For a second the old curiosity kicked in: Where did he get the knife? Did he pick it up from the kitchen on the way through or is it what he was intending all along? He couldn’t allow the woman to speak. The light came back, pulsing and regular as a heartbeat. This time Perez almost screamed himself because now the silhouette was moving; the arm slashed and chopped, mechanical as the engine that moved the reflector in the lighthouse. If the killer had begun as a rational man, he’d certainly lost all reason now. How could he do that to his wife? The woman he claimed to adore? More darkness.

Behind him, Perez heard someone yelling. Sandy. Good. It would take two of them to restrain the man. As he ran, thoughts and images rattled around his head. Sandy was the stronger: once they had the knife, he could control John Fowler and then Perez would comfort Fran. He’d hold her and wrap his jacket around her shoulders and tell her she would never have to deal with anything like this again. He wouldn’t expose her to more violence or danger. Perez thought he would have to resign now; Fran wouldn’t like it, but he’d insist. Despite the chase, the stumbling, the gasping for breath, he felt a sudden and immense relief. How strangely the mind worked under stress! So the decision was made. There would be no more police work. That part of his life was over.

Sandy was younger and fitter and had already overtaken him. He must have grabbed a torch on his way out, because the light bounced ahead of them and captured the three people on the shore of the loch. They were posed like a sculpture. One of those pieces in white marble Fran had dragged him to see in a gallery the last time they were south. One figure was standing, one sitting and one lying. Fowler was standing and his arm was by his side. He’d dropped the knife, which was hidden somewhere in the tussocky grass. His head was bent as if he was praying and he seemed quite calm.

Perez lost his mind for a moment. He heard screaming in his ears and knew it was his own. When he came to he found himself in a frenzy, scrabbling in the boggy water for the knife. If he’d found it he would have killed the man. It was only Sandy’s voice that brought him to his senses. Because the sitting figure was Sarah Fowler and the statue on the floor, pale and bleeding, was Fran. Sandy was already bending over her, his mobile in his hand, shouting for an ambulance flight. A helicopter. ‘Just get us a fucking doctor.’ Perez took off his jacket as he’d planned he would, wrapped it around Fran and held her in his arms.

Chapter Thirty-eight