‘The prof?’
‘That’s what he was. A professor. Or had been before he retired and moved out to live with us. Professor of biological sciences at Bristol University.’
‘He must have been quite old then, to be bringing up a daughter of that age.’ Perez tried to imagine what that would have been like for the girl. Cooped up in a house with an elderly academic. No friends of her own age.
Bryn had his own opinions about that. ‘Archie Moore was about fifty-five when they moved here. It wasn’t right. I don’t know what the education welfare were thinking about allowing it. How could he provide for the needs of a teenage girl? Because that’s what she was when she left home. But they said she was receiving balanced schooling. She took all her exams a year early, passed with some of the highest marks in the country. But education isn’t only about exams, is it? He pushed her and pushed her. Not just in her school work, but music too. He sent her to Newtown for piano lessons and if you walked past in the evening you’d hear her practising. She didn’t have any sort of social life, not even with the other home-school kids. I don’t know where he bought her clothes for her but she dressed like a middle-aged woman. Who knows what sort of monster he was creating?’
Perez didn’t answer and Bryn continued: ‘No wonder she went a bit wild in the end.’
‘Wild in what way?’
‘It was the last summer, before she went off to college. She hung around with some of the bad lads in the village. The girls never seemed to take to her. There was nothing criminal, not that she was ever done for, at least. But drinking. Probably drugs. One night Archie reported her missing; she turned up a couple of days later with a hangover, looking as if she hadn’t slept for a week.’
‘Where had she been?’
‘She would never say. But with a man. There were rumours that she went off early to college so she could get an abortion.’
Perez didn’t ask how Bryn could know that. He too lived in a community where personal information leached into the public domain.
‘Did she come back to visit her father?’ Perez asked. ‘In the university holidays? After she graduated?’
‘No.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘That was the last time anyone here saw her, when she went off to uni on the coach from Newtown. I always thought that was very hard. I don’t like the man, but he’d done what he thought was best for her. Given her an education. She’d never have had all those chances without him. He didn’t even get invited to her wedding.’
‘Do you have any thoughts about why she might have stayed away?’
Another silence. ‘You’re thinking abuse?’ Bryn said. ‘Is that the way your mind’s working?’
‘I did wonder.’
‘So did I,’ Bryn said, ‘at the time. But no, I don’t think that was the reason she didn’t come home. She didn’t suffer the sort of abuse you’re thinking about anyway. She had nothing to bring her back. There was no more to it than that. The old man’s turned into a bitter old soak. He props up the bar of the Lamb from teatime to closing, talking to everyone who’ll listen about his famous, ungrateful daughter. She had no real friends here. She probably just put the place out of her mind.’
‘How did he take the news of her death?’
‘I went to see him as soon as I heard. It was about lunchtime, so at least he was almost sober. He lives in the same house where he’d brought up the girl. An ugly sort of bungalow on the edge of the village. It must have been built in the fifties – you’d never get planning permission for it now. Lily Llewellyn goes in every now and again to clean, but you’d never think it. Such a mess. He can’t throw anything away. Piles of newspapers all over the living room. And he still seems to be carrying out experiments. The kitchen bench is covered with jars and test tubes, with stuff growing inside. There’s a microscope. No telly. They never had a telly.’
Perez thought if Sandy Wilson were doing this interview he’d be hurrying Bryn along, urging him to come to the point. But Perez was grateful for the detail. He could see the house in his head, was with Bryn when he stepped into the room, cleared a seat so he could sit down, felt the stickiness underfoot.
‘I just told him straight,’ Bryn said. ‘“Angela’s dead. It seems as if she was murdered.” He sat there looking at me. He was a big man in his day and he’s still tall, though he’s lost a lot of weight. Then he started crying. “I thought one day she’d understand what I’d done for her,” he said. “I thought she’d be grateful. Now she won’t have the chance.” He’d always been a hard man. No compromise with him. Angela was his project, after he gave up the university. It made me a bit queasy watching the tears. But I had the feeling he was crying for himself and not for her.’
‘Didn’t he want any details?’ Perez would have expected a scientist to need to know the facts of his daughter’s death. He had brought his child up to be rational. Even in old age, wouldn’t he need the facts to hang on to?
Bryn hesitated for a moment. ‘He just said he wasn’t surprised. “She wasn’t the sort to live a quiet and easy life. She was her father’s daughter, after all.”’
Perez switched off his mobile. Was this what he’d expected? An eccentric upbringing for Angela. Loveless, driven. It was hardly surprising that she hadn’t turned into a woman who made friends easily. She’d had no practice as a child. He tried to imagine what it must have been like for a girl growing up in a small community, looking different, sounding different. No mother. No television. If there were other kids around, she’d be the subject of their jokes and their gossip, an easy target, a scapegoat. Hardly surprising that she’d developed other ways of getting attention and affection. But he wasn’t sure the conversation with Bryn Pritchard brought him any closer to explaining her violent death.
Through the window he saw a couple of mothers waiting in the schoolyard for the nursery children to come out. Angela’s mother would surely have been younger than Archie Moore. Where was she now? Had she followed her daughter’s career at a distance, seen the news reports of Angela’s death? Perez hit the number for the police station in Lerwick and got through to Sandy Wilson.
‘Are you all set for coming into the Isle tomorrow? Make sure you’re at Grutness early. I’ve asked the boys to take the Shepherd out ahead of time to bring you back. There’s a rare bird on the island and I don’t want the place swamped with birdwatchers.’ He’d hoped to outwit the reporters too, though if the wind continued to drop they’d have no problems chartering planes. ‘There’s something I want you to do this afternoon. I need you to trace the deceased woman’s mother. They’ve had no contact as far as we know since Angela was eleven. The father was a professor at Bristol University so you could start there.’
Sandy yawned. Perez knew this was the sort of task he hated. The folks on the other end of the phone could never understand his accent and anyone with a higher education intimidated him. He’d grown up a bit in the last couple of years but he still had a low boredom threshold.
Perez felt the need to explain why he couldn’t track down Angela’s mother himself. ‘I’m going back to see Maurice. I’ll ask if he knows where the woman might be, but you’ve got access to records I won’t have.’
‘Is it so important to track down the mother? I mean, she could hardly have committed the murder, could she? Not if she wasn’t there. You said yourself it had to be someone staying at the field centre.’