‘Well, we’d better get you back then, to the old house in Ravenswick.’ He set Cassie on the floor and took the handle of Fran’s suitcase. At that moment he thought he’d do anything to look after this family and keep it together. He’d kill for it. ‘Didn’t you have to pay excess baggage on this?’

‘Nah, I chatted up that pretty boy on check-in at Dyce.’

It was then, as they walked together towards the exit, that Perez realized that another person connected with Whalsay had been on the Aberdeen plane. Standing at the car rental counter, filling in a form, frowning slightly, was Paul Berglund.

Chapter Forty-one

Anna Clouston walked up the hill towards the hall. She felt oddly liberated without the baby. Lighter and lightheaded. A pool of mist had gathered in the low ground by the loch, so it looked as if the hall was stranded on its own island. Even the landscape seemed different.

When she opened the door she was surprised that Evelyn was the only person there. The trestle tables had been pushed together to run along the long side of the hall and Evelyn was covering them with white cloths, shaking the material out so they flapped like sails. Smaller tables had been set, cafe-style, in the middle of the hall. The speakers would have the best chairs at one end, with a table for their notes, and there was a screen and data projector. The urn was already hissing for tea. Everything was organized and efficient.

Evelyn was wearing an apron, but Anna could tell she’d dressed up for the occasion. She had green dangly earrings, little court shoes with heels.

‘What would you like me to do?’

‘You can fetch me the cups and saucers from the cupboard,’ Evelyn said. Then: ‘Sandy’s picked Gwen James up from Sumburgh. He gave her a tour of the island – showed her the Bod and the dig at Setter, the place where Hattie died. It seems kind of ghoulish but she wanted to see it. She’s in the Pier House now getting ready. He’ll give her a lift up just before we start.’

‘Right.’ Anna couldn’t understand how Gwen James could bear to be here. If anything had happened to her son, if he had been found in a hole in the ground like that, Anna wouldn’t want to be paraded in the hall in front of staring people, all of them strangers. She wouldn’t want to eat meringues and drink weak tea. What sort of mother could this woman be?

She set the cups and saucers out close to the urn, wiping each one with a clean tea towel as she brought it out of the cupboard, just as the island women always did.

‘I’m surprised you’ve not got more helpers,’ she said.