Blue Lightning

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘What have you got for me this time, Jimmy? Should I be packing my bags and taking my seasick pills?’

  ‘Not yet. This one I have to deal with on my own. I have a dead woman with a knife in her back and no way of getting any forensic support.’ He talked Vicki through the situation, imagined her sitting with her elbows on the desk taking notes, grinning at his dilemma, the inevitable can of Diet Coke beside her. ‘So what should I do? I can’t leave her there indefinitely. The chopper should get in tomorrow but there’s no guarantee.’

  ‘Remember your latest crime scene management training, Jimmy.’ She’d led the refresher course, one of the few he’d felt it worth travelling south for. ‘What do you think you should do first?’

  ‘Take photographs,’ he said. ‘Lots of photographs.’

  ‘Even more important if we can’t get the experts in straight away.’ He knew she was teasing but didn’t care.

  ‘What about the body?’

  ‘Bag it up carefully and put it somewhere cold. Has anyone on the island got a walk-in chiller or a big fridge?’

  ‘There’ll be folk with freezers.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘A freezer won’t do. We don’t want ice crystals in the body. If you don’t have a full-size fridge, put her in an outhouse. Somewhere watertight, where you can keep her cool.’

  As he pressed the button on his mobile at the end of the conversation, he wondered where he’d find a bag big enough to take the body of a fit young woman.

  Rhona Laing’s secretary put him through to her immediately. Rhona demanded efficiency and usually got it.

  ‘Yes?’ The Fiscal was in her fifties, immaculate, dressed like the Edinburgh lawyer she had once been. He could picture her sitting at her desk. ‘I thought you were on leave, Inspector. Visiting your parents.’ That was the other thing about Rhona. She seemed to have spies everywhere.

  ‘There’s been a murder.’

  ‘Where?’ Her voice was measured. He’d never heard her express shock.

  ‘Here on the Isle.’

  ‘You’re like the Angel of Death, Inspector. Violence seems to follow you around. First Whalsay, now Fair Isle.’

  Perez thought that was unfair. His colleague Sandy Wilson had found the body in Whalsay.

  ‘The victim’s a young woman,’ he said. ‘The warden of the Fair Isle field centre. I’d met her but I didn’t know her well. As I’m here and there’s no chance of the Inverness team getting in, I think I can run the investigation without a conflict of interest.’

  ‘Your victim is Angela Moore?’ Her voice was sharp. ‘She’s a television celebrity. They seem to wheel her out to talk about everything from Shetland wind farms to the decline of the tiger. There’ll be press interest.’

  ‘If they get to hear about it—’

  ‘Don’t be naive, Inspector! Someone will already have tried to sell the story to the national press. One of the islanders or one of the guests. This has to be sorted out quickly. By the time the weather clears and the reporters can fly in, we need to have made an arrest.’

  His last call was to Fran. In Springfield, Radio 4 was playing in the background. He recognized Kate Adie and From Our Own Correspondent. That would be something else she and Mary would have in common. Both women had it on all day, a background to their work.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ He realized he’d repeated almost exactly the words and the inflexion of Poppy’s words to him. ‘I didn’t bring you all the way to Fair Isle just to abandon you.’

  ‘It’s work. Nothing you could do.’

  ‘What have you been up to?’ At home she could occupy herself for hours on her own with her drawing and her painting. She had a concentration that he found enviable. He was too easily distracted. But he didn’t think she’d be able to work with his parents around; Mary would want to chat and be full of questions. Perhaps that’s where my curiosity comes from, he thought. I’m nosy, just like my mother.

  ‘I asked Mary to teach me to use the knitting machine. I’ve always wanted to learn. It’s not nearly as easy as it looks.’ She laughed.

  Suddenly he felt as if he was as far away from her as when she was visiting her parents in London and he was left behind in Lerwick. It was hard to believe they were only separated by a couple of miles.

  ‘I’ll make sure I’m home for supper,’ he said.

  ‘Will it all be over by then?’

  ‘I don’t know. It seemed very simple. Now I’m not sure.’

  Chapter Nine

  Jane heard Perez talking in the common room while she was laying the tables for lunch. Despite herself she tried to hear what he was saying, but she couldn’t make out the words. She couldn’t even tell to whom he was talking. She thought she would have to tell him about that last conversation with Angela. In a place like this, there were no secrets. Someone would inform Perez that Angela had threatened not to renew her contract: Maurice, for example, would say anything to protect his daughter. It was best coming from Jane herself.

  The smell of baking bread seeped out of the kitchen, reassuringly normal. Lunch would be soup and rolls, oatcakes and cheese, scones and cakes. Today they needed comfort food. It was eleven thirty. There was time to talk to Perez before she had to serve it. She tapped on the common-room door and looked inside. Perez was on his own, his mobile in his hand. He’d finished the conversation and seemed preoccupied. She followed his gaze out of the window. It was more exposed here, north facing, and the sound of the storm was louder.

  ‘I wondered if I could talk to you. It’s about Angela.’

  ‘Of course.’ It seemed something of an effort for him to drag his thoughts back to the present. ‘Could we sit somewhere with a bit of privacy?’

  She hesitated. ‘We could use my room, I suppose. It’s a bit cramped but nobody will disturb us.’ She never invited anyone into her room, was shocked that she’d been the one to suggest it.

  They passed the door of the bird room on the way to the stairs.

  ‘Is Angela still in there?’ Where had such a ghoulish question come from? Jane thought it was as if someone else had stepped inside her skin and was talking through her mouth.

  He looked at her as if he was considering how much he should tell her. He must have reached the same conclusion as she had earlier: there could be no secrets in this place. ‘I thought I’d go in when the rest of you are having lunch. I’ll move Angela’s body this afternoon. I’ll take it to Springfield. There’s a shed we can padlock. She’ll be cool there. Then hope the wind drops tomorrow, at least enough to get a helicopter in.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose you have a digital camera I could borrow? It would save me going home.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Jane was going to ask why he might need a camera, but then she remembered an American TV programme beloved by her sister. Beautiful young men and women in designer clothes investigated brutal murders by swimming pools or in grand houses. They always took photographs of the crime scene. How excited her sister would be to know that Jane had been caught up in a real investigation.

  There was only one chair in her room. She nodded for him to take it and sat on the bed. She saw him taking in his surroundings, the books and the newspaper clippings.

  ‘Do you enjoy crosswords, Inspector?’

  He smiled. ‘I don’t think my mind works that way.’

  ‘I suppose I have a motive for killing Angela.’ After all, she hadn’t brought him here to make small talk. ‘I thought you should know.’

  He said nothing and waited for her to continue. He sits so still, she thought. It’s impossible to tell what’s going on in his head.

  ‘We had a conversation in the kitchen yesterday afternoon, while I was getting food ready for your party. She said she wouldn’t want me back at the North Light next year.’

  ‘And that’s a motive for murder?’ He wasn’t mocking her, but seemed genuinely puzzled. She wondered that he couldn’t be as passionate about the place as she was.

  ‘I would have killed her then if I�
�d thought I could get away with it.’ Jane looked up, gave a little smile to show she was joking. ‘I didn’t. I’m not sufficiently brave.’ She saw more explanation was needed. ‘I love it here at the lighthouse. I suppose it’s a sort of escape. There were things in my personal life . . . It was a mess . . . And Fair Isle captivated me from the moment I arrived.’

  ‘Did she give you a reason for not wanting you back? Your reputation on the island is high. The best cook they’ve ever had, my mother says. I’d have thought she’d be bribing you to stay.’

  ‘According to Angela, someone else was bribing her to get rid of me.’ Jane explained about the chair of trustees, the massive donation to develop the library and replace the computers, the goddaughter straight out of catering college. ‘But I’m not sure it happened like that. Angela might have been glad of an excuse to be shot of me and made the offer herself.’

  ‘Why would she want shot of you?’

  Jane hesitated a moment. She found it hard to be bitchy about a woman who’d recently been murdered. It was a matter of manners, etiquette. It seemed rather common to be unpleasant in these circumstances.

  ‘Angela liked to be in charge, the centre of attention. She was accustomed to admiration.’

  ‘And you didn’t admire her?’

  ‘I’m sure she was a very good scientist.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I didn’t like her as a person. She was capricious, wilful, determined to get her own way. I probably gave her less deference than she was used to. I’m sure that irritated her. After all, I’m only the domestic help. When the chair of trustees mentioned the possibility of finding a job here for his goddaughter, she’d have seen it as a good way of finding someone more biddable to take my place. Someone who owed her a favour.’

  ‘I didn’t really know her,’ Perez said, ‘though I’ve seen her on television, of course.’

  ‘How did you think she came across?’ Jane realized she was very interested in the inspector’s opinion. He was a man whose judgement she’d trust.

  He thought for a moment and it seemed as if he would refuse to commit himself. ‘As very charming,’ he said at last. ‘But only while the camera was running. I was never really convinced by it. She always seemed rather miserable to me.’

  It was the last thing she would have expected.

  During lunch she was aware of his absence, imagined him in the bird room. How would Angela look now? Just the same as when Ben Catchpole had found her? How soon did a corpse begin to decay, to look not entirely human? Jane had seen the body when Ben had called out to her, and the feathers woven into the hair had seemed to her grotesque, a bizarre show.

  Before she began to serve the meal Fran Hunter arrived, blown in it seemed from another world, a reminder that life was continuing outside the solid field centre walls. She had a camera round her neck and a small rucksack on her back. She had arrived in Leogh Willy’s truck and immediately joined Perez. Jane supposed that he’d summoned her to bring what he needed to record the crime scene and take Angela’s body away.

  In the dining room conversation was desultory. Again Maurice and Poppy stayed away, though Ben ate with them. Jane thought that all the people there wanted to talk about the murder, to enjoy the drama, share scraps of gossip about the dead woman, but no one could bring himself to start the discussion for fear of appearing callous. Jane wanted to give them permission to do it: Come on. We all knew she was no saint. But she was as frightened as the others of seeming unfeeling.

  Later she knocked at the door of Maurice’s flat. He came to open it. He was dressed now, but he still hadn’t shaved and looked as he had when he’d had a bad bout of flu earlier in the year. Jane had looked after him then too. Angela had been far too busy with the seabird ringing. She’d never even had a cold in all the time Jane had known her and had no sympathy for people who were ill.

  ‘I’ve brought a pan of soup,’ Jane said. ‘It’ll just need heating up.’

  He took the saucepan from her and stood in the doorway.

  ‘How’s Poppy?’ Jane really wanted to ask what he would do now. She presumed that he would want to leave the island as soon as the weather improved. Then she would have the place to herself. To tidy and scrub and order. The new warden would be glad of a cook who knew the ropes.

  ‘I’ve sent her back to bed,’ Maurice said. ‘She’s exhausted. The shock, I suppose.’ He looked up at Jane. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without Angela. I can’t imagine life without her.’

  It wasn’t the sort of practical answer Jane was looking for, though she would have been happy to talk to Maurice, even about Angela, if that would have helped. But he shut the door without asking her into the flat, more distressed now, it seemed, than when he’d first learned his wife was dead.

  Jane couldn’t bear the idea of spending another minute in the field centre. It wasn’t just the image she created in her head of Perez in the bird room, taking his photographs, collecting his samples, moving in his quiet, precise way around the dead woman. She needed to get away from the place for a while. She felt as if she’d been indoors for weeks. The truck was parked just outside the back door so she assumed that Fran was still in the bird room with him. Jane thought she’d walk down the island, talk to Joanne in the shop, and perhaps call in on Mary at Springfield as long as Perez and Fran hadn’t returned. The wind would be behind her and she thought someone would give her a lift back. Jane wouldn’t want to be thought curious or ghoulish, but Mary was the closest thing to a friend that she had in Fair Isle.

  Outside, the wind took her breath away, but the rain had stopped and there were flashes of sunshine, sudden spotlights on the green sea and the sodden grass. For the first time she began to wonder who could have killed Angela, to work out how it might have happened. Like everyone else she’d assumed at first that Poppy had been responsible, but perhaps it wasn’t that simple. Away from the tension and the raw emotion inside the building it was possible to regard the murder as an intellectual puzzle. Surely her intellect was as strong as the inspector’s and she knew the people there better than he did. Angela had been right about one thing: Jane was ready for a new challenge. She imagined going to Perez and offering him the solution. She would enjoy his approval.

  There were a couple of people in the shop, there not to buy, Jane thought, but to talk. They were delighted to see her, of course, and much less restrained about gossiping than the residents of the North Light.

  ‘They say there were gallons of blood.’ ‘Has Jimmy arrested the child yet?’ ‘What a terrible thing to happen on the Isle.’

  Jane said very little. She understood their voraciousness and their desire for information. They were outsiders looking in at the drama. No one was suggesting, for example, that they might be murderers. But still she was restrained. She told them there had been no arrest as far as she knew. And of course, she said, everyone at the North Light was very shocked and upset.

  She wrapped her coat around her and went out again. The turbine blades of the windmill on the mound by the shop were spinning furiously and the machine gave off that low humming sound that meant the generator was storing power. The children must just have come out of school because they were making their way down the road, laughing and chasing, bent against the wind. There was no truck outside Springfield, no sign of Big James’s car, so she opened the door and went in. Mary was standing at the kitchen table whisking egg whites.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my turning up out of the blue,’ Jane said. ‘I just had to get away from the lighthouse.’

  ‘Of course. Come in.’ Mary shook the egg from the whisk. ‘Just wait till I get this in the oven and I’ll make us some tea.’ She tipped caster sugar into the mixture and spooned it onto a tray. ‘How’s Jimmy doing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jane said. ‘He’s just getting on with it.’ She paused. ‘I suppose we’re all suspects.’

  ‘I worry about him,’ Mary said. ‘What must it do to a man to be mixing all the time with crime
and violence? I thought he’d come back home and settle here on a croft. He always said it was what he wanted. But when Skerry was vacant and he had the chance he threw it away.’

  ‘He seems very good at what he does.’

  ‘He’ll have a wife soon. She’ll not want him away all hours, never knowing when he’s getting home. I thought this week on the island would let her see what the place has to offer. Then this has to happen.’

  ‘If she wants him to be happy surely she’ll let him work . . .’ But what do I know? Jane thought. I’m a lonely middle-aged woman and my idea of happiness is a couple of weeks’ spring-cleaning in an empty field centre.

  ‘Ah.’ Mary’s voice was impatient. ‘We all start off thinking we can change our men. It never happens that way.’

  Suddenly there was a thunderous knocking on the door. Mary stood white and shocked, her hand resting on the kettle. She looked at Jane. The banging continued. ‘Come in,’ Mary shouted. ‘Whoever you are, stop that noise and come in.’

  The door was flung open.

  ‘My God, man, whatever is the matter?’

  It was Dougie Barr, flushed from running. His coat was flapping open and his telescope was still on its tripod, hanging from a strap on his shoulder. His binoculars hung round his neck.

  ‘I need to use your phone.’ The words came out in a pant. ‘My mobile’s not working. No reception.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Jane imagined another body. Her mind was racing.

  ‘I have to call the lighthouse.’ He saw they were staring at him. ‘There’s a bird in the South Harbour. Trumpeter swan. A first for Britain.’ When they didn’t answer he repeated, yelling at the top of his voice: ‘A first for Britain.’

  Chapter Ten

  All morning Dougie Barr hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Angela. Images of her swam in and out of his head. Of course he’d seen her on the television before he’d met her. She’d been famous before she married Maurice and was appointed as warden of the field centre, one of the new wave of young people brought in to present wildlife programmes, employed to make natural history more sexy and pull in a fresh audience. Dougie understood what they were doing. He knew about selling. Since then Angela had become a part of his life. A secret obsession.