Again he had the impression that this was a Wendy house, a space for playing. The floor had been swept. There was a jam jar containing dried flowers on the windowsill. But he didn’t think the island children had been in here. This had been Angela’s room, the place where she escaped from field centre life, where perhaps she had lived out her fantasies with her young lovers. It threw a new perspective on the woman. Here, he saw, she had been domestic, even romantic.

Perez walked around the walls, carrying the candle with him, looking for a hiding place for her treasures. The Angela who was a media star and warden of Fair Isle field centre would have nothing to do with sentiment or nostalgia, but the woman who had created this space might have kept mementos from her past. Perez hoped for a letter from her mother. It still seemed inconceivable to him that the mother had abandoned her daughter entirely. But there was nothing. He tapped on the panels, thinking he might find a space between the stone wall and the panelling, was excited when he came across a polished wooden box hidden behind the wine rack. But when he opened the lid, there was only a pair of silver earrings and a plain silver bangle. Presents perhaps from one of the lovers.

He began to climb the ladder into the loft, struggling to keep his balance with the candle held in one hand. He’d brought Sarah, his wife, here before they were married. It had been summer, a mild day with the scent of cut grass and meadow flowers coming through the open door. He’d thought he would never love anyone else in his life. They’d covered the old straw mattress with sheepskins and lain there for most of the afternoon, stroking each other, kissing and whispering. They hadn’t made love there. Sarah was religious in an old-fashioned, matter-of-fact way and had asked that they might wait. He’d thought himself magnificently restrained in agreeing, but in fact the delay had only added to the excitement, to his view of her as the perfect woman. When sex had been allowed it had been something of an anticlimax. He hadn’t been able to admit that at the time, even to himself. Certainly not to her.