At first Fran thought she’d misheard. Then again thought this was all nonsense, the hysteria of a woman on the edge of a breakdown: ‘Sarah, what is this about? You must tell Jimmy what you know.’ She felt impatient, wanted to take Sarah by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.

‘No!’ And the woman repeated more loudly, though still hardly more than a whisper: ‘He’ll kill me.’

‘Then talk to me.’

A door banged. The door from the flat to the public area of the field centre. Sarah started, like an animal at a sudden noise, and ran away, through the lobby and out into the dusk.

Fran stood in the middle of the kitchen. In this domestic setting, with the smell of treacle pudding and steak pie, the theatrical quality of the situation seemed ridiculous. Again she found herself irritated. It was like dealing with an irrational, nervy child. Two women had already been killed but surely Sarah was safer in here, surrounded by people, than wandering around outside in the dark. The cliffs north and west of the lighthouse were as steep as anywhere on the island. There were jagged splits in the land that let in the sea. Fran could still hear heated voices in the common room.

She went to the door intending to find Jimmy – he needed to know what Sarah had told her and that she was outside playing the stupid female. But Perez’s attention was on Hugh and as she watched he marched the younger man towards the bird room. Then Maurice appeared and insisted with a persistence quite unlike him that they should talk. She saw the field centre administrator through the open door; he was standing in front of the others in the corridor and she noticed the hole in the elbow of his sweater, the beads of sweat on his forehead. What was his problem? Didn’t he realize Jimmy was busy? She was tempted to call Maurice to ask him to help her search for Sarah, but he walked away towards the flat.

The bird room door closed. Jimmy wouldn’t forgive her for interrupting now. It occurred to her that he was about to arrest Hugh for the murders. Fran looked at her watch. Half an hour until supper and everything in the kitchen was ready. She’d left her coat and boots in the cupboard next to the larder. She pulled them on and followed Sarah outside.