‘I have the feeling that they’re all relieved she’s dead. Like, they say how fantastic she was, but I think they were a wee bit scared of her. They didn’t know how to stand up to her.’

‘Did they all feel like that?’

‘Maybe Dougie, the fat one, a bit less than the others.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Sandy shrugged. ‘I think he enjoyed her company. He wasn’t so intimidated.’

‘He wasn’t having sex with her,’ Perez said. ‘It was more about the shared interest. The birds.’

‘But occasionally she got things wrong.’ Sandy had brought his beer with him and took a swig from the can. ‘That’s what Dougie told me. “She was a great birder, but not quite as great as she thought.”’

‘He didn’t tell me that.’

‘Well, he’d not have wanted to look disloyal. He said it wasn’t unknown for her to take credit for identifying a bird found by someone else. And the others agreed. Not really a motive for murder but you said you wanted the detail.’

Perez considered, tried to imagine this flawed, driven woman. She wouldn’t bear being wrong. She would hate it. Perhaps that was a motive for murder after all.

‘What did they make of Jane Latimer?’

‘That she was a brilliant cook. Nothing else about her mattered to them.’

‘Angela Moore was pregnant,’ Perez said. ‘Which of those boys would you put down as the father?’

There was a moment of silence while Sandy considered. He was much better these days at keeping his mouth shut until he had something worth saying. ‘Hugh,’ he said at last. ‘I mean, she wasn’t looking for a man to stand by her, was she? She had that already with Maurice. If it was just the sperm she was after, Hugh would make less of a fuss.’

‘It couldn’t be him,’ Perez said. ‘He’s only been here for a few weeks and Angela was two months’ pregnant. Unless he’s telling us lies and he’d known her before. I suppose she could have met him on one of her trips south.’

‘Couldn’t we get them to do a blood test? That way we’d know for sure.’

Perez supposed they could but he wasn’t sure it would help them discover who had stabbed the women. He always thought of the victims as women in the plural. Because, despite his warning that they should all keep an open mind, he was convinced there was just one killer.