Ann Cleeves - Blue Lightning

‘Jimmy’s just sitting in,’ Sandy said easily. ‘I take it you don’t mind.’ He spoke it such a way that it would have been impossible for Ben to object. ‘What was it with you and Shaw?’ Sandy went on. ‘Scrapping like bairns in the schoolyard. I thought non-violence was your thing. Eating lentils and seaweed. Saving the planet.’

‘It was the tension,’ Ben said. ‘All of us on top of each other in the lighthouse.’

‘But more than that,’ Sandy said. ‘Surely it was more than that.’ He looked up. ‘Did you know Angela was carrying your child?’

‘It was true then?’

‘Who told you?’ Sandy asked.

‘Not Angela. She didn’t say a thing!’ The words came out hard and bitter. And Perez thought that was what Catchpole minded most: being excluded from Angela’s life, completely disregarded. ‘She’d have got rid of the baby without even telling me she was pregnant.’

‘So who did tell you?’ Sandy was gentle, prompting.

‘Shaw. He said he heard the Fowlers talking. Sarah’s a nurse. Perhaps she guessed. Perhaps Angela talked to her.’ Perez thought then that Hugh Shaw was like some kind of snake, slithering through the lighthouse, listening at doors, spreading his poison. Catchpole looked up at Sandy. ‘Was I the father?’

‘We think you must have been. It certainly wasn’t Hugh Shaw. Theirs was a purely…’ Sandy hesitated, ‘… financial arrangement.’

‘He told me he’d slept with her.’

‘Aye well, he would.’

There was a moment of silence. ‘You never told us,’ Sandy said, ‘that you’d met Fowler before. He wrote that article for The Times about the Braer protest. It confused us for a while.’

‘Was that him?’ Ben looked surprised. ‘I never met the man. We did an interview over the phone. There were lots of interviews.’

‘A coincidence then?’

‘I suppose. Birdwatching’s a small world.’

Like Shetland , Perez thought, sitting in his corner and watching. By now everyone in the islands will know Fran’s dead. There’ll be no hiding from their kindness . The best thing to do would be to move south. He thought with something approaching pleasure of a grey anonymous town, a small tidy room. No clutter, emotional or physical.

Sandy was waiting for Ben to leave, but still he sat there. ‘That wasn’t my finest hour,’ he said. ‘The Braer protest. My mother was so proud of me: I’d stood up for what I believed in. She came to court, took me out for a grand meal when it was all over. Paid the compensation order. But when they arrested me, the police said I’d most likely go to prison. Just give us the names of the locals who helped, they said, and we’ll put in a word with the Fiscal for you. I couldn’t face prison.’

‘So you gave up the names of your friends?’

Ben nodded.

Now at last, he stood to go. This time it was Perez who called him back. ‘I think Angela was glad to be pregnant,’ he said. ‘It was planned. It was you she chose. She wanted your baby.’

At that point Perez decided to leave. Now he knew enough. He couldn’t face watching Sandy question Sarah Fowler. It wasn’t right that the woman was still alive. She must have known her husband was a killer after the first murder, even if she hadn’t realized he’d come to Fair Isle with the intention of stabbing Angela Moore. Perez could understand that Fowler might have nurtured his obsession in secret. He’d dreamed about his revenge for years and planned it in every detail. He’d arranged the crime scene like a theatrical set, each prop with its own meaning. The knife in the back, symbol of betrayal. The slender-billed curlew feather, the one he’d collected in the desert of Uzbekistan, which would be his proof and his ticket to glory, before Angela had stolen the possibility from him.

But once Angela was dead Sarah Fowler must have known. She’d stood beside her husband in church, singing hymns and pretending to pray. Had she convinced herself that her imagination was playing tricks? That John Fowler was a good man? Or was she so wrapped up in her own grief, the loss of her child, that she didn’t care?

Hurrying down the corridor away from the interview room, Perez caught a glimpse of her in the distance. She was wearing a long grey cardigan with a hood, which gave her the appearance of a nun. He supposed she was another victim but at the moment he hated her more than he hated Fowler.

Outside, he was surprised to find that it was still light and that there was pale sunshine reflecting on the water in the harbour.

In the house by the shore his father was asleep in his chair by the fire. He jerked awake when Perez came in, looked around him for a moment as if he weren’t exactly sure where he was.

‘Duncan phoned,’ he said. ‘Cassie wants to see you.’

Perez lay awake for most of the night thinking about that. He’d agreed to meet the girl of course. Just now he’d have done anything for her. But it was the last thing he wanted. Surely she would blame him for her mother’s death. He didn’t think he could face that. Or the little twisted smile, that was just like Fran’s. The voice. A bit of Shetland in it after a couple of years at school, but still using Fran’s words. Words from the south that sometimes they had to explain to him.

They arranged to meet in Lerwick in the Olive Tree, the cafe in the Tollclock Centre, because it was neutral territory and Fran had liked it there. It had been more her sort of place than his. Fancy salads and an arty clientele. She’d said the coffee was to die for.

Perez’s relationship with her ex-husband Duncan Hunter was awkward. They’d been friends at school, good friends, despite the difference in their backgrounds. Duncan’s family came from big Shetland landowners, the closest thing to aristocracy there was in the islands, and he still lived in the big house on the shore at Brae. They’d fallen out before Perez had taken up with Fran and since then had maintained an uneasy truce for Cassie’s sake. Perez worried sometimes when the girl stayed with her father. Duncan drank too much, had a chaotic life of parties and diverse and sometimes dubious business interests. More skeletons in his cupboard than a professor of medicine. Fran had said Cassie needed contact with her father. ‘You’re not jealous Jimmy, surely?’ That twisted grin again. And Perez had admitted that maybe he was jealous, just a bit. He’d be proud to be considered Cassie’s father and there were times when he’d wished Duncan lived anywhere other than Shetland, so the three of them could form their own family.

Today Perez arrived at the cafe half an hour early. The least he could do. He wouldn’t want Cassie to have to wait for him. He bought coffee. He didn’t recognize any of the patrons. They were probably visitors waiting for the ferry to start boarding: the terminal was just down the road. Lifting the cup to his lips he found his hands were shaking. He got up to leave. He couldn’t face Cassie after all. Duncan would surely understand and make his excuses. He was standing there, poised to make his escape, when Dougie Barr came in, obviously on his way to the ferry too. He had an enormous rucksack on his back and was strung about with optical equipment.

The birdwatcher saw Perez immediately and stood blocking the door, flushed with embarrassment, not wanting to intrude, but feeling it would be rude just to walk away. Perez couldn’t bear his discomfort and gave a little wave to put him at his ease. He heard Fran’s voice in his head: What is it with you, Jimmy Perez? Are you some sort of saint? Reassured, Dougie approached; he said nothing, but he held out his hand.

‘Tell me,’ Perez said. ‘Did you know Fowler was a killer?’ The question had been bothering him. He’d pondered it in the middle of the night. How widely could he spread responsibility?