‘I got a holiday job at the Ravenswick Hotel,’ she said. ‘I was thrilled to pieces. I’d looked at other waitressing jobs, but Peter and Maria paid well and I liked them. And I could live in.’

‘You didn’t want to spend your last summer in Shetland on Fetlar with your folks?’

‘I knew it wouldn’t be my last summer in Shetland,’ she said. ‘I always knew this would be my permanent home. I suppose I was ready for some independence. An adventure.’

It wasn’t much of an adventure, Perez thought. Other kids might pick grapes in Europe or go backpacking across Africa, but Evie had settled for a job in a Shetland mainland hotel. Perhaps she guessed what he was thinking, because she grinned. ‘I was a home bird,’ she said. ‘I hated living in the hostel at school, so really the Ravenswick job was a big deal. I felt very grown-up.’

‘Was Jerry Markham living at home then?’

‘He had a flat in Lerwick because he was working on the Shetland Times, but he spent two or three nights a week in the hotel. He was an only child. I thought he was being kind, coming home to spend time with his parents, but it was probably the free food and drink that brought him back to the hotel. He never paid for anything while he was there.’ Evie poured more coffee into Perez’s mug.

‘How did the two of you get together?’ Perez asked.

‘I fancied him rotten from the first time I met him.’ She smiled again. ‘I was a late starter when it came to the lads. I didn’t have a boyfriend at school. Jerry was older than me, a graduate, with a good job. He seemed to know everything – about films and books and music. I never thought that we might go out together. He was a fantasy. So sophisticated! I dreamed about him, blushed every time he came close to me. I suppose he realized and decided he’d have a bit of fun with me.’

‘Perhaps he liked you,’ Perez said. ‘There’d be lots of girls in Shetland he could have fun with.’

She shot him a grateful glance. ‘Aye, maybe.’ She paused. ‘There was a bit of a do for the staff at the hotel. The chef’s birthday party. After hours, when the bar had closed to the visitors. The energy you have when you’re young! I knew I’d have to be up at six to serve the breakfasts, but still I stayed up drinking most of the night.’

Perez smiled. Evie Watt still seemed very young to him. But he didn’t want to interrupt the story.