‘Yes!’ Dougie felt himself flush. Would Perez assume that was a sign of guilt? He couldn’t help himself. He always blushed like a girl when he was nervous. In the distance he thought he heard the sound of the plane coming in. Jane had said there’d be no flights today, but perhaps she’d got that wrong. Would it be full of birders? He wanted to be on the hill to meet it, to show the incomers his find.

But Perez still had questions: ‘Were there any feathers in the bird room? Was Angela working with them?’

‘That night? No.’

‘Any time?’

Dougie knew what this was about. Ben had described the feathers in the hair. ‘I don’t understand why there should be. Unless there was some special study I knew nothing about.’

‘Was Hugh asleep when you went back to the dormitory?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you have heard him if he left the room in the night?’

‘No,’ Dougie said. ‘It takes me a long time to get to sleep, but when I finally go off, I sleep like the dead.’

Chapter Sixteen

In the field centre kitchen Jane made a cottage pie. Easy to prepare and also Maurice’s favourite. She’d do a veggie chilli for Ben. Jane was starting to worry about Maurice, who was still holed up in the flat and who hadn’t really eaten anything the previous day. The community nurse had come up to the lighthouse the morning that Angela had been found dead and offered sedatives, but Maurice had refused to see her: ‘I don’t need her pills. I don’t need tranquillizing. I don’t want to forget my wife.’

Now, Jane wondered if she should get the nurse back. The woman was chatty, easy-going and she was probably the source of many of the rumours floating round the island about Angela’s murder. She’d be happy enough to call in. But it was unlikely that Maurice would be persuaded to see her, and Jane didn’t want to provide more fodder for the Fair Isle gossip machine. She put the pie in the larder to keep cool and phoned Mary Perez. Mary had been the island nurse before she became a full-time crofter and Maurice had always got on well with her. No reason why Jane shouldn’t invite her to the North Light for coffee and try to persuade Maurice out of the flat to meet her.

While she waited for the woman to arrive, Jane went upstairs to make beds and tidy rooms. In the height of the season they’d employed a young woman from Belfast to do the cleaning, but now Jane looked after all the domestic chores. It wasn’t too onerous this week. Two rooms: the small dormitory where Dougie and Hugh slept and the twin belonging to the Fowlers. The staff looked after themselves, though sometimes Jane took pity on Ben Catchpole and did his laundry.