Sandy was in the common room, drinking beer, talking to the three single men. Perez hoped Sandy realized he was in the North Light to work; this wasn’t a few days’ unofficial leave from the routine of the office. Immediately he decided that the thought was unfair; these days the Whalsay man took his job seriously. No one would be better than Sandy at getting these men to discuss Angela Moore and her relationships.

Perez helped himself to a coke at the bar and slipped some money into the honesty box. He took a seat just outside the circle of chairs. There was a pyramid of empty beer cans built on the coffee table in the middle. Hugh Shaw was at the end of a story – something about a birdwatcher in a brothel in Tashkent. He nodded to acknowledge Perez’s presence and continued to the tagline. Sandy almost choked, he was laughing so much. The others were more restrained; Perez guessed they’d heard it before.

Sandy saw Perez look at the empty cans. ‘These aren’t all ours,’ he said. ‘The boys from the search team were here earlier. They’ve only just gone to bed.’

‘Could I have a few words, Sandy?’ No point his sitting there drinking with them. They’d never accept him as one of the boys.

They returned to the bird room, the closest thing they had to an office here, the memory of a woman’s body still lying over the desk between them.

‘Did the team find anything in the tower?’

‘You were right. That was a pillowcase and the lining of the pillow itself. There are small fragments of feather still left inside. Nothing else. No fingerprints. The handrail going up the steps and round the lens had been wiped clean.’

‘The screwed-up pillowcase would have gone in a pocket. The killer must have gone straight up to the tower after murdering Jane.’ Perez pictured the killer, looking down the island. Had he seen Perez walking towards the Pund? Had he been already aware that the body had been found before Rhona Laing and the rest of the team arrived in on the plane?

Perez nodded vaguely in the direction of the common room. ‘Do any of them admit to having been up the tower?’

‘No, they all claim to have assumed it would be locked.’

So all it would take, Perez thought, would be one piece of forensic evidence linking a field centre resident to the lens room and we’d have our murderer.

‘What do your drinking pals say about Angela Moore?’ Perez wondered if the three men had considered themselves rivals. They’d all been bewitched by the woman. Had the spell been broken now she was dead?

‘That she was a cruel and wonderful woman.’

‘Specifics would be good, Sandy.’