‘I want to go to school. I have to go to school.’ One way of coping, Perez supposed. Hadn’t he gone into work to watch Sandy interview the witnesses? Though now, a couple of days on, he couldn’t understand how it had seemed important.

‘Miss Frazer will understand,’ Perez said. Miss Frazer was the head teacher at Ravenswick, had only been there for a couple of years. She and Fran had become friends.

‘I’m in the play,’ Cassie said patiently. ‘I’ve learned my words.’ Then: ‘Jessie will be missing me.’ Jessie, her best friend, granddaughter of Geordie, who took the visitors out to Mousa in his small boat.

‘Could you move into the Ravenswick house for a while?’ Perez talked to Duncan but was aware all the time that Cassie was listening. ‘It would probably be good to have things back to normal. I mean as normal as we can make them.’ He was still crying, wiped his face with his napkin, hoping that Cassie hadn’t noticed.

‘Sure.’ But there was some uncertainty in Duncan’s voice. He travelled a lot for work, didn’t really like to be tied down.

‘I’ll help,’ Perez said. ‘Any way I can.’

‘Fran’s parents are coming up,’ Duncan said. ‘Things will be easier then.’

But only for a while, Perez thought. It occurred to him that they might want to take Cassie with them back to London. They weren’t so old after all and Cassie was very fond of them. Perhaps that would be a solution. He knew they wouldn’t want to live in the islands. They were city people. But then might he lose contact with the girl altogether?

That evening, back at his small house right by the water in Lerwick, he drank whisky with his father and worried about Cassie. James was still there. Perez had half-heartedly tried a few times to send him home and was always relieved when the older man refused. ‘It’ll be good for the crew to manage without me.’ There was something comforting about the dourness of his father, the solidness of his body and his lack of imagination. Perez had given up his bed to him and slept on the sofa in the living room. It would have been impossible for him, anyway, to sleep in the bed he’d shared with Fran on occasion. He suspected his father knew that. Perhaps he had some imagination after all.

The next day Rhona Laing, the Fiscal, called Perez to see her. As always when he walked into her office, he felt as though he had mud on his boots, that in some way he was contaminating her clean and elegant space. ‘We have to discuss the case, Jimmy. I know it’ll be hard but it has to be done.’ No mention of Fran, no soft and easy words. He was grateful for that. ‘Perhaps you’re interested anyway.’