John Fowler was in the common room, a laptop on his knee, tapping away. Fowler had made a fuss when the police team from Inverness had insisted on looking at it. ‘This is my livelihood.’ All pompous as if none of the rest of them had to earn a living.

‘And this is a murder investigation,’ the leader had said. ‘If you prefer I can get a warrant and we’ll take it south with us.’ Fowler had handed over the machine quickly enough then. Dougie couldn’t see the point of paying to go away on holiday if you were just going to work.

Fowler looked up when Dougie walked into the room, logged off and shut down the computer.

‘Don’t mind me,’ Dougie said. As usual, Fowler looked very clean. As if he’d just stepped out of the shower and put on clothes fresh from the washing line and the iron. Hugh had looked very dapper recently too. Who was he trying to impress? Dougie didn’t really do ironing and he’d been here so long that all his clothes were dirty anyway. He’d need a trip to the launderette first thing when he got back. He didn’t mind the launderette. A couple of back copies of British Birds or Birding World and he was sweet.

‘No problem.’ Fowler shut the computer, put it away in the case. ‘I probably won’t sell it anyway.’

‘What are you writing then? A book?’

‘No, just an article. A travel piece on the field centre. It seems in poor taste now Angela’s dead.’

‘I don’t see why.’ Dougie thought the place would need all the visitors it could get after two unsolved murders. Because it seemed to him that the police were no closer to finding out what had happened to the women. Or were people such ghouls that they’d want to come just to see where Angela had died? He’d done his bit for the island anyway. There’d be birders who’d be attracted to Fair Isle because he’d seen the trumpeter swan there.

Lunch was pizza. Dougie liked pizza and positioned himself on the seat nearest to the serving hatch so he could be first in the line for seconds. Perez’s fiancée was there. She’d laid the tables and now she was standing beside Sarah Fowler and dishing out. Because his attention was on the food, it took him a while to realize that there was an argument. Ben, the assistant warden, and Hugh, bickering away like kiddies. Something about mud on the bird room floor. Though it seemed to Dougie that wasn’t really what it was about at all. The tension of the situation had finally got to them.

‘Didn’t it occur to you to clear up your own mess?’ Ben, flushed and indignant, half-stood and leaned across the table.