Sandy shook his head. ‘But then they wouldn’t, would they? You’d just walk a hundred yards and throw it over the nearest cliff.’

‘Who knew Angela kept the Pund as a love nest?’

‘Ben Catchpole and Dougie Barr.’

‘Not Hugh Shaw?’

‘He claims not. He admits he had sex with Angela Moore, but says it was either in the Land Rover or here in the centre.’

Fran tried to think herself inside the head of the dead warden. It had been Angela’s dream to run this place and she’d achieved her lifetime ambition before she was thirty. What was left for her? A marriage of convenience and the adoration of young men flattered by her attention and attracted by her celebrity. She must have been bored witless. Had she decided it was time to move on? She was sufficiently ruthless to walk away, leaving Maurice and the other centre staff to make the best of it. It would have been different if she’d had a child, Fran thought. Everything would have been much more complicated then.

Perez was still speaking. Fran thought both detectives had forgotten she was there. Usually Perez was careful about what he said in front of her: he knew she would never betray a confidence but it was about sticking to the rules. Doing the right thing.

‘I wonder if I’ve been looking too hard for a motive. Maybe after all this is just a man who likes to kill women.’

‘Strong, competent women.’ It wasn’t Fran’s business, but she’d never been much good at being seen but not heard. ‘Women who subvert the stereotype of femininity. Jane was a lesbian and Angela a sexual predator.’

‘So they were both women who could appear threatening to men.’ At least Perez was taking her seriously.

Sandy just looked confused. ‘Come off it! You can’t have any of the guys here as a psychopath.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’ve read the case histories and the profiles; psychopaths are loners. They’re all poorly educated weirdos. These people have degrees, wives, proper jobs.’

Perez gave a tight little grin. ‘Not all of them and maybe only the stupid ones get caught. We don’t get to know about the bright ones. They get away with it.’ He looked down at Sandy. ‘Have you found out what Angela was doing in Lerwick on her day off the Isle?’

‘Well, she didn’t go to see her dentist. Nor any of the others in town.’

‘Have you checked the banks?’

Sandy grinned. ‘You do know it’s the weekend and they’re all closed?’

‘But I know you have contacts, Sandy. Like that red-headed lass that serves behind the counter of Maurice Parry and Angela Moore’s bank. The one you brought to the staff party in the summer.’

‘Angela went into the Royal Bank of Scotland in the street and withdrew three thousand pounds in cash from the joint account.’