Fran had just replaced the receiver when Big James arrived home. She knew Perez found it hard to get on with his father. They’d discussed the relationship: parents and how to survive them. But Fran thought James was a sweetie. He’d been pleasant enough to her at least. When Perez was busy he’d walked round the croft with her, explained the crops he was growing, told her how they worked the sheep. It had seemed to her that he was a man who enjoyed the company of women.

Now she thought he looked very tired and quite old. She’d always considered him a strong man, muscular and fit, but this evening she saw the lines on the back of his hands and the slackness in the skin around his eyes and his jaw.

‘I don’t know how Jimmy does that work,’ he said. ‘It would be too much of a strain for me.’ He sat in his usual chair by the fire and pulled off his boots.

‘The plane got in all right?’ Mary asked.

‘No problem at all. It was the new pilot, but he knew what he was doing.’ James got to his feet and poured himself a glass of whisky. He lifted the bottle towards Fran. ‘Will you take a dram?’ A sign that these were indeed unusual times.

She hesitated for a moment and then she nodded. He poured her a measure that was as large as his own.

‘Have they made an arrest?’ Fran asked. It had occurred to her that at least a second murder might have brought a fresh impetus to the investigation. Surely now Jimmy would have more idea what had happened.

‘I don’t think so,’ James said. ‘Jimmy couldn’t talk about the case. I understand that.’

‘So you have no news at all.’ It was Mary, looking up from her knitting. She set it down on the floor beside her. ‘I can’t understand why anyone would want to kill Jane. That Angela was a different matter. I never took to her.’ She looked up sharply at James. ‘You know what I thought of her.’ Fran had never heard her speak ill of the woman before and thought this a sign of how the murders were affecting everyone on the island. ‘But Jane? What harm was there in her?’

‘We never knew her,’ James said. ‘Not really.’

‘I knew her enough to know that I liked her. She was in here the other day when the birdwatcher came banging at the door with news of the rare swan. We laughed together about the obsessions men have. We decided that women had more sense.’

They sat for a moment in silence.

‘That new Fiscal came in on the plane,’ James said at last, an attempt, Fran thought, to distract Mary with a snippet of gossip. ‘She seems a fine woman.’