The residents were still sitting in the dining room over scraps of toast and cold coffee. They were all at one table and the rest of the room looked empty and bare. Maurice was with them. He wore the same clothes he’d had on when Fran had last seen him. There was a small grey splash of what might have been porridge on his jersey. She had a sudden urge to shake him. Pull yourself together, man, and have some pride. Bad enough that you let your wife make a fool of you.

Perez, she knew, would only feel sympathy. She thought again he was more like a social worker or a priest.

Maurice looked up with sad, red eyes. ‘If you’re looking for your colleagues from Inverness, they went out early. They wanted to look at the ground near the Pund one last time. They said Ms Blake took footwear impressions from the track, but the heather’s long and they still haven’t found the knife. Sandy’s in the bird room.’ Then he rested his head in his hands as if the words had exhausted him.

Sarah got to her feet and began to clear the tables. Fran found a tray and began to help. ‘I’m your assistant for the day.’

‘Really, there’s no need.’ Sarah gave a quick, sharp smile. A touch of panic? What would she be frightened about? Sharing the place with a murderer. Of course that would be reason enough.

‘Trust me, there is. Another day at Springfield with Jimmy’s folks and I’d go quietly crazy.’

So Fran found herself in the field centre kitchen, peeling carrots to make soup, while Sarah was kneading dough for pizza.

‘Doesn’t it feel weird doing all this?’ Fran asked, the first thought that came into her head. ‘I mean, doesn’t it feel like stepping into a dead woman’s shoes? It always seemed to me that the kitchen was entirely Jane’s domain.’

Sarah stopped for just a moment and then returned to work, pressing the heel of her hand into the dough. Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows.

‘I’d never thought of it like that,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t have that sort of imagination. Maybe I need to work because it stops me worrying about what’s happened here. I mean, if you really thought about it, how could you carry on?’

‘Sharing supper with a murderer, you mean?’ Fran looked up but she didn’t stop slicing carrots. Nosy neighbour, that was the tone she was aiming for. And really, she’d once worked for a women’s magazine: she could do gossip as well as any Shetlander.

Sarah shook her head. ‘I really can’t believe anyone here killed two women. They seem so pleasant, so . . .’ she paused, ‘civilized, ordinary.’