old-fashioned hospital ward. The search team had already packed and their bags were stacked close to the door. The room was on a corner and there were two long windows. Outside, the sky was grey. Fran thought winter had come early this year.

There were two pillows on each of the beds, so it seemed unlikely that the killer had stolen one from here, but as Fran stripped off the cases she felt the sharp shafts of the small feathers inside. One just like this, she thought. It was taken from the centre. Then: But how would anyone carry a pillow to the Pund without being noticed? In the rhythm of folding blankets, of pulling fitted undersheets from the mattresses, it was the practical that occupied her mind. Does that mean the murderer drove there? Of course not. All the birdwatchers carry small rucksacks. It would be quite easy to squeeze one of these thin, rather mean pillows inside. And that’s where the knife was too, of course. Once Jane had been stabbed, the pillowcase would be removed and the same knife used to slash the lining. Then the feathers could be scattered over the corpse. But why? Why go to all that trouble?

Now all the beds were stripped and the sheets were piled in a heap in the middle of the floor.

‘What now?’

‘There’s a laundry next to the kitchen,’ Sarah said. ‘We could make a start on the washing if you really want to stay.’ She made the sheets into two bundles and the women carried them down the stairs.

The room was small and hot. There were two big industrial washing machines and a tumble dryer, a sink under the window, a press iron and a domestic iron and ironing board. Along one wall there were rows of wide shelves with sheets and towels. And spare pillows.

‘Are the guests allowed in here?’ Fran asked.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never used it, but the whole place is pretty relaxed.’ Sarah started to load the first machine.

Looking around the room, beautifully organized, sweet-smelling, with its neatly folded linen, Fran thought this was more of a tribute to Jane than a grand memorial.

‘What exactly do you do in the real world?’ Fran asked.

‘I run an early-years centre, working with babies and parents.’ Sarah looked up. Her face was flushed from the heat of the room. She switched on the machine and it started to churn.

‘Interesting. How did you get into that?’

‘I trained as a nurse, then worked as a health visitor. I always enjoyed the community stuff most.’

So she would make a natural confidante for Angela. But if the field centre warden had told Sarah she was pregnant, why hadn’t Sarah passed on the information to the police straight after the woman’s body had been found?

The door opened and Perez was standing there. ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding.’ His voice was light, but Fran could tell he’d been worried. He didn’t like her being on her own in the North Light. Well, tough. No way was she going to spend another day with his parents. ‘I’m just going to fetch Angela’s mother from the airstrip,’ he said. ‘Do you want to come?’

‘No, thanks.’ She grinned at Sarah. ‘All this domesticity, I think we deserve a coffee.’

They had coffee in the kitchen to the background smell of yeast from the rising pizza dough.

‘Did Angela ever talk to you?’ Fran asked. ‘She didn’t get on with Jane or Poppy. You’d have thought she’d be glad of another woman around the place.’

‘I don’t think she liked women very much.’ A pause. ‘I don’t think she liked anyone.’

Outside, the sky was dark and another storm of sleet passed over, rattling against the windows, bouncing inside the chimney breast.

‘Is your husband out in this? Jimmy said the birders were obsessed, but they must be mad.’

‘John loves being out.’ Sarah looked at her over the rim of her mug. ‘Even in bad weather. Birdwatching has been his passion since he was a child. Sometimes I resented it. It took up so much of his time. It was as if he were defined by it. I felt rather excluded.’

‘And now? Do you still resent it? You’re here after all.’

‘I suppose if you love someone, you don’t stop them doing the things that make them happy.’

‘That’s just what I think.’ Fran looked up, smiling. ‘I feel exactly the same way about Jimmy and his work.’

‘But it’s not easy,’ Sarah said. ‘Sometimes you feel you come second place to an obsession.’

‘What do you make of the other guys here? Are they all obsessives?’

‘I’m not sure about Ben. He’s more into the science, the conservation, than the rare birds. John did a piece on him once when he worked for Greenpeace. Ben was very radical then. I think he’s calmed down a bit, but the passion’s still there. He lives what he preaches. He’s vegetarian. He doesn’t wear leather. Angela used to tease him.’

‘She was a meat-eater?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Sarah said. ‘A predator in every sense.’

‘Did she prey on your husband?’

‘What do you mean?’ The woman looked up, shocked.

‘Well, she seems to have had a go at all the other men in the place. And Angela was a writer too, wasn’t she? Perhaps they met before.’

Sarah gave another of her strained little smiles. ‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘Can you imagine it? Angela and John! She liked her men young and pretty as far as I could tell, unless they could be useful to her. Besides, she’d scare John rigid.’

Fran smiled too as if she were sharing a joke, but she thought John might have been useful to Angela when her book had first been published. And in fact, John didn’t seem to her to be the sort who would be easily scared.

Perez stood at the airstrip waiting for Angela’s mother to arrive, his hood up against the hail. Fran would be leaving the next day. He’d told her the sea might be a bit lumpy but she’d decided to stick with her decision to go out on the boat. He hadn’t realized how much the plane trip in had scared her. ‘I don’t care if I’m sick. I’ll feel safer.’

The search team was already there, eager to be leaving. Frustrated because they’d contributed nothing to the case. Perez turned his back to the weather and chatted; occasionally they had to raise their voices to be heard against the breeze.

‘Nothing,’ the leader repeated. ‘Complete sodding waste of time. You found the only piece of useful evidence in the lens room of the tower.’ As if it was Perez’s fault that they’d spent a couple of days on a bleak lump of rock where the Atlantic met the North Sea. ‘I mean, we did the field centre. Although Miss Hewitt is sure the second victim was killed where she was found, we treated the whole of the lighthouse as a potential crime scene – except the lens room, obviously. It never occurred to us that anyone could have access up there.’

Perez said nothing. No point in recriminations now.

‘The woman was moved around a bit in the loft after the attack,’ the man went on. ‘Posed, like Miss Hewitt said.’

‘The killer would have had bloodstained clothes?’ Perez asked.