Blue Lightning

by Ann Cleeves

  He shrugged. ‘They’ll take samples at the p-m. We don’t have the facilities to do it here and we can’t leave the body here in the centre for another night. It would mean me camping out outside the door to make sure no one tampers with her. Besides, I need to get her somewhere a bit cooler. The radiator’s switched off here now but it was on all night – Angela would have been the person to switch off the generator before she went to bed – and the room’s still quite warm.’

  ‘What would you like me to do?’ She refused to play the little woman and go all squeamish on him, but suddenly she imagined the stink of decomposition and felt faint. She needed to concentrate on the practical.

  ‘Take photographs,’ he said. ‘Loads of photographs. Of everything here. The whole room from as many angles as you can and then everything in detail. Have you got gloves?’

  She grinned and took a thin woollen pair from her jacket pocket. ‘Just call me Dr Watson.’

  ‘Mm?’ He looked at her and she saw he was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he hadn’t understood the bad joke.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ She took her camera from its case and positioned herself to take the first photograph.

  ‘I don’t have a fingerprinting kit,’ he said, ‘but I don’t suppose it’s important. Everyone staying in the lighthouse would have been in here at some point. It’s where Angela ringed the birds and apparently the visitors are invited to watch.’

  Through the camera lens she looked at the room in detail. There was the ringing equipment, a shelf of bird books, a PC and printer. There was dust on the shelf and the floor was mucky.

  ‘They haven’t cleaned in here recently,’ she said. ‘Not as recently as in the common room at least. That was spotless last night. I suppose they must be allowed in here in their boots.’ She guessed that was Jane’s job too. It seemed overwhelming, to be cook and housekeeper for the whole place.

  ‘No point looking for footwear impressions then.’ Perez was talking almost to himself. ‘Again, any of the staff or visitors would have had a reason to be in here, and the killer would have come straight from the party. He’d have been wearing indoor shoes and wouldn’t have left a mark.’

  ‘He?’ Fran looked up from the camera.

  ‘Or she,’ he said.

  She couldn’t tell whether he had any idea who the murderer might be and she didn’t ask. She thought of the people who’d been at the party the night before; she’d been chatting and laughing with them. When she said goodbye, she’d touched them, held their hands and kissed their cheeks. One of them had stuck a knife in the back of the young woman who lay in front of them, then carefully laid feathers over her hair. She tried to imagine being so angry that she might do that. I might lash out, she thought. If someone had hurt Cassie or Jimmy, I might even kill. But afterwards I’d come to my senses. I’d want to put things right. I’d fetch help. I couldn’t stand here and watch a young woman bleed to death, knowing it was my fault.

  She shifted position, so she could take a photograph of the desk. Angela’s head was twisted, so one cheek lay against the wood. Fran found herself looking into the staring eyes that were only partly covered by the long hair. She took the picture quickly and turned away.

  Perez was unplugging the computer. ‘I’ll take this back to Springfield and check it out there.’

  ‘Won’t it have personal stuff on it?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s the personal that interests me most.’

  She suddenly found it slightly distasteful, his preoccupation with the private lives of dead people. He enjoyed the prying and the privileged knowledge of their domestic affairs. It was the enjoyment that was the problem for her: she’d find it acceptable if he considered it a duty and a chore. She wondered if that was all she was to him. An interesting specimen and someone else to investigate. Then he caught her eye and smiled at her, a brief flash of affection. She saw him as she’d seen him first – the dark, untidy hair, the tired eyes. She felt a deep and inappropriate moment of lust and thought everything would probably be all right.

  Outside in the lobby the phone rang. She sensed Perez tense. ‘It won’t be for you, surely,’ she said. ‘Work would use your mobile.’

  ‘Angela was a bit of a media star. I’m worried Maurice and Poppy Parry will start being hassled by reporters once the news gets out.’

  He opened the bird room door, but came back when he realized Ben was already answering. He left the door ajar and they stood quietly so they could overhear the assistant warden’s side of the conversation. As soon as he realized the conversation was about birds, some rare swan, Perez turned away.

  ‘Have you recorded this?’ He nodded to a pile of books and papers on the desk. ‘It all seems a bit random. What do you think she was doing?’

  ‘Maybe it isn’t related at all. Could be stuff she’s been working on over the past few weeks and just hasn’t put away yet. It seems she was hardly obsessively tidy.’

  Fran took a photograph of a book that was lying face down, close to one long hand. The book had been written by Angela Moore and there was a photo of the woman, the trademark hair clipped away from her face, on the back jacket. ‘On the trail of the slender-billed curlew,’ Fran read from the blurb. ‘The species everyone thought was extinct, rediscovered on the silk trail of Uzbekistan. A modern tale of adventure and exploration.’ She looked up at Perez. ‘Didn’t they make a television series about that?’

  He looked up briefly. ‘Yes, it was the first programme to make her famous. She led the expedition into the desert and found a small number of the birds. Soon after the series was broadcast she moved here to Fair Isle. It caused a bit of a stir on the island, having someone who was almost a celebrity moving in.’

  ‘Why would she want to read her own book?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He straightened up and considered the matter seriously. ‘Perhaps she was writing an article and wanted to check a fact. Or perhaps she just wanted to cheer herself up. It was her moment of glory, after all.’

  He went back to his methodical investigation of the papers on the desk, carefully marking the page where the book had been opened, before adding it to the black bin bag.

  Outside in the lobby, they heard the ring that showed the phone had been replaced and there was a sudden flurry of activity. Ben Catchpole was shouting something unintelligible up the stairs and they heard running footsteps, the sound of the Land Rover being started. Through the window they saw the youngest of the visiting birdwatchers running across the yard and out onto the hill.

  ‘What’s all that about?’ Fran thought it sounded urgent and wondered why Perez was being so relaxed. ‘Shouldn’t we go and find out?’

  He looked up briefly from sorting through a bunch of printed papers. ‘It’ll be a rare bird,’ he said. ‘It happens all the time. I told you, they’re kind of obsessed.’

  Big James came to the North Light to help Perez move Angela’s body into the lorry. Fran was relieved. All the time she was taking photographs she’d been wondering how she and Jimmy would manage to roll the woman in the polythene and carry her outside. She didn’t have much strength and imagined spilling Angela on the grass among the sheep droppings and rabbit holes, the indignity of a farcical pantomime trying to manoeuvre her into the back of the lorry. At least with the field centre empty of guests and Maurice and Poppy hidden away in the flat, they wouldn’t have an audience.

  But when James came he took charge and the whole thing was managed quickly and without drama. All Fran had to do was hold the door and let down the back of the lorry. While Perez was talking to his father, his accent changed and she hardly understood what they were saying. Not many words were exchanged. She supposed they’d worked together before on the croft and loading the boat. James drove the lorry away and they stood watching at the back door of the field centre.

  ‘Wait in the car,’ Perez said. ‘I need to tell Maurice what’s happened.’

  She expected him to be a long time. There would s
urely be other questions. Perez was a meticulous investigator. But he came out very quickly. It seemed to her that he was distressed.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Maurice was heartbroken,’ he said. ‘Much worse than when he found out that Angela was dead. I thought something new had happened to upset him. But it’s the fact of her leaving the North Light. While she was in the bird room, there was still something of her there. Now he realizes that she won’t be coming back. Ever.’

  Chapter Twelve

  On her way back to the North Light, Jane passed the lorry and the Springfield car. The vehicles were going south, in the opposite direction to her. She stood on the grass by the side of the road and saw first the lorry driven by Big James and then Perez and Fran in the car. All three waved to her, but they didn’t stop to speak and on the island that was unusual. She waited for a moment and watched them disappear over the rise by the entrance to Setter. It came to her that Angela’s body would be in the lorry, and she wondered what the woman would have thought of making such a lowly exit from the North Light. Usually it was used for carrying sheep to the boat for the abattoir. She remembered what Perez had said about Angela always appearing miserable to him. I never really knew her, Jane thought. I took against her without any real reason and I never made the effort to understand her.

  Almost at the lighthouse she saw Ben Catchpole walking towards her. Even in the gloom she could make out his red hair at a distance, the only colour visible in the grey landscape.

  ‘Did you see the swan?’ she asked. ‘Dougie came into Springfield to use the phone while I was having tea with Mary. Such a fuss.’ You’d have thought someone was being murdered. She stopped herself speaking the words just in time.

  ‘It’s roosting at Golden Water.’ He turned and began walking back to the field centre alongside her. She realized he’d come out to find her. He was out of his depth and she was the only person he could ask for advice. ‘I don’t know what to do. Dougie’s already put the word out on the pagers. Every lister in the country will be desperate to get in to see it.’

  ‘While the weather’s like this, we don’t have to do anything.’ Jane could see he found the ‘we’ reassuring. Despite all his experience, the green activism, the doctorate, he seemed out of his depth. ‘We can make a decision when it clears. Perhaps by then the investigation will be over.’

  Ben kicked a piece of shingle off the road. ‘Who do you think did it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She treated me like shit,’ he said. ‘But I would have died for her.’

  In the centre, Jane dropped off her coat in her room and closed the curtains. The wind had dropped a little, or perhaps she’d become accustomed to it. The light had gone. In the kitchen she lit the Calor gas under the vegetables she’d prepared earlier and put plates to warm. The table was already laid. Just for the six of them: four visitors, Ben and her. With the main lights on she couldn’t see outside – just her reflection in the big windows, looking pale and thin. She was a dried-out middle-aged woman. I need a lover, she thought. Someone warm and big-breasted with a deep laugh to breathe some life into me. The potatoes had come to the boil and she turned down the heat. She’d mash them to serve with the gammon she was roasting. Ben was the only veggie left in the place since the last plane went out and there was a quiche left over from the party that he could have. She knew there was a packet of broad beans still in the freezer and she’d serve them with a white sauce. Shame the last gale had killed the parsley in the little field centre garden. But all the time she was deciding the trivial domestic details that so calmed her, she was thinking about Angela’s murder. An act of anger, she thought. Or revenge.

  She walked down the corridor that linked the kitchen to Maurice’s flat. Her leather shoes slapped on the tiles and echoed so they sounded like following footsteps. She knocked at the door and when there was no reply she went in. Maurice was sitting hollow-eyed, alone in the dark. She switched on a table lamp, and took a seat beside him.

  ‘Where’s Poppy?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. She saw he couldn’t care about anything. He was entirely wrapped around in his own grief. ‘She might be in her room.’

  When Jane stood up to look he called after her. ‘They’ve taken Angela away.’

  ‘I know.’

  Poppy was lying on her bed watching television, an Australian soap. On the screen, two impossibly beautiful teenagers were lying on a sandy beach staring at each other. For a moment Jane thought it was crass and insensitive for the girl to be engrossed in a sentimental love story while her father was so miserable. But the girl’s presence wouldn’t make things easier for him and she’d never pretended to be fond of Angela. The birdwatchers had been chasing all over the island after some rare bird and that was just as inappropriate. As inappropriate as Jane taking a secret delight in her attempts to unravel the mystery of Angela’s death.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  Poppy switched down the sound, but continued to stare at the sunny landscape, the young lovers.

  ‘Starving.’ She turned abruptly towards Jane. ‘Is that really gross? To want to eat when there’s a dead woman lying in the bird room?’

  ‘Of course not. And she’s not there any more. Jimmy Perez has taken her away.’ Jane sat on the bed. ‘Where do you want your dinner? In the flat or with us?’

  There was a pause. ‘Do they all think I killed her?’

  ‘I don’t know what they think. I don’t believe it was you.’

  The soap opera ended and the titles rolled silently towards a blue horizon. Poppy lay back on the pillow. ‘Could I have something here? I can’t face Dad either. He keeps crying. I’ve never seen him cry before.’

  ‘I’ll bring something through.’

  ‘Is there pudding too?’

  ‘Lemon meringue.’

  ‘Can I have a piece?’

  Jane smiled and nodded.

  At the table the talk was all about the swan. There was a pile of reference books between them. Dougie Barr was manic. It was as if he were on speed, the words tumbling out one after another. ‘Sometimes you see a bird and you just know! Like, that it’s the best bird you’ll ever find in your life, the thing you’ll be remembered for.’ He set down his knife and fork and turned a page in the big book beside him, then picked up a can, not of beer, but a highly coloured fizzy drink. Jane thought the sugar in it, added to his mood, had turned him into a hyperactive child. ‘I wasn’t even sure trumpeter migrated, but it does. Look. The Alaska population is migratory. So my bird came all the way from Alaska.’ My bird. As if he’d given birth to it. He began to eat again, very quickly, and occasionally small pieces of food flew out of his mouth. Perhaps he finally remembered that there’d been a death in the centre because he added: ‘Angela would have understood that. She knew what it was like to find a rarity. Her reputation was built on it.’

  ‘That and her hair,’ Sarah Fowler said.

  The interjection was so unexpected, so bitchy, that for a moment Jane wasn’t sure how to respond, or even if the implied criticism was intended. She’d chatted to the Fowlers when they first arrived at the field centre on the Shepherd and found them pleasant, in a quiet, inoffensive way. She couldn’t remember if John had said what he did for a living; Sarah was some sort of social worker, dealing with kids and families. Now, surprised, she looked up and caught Sarah’s eye and they grinned at each other. Two women sharing a moment of cattiness, enjoying it all the more because of the circumstances, because they were restrained, polite women of a certain age and no one would have expected it of them. Sarah began to giggle, very quietly into her napkin, and Jane thought they were all close to hysteria.

  Around them the conversation about the swan continued.

  ‘The wind’s supposed to drop tomorrow afternoon.’ This was Hugh Shaw. Jane knew his charm had been practised from birth. You could tell he’d always been adored by women – his mother and grandmother, certainly, and there’d probably been
a nanny too – but still she found herself seduced by him. He was so pretty and his smile was so languid and appealing. He had to work hard to achieve the desired response and so she felt he deserved her admiration and amusement. ‘Birders are already travelling to Shetland on the chance that they’ll get to Fair Isle to see the swan.’

  Jane looked at Ben, but he hardly seemed to be following the conversation.

  ‘Even if the wind does drop, there probably won’t be time for the plane to come in tomorrow,’ she said. ‘It’s starting to get dark so early.’ She hoped that was the case. It would be worse if the plane arrived late in the afternoon with a full load of visitors and immediately took off again without them. She’d have to find rooms for the incomers and feed them. She didn’t see how that would work – an influx of people with Maurice and Poppy hiding away in the flat. And if birdwatchers could get in, so could journalists. She had a sudden image of hacks surrounding the lighthouse, pointing their cameras through the windows, of Maurice, his head in his hands, appearing on the front pages of tabloid newspapers. Perhaps she should take the decision to close the field centre to new guests, but the reporters would probably find somewhere on the island to stay. Jane hoped that the weather would close in again, at least for the next few days, at least until Perez had discovered the murderer. Or until she had.

  There was a lull in the conversation and she took in the scene. Dougie had moved on to pudding and was cramming his mouth full of lemon meringue pie. The Fowlers were talking quietly to each other. Jane saw that under the table John had taken Sarah’s hand and again she felt a stab of loneliness. I have nobody to touch, nobody to wrap me up in her arms to comfort me. Hugh was leaning back in his chair, his eyes half closed and a smile of contentment on his face. Ben was fiddling with his paper napkin and staring out into the darkness.

  Someone in this building is a murderer, she thought. I could be sharing a meal with a murderer. There was an Agatha Christie book she’d read when she was a kid. A bunch of people on an island. Dying, one by one. It was warm in the dining room. She’d lit a big fire of driftwood to cheer them up here and in the common room. But she shivered.