‘I have remembered one thing.’ It was Sandy – tentative, still eager to please. There was a silence while he gathered his thoughts. ‘It’s probably not important. The night Rhona Laing found Jerry’s body in the yoal, the night we assume his car was taken to the car park in Vatnagarth.’ He paused to catch his breath. ‘Well, that was when Evie Watt had her hennie do. Her women friends in a minibus, all out on the lash. A three-legged pub-crawl raising money for charity. I saw them on the road to Voe. Maybe some of them saw something? The car?’ When there was no response he added, ‘I know it’s a long shot.’

‘It’s hard to imagine Evie Watt getting bladdered,’ Willow said.

‘She was throwing up by the side of the road when I saw her.’ Sandy frowned. ‘I didn’t recognize her at the time, but it came to me later that I knew her.’ A pause. ‘Maybe she wasn’t used to it.’

‘Or someone spiked her drink.’ Perez remembered the photo of Evie in the animal suit in her house. She’d been pulling faces, looking rather odd.

‘How would we get a list of the women on the bus?’ Willow asked. ‘I wouldn’t want to trouble Evie or her family again.’

Perez thought she couldn’t face the Watts again so soon. It was more about that than sparing their feelings.

‘We could ask Jen Belshaw,’ Sandy said. ‘She was on the bus.’ He turned to Willow. ‘They were talking about her in the bar in Voe when we stopped there for lunch on Saturday. Don’t you remember?’

She shook her head.

‘Jen Belshaw,’ Perez said. ‘Married to Andy Belshaw, the press officer at Sullom Voe. Works as school cook at Aith, where the first body was found. Volunteers in Vatnagarth, where Markham’s car was found. Rows in the same team as the Fiscal at the regattas. You didn’t think to mention before that she was with Evie Watt on Friday night? Providing her maybe with an alibi for Markham’s murder?’ He’d raised his voice, but really he was angrier with himself than with Sandy. He’d intended to interview Jen, but then Annabel Grey had turned up and he’d forgotten to follow that thread of the inquiry.

‘It’s not just Jen Belshaw that’s providing the alibi.’ Sandy was fighting back. ‘It’s a minibus full of pissed women, in fancy dress and all tied to each other. Honestly, I don’t see how Evie Watt could have moved that car on Friday night, even if she was sober.’

He sounded so self-righteous, and the picture he painted was so silly, that the mood in the room lightened again and Willow started to giggle.