‘I have a question,’ he said. Caroline turned back to face him, startled. Perhaps she thought he’d gone out with the others. ‘You saw Eleanor with another man in a restaurant in Bloomsbury. Who else did you tell about that?’

‘I only talked to Eleanor about it.’ Caroline’s voice was clear and certain. ‘I don’t really do gossip. I have enough to think about without that.’

There was a brief silence. Perez supposed he should be panicking and out searching with the others, but in this room he felt quite calm. The worst thing in the world that could happen to him had already occurred when Fran died. He thought he wouldn’t panic ever again. Unless someone threatened Cassie, and now he couldn’t let himself think about that happening. ‘That’s not entirely true, is it? For instance, you told your husband that you’d seen Eleanor with the man.’

‘Lowrie doesn’t count.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘We share everything.’

Really? I don’t think I shared everything with Fran.

‘But he might have spoken to someone else,’ Perez said. ‘His friend Ian, for example. Perhaps he’d think it was his duty to tell his friend that his wife was seeing someone else. Lowrie knew what Eleanor was like, after all. She’d messed him around big-style when he was a student. Perhaps he saw an opportunity to get his revenge.’

The silence stretched, so he thought she might be considering the matter seriously, but when Caroline spoke her voice was dismissive. ‘Lowrie got over being dumped by Eleanor years ago. We were students. That’s how students behave. He’s with me now. I was happy enough when we were just living together, and he was the one who wanted the wedding and the hamefarin’. He wanted to be married to me.’ She tapped the palm of her hand on the windowsill to make her point. ‘Honestly. He’s the one who cares so much about family.’

Perez thought about that. About all these complicated families. About Lowrie, who’d threatened to kill himself over a dark and exotic woman from the south. And about Polly, who had nobody but the man and the friends who’d come with her to Shetland. He was still thinking when he got to his feet and left the house without speaking to Caroline again. He stood outside, just where the track began, and listened. Nothing. He waited for his ears to tune into the tiny sounds all around him. He still had Caroline’s hard English voice in his head, and it took him a while to hear through the silence. The first sound to emerge was water. Always in Shetland there was the background noise of water on the shore or falling as rain. During the day you could usually hear sheep too. And wind, but tonight there was no wind at all.