On the way back to the community hall, he noticed that the weather was changing. The wind was still there but it was intermittent, dropping at times almost to nothing, and the sky was brighter behind the cloud. In the hall he had to wait twenty minutes for Sarah Fowler. She’d arrived at her appointed time, but after hearing the helicopter overhead when he was interviewing Dougie, Perez had sent her back to the field centre.

‘Have a coffee. I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’m sorry.’ He hadn’t wanted sightseers when Angela’s body was being lifted into the aircraft.

Now she hurried in with a tight little smile of apology for keeping him waiting.

‘We got a lift back down the island. The lighthouse is such a long way from everything else, isn’t it?’ Her husband stood at the door of the hall looking in and she turned and gave him a wave as if to say she was fine. Perez thought the man would have liked to come in with her, to sit beside her holding her hand while the questions were being asked, but Fowler turned and shut the hall door behind him. Throughout the interview, Perez caught glimpses of him waiting outside. He stood there patient and still, occasionally raising his binoculars to his eyes.

Inside, Perez sat opposite Sarah Fowler and tried to find a way to make her relax. He felt constrained; perhaps it was the name, but she reminded him too much of his first wife to push her for answers about Angela Moore’s death. It wasn’t her physical appearance – his Sarah had been softer and rounder – but the air of anxiety, unhappiness even, that she carried around her. Her tension was contagious and when he took up a pen to make notes he saw his own hand was trembling slightly.

‘I’m sorry to have disrupted your holiday like this.’

She looked up sharply. It wasn’t what she’d been expecting.

‘You didn’t commit the murder, Inspector. You’re just doing your job.’ The words sounded brusque but he thought she was abrupt only because she was so nervous. He understood why her husband felt the need to protect her.

‘Has it been very awkward for you to extend your stay? I presume you too have work to get back to. Or are you involved in your husband’s business?’ To Perez, this felt less like a formal interview than an attempt to make small talk with a reluctant stranger.

‘Good lord, no! He hardly earns enough from selling books to keep himself.’ She paused. ‘I manage a Sure Start children’s centre on a council estate in Bristol. Challenging but I enjoy it.’ She paused. ‘At least until recently, when things got on top of me. The management thing is rather stressful, though the children make up for the bureaucratic hassle. I have great staff. They’ll cope without me.’

He stumbled to find something to say. The loss of a baby must have been almost unbearable for a woman who so much enjoyed the company of children. He found it hard to imagine this shy woman in charge of a bustling, noisy centre.