Fowler shrugged. ‘Much as she always was. Driven, abrasive, entertaining.’

‘Why would anyone want to kill her?’ It had seemed to Perez, despite the strange show with the feathers, that this was a crime with a rational motive. Apparently, there’d been no sexual assault on Angela. He didn’t believe they could blame a madman enraged by the storm.

‘I don’t think I’m the right person to ask, Inspector.’ Fowler’s voice was quite distant now, though he was as polite as ever. It was as if the interview was beginning to bore him. ‘I hardly knew the woman.’

Perez took a break before calling the next witness into the dining room. He poured another mug of coffee and on impulse carried it outside for a moment in an attempt to raise his energy level. He had to put his weight behind the door to get it open and even in the lee of the building, the force of the wind made him gasp for breath. The noise of the sea thundered and echoed, driving speculation about the case from his brain. It was replaced by a moment of despair. I can’t do this. Not on my own. He’d never found formal interviews, the sterile question-and-answer session with the witness defensive and on guard, particularly useful. Here, he thought, he had no control at all and no sense of what the suspects were thinking. This was his island, but in the North Light the writer, the scientists and the birdwatchers were on home territory. They had the advantage. Somehow he had to shift the balance of power.

He walked briskly into the common room. They had heard his approaching footsteps on the wooden floors and when he entered the place was quiet; everyone seemed to be concentrating on the papers in front of them. They looked up. Who would be next?

‘A change of plan,’ he said. It seemed to him that his voice was unnaturally loud. ‘I have to go back to Springfield. There’s been a call from Inverness. We’ll continue tomorrow, but I’ll set up base in the community hall. Then I disrupt the working of the field centre as little as possible. I’ll phone when I’m ready. If I could collect your statements now . . .’

He stalked away, the papers in one hand, feeling like a teacher in a rough school struggling to maintain authority in his class. He had reached his car when Jane called after him. He saw her in the light that spilled out from the lobby. She had thrown a coat over her shoulders but was still wearing indoor shoes. She ran to join him. ‘Jimmy, can I talk to you? I’ve remembered something. Probably not important, but I thought you should know.’

They sat in Big James’s rust-pocked car, battered by the wind. Occasionally he had to ask Jane to speak up so he could hear her.

‘It was something Angela said at lunchtime the day before she died.’ Jane was looking ahead of her through the windscreen, though it was quite black outside. Perez had switched on the interior lamp, had been astonished when it worked, so they talked in that pale, rather flickering light. ‘She said someone had been into the bird room and disturbed her papers. Something she was working on. She was furious. I mean, incandescent. It wasn’t unknown for her to manufacture rage, just because she was bored, but this was the real thing.’