He nodded again. Then he spoke just to stop her. It would be easy enough to sit in the traditional Shetland chair with its high wooden back and listen, but he thought she must be exhausted with this need to fill the silence with all those words. He felt it was his responsibility to give her a rest.

‘It seems that Jerry Markham had changed,’ Perez said. It came to him that this was gossip of a kind too. Unsubstantiated gossip. They only had Annabel’s and her father’s word that it was true. Willow had asked Sandy to get details of the vicar, and other members of the congregation, so they could check it out. ‘He’d joined a church in London and had found a girlfriend there.’ Jessie and Francis stared at him.

Again it was Jessie who spoke first. ‘That doesn’t sound like the Jerry Markham we knew.’ Her voice was unsympathetic. She needed to save all her concern for her daughter.

‘I wondered if he’d been in touch with you. Perhaps he’d sent you a letter. An apology for the way he’d treated Evie.’

‘No,’ Jessie said. ‘There was nothing of that kind. And it would take more than a letter to make me feel differently about him. You didn’t see Evie at the time that he left her. You didn’t see how thin and ill she looked.’

Perez turned to the man who was still standing, his back to the stove. ‘Francis? Did you hear from Jerry Markham?’

‘Markham would know better than to try to contact me.’ Watt’s mouth snapped shut like a trap.

‘Peter Markham told me that you’d met him in the street a little while ago,’ Perez said. ‘He told me that you were on friendly terms then.’

‘I had no quarrel with the father,’ Watt said. ‘No reason not to be polite to the man.’

And at that Jessie Watt started talking again about Francis’s work. ‘They’re going to put one of his yoals in a museum in Bergen. Imagine that! He has a waiting list of folk wanting to buy boats from him.’ And then even she lapsed into silence and stared out of the window at Willow and her daughter, walking along the beach. They all watched as Willow put her arm round Evie’s shoulder and started back with her along the path across the field towards the house.

Willow and Perez had to wait a while for the ferry back to Yell and sat in the car at the pier, sharing notes.

‘How was the girl?’ Perez asked.

‘Angry. And who can blame her.’ The walk along the beach had given Willow some colour. She looked fitter, healthier. ‘I don’t think she had any idea that Markham had taken up with Annabel Grey, though. That was a complete surprise.’

‘And she still says that she never met him after he arrived back?’