‘I’d like to talk about Jerry Markham first.’ Perez took his coffee and set it carefully on the floor at his side. ‘You knew him.’ Not a question. Joe Sinclair knew everyone in Shetland. ‘What did you make of him?’

There was a moment of silence. It wasn’t the question Joe had been expecting. But he was accustomed to people asking for his opinion and he answered readily enough. ‘He wasn’t a bad lad. Spoilt rotten, and that wasn’t his fault. Maria ruined him, and Peter would never stand up to her. It left Jerry with an unfortunate manner. Arrogant. He always managed to rub folk up the wrong way.’

‘You came across him when he was working on the Shetland Times?’

‘He turned up occasionally, sniffing out stories. Hoping for something from me when Andy Belshaw sent him away with a flea in his ear.’ Joe paused. ‘Andy was one of the people he managed to irritate.’

‘Anything specific?’

Joe smiled sadly. ‘There was a minor incident at the terminal. A bit of a spill. Not even big enough for us to put the boom across the voe. But Jerry turned it into a disaster and sold the story to one of the broadsheets in the south. That gave Andy a lot of hassle with his managers, who wanted to know why he’d let the thing blow out of proportion. Jerry was never his favourite person after that.’

‘Yet Jerry was in the terminal the afternoon before he died. Andy met him and showed him round.’ Perez wasn’t sure how important this was, but wished he knew what Jerry had been doing at the terminal, wished there was a notebook, fragments of an article on a laptop, to point them in the right direction.

‘Mr Markham was a hotshot reporter these days. Andy could hardly turn him away.’

‘Did you know Jerry was back in Shetland?’

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘I haven’t been down at the Ravenswick Hotel for months.’ He gave a brief grin. ‘I can’t afford the prices in the bar these days.’

‘John didn’t mention him?’ Perez finished his coffee, wondered if he needed more.

Joe shook his head. ‘But then John wouldn’t. He was the most private man I’ve ever met. If Markham was trying to get in touch, nobody else would know about it.’

‘Markham didn’t call in here the afternoon he died?’

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘I was working that day and, like I said, I didn’t even know he was back.’ He paused and studied the photo of his family on his desk. ‘Something odd did happen.’

‘Yes?’ Outside the office window, Perez saw that the weather was changing again. A front was coming in, bringing a westerly breeze and scraps of cloud.