What am I saying? That she asked for it? The idea shocked him. He’d always been dismayed when colleagues suggested that victims, especially women, had contributed to the crimes against them. But he was curious about Angela Moore and he wanted to understand her better. He tried to picture the woman he’d met at island functions. He’d never had the sense that she was flirting with him. Although she’d been lively and confident, he’d never been attracted to her, and he found it difficult to explain Ben Catchpole’s infatuation or to see how she caused such chaos in the lives of the men in the lighthouse.

Perhaps I wasn’t her type. Too old. Too boring. Despite himself he felt a sting of envy.

After a couple of calls he tracked down the home number of Bryn Pritchard, the officer who’d notified Angela’s father about her death.

‘He’s the community plod,’ the station sergeant in Newtown had said. ‘Been there for years. No ambition. But he knows the place like the back of his hand.’

The phone was answered by a woman. She put her hand over the receiver, but still Perez could hear her shouting. ‘Bryn, it’s for you. Work. Sounds like a foreigner.’ A voice like a foghorn.

Bryn would have stayed chatting all day. At one point his wife must have brought him a drink, because Perez could hear him slurping in the occasional gap when Perez could insert a question.

‘They’re not local, not really. They moved to the village when Angela was eleven or twelve. There never was a mother. At least, I suppose there must have been once, but we never saw her. Gossip had it that she ran off because the prof was such a difficult bastard to live with, but that could have been speculation. There was a lot of speculation because nobody could find out what had really gone on. They didn’t mix. Angela didn’t go to school, for instance. The prof taught her at home. Not that unusual here with English families, home schooling. We tend to attract the hippy dippy crowd.’ He paused for breath, a gulp of tea.

‘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.