Ann Cleeves - Blue Lightning

The bird room door closed. Jimmy wouldn’t forgive her for interrupting now. It occurred to her that he was about to arrest Hugh for the murders. Fran looked at her watch. Half an hour until supper and everything in the kitchen was ready. She’d left her coat and boots in the cupboard next to the larder. She pulled them on and followed Sarah outside.

Now it was quite dark. The wind was deceptive, blowing in gusts and swirls around the lighthouse. It was hard to tell exactly which direction it was coming from, but it was cold, so probably from the north-west. Sarah had come out with just the cardigan and soft shoes. Fran swore at her under her breath. I bet she was spoiled as a child. Above her the lighthouse beam swung, regular as a metronome. Three short flashes and a long one. It lit the outcrops of rock and reflected on the pools of water.

She found Sarah sitting by Golden Water. This was where the trumpeter swan had come to roost, where the birdwatchers from the mainland had gathered. Now the pond was empty. In a dip in the land and sheltered from the gusting wind the water was calm. Fran spotted Sarah first as the lighthouse beam moved slowly across the landscape, saw her in the flashing light like a primitive cartoon, sheets of paper flicked to bring a character to life. But here there was no movement. Sarah sat quite still. As Fran walked towards her, wellingtons squelching in the sodden ground, the clouds broke and a thin moon partly lit her way. She took off her waxed jacket and put it over Sarah’s shoulders. ‘Come back inside. You’ll freeze to death.’ And for a moment she imagined that the woman was another victim and that she’d been killed too, because she seemed quite rigid. Fran remembered the body of Angela Moore, stiff with rigor mortis. Her skin had been blue.

‘Come back inside,’ Fran said again. ‘It’s all over. Jimmy knows what happened. He’s making an arrest now.’ Stretching the truth perhaps, but she was freezing and just wanted to get back to the warm kitchen.

Then the woman turned her face to Fran and with the brown clouds rushing across the moon, and to the beat of the lighthouse beam, she began to speak. The words spilled from her mouth, the whole story told right from the beginning. Fran shivered and tried to lift Sarah again to her feet. ‘Come inside. We’ll sort it all out. We’ll help.’ And along with the cold, she felt almost excited because Sarah had confessed to her and not to Jimmy. Who’s the detective now, Jimmy Perez? This was her own moment of triumph.

Perez ran through the common room, but it was empty. He thought everyone had been embarrassed by the earlier scene and had scattered to their rooms. He stood at the foot of the stairs. The building was quiet. He couldn’t bear the thought of marching around the building, dragging them all back like recalcitrant children. After all, there’s no hurry , he thought. Where will they go? There’s no escape. They’ll come down eventually.

‘I’m sorry, Jimmy,’ Maurice said. ‘I really have to speak to you.’ It seemed he’d lost patience and had refused to wait in the flat any longer. Though looking at his watch, Perez saw it had only been a quarter of an hour since they’d spoken. This evening, time seemed to have stretched. So much had happened since they’d returned to the North Light with the murder weapon that it appeared that days had passed.

‘Have you seen Fran?’

‘She was in the kitchen a moment ago,’ Maurice said. His voice had lost something of its neediness and had gained a new authority. ‘You have to know what Angela’s mother told me. I think it could be important.’

Perez weighed up his options. Could he entrust Maurice to Sandy? Looking again at the centre administrator, he saw that wouldn’t do. Maurice would only talk to him.

‘Come into the bird room, then. Sandy, bring everyone into the common room and keep an eye on them there. Everyone. Fran included. I don’t want her wandering around on her own.’

Sandy nodded.

At the bird room door Maurice hesitated and Perez saw he was thinking about his wife. He’d never thought of Maurice as an imaginative man but the picture of Angela, with the knife in her back and the feathers in her hair, would surely remain with him. Knife in the back. The words stuck with Perez for a moment. A metaphor for betrayal, he thought, and he wondered if that was what the murderer had wanted to convey, if like the feathers, a message had been intended. In that case did the killer want to be caught? Did he want the world to know what had provoked the act of violence?

‘Stella asked to speak to me alone because she had information that might lead to Angela’s killer.’ Maurice leaned against the windowsill. The wall was three feet thick and the glass encrusted with salt. His profile was reflected in it, but it was blurred, made him look like a ghost peering in.

‘More appropriate, surely, to speak to me!’

‘It doesn’t show Angela in a very good light,’ Maurice said. ‘Stella left the decision to me: should we go public and ruin her reputation or keep the information to ourselves and risk the chance that the murderer would go free?’

‘And you decided to talk.’ Perez could tell that this decision hadn’t been lightly taken. Maurice had been in the flat, worrying away at it all afternoon. But I know already , Perez thought. At least I’ve guessed most of it; Vicki’s phone call confirmed it. And anyway, how much of the truth are you prepared to tell? He felt a sudden distaste and was impatient for the case to be over. Maurice’s scruples seemed the worst sort of self-indulgence. There had been too much talk and too much complication. If you scraped away the words and the show, this was all about petty jealousy.

In the lobby he heard voices, running footsteps, the outside door being opened and banged shut.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This will have to wait after all.’

He turned and almost ran from the room, leaving Maurice standing bewildered by the window. Perez wondered how he could have allowed himself to be distracted by the man. The story would all come out eventually. Statements would be taken and lawyers would fight over the words. Rhona Laing would buy herself a good dinner to celebrate. But tonight he had an arrest to make and the evening to spend with the woman he loved. And then tomorrow he would go out with her on the boat. He’d spent too long cooped up on this lump of rock. How could he have thought he might make his life here?

There was nobody in the lobby. He rushed through to the common room. Still it was empty, so quiet that he heard the background chug of the generator. The world outside was briefly lit up by the lighthouse beam, then it was dark again.

Perez had a sudden panic. This was the stuff of nightmares; it ranked with the sensation of falling and with being chased by unknown monsters. With chasing evil spirits that vanished into thin air.

‘Sandy!’ His voice disappeared in the echoing space of the old building.

There were footsteps on the wooden stairs. Sandy yelled down. ‘Sorry, boss. It’s like trying to round up a herd of cats. They’ll be down in a minute.’ Routine words, easily spoken.

‘Is everyone accounted for?’

‘I think so.’ But he was trying to please Perez. He didn’t know at all. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘And Fran?’

‘I haven’t seen her. Isn’t she still in the kitchen?’

Perez struggled to control his temper, but understood how Ben Catchpole had come to lash out at Hugh. Could I commit murder? Could I stab him in the back in a moment of madness? Just because he’s so stupid? Didn’t he realize Fran was the one person I needed him to look out for? Then reason took over and guilt. I didn’t explain. Do I expect him to be able to read my mind?