Now they were both out of breath and they stopped. Perez took a flask of coffee from a small backpack and handed Hugh a slice of the sticky chocolate concoction that the islanders called peat. His mother had made a batch the evening before. They sat on a flat rock that stuck out of the heather, looked down on the bright blue sea and the wild white waves.
‘Did Angela talk to you?’ Perez asked.
‘Of course we talked.’ Hugh regarded Perez with patronizing amusement. ‘We got on. We were good mates.’
‘You didn’t seem very upset by her death.’
Hugh shrugged. ‘To be honest, it was never going to be a long-term thing, was it? I mean, I can’t imagine we’d have kept in touch once I’d left the Isle. I’m sorry she’s dead, but I can’t pretend to be devastated. I can’t bear shallow sentimentality.’
Perez wondered if that was what he was. Sentimental and shallow. A brief affair followed by no contact didn’t fit his definition of being a good mate.
‘Did she seem anxious about anything? Concerned for her own safety?’
Perez had expected an immediate flip remark, but Hugh considered the question. ‘Something was bugging her,’ he said eventually. ‘The last couple of days she’d seemed tense, not her usual self.’
‘What was the problem?’
‘She wouldn’t talk about it,’ Hugh said. ‘Told me it was none of my business. That was OK with me. I didn’t want to pry. I thought the weather was getting her down. The lack of good birds. Or Poppy. The girl really got under her skin.’
‘Did she discuss her husband with you?’ Perez looked out over the blustery water. The air was so clear that he could see Shetland mainland, the outline quite sharp on the horizon, the first time it had been visible since they’d arrived on the island. He found the sight reassuring, a connection at last with the outside world. The next day the boat would go out and Vicki Hewitt and Sandy Wilson would come back in with it. He would no longer be working alone.
‘Oh, Maurice wasn’t bothering her,’ Hugh said with a little laugh. ‘Maurice would let her do whatever she wanted as long as she stayed married to him.’
‘He knew about her affairs?’
‘Probably. Or didn’t look too hard at what she was doing because he didn’t want to know. As I said, she resented Poppy being here. I think it was the first time Maurice had ever stood up to her. Angela had said the autumn was a bad time for the girl to visit – after the seabird ringing it was her busiest time. He’d insisted, said his daughter had to come first for a change. Angela was shocked. She usually got her way. But I’m not sure that was what was worrying her. It was only temporary, after all. Eventually the wind would change and the girl would get out.’
Hugh stood up and brushed the crumbs from his jacket. ‘I thought you wanted to see this swan.’ He turned on the inevitable smile and walked very quickly down the bank towards Golden Water. Perez had almost to run to catch up with him.
The swan was on a shingle beach at the side of the pool. It looked to Perez like any of the swans that came into the island in long skeins in the winter. ‘Show me what all the fuss is about,’ he said again.
Hugh set up his telescope on a tripod and let Perez look. ‘It’s the black beak that’s important. That and the American ring, which proves it hasn’t escaped from a collection somewhere.’ He straightened. ‘There’ll be hundreds of birders in Shetland mainland waiting to come here to see it.’
Perez had a sudden image of an invading army preparing for battle. How would a sudden influx of visitors affect the investigation into Angela Moore’s murder? And was there anything he could do to prevent it?
‘Will folk really go to all that effort?’
‘Believe me,’ Hugh said. ‘People would kill to get that bird on their list.’
Chapter Eighteen
Fran found Poppy in her bedroom, plugged into her iPod. She was lying on the bed, still in pyjamas, staring up at the ceiling. The curtains were drawn, so there was little light, but Fran saw a pile of dirty clothes in the corner, a dressing table covered with girlie debris – make-up and bangles, long strings of black beads. When she saw Fran come in, Poppy took the plugs from her ears and sat up, but she didn’t speak.
‘How do you feel about getting away from here?’ Fran stood close to the door. She didn’t want the girl to feel crowded.
‘Is the plane coming in?’ The urgency of the question made Fran realize how miserable Poppy was. She was hiding out in the bedroom, just waiting to make her escape from the island.
‘Not today. Tomorrow maybe. And the boat will certainly go in the morning. I meant getting away from the centre. I wondered if you’d like to spend the day with Mary and me.’
There was a hesitation. It took Poppy a moment to work through the disappointment that she wouldn’t be leaving Fair Isle immediately. ‘Sure,’ she said at last. ‘Why not?’
‘I’ll give you a minute to grab a shower, shall I?’ The girl could certainly do with a good scrub. ‘I’ll wait in the kitchen with Jane.’
When Poppy emerged she was wearing jeans one size too small and a long grey sweater. Her hair was still wet from the shower but she didn’t look very much cleaner. She hadn’t bothered with make-up and looked very young – an overweight child with an unhealthy pallor and poor skin. But we all looked like that when we were growing up, Fran thought. Or we believed we did.
She found herself thinking of Poppy as a slightly older version of Cassie. She needs some fresh air, a bit of exercise. ‘We’ll walk, shall we?’ she said. ‘We can meet up with Mary at Springfield for lunch. I need to stop off in the post office to buy some stamps.’ And perhaps Poppy was too tired to object or perhaps she was glad for someone else to take decisions for her, because she followed Fran out of the lighthouse without speaking.
They walked for a while in silence. Poppy was hunched in her jacket, her hands in her pockets.
‘What’s it like going out with the filth?’ The question came out of nowhere just as they were approaching the turn in the road by the North Haven, Poppy’s attempt to reassert herself or to provoke a reaction.
‘I don’t think of him as the filth. He’s a good man doing a hard job.’ Fran kept her voice easy. After all, some of her London friends had asked her the question in almost the same words. They lapsed again into silence.
Further south, Fran’s attention kept returning to Sheep Rock to the east. It had been painted and photographed many times, but something about the shape, the sloping green plane at the top of the cliffs, the way it dominated that side of the island, attracted her to it nevertheless. When Perez was a boy, they’d grazed sheep there; the men had gone over in a small boat and climbed a chain to get on to it. Would she be able to bring something fresh to the image? She’d asked Perez what she should give Mary and James as a gift. ‘Do a painting for them,’ he’d said. ‘They’d value that more than anything.’ She’d found nothing suitable to bring. Now she thought she’d draw something that would give her take on Fair Isle, on the iconic Sheep Rock. It would have to be in this light, she thought. Very clear, after rain.
She had the picture in her head, was so engrossed in fixing it there, that Poppy’s second question startled her. She’d almost forgotten that the girl was with her.
‘They all think I killed Angela, don’t they?’