Blue Lightning

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘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?

  The kitchen door, which had been open all day, so Perez had managed to catch reassuring glimpses of the women inside, was shut now. When he opened it, the room was empty. There was a big pan of water on the hob, the heat turned off. The smell of cooking: something sweet and appetizing. A pan containing thick custard, with a skin on the top. A big colander half full with chopped cabbage. Everything ordinary. Yet again Perez had the sense of a nightmare continuing. Sometimes, he thought, terror can be in the everyday. He shouted back to Sandy: ‘Who exactly did you see upstairs?’

  ‘Dougie and Ben. Ben was covered in blood and Dougie was helping him to clean up.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘I thought they went upstairs. But maybe they came through the kitchen.’

  ‘Someone went outside,’ Perez said. ‘I heard the door.’

  By now Sandy had picked up his boss’s panic. He looked close to tears and was perfectly aware of his own stupidity, his ability to cause the biggest cock-up in the world. ‘I’m sorry. I was in the dormitory. I didn’t see.’

  In the enclosed space of the yard, Perez was hit by the cold. There was a faint gleam from a moon half-covered by cloud, and the bright occasional spot of the lighthouse beam. He ran through the gap in the whitewashed wall, ducking the clothes lines on the way, and looked out on the open hill. A thicker cloud covered the moon and suddenly it was pitch black. The sort of darkness you never get in a city. Then the cloud thinned again and he made out the silver line of reflected light that was Golden Water.

  A woman screamed. Not Fran. He’d have recognized her voice, even as a scream. Thank God, not Fran. He raced towards the sound, tripping over the heather and outcrops of rock, splashing through the bog towards the loch. He was surprised by a movement at his feet, a slow beat of wings, saw a pair of eyes, yellow in the pale moonlight. A short-eared owl flying low over the hill.

  The lighthouse lens circled and there was a brief snapshot before the beam moved on. The pool, a pale backdrop. Very black against it, a man’s silhouette, his arm raised. Perez saw the glint of light on metal, like a silent flash of lightning on a stormy night, before everything was dark again.

  For a second the old curiosity kicked in: Where did he get the knife? Did he pick it up from the kitchen on the way through or is it what he was intending all along? He couldn’t allow the woman to speak. The light came back, pulsing and regular as a heartbeat. This time Perez almost screamed himself because now the silhouette was moving; the arm slashed and chopped, mechanical as the engine that moved the reflector in the lighthouse. If the killer had begun as a rational man, he’d certainly lost all reason now. How could he do that to his wife? The woman he claimed to adore? More darkness.

  Behind him, Perez heard someone yelling. Sandy. Good. It would take two of them to restrain the man. As he ran, thoughts and images rattled around his head. Sandy was the stronger: once they had the knife, he could control John Fowler and then Perez would comfort Fran. He’d hold her and wrap his jacket around her shoulders and tell her she would never have to deal with anything like this again. He wouldn’t expose her to more violence or danger. Perez thought he would have to resign now; Fran wouldn’t like it, but he’d insist. Despite the chase, the stumbling, the gasping for breath, he felt a sudden and immense relief. How strangely the mind worked under stress! So the decision was made. There would be no more police work. That part of his life was over.

  Sandy was younger and fitter and had already overtaken him. He must have grabbed a torch on his way out, because the light bounced ahead of them and captured the three people on the shore of the loch. They were posed like a sculpture. One of those pieces in white marble Fran had dragged him
to see in a gallery the last time they were south. One figure was standing, one sitting and one lying. Fowler was standing and his arm was by his side. He’d dropped the knife, which was hidden somewhere in the tussocky grass. His head was bent as if he was praying and he seemed quite calm.

  Perez lost his mind for a moment. He heard screaming in his ears and knew it was his own. When he came to he found himself in a frenzy, scrabbling in the boggy water for the knife. If he’d found it he would have killed the man. It was only Sandy’s voice that brought him to his senses. Because the sitting figure was Sarah Fowler and the statue on the floor, pale and bleeding, was Fran. Sandy was already bending over her, his mobile in his hand, shouting for an ambulance flight. A helicopter. ‘Just get us a fucking doctor.’ Perez took off his jacket as he’d planned he would, wrapped it around Fran and held her in his arms.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Wherever she’d been, Fran would have died. They said that over and over again to Perez as if he were supposed to find some comfort in it. She could have been stabbed next door to the most well-equipped hospital in the world and still they wouldn’t have saved her. The attack was too violent. And besides, the helicopter did arrive very quickly. Perez remembered very little of that. Flying out with Fran’s body, knowing that this wasn’t Fran, not essentially. Looking down as Fair Isle disappeared beneath them – a scattering of lights marking each of the familiar crofts – wondering suddenly if he’d ever be able to return again. If he’d ever be able to face it.

  His father was in the helicopter with him. His mother had wanted to be there, but Perez couldn’t bear the thought of her fussing. And now, at this moment, for perhaps the first time in his life, he’d thought he had the right to disregard other people’s feelings. His father had offered tentatively: ‘I could come out with you, lad.’ Suddenly that was just what Perez needed: the taciturn man with the granite face, flawed but still certain. Unsentimental.

  Then there was lots of waiting about in an office in the Gilbert Bain hospital. Gallons of tea. Distant noises – the clang of a tea trolley hitting a metal bedstead, cheerful voices. The doctor, who looked to Perez no more than a teenager, repeating over and over again that there had been nothing they could do. He’d been with the team that had come into Fair Isle in the helicopter and in the morning when it was getting light and James was telling Perez they should go back to the house in Lerwick, because Jimmy needed to eat and to rest, the doctor clung onto them. As if he was the bereaved person. And Perez didn’t want to go. Because somehow this young man, with his acne and his bad breath, was the last link he had to Fran.

  In the hospital they’d offered Perez pills to help him sleep, but he’d refused them. He didn’t deserve to sleep again. He sat in the narrow kitchen in his house by the water in Lerwick watching his father frying bacon and eggs. The older man’s face was grey. He was exhausted but his movements were deft. He warmed the plates, flipped the oil over the egg to make sure it was cooked. As soon as the meal was over he washed the dishes. ‘Why don’t you get some rest?’

  While his father was lying on Perez’s bed, the detective replayed the moments of Fran’s death in his head, over and over again, like a film on a loop. Maybe thinking that eventually there would be a different ending to the story. Knowing that was crazy but wanting to believe it.

  Sometime in the afternoon Sandy turned up at the house. He blamed himself for Fran’s death. Perez saw that as soon as he came through the door. He was shaking. ‘You told me to look after her.’ He couldn’t stop saying that. Not the same words but meaning the same thing. Why did people feel the need to speak so much?

  In the end Perez said, quite roughly: ‘You weren’t holding the knife, man. Give it a rest.’

  So they sat in silence, drinking more tea. Perez would have liked a proper drink, but knew that if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop.

  ‘We brought all the witnesses out in the boat,’ Sandy said. ‘They’re making statements in the station now.’ He paused. ‘I wondered if you fancied sitting in. Not to do the interviews, of course. And not Fowler, that wouldn’t be right. But it’s your case.’

  ‘Worried you’ll miss something, Sandy? Worried you might have to take responsibility at last?’ His grief was liberating. He’d never been so cruel before to Sandy. Now he felt as if he had licence to do or say anything he wanted.

  Sandy’s face went very red, streaky as if he’d been slapped and the finger marks still showed. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Something like that. But I wanted to give you the chance to be there if you wanted.’

  ‘Sorry. You’re right. I would like to sit in.’ A lie, of course. He didn’t care enough to want anything. But Perez thought it would be better to go with Sandy than to stay here as dusk fell, he and his father sitting on either side of the fire, like two lonely old men, not knowing what to say to each other.

  In the police station, where once he’d been so at home, he felt like a stranger. He was a different person. He saw Fran everywhere: standing behind the custody sergeant at his desk, laughing with his colleagues in the canteen as Perez walked past. He thought: Is this how it’ll be for the rest of my life? I’ll be haunted by her.

  Her ghost hadn’t made it to the interview room and for that he was grateful. He tried to focus on the matter in hand in case she slipped under his guard and found him there too. There was a detective Perez didn’t recognize, sitting at the desk alongside Sandy. Perez assumed he was from Inverness, maybe even Roy Taylor’s replacement, but he didn’t care enough to ask. The stranger might as well not have been there: Sandy did all the talking. And he was bloody good, Perez thought, taking a stolen moment of pleasure to think Sandy had been well taught. Perez pulled a seat into a corner. Anyone looking in would have assumed he was sleeping, but he listened, caught up in the stories beside himself. They spoke to Hugh Shaw first.

  ‘Tell us about the blackmail,’ Sandy said. ‘It’ll all come out now. Fowler’s talked to us. No point hiding.’

  Hugh stared at Perez, but didn’t mention his presence. He slouched across the table towards Sandy. He reminded Perez of the cocky teenagers he’d often picked up in the city. No discipline, no work, believing the world owed them a living. But those young men had grown up on sink estates with little prospect of work. Hugh Shaw didn’t have that excuse.

  ‘I knew Angela wouldn’t miss the money,’ he said. ‘She was minted. She made more from one TV documentary than a year’s salary at the field centre.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘It was all about the slender-billed curlew,’ Hugh said. ‘The bird that made her famous.’

  ‘What about it?

  ‘It was lies. She didn’t find it. The fame, the money, the reputation as a great scientist, it was all built on a lie. She stole another man’s research.’

  Perez understood why the woman had been so unhappy, why she’d married an older man just for convenience. Her work had been the most important thing in her world and she’d compromised it. She had no pride left. Perhaps she saw the baby as a chance for a new start. Something honest and real. Perhaps it was a biological imperative that had driven her, a desperation to give birth. Fran had been experiencing something of that sort in the last few months. Again, he tried to banish Fran from his mind.

  ‘How did you find out?’ Sandy leaned across the table towards Shaw, his elbow on the table.

  ‘There was a Brit in Tashkent. An ex-pat doing something dodgy with the Russians, but also a birder. We sat in the Rovshan Hotel one night, drinking local beer and Johnny Walker Black Label, and he told me the whole story. John Fowler had tracked down the curlew population. Angela was looking for the species. She wanted something big to make her name. But he got there first; he found the birds by looking for the food they took, some kind of insect.’

  Mole crickets, Perez thought. Fowler was still trying to interest the scientific world in his story. There’d been a letter saved on his computer, but none of them had recognized the significance.

&nb
sp; Hugh continued: ‘Fowler was an amateur lister, in a hired car, wandering across the desert, hoping for the big story to make his career as a natural history journalist. He didn’t even have a degree! She had a PhD and a research budget and he beat her to it!’

  ‘But he never got the glory he deserved.’ Sandy again. That’s just what I might have said, Perez thought. You’re just speaking my lines.

  ‘Angela published first. And who was the establishment going to believe? Fowler already had the reputation as a bit of a stringer. Angela made sure nobody took him seriously again by spreading rumours around Shetland about rare birds he was supposed to have claimed. He became a laughing stock.’

  It became his obsession, Perez thought. At first I thought he was driven by the need to see birds, like the twitchers who piled into Fair Isle to see the swan. But it was about revenge. He blamed Angela Moore for everything that had gone wrong in his life. For the dead baby and the dead marriage as well as all his lost dreams.

  ‘And you thought you’d take advantage of the situation?’

  ‘I’d always wanted to visit Fair Isle. I’d run out of money and my father refused to give me more.’ Hugh looked up and Perez saw an attempt at the old smile. ‘Tight bastard. He could have afforded it. So yeah, I thought it was worth a go. I wasn’t greedy, only asked for a couple of grand to tide me over. I didn’t expect Fowler to turn up though.’

  ‘That must have been a shock to Angela too.’

  ‘You could say that! Maurice took the booking and suddenly Fowler was there in the common room when she came through to do the log. But Fowler was pleasant to her. Polite. Calm. He certainly didn’t give the impression that he was out for revenge. Maybe she thought he was a good man, who wouldn’t harbour a grudge. He went to church every Sunday. Perhaps he was into turning the other cheek. She was jittery though. Everyone thought she was moody because Poppy was staying in the lighthouse, throwing her tantrums, but that wasn’t it at all.’