The door opened and Maurice came in. He was wearing a flannel shirt and a grey cardigan, cord trousers bagged at the knee, leather slippers. He looked like the crumpled academic he had been before moving to the Isle with his new young wife. Automatically, Jane switched on the kettle. Maurice and Angela had their own accommodation within the field centre, but he usually came into the big kitchen for coffee in the morning. Jane had a cafetière, ordered real coffee from Lerwick. He was the only person with whom she shared it.

‘The plane got off all right,’ he said.

‘Yes, I heard it.’ She paused, filled the cafetière, then lifted the scones out of the oven, just as the timer went off. ‘How many guests are left?’

Maurice had given the departing visitors and their luggage a lift to the plane in the Land Rover. ‘Only four,’ he said. ‘Ron and Sue Johns went out too. They’d heard the forecast and didn’t want to be stuck.’

Jane was transferring the scones on to a rack to cool. Maurice took one absent-mindedly, split it and spread it with butter.

‘Jimmy Perez was in today with his new woman,’ he went on, his mouth still full. ‘James and Mary were waiting for them. Poor girl! She looked as white as a sheet when she got out of the plane. And I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t have enjoyed a flight like that.’

Maurice was the centre administrator. The place carried out scientific work but it also provided accommodation for visiting naturalists or for people who were interested in experiencing the UK’s most remote inhabited island. During September the place had been full of birdwatchers. September was peak migration time and a week of easterly winds had brought in two species new to Britain and a handful of minor rarities. Now, in the middle of October, with the forecast showing fierce westerlies, the centre was almost empty. Maurice had taken early retirement from the university to act as a glorified B&B landlord. Jane wasn’t sure what he felt about that and it would never have occurred to her to pry.

But she did know that what he loved about the place was the gossip. Perhaps that wasn’t so very different from the slightly bitchy chat in a senior common room of a small college. He knew what was going on apparently without any effort at all. Jane had kept her distance from most of the islanders. She knew and liked Mary Perez, was occasionally invited to Springfield for lunch on her days off, but they were hardly close friends.

‘He’s the policeman, isn’t he?’ Jane wasn’t very interested. She looked at her watch. Half an hour to lunchtime. She lit the Calor gas under a big pan of soup, stirred it and replaced the lid.

‘That’s right. Mary was hoping he might come back when a croft became vacant a couple of years ago but he stayed out in Lerwick. If he doesn’t have a son he’ll be the last Perez in Shetland. There’s been a Perez in Fair Isle since the first one was washed ashore from a ship during the Spanish Armada.’