‘I’ll be talking to everyone,’ Perez said sharply. ‘And I’ll run the investigation in my own way. I’ll begin the interviews this evening.’ He handed sheets of paper around the table. ‘In the meantime, I’d be grateful if you could write down everything you can remember about yesterday evening. I’ll need a timetable of your own movements after the party, but anything else that might be relevant. Perhaps there was an overheard conversation that has become more significant in the light of Angela’s death. Or perhaps you noticed someone moving around the lighthouse late last night. Please don’t discuss the matter with fellow guests. It shouldn’t be the subject of speculation. And be honest. As I said this is an unusual situation, but it isn’t a game.’

He turned to Jane and for the first time since arriving he smiled. ‘Would it be possible to have more coffee? It’s going to be a long night.’

Chapter Thirteen

Perez thought this was the most difficult case he’d ever worked. Here, stranded in the North Light, it was as if he was working in a strange country; it even seemed that the witnesses spoke a foreign language and he was groping to make sense of the words. He understood for the first time how difficult it must have been for Roy Taylor, his colleague from Inverness, to come into Shetland and take charge of an investigation there. The place would have seemed quite alien to him. Perez knew how Shetlanders thought. He could see the world through their eyes. The field centre staff and guests were English and had different ambitions and preoccupations. In a sudden fancy, he thought that the building was like an outpost of Empire during the time of the Raj; he felt like a native official bridging the gap between both cultures.

He moved everyone from the dining room to the common room. They would be more comfortable there and he could use the dining room to interview his witnesses. He preferred to sit on an upright chair with the table between him and his interviewee, rather than slouched on a sofa, his knees touching those of his suspect. Because of course they were all suspects. That was the only way he could consider them at the moment. He knew it was unlikely that the field centre residents would sit in silence in the common room; they would discuss what was going on as soon as he left the room. Their written statements would be compromised. But it was the best he could do.

Fran had offered to come back to the field centre with him: ‘I could help. I’m observant. I could watch them and listen to what was said. Make notes without their realizing.’ But he wasn’t sure information gathered in that way would be considered admissible evidence. And one woman had been murdered already. He wasn’t going to place Fran in danger again.

He asked John Fowler to join him first in the dining room. Why had he made that choice? It was a random decision made partly because quiet people always interested him, and Fowler had hardly spoken over coffee. Also, he seemed amiable and Perez could do without a hostile conversation to kick off the evening.