So, no magic answer. Stella Monkton’s trip to Fair Isle had helped him understand more about the victim but had brought him no closer to her killer.
The woman continued: ‘I’m so grateful for that short telephone call, Inspector. It was a sort of reconciliation.’
She began to pile the plates together as if she expected the discussion to be over. Perez reached across the table towards her. No physical contact, but a way of telling her there were still things to say.
‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What else is there?’
‘Angela was expecting a baby.’
She looked at him, horrified. ‘Oh no, the poor child.’
Was she talking about her daughter or the baby? He was certain the pregnancy was news to her. For the first time since she’d arrived on the island, she lost control and began to cry.
By the time they reached the field centre she was composed again. Maurice was waiting for them in the common room. Through the open door Perez saw Fran in the kitchen. Not working, it seemed, but sitting on a high stool next to a workbench, drinking tea. Sarah was there and so was the young birder Hugh Shaw. Fran glanced up and saw Perez, gave an immediate smile then a frown. Don’t interfere. Let me get on with it. There was no sign of Sandy and that worried Perez. He’d told Sandy to keep an eye on Fran, to make sure she was safe, though surely no harm could come to her in full view of all the residents.
Perez wondered now what he hoped to get out of the encounter between Maurice and his mother-in-law. Not much. No dramatic revelation or confession. Maurice brought in a tray of coffee and they sat making polite conversation, like strangers in a waiting room, passing time.
‘Would you give us a moment, Inspector?’ Stella said when the coffee was drunk. ‘I’d like to talk to my son-in-law alone.’
The description jarred. Maurice and Stella must be the same sort of age. And Perez was reluctant to leave them alone together. After all, he had hoped for some breakthrough in the case from the conversation. But he walked away and stood in the lobby for ten minutes.
Sandy came down the stairs from his room.
‘I’ve tried every bank in Lerwick. If Angela Moore has her own account, it’s not held anywhere in town. And I can’t find out what she did between leaving the RBS and going into Boots.’
Perez supposed that in a city there’d be CCTV. In Shetland they had to rely on inquisitive people. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Keep trying.’
Sandy nodded towards the common room. ‘How’s it going?’
Perez shrugged. He didn’t really know. When he returned to the common room he found Maurice and Stella much as he’d left them: polite, distant, formal. He sensed no drama or increased understanding.
It was only when Perez looked at his watch and said he’d have to get Stella back to the airstrip for the afternoon plane that Maurice spoke with any real feeling. He stood up and took Stella’s hand.
‘Your daughter was a remarkable woman.’ A pause. ‘I loved her very much.’
Chapter Thirty-four
The autumn was over. That was clear to Dougie as he walked back from the south of the island for lunch. All the birds he saw belonged to winter. A flock of snow buntings turned so the light caught the white under-wings and they gleamed against the grey sky. A straggling line of pink-footed geese flew over, calling, and came slowly in to land on the west side. There would be no more migration, no more rare birds. It was time for him to escape back to the city, to his grubby flat and his tedious work. Perez couldn’t keep them imprisoned any longer. Dougie would take the boat out on the following day.
He always suffered a mild depression at the end of the autumn. Winter birding was more predictable and lacked the excitement of the migration season. And it meant leaving Fair Isle and Angela. This year there would be no contact from her to look forward to, no emails, no tipsy phone calls in the middle of the night as she called him for reassurance. You care about me, don’t you, Dougie? You’ll always be there for me. And he would have been. It came to him now, struggling against the stiff northerly breeze, his face scarlet, his eyes and nose streaming, that his failure to make any real relationship with the women at work had been of his own doing. He’d begrudged the time in cinemas and restaurants. What if Angela should call him at home while he was away? She’d controlled his life, just as she’d controlled the lives of her lovers.
Perhaps now he’d feel free to develop other friendships, perhaps even find himself a woman. Someone who liked the outdoors, he thought. She wouldn’t be a beauty; it would be unreasonable to expect that. But someone kind. Generous with her time and her body. A simple woman without an agenda.
When he pushed open the door into the field centre, the depression remained, but he felt comfortable with it. At this time of year he would have missed it if it weren’t there.
Inside, there was the smell of cooking. After the effort of walking all the way from the Havens, the centre seemed very warm. Dougie hung up his coat and took off his boots. He wondered if he’d come back to the Isle next year. Perhaps he’d have a woman to bring with him; he pictured someone big and soft, in a hand-knitted sweater and a woolly hat, a huge smile. He’d show her the common birds, start a list for her. Or perhaps she’d prefer somewhere gentler for a holiday. It had been years since he’d been to Scilly and he still needed on his list some of the American migrants that turned up there in strong westerlies. They could rent a little cottage. She’d cook for him.
John Fowler was in the common room, a laptop on his knee, tapping away. Fowler had made a fuss when the police team from Inverness had insisted on looking at it. ‘This is my livelihood.’ All pompous as if none of the rest of them had to earn a living.
‘And this is a murder investigation,’ the leader had said. ‘If you prefer I can get a warrant and we’ll take it south with us.’ Fowler had handed over the machine quickly enough then. Dougie couldn’t see the point of paying to go away on holiday if you were just going to work.
Fowler looked up when Dougie walked into the room, logged off and shut down the computer.
‘Don’t mind me,’ Dougie said. As usual, Fowler looked very clean. As if he’d just stepped out of the shower and put on clothes fresh from the washing line and the iron. Hugh had looked very dapper recently too. Who was he trying to impress? Dougie didn’t really do ironing and he’d been here so long that all his clothes were dirty anyway. He’d need a trip to the launderette first thing when he got back. He didn’t mind the launderette. A couple of back copies of British Birds or Birding World and he was sweet.
‘No problem.’ Fowler shut the computer, put it away in the case. ‘I probably won’t sell it anyway.’
‘What are you writing then? A book?’
‘No, just an article. A travel piece on the field centre. It seems in poor taste now Angela’s dead.’
‘I don’t see why.’ Dougie thought the place would need all the visitors it could get after two unsolved murders. Because it seemed to him that the police were no closer to finding out what had happened to the women. Or were people such ghouls that they’d want to come just to see where Angela had died? He’d done his bit for the island anyway. There’d be birders who’d be attracted to Fair Isle because he’d seen the trumpeter swan there.
Lunch was pizza. Dougie liked pizza and positioned himself on the seat nearest to the serving hatch so he could be first in the line for seconds. Perez’s fiancée was there. She’d laid the tables and now she was standing beside Sarah Fowler and dishing out. Because his attention was on the food, it took him a while to realize that there was an argument. Ben, the assistant warden, and Hugh, bickering away like kiddies. Something about mud on the bird room floor. Though it seemed to Dougie that wasn’t really what it was about at all. The tension of the situation had finally got to them.