She woke again when it was still dark. There were domestic noises in the house – a tap being run, the clatter of pans. James was up early to take out the Good Shepherd. She was alone in the bed. It was hard to believe that Perez had come back at all, that she had held the cold and silent man in her arms.

Chapter Twenty-five

In the North Light with Rhona Laing after the plane came in, watching the residents reacting to the news of Jane’s death, Perez felt disengaged from the process. It had already been a long evening. Perhaps because he hadn’t been present to see the arrival of the plane flying in through the darkness and could only imagine the sight – the silhouettes of the men, black against the orange lights – its appearance seemed part of a strange dream.

He sat with Poppy in the warden’s flat. The curtains hadn’t been drawn and he saw the hill lit by moonlight and by the hypnotic regular sweep of the lighthouse beam. At last he was alone with the girl. Maurice was still in the common room with the guests. They sat together on the sofa. The grate hadn’t been cleaned and was full of ash and the remains of a piece of driftwood, some charred paper. The room was cold. Poppy had pulled a fleece jacket over her jumper.

‘You walked back from Springfield this evening,’ Perez said. ‘Did you meet anyone on the way?’

It seemed that she hadn’t heard the question. ‘Jane was really kind to me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t care about Angela dying. It made my life easier. But why would anyone want to harm Jane?’

‘Can you think of a reason?’

Poppy shook her head. ‘Angela was the only person who didn’t like her.’

‘Why didn’t Angela like her?’

‘Because Jane didn’t care about her being famous and stuff like that. Angela needed people to tell her how great she was all the time and Jane wouldn’t play those sort of games.’

Perez returned to his original question. ‘Did you see anyone while you were walking back from Springfield?’

‘There was someone walking on the hill beyond the airstrip.’ Poppy hunched into her jacket. ‘For a moment it freaked me out because I thought it was Angela. You’d always see her walking like that. Like she could go on for miles without stopping. But of course it couldn’t have been. I don’t believe in ghosts.’ She shivered.

‘Who was it?’ It could have been the murderer, Perez thought, on his way north from the Pund.

She shrugged. ‘It could have been anyone. It was just a silhouette against the hill. And they all look the same, don’t they, the birdwatchers? Waterproof jacket, hat, gloves.’

‘Man or woman?’

‘Well, I thought at first it was Angela so it could have been a woman. But more likely a man.’