‘Once, I think, at a publisher’s party. I used to write features for specialist journals.’

‘You’re a journalist?’ Perez looked up sharply. ‘These interviews are confidential. I wouldn’t want what’s said here to appear in a newspaper.’

‘I wouldn’t do that to her family.’ Fowler was staring out of the window. ‘Besides, I’m never asked to write anything these days. I seem to have gone out of favour. And I didn’t write much for the dailies: only occasionally features on natural history.’

Perez supposed he would have to trust the man but he thought every journalist would like a story in a big paper, his name in bold, next to the headline. And Fowler would be very quickly back in favour if the nationals realized he was here. ‘So why was Angela at the publisher’s party?’

‘It was to celebrate the launch of her book. They were hoping for publicity. A review.’

‘That was when Angela’s book on the curlew was published?’ Perez felt he was having to prise information from the man. Perhaps the tape recorder was a mistake and there would have been a more relaxed conversation without it.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you write a review?’

‘I did. I’m afraid it was less than generous.’

‘It’s not a good book?’

‘You’ll have to read it, Inspector, and judge for yourself.’ He looked up and gave a brief smile.

‘Did Angela recognize you when you arrived at the lighthouse?’ Perez asked. He still didn’t know where these questions were leading. Again he thought this was a world about which he knew nothing. He could talk to crofters about their sheep and fishermen about the piltock, but these writers and birdwatchers were strange and incomprehensible to him.

‘She knew my name, but probably didn’t remember having met me.’

‘And you got on all right, despite the poor review?’

‘Of course, Inspector. She had become a famous woman. She had no reason to bear a grudge. She no longer needed my approval.’

It seemed to Perez that Angela was a woman who might bear a grudge for a long time. He looked at the sheet of paper on the table in front of him and saw he’d written nothing.

‘How do you make your living now?’ he asked.

‘Still through books, Inspector. But now I collect them and sell them, I don’t write about them. I have a little natural history bookshop. Most of my work is done over the Internet these days of course, but there are still devoted customers who like to browse. I’m very fortunate to be able to indulge my passion and call it work.’

Perez wondered if that was what he did. Did he indulge his passion, his curiosity at least, and call it work?

‘You were at the party here last night,’ he said. The Fowlers had introduced themselves, offered their congratulations and said how lovely it was that all the guests had been invited, but he had no memory of them dancing. Perhaps they’d stayed long enough to be polite, then gone to bed. ‘How did Angela seem to you then?’