‘And he had a terrible temper,’ Perez went on. ‘Maria confirmed that, didn’t she, Sandy? I wanted you to ask her about Francis coming to the hotel when he found out that Evie was pregnant. She’d told me that he’d been foaming at the mouth with rage, but that’s the sort of thing people say. I needed to know if it was true.’

‘It was your third question for her,’ Sandy said. ‘Maria said Francis was wild, raving. He hit Peter and gave him a black eye. She’d wanted to make a formal complaint, but Peter wouldn’t hear of it.’

‘Francis couldn’t stand the idea that Henderson’s affair with the Fiscal might be made public,’ Perez said. ‘But he was much more bothered that Markham would tell Evie about it and spoil her wedding than with any notion of public shame. As Francis saw it, the man had already ruined his daughter’s life once. And Markham threatened to tell Evie everything. He thought it would be the right thing to do, that Evie deserved to understand that John wasn’t as perfect as she assumed him to be. The idea of it drove Francis mad. He was delighted that Evie was marrying the man everyone thought they knew: John Henderson, man of religion and the closest thing to a saint there is in the islands. John Henderson who’d nursed his dying wife. Imagine the scandal there’d be if folk found out that he’d been slipping off on Friday nights to have recreational sex with a stuck-up soothmoother. And how would Evie feel about it? Francis thought she’d be so devastated that she’d cancel the wedding. And, without John’s support, she’d never return to Fetlar and take over the family business. It would be the end of his world.’

The peats in the fire shifted and smoked.

‘There had always been rumours that Rhona Laing had a secret lover,’ Perez went on. ‘A dark stranger who arrived by boat and disappeared again before first light. It wasn’t quite like that, but the storytellers almost got it right. And we know that Ms Laing wasn’t squeamish about adultery. She’d had a relationship with Richard Grey after all. Then Agnes died, and the affair with Henderson ended and Markham went off to London, and the Fiscal must have thought it was all over and forgotten.’

‘I don’t understand where Markham came into it in the first place.’ Willow reached out and took a slug of whisky.