Ann Cleeves - Blue Lightning

‘But expensive,’ Perez interrupted. ‘Even roughing it, you have to eat. And you’d want the occasional beer.’ He got up and switched on the light. Outside, it was almost dark, the time of day Shetlanders called ‘the darkenin’’.

‘Hey, my parents were glad to get me out of their hair. They thought it would be educational. Money well spent, they thought.’

‘Until recently,’ Perez said. ‘Recently, I understand, they’ve been less obliging. You’ve had to look elsewhere to fund your adventurous lifestyle.’

There was a moment of silence.

‘Why did Angela Moore give you two thousand five hundred pounds?’

Another moment of silence, then a return of the practised grin. Perez thought he would always be a con man. In the past he’d have been one of those quacks selling snake oil and charms to delusional and desperate people.

‘Hey, she fancied me,’ Hugh said. ‘What can I say? She didn’t want me to leave so she offered me money to stay on. Was I going to turn it down?’

‘No, Angela wasn’t paying for sexual favours,’ Perez said. ‘You didn’t have any sort of physical relationship with her, did you? She took her regular lovers to the Pund and you knew nothing about that. Your encounters were purely business.’

Hugh stared at the detective. He seemed unable to speak.

‘What was it?’ Perez asked. ‘Blackmail?’

‘The money was a gift,’ Hugh said at last. ‘At least, a loan. Angela knew I’d pay her back. We might not have been lovers but we were good mates. She trusted me.’

‘You weren’t friends,’ Perez said. ‘And Angela wasn’t known for her generosity of spirit or her ability to trust her fellow man. She would only have paid up if she had no choice.’

‘You have no proof.’ The inevitable smile, forced, more of a grimace.

Perez continued as if Hugh hadn’t spoken. ‘And she would have hated it. No one made Angela do what she didn’t want to. She’d have been determined to find a way to stop you from bothering her further. Is that why you killed her? Because she’d started to fight back? Had she begun to threaten you ? It wouldn’t be pleasant to be known as a blackmailer.’

‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ Hugh got to his feet. ‘I’ll be happy to talk to you again, Inspector, when you have some proof.’ He sauntered from the room, a parody of the old cockiness. Sandy stood up too, and seemed prepared to stop Hugh leaving, but Perez gestured for him to let the boy go.

‘What could he possibly be blackmailing Angela about?’ Sandy asked.

Perez was saved from answering because his mobile rang. ‘Yes?’

It was Vicki Hewitt. ‘We’ve had the results on the DNA analysis on the feathers you found in Angela Moore’s hair.’

‘Go on.’

He listened to her words and he knew who had killed the two women. A strange intuitive leap that had little to do with logic. A confirmation and at last a motive. He walked quickly out of the bird room to pull Hugh back in. There were more questions that needed answering now. But the boy seemed to have disappeared.

Fran was making custard. She was tantalized by the noises coming from the common room, but good custard, even from a packet, took concentration. Although the numbers of residents had declined, she was still cooking for more people than she was used to. She stirred and listened, distracted again by the raised men’s voices. The milk started to burn on the bottom of the pan: there was a brown skin on the tip of the spoon when she lifted it out of the yellow liquid. Quickly she reduced the heat. It thickened at last in a satisfactory if slightly lumpy way and she switched off the stove. She would warm it through later.

She’d heard Sarah’s screamed plea for the men to stop the fighting and decided dinner was down to her now. No way would the woman be in any state to cook, her nerves were in shreds. As she prepared vegetables, Fran’s thoughts turned to Cassie: she wondered if the girl was excited at the prospect of her mother coming home or if Duncan with his treats and his spoiling had seduced her. Will she love her father more than me? Knowing it was pathetic, but unable to prevent it. She’d phone Duncan later and make sure he’d bring Cassie down to Grutness to meet the Good Shepherd. Next time they came into Fair Isle she’d bring Cassie with her. Mary would enjoy playing grandmother.

There was a sound behind her and she looked round, expecting to see Perez. Hoping to see Perez. It was Sarah Fowler, very pale. Her skin looked blue and translucent as if she was frozen and she seemed to be trembling.

‘Don’t worry,’ Fran said easily. ‘I can cope here. Maybe you should have a rest.’ Or a whisky. Do the Fowlers drink?

The woman didn’t answer. It seemed to Fran that she had the frailty of an old woman, that she’d lost weight even in the past few days. Fran went up to her and took her into her arms, felt the bone close to the skin under the clothes. ‘What is it? Look, it’s been a terrible time. But I’m sure Jimmy will let you go soon. And if he doesn’t, you should go anyway. You’ll make yourself ill. Come out with me in the boat tomorrow morning. I’ll clear it with the police.’

Sarah was still tense and Fran pulled away, realizing that the physical contact wasn’t helping, that Sarah was disturbed by it. ‘Tea,’ she said. ‘We both need tea.’

She filled the kettle and set it to boil, hoping the familiar domestic movements would calm the woman down. When she turned back, Sarah was standing just where Fran had left her.

‘I’m scared.’

The words were so melodramatic that Fran thought: She’s acting. Putting it on. ‘What about?’ Then, with a flash of intuition, remembering the conversation from earlier in the day, she added: ‘Is it Hugh? Look, Jimmy’s back in the lighthouse now. You’re quite safe. Don’t worry about him anyway. He’s all bluster and showing off.’

‘Angela’s mother shouldn’t have come here,’ Sarah said. ‘If she hadn’t come here everything would have been all right.’

‘What’s Angela’s mother got to do with this? What’s going on? Sarah, you must tell me.’

‘He’ll kill me,’ Sarah choked and put the back of her hand to her mouth.

At first Fran thought she’d misheard. Then again thought this was all nonsense, the hysteria of a woman on the edge of a breakdown: ‘Sarah, what is this about? You must tell Jimmy what you know.’ She felt impatient, wanted to take Sarah by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.

‘No!’ And the woman repeated more loudly, though still hardly more than a whisper: ‘He’ll kill me.’

‘Then talk to me .’

A door banged. The door from the flat to the public area of the field centre. Sarah started, like an animal at a sudden noise, and ran away, through the lobby and out into the dusk.

Fran stood in the middle of the kitchen. In this domestic setting, with the smell of treacle pudding and steak pie, the theatrical quality of the situation seemed ridiculous. Again she found herself irritated. It was like dealing with an irrational, nervy child. Two women had already been killed but surely Sarah was safer in here, surrounded by people, than wandering around outside in the dark. The cliffs north and west of the lighthouse were as steep as anywhere on the island. There were jagged splits in the land that let in the sea. Fran could still hear heated voices in the common room.

She went to the door intending to find Jimmy – he needed to know what Sarah had told her and that she was outside playing the stupid female. But Perez’s attention was on Hugh and as she watched he marched the younger man towards the bird room. Then Maurice appeared and insisted with a persistence quite unlike him that they should talk. She saw the field centre administrator through the open door; he was standing in front of the others in the corridor and she noticed the hole in the elbow of his sweater, the beads of sweat on his forehead. What was his problem? Didn’t he realize Jimmy was busy? She was tempted to call Maurice to ask him to help her search for Sarah, but he walked away towards the flat.