Blue Lightning (7 page)
‘Not just yet. There’ll still be too much of a swell. And I can’t see the plane making it either. The chopper might be OK. And the day after should be fine. Everything should be back to normal by then.’
Except
, Perez thought,
that there’s a dead woman padlocked in our shed and I still have to find her killer. Not normal at all.
Dougie Barr listened to the late-night shipping forecast on the old transistor radio in the dormitory. At home, the precise voice listing the sea areas sent him to sleep.
When he was working, what did it matter which way the wind was blowing? Here, it mattered very much. In the next couple of days the weather would change. There’d be a still, cold period. A time of fieldfares and redwings and snow buntings. The birdwatchers gathered in Shetland waiting for the wind to drop, so they could charter boats and planes to get to Fair Isle, would have heard the forecast too. He almost wished he could be with them, sitting in the bars in Lerwick or in the Sumburgh Hotel, reminiscing over other crazy twitches, near misses and serendipitous finds. He would like to share the mounting excitement and tension. But then he wouldn’t have found the trumpeter swan. His name wouldn’t appear in the British Birds rarity report. He wouldn’t be the envy of every birder in Britain.
Sitting on his bed, he unbuttoned his shirt and caught snatches of conversation coming from the common room below him. Ben and Hugh were sitting up drinking; there was a sudden outburst of laughter. Dougie felt excluded, frozen out. The old paranoia:
They’re laughing at me. Because I’m not as bright as them. Because I have to work for a living.
It had been the same since he was a child, the chubby boy in the playground, teased and bullied. He stood up and looked out at the window, had an almost overwhelming impulse to force his fist through the glass. He imagined the noise, the pain as shards pierced his skin, almost to the bone, the sensation of wind rushing through the splintered gap. With a great effort, he took off his trousers and folded them on the back of a chair, climbed under the duvet, shut his eyes very tight and thought of Angela’s silky black hair and long, brown hands. He pictured her naked body. But the image failed to work its old magic. Instead he thought of her staring through her heavy polythene shroud – because of course details of her leaving the lighthouse had leaked out – with lifeless eyes.
Downstairs, the conversation continued. There was another explosion of laughter. On an impulse, Dougie got up and dressed. He stormed downstairs, just as his mother had done on occasion when he was still living at home and had been foolhardy enough to invite friends round. She’d appear at the living room door in her dressing gown and slippers, her face blotchy with indignation and embarrassment: ‘Do you mind keeping the noise down, our Dougie? Some of us have got work to go to in the morning.’ As if he hadn’t worked for a living.
The big generator had been turned off for the night and he used a torch to see himself down the stairs. In the common room a Tilley lamp stood on the table and someone had put candles on the mantelpiece. The fire had been banked up with peat but the central heating had gone off and there was a chill in the room.
He’d only expected to see Hugh and Ben, but John Fowler was there too and Dougie was thrown by that. The man was older than him and it didn’t seem right to make a fuss, to complain about the noise. He’d make himself look bad-tempered, stupid even. Instead Dougie poured himself a whisky and went to join them, as if he’d been up all the time. He didn’t drink much; he preferred the taste of the soft drink Jane got in specially when she knew he was staying. Perhaps it was the whisky that made the whole episode seem like a dream when he thought about it later.
He thought Hugh must have started the game. It was his style. There was an empty wine bottle on the table and Hugh turned it on its side and began to spin it. The light from the Tilley reflected in the moving green glass.
‘Have you ever played the truth game?’ Surely that must have been Hugh? There’d be the easy smile. They’d all been drinking though, and later Dougie thought it could have been any of them. Except Dougie himself. He’d never have suggested playing that sort of game. He remembered the taunts he’d endured when he was still at school, the questions he’d refused to answer: ‘Have you ever had a girl, Fat Dougie? Or are you still a virgin? Who’d want you, after all?’
None of them answered, but Hugh took no notice. He twisted the bottle again, more violently. When it stopped, the neck was pointed towards Ben.
‘You’re the first victim, Ben,’ Hugh said, grinning. ‘The rest of us get a question each.’
‘Surely there’s no guarantee that he’ll tell the truth.’ John Fowler was leaning back in his seat and his face was in shadow. ‘How would the rest of us know if he was lying?’
‘Oh, we’d know,’ Hugh said. ‘Most people are very bad liars.’
Perhaps it was the situation. The candlelight flickering in the inevitable draughts, the memory of Angela’s body lying for most of the day in the room next door. Perhaps they were afraid of provoking Hugh. But none of them refused to play. Nobody said:
This is ridiculous, childish, let’s just go to bed.
We should be celebrating a new bird, Dougie thought. Instead we’re sitting round like mad old ladies at a seance. After his dad died, his mother had got into spiritualism for a while and she’d brought some seriously weird people back to the house. They’d sat with their fingers touching in the dark, crouched in the front room of their suburban council house, believing they were conjuring up spirits.
‘I’ll ask a question,’ John Fowler said. He leaned forward and the buttery candlelight slid down his forehead and over his chin. ‘Did you kill Angela Moore?’
Ben’s head shot up. For a moment Dougie thought he would hit the man. ‘No! I’d never have hurt her.’
‘Your question, Dougie.’ It sounded as if Hugh was laughing. Dougie didn’t look at him, but he knew the smile would be there, the white teeth gleaming out of the shadow.
Dougie didn’t know what to ask. He was just dreading his turn as victim. ‘Have you ever done anything you’re ashamed of?’ Where had that question come from?
Ben turned to face him. ‘Once,’ he said. Then: ‘I betrayed some friends.’
‘When was that?’ It was John Fowler. Dougie thought you could tell he’d been a journalist. You could imagine him sniffing out stories.
‘I’ve answered the question, haven’t I? No need to go into details.’ In the candlelight it looked as if Ben’s hair was on fire. ‘What about you, Hugh? What do you want to know?’
‘Did you love her?’
‘Who?’
‘Angela, of course. We’re all thinking about her.’
No hesitation. ‘Yes.’
Oh, Dougie thought. She’d have enjoyed that. Nothing Angela liked better than unquestioning devotion. And nothing she despised more.
John Fowler reached out and twisted the bottle, a deft movement that Dougie in this heightened mood thought looked like someone wringing the neck of a chicken. He watched the spinning glass, saw it stop. It was halfway between him and Hugh but he wanted this over. He couldn’t stand the waiting. ‘My turn then,’ he said. He felt he couldn’t breathe. The questions would be about sex. Or about Angela, which came to the same thing.
Hugh stared at him. ‘Did you kill Angela Moore?’
Dougie relaxed. ‘No.’ An easy question. And Hugh was the mischief-maker. If any of them was going to turn him into a figure of fun, it would be Hugh.
He turned to face the others. Now the worst was over he was almost enjoying being the centre of attention. John Fowler was watching him. It was out of character for the man to be here, playing a stupid adolescent game. Usually Fowler went to bed early with his wife. Straight after the cocoa and the biscuits and the calling of the log. Why was he here? Did he think they’d like him, accept him and believe his records again, just because he stopped up drinking with them? But Fowler didn’t speak and it was Ben who asked the next question.
‘Do you know who killed Angela?’
Dougie paused for a moment, but suspicion wasn’t knowledge. ‘No.’ He looked at John again, waiting for the last question.
‘Have you ever strung a bird?’ Fowler asked. ‘Have you claimed a record you weren’t sure about?’
It was the last thing Dougie had been expecting. Fowler was the stringer, not him.
‘Well?’ Fowler said gently. Hugh looked on, smiling.
Dougie was tempted to lie, but he could feel himself blushing.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Will you tell us about it?’ Fowler again. Like some priest, encouraging confession.
‘No.’ Dougie reached out and spun the bottle. It jerked and bounced on the table. When it stopped it was pointed directly at Hugh.
Dougie found that stupid, demeaning questions were running through his head. The sort of questions the bullies at school might have asked. ‘Have you ever pissed yourself? Fancied a bloke?’ But in the end, the worst question he could think of was the one he’d just been asked.
‘Are
you
a stringer?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
He’s lying
, Dougie thought.
We’ve all exaggerated a record at some point in our birding life
. Hugh seemed as still and white as if he’d been carved from ice.
‘Have you ever been in love?’ That from Ben, who was leaning forward across the table.
‘No!’ The answer swift and contemptuous.
‘Do you hate anyone?’ Fowler’s question was courteous, interested.
Hugh paused for a moment. Dougie thought he wasn’t considering the answer. It was clear he had that immediately. He was wondering whether he should share the information with them.
‘Yes,’ Hugh said at last. ‘I hate my father. I always have.’
He reached out and Dougie thought he was planning to spin the bottle again, though surely it was Fowler’s turn to be the victim and there was no need. Instead Hugh picked up the bottle and set it upright on the floor beside him.
‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘It’s time to go to bed.’
‘Hey.’ Fowler looked round at them all. ‘What about me? Don’t I get a go?’
‘We’re not interested in you.’ Hugh sounded like a spoilt toddler. ‘We don’t care what you have to say.’
As soon as it was light Dougie was at Golden Water to check that the swan was still there. He’d left Hugh asleep. The boy’s mobile phone was on the table by the side of his bed, set to silent, but it had vibrated just as Dougie was getting up. Dougie had looked at the caller ID, thinking it might be a birder he knew wanting more information.
Dad,
the display read. The father Hugh claimed to hate. The father who’d paid for his travels and his smart school and was probably subsidizing his stay in the North Light.
Spoiled brat
, Dougie thought again.
The clouds were higher, less dense, and the wind wasn’t quite as strong: the water on the pool was ruffled but not as choppy as the previous day. The swan was at the east side of the pond. He saw it immediately and tried to decide what he thought about that. Was he pleased that the waiting birdwatchers still had a chance to see it? Or disappointed? Would the bird be devalued if it was seen by more people? He thought he was pleased. The worst scenario would be for it to fly on to Shetland mainland, where the birders would see it without having to make the pilgrimage to the Isle.
He attached his digital camera to his telescope and took photographs of the swan. The image stabilizers factored out the windshake. These would be good, clear photographs and there’d be a market for them in birding magazines. He’d make enough in fees for another trip to the island. On his way back to the lighthouse he met Ben and Hugh; they were walking south, presumably hoping to see the swan too.
‘Hey,’ Hugh said. ‘You should have woken me up. I’d have come with you.’
It was as if the evening game, the strange episode of the spinning bottle, had never happened, as if this was another man altogether.
‘The bird’s still there,’ Dougie said. He heard his voice sounding curt, the anger underneath it. He nodded at the two younger men and was just about to continue back to the North Light to breakfast when he remembered the phone call.
‘Your dad rang. Did you see?’ Dougie knew it was malicious, but he couldn’t help himself. He was curious too. What was it with Hugh and his father?
‘You didn’t answer it?’ Hugh almost spat out the words.
‘Of course not. It was your call.’
Dougie was shocked when he got to the field centre to see Poppy in the kitchen, leaning against the workbench with a bowl of cereal in one hand and a spoon in the other. He’d almost forgotten about Maurice Parry and the girl, they’d been hiding out in the flat for so long. She looked younger than he remembered, less aggressive, almost attractive without the make-up and the stuff in her hair. He stared awkwardly for a moment, then he called through from the dining room: ‘Are you OK?’
She nodded very quickly but she didn’t speak. Perhaps her mouth was full of food. Jane came bustling through with tea and toast. She was wearing a long blue apron over jeans. Dougie thought she could have been working in one of those smart cafe bars in the city centre, where sometimes he took a woman from work. ‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘The others have all finished.’ He wondered if she was having a go at him, but he didn’t think so. ‘Bacon and egg?’
He nodded. ‘If it won’t put you out. Sorry. I’ve been down to Golden Water to see the swan.’ He poured himself a mug of tea, but remained standing, so he could talk to her through the kitchen door. She had bacon keeping warm, but moved a frying pan on to the cooker to do his eggs.
‘It’s still there then?’ Jane splashed some oil into the pan, but looked at him and seemed genuinely interested. Poppy just stood, filling her face, saying nothing. ‘I’ve already had some birders on the phone,’ Jane went on. ‘There won’t be any flights today, but tomorrow looks good for the boat and the plane.’ She cracked two eggs. The oil spattered and hissed. Dougie suddenly wondered if it would be possible to frighten the swan away. Maybe there was an islander with a gun, who might fire very close to it and scare it off the island. He thought of all the smug birders tipping out of the plane and running up to Golden Water, only to discover that the swan had just left. He felt himself smile, but tried to control his expression. After all, that wasn’t what he really wanted.
Poppy set down her bowl and her spoon and walked out. Jane frowned but didn’t try to stop her.
‘Jimmy Perez wants to see you,’ she said to Dougie. ‘In the hall. Ten o’clock.’
‘I can’t tell him anything.’ He sat down at the table.
‘Can’t you?’ Jane set his breakfast in front of him. ‘I thought Angela always used to confide in you.’ She stood for a moment beside him, as if she wanted to make a point, or perhaps she was waiting for him to answer. But he didn’t. He stuck his knife into the centre of the yolk and watched it spread out across the plate.
Dougie arrived at the hall early. Punctuality was one of his curses, inherited from his mother, who was anxious about everything and particularly about being late. Dougie had laughed at her when he was a boy. ‘What’s going to happen, do you think? Will you get locked up for missing the dentist’s appointment by two minutes?’ But now he understood how she’d felt, had the same sensation of panic when time seemed to pass too quickly or he was delayed and he was scared he might be late. Then it did feel as if the sky would fall in and his whole world would collapse.
Perez was there already. He’d set up a small table in one of the corners, close to the stage. The building smelled of wood polish and disinfectant. Dougie wondered if the hall had been cleaned specially for the occasion, if one of the island women had been in early with dusters and a mop, just to get it ready for Perez.
The detective waved him over. ‘Would you like coffee? I can run to that.’ He seemed more relaxed than he had in the lighthouse the evening before. Dougie nodded. He was always wary when people tried to make friends with him. Only Angela had got under his defences and look where that had led.
Perez pulled out the statement Dougie had written, sitting in the lighthouse common room. Then everyone had been so tense and Dougie had been infected by the mood. A sort of collective guilt, Dougie thought now. As if they’d all been responsible in some way for Angela’s death.
We were all scared of her
.
Fascinated, but terrified at the same time. Because none of us could stand up to her.
‘Tell me about Angela,’ Perez said.
Dougie hadn’t been expecting that. He’d thought there’d be a list of questions, a bit like the script he prepared for the call centre staff.
‘I mean, you must have known her quite well,’ Perez went on. ‘You’ve been coming to the island for a long time.’
‘She was a very good birder.’ It was what came first into Dougie’s head. He realized it was the tribute Angela would have wanted.
No
, he thought.
She would have wanted more than that: brilliant. The best of her generation.
He didn’t think he could go that far.
‘But competitive,’ Perez said. ‘Not a team player. Not an easy person to get on with. That’s the impression I have.’
‘She knew how good she was,’ Dougie conceded. ‘She didn’t suffer fools gladly.’
‘Did you like her?’
Dougie thought about that for a moment. Had he liked her? She’d been a kind of obsession, but that wasn’t the same thing. ‘We got on OK.’
Perez leaned forward across the table. ‘You see, in this case motive is important. Any one of you staying in the centre had the opportunity to kill her. You all had access to her knife. It didn’t have to be a premeditated crime. The knife was there in the bird room. But why would anyone do it?’
‘She could wind people up,’ Dougie said. He finished the coffee and carefully set the mug on the table.
‘How do you mean?’
‘She’d prod and poke until she got a response. She enjoyed making people angry. She thought it was a laugh.’
‘And you think she just went too far? She provoked someone to kill her?’
‘It could have happened that way,’ Dougie said. ‘Everyone was tense anyway. Stranded here because of the weather.’
‘Did she ever make you feel like that? Angry.’
‘Nah, I was never worth provoking. Fat Dougie. Too easy a target. She took me under her wing.’ Dougie struggled to explain the relationship he’d had with Angela. ‘You know how sometimes really fit women have an ugly friend. Someone who’s not a threat. Someone to confide in. That’s how Angela was with me. I was the ugly friend.’
‘Even though you only came to the field centre once a year?’
Dougie hesitated. He wasn’t sure how much to tell Perez. He’d decided to stick to answering the questions, not to volunteer any information, but the questions were more wide-ranging and personal than he’d expected. And he thought Jane had guessed how things were between Angela and him. She’d probably tell Perez anyway. ‘We kept in touch,’ he said at last. ‘Email mostly. Sometimes by phone.’
‘Didn’t you resent it?’ Perez asked. ‘The way she used you, I mean.’ When Dougie didn’t answer at once, he added: ‘Or perhaps you didn’t feel used? You didn’t mind being the ugly friend?’
‘I knew I could never be anything else,’ Dougie said. ‘It was better than nothing.’ He paused. He had never thought he’d tell anyone about his feelings for Angela. And in five minutes this strange islander with the dark hair had wheedled information out of him that he’d always kept secret. Dougie thought this was what it must be like to be under hypnosis. Perez said nothing. He waited for Dougie to continue and Dougie felt compelled to speak.
‘I loved it when she phoned me. It was always late at night. I imagined her in the bird room, looking down over the cliffs to the sea. It was exciting. She knew she excited me. Perhaps she only did it when she needed a boost for her ego. I didn’t care, even when she just wanted to talk about her marriage, other men. I was flattered that it was me she’d chosen to talk to.’
‘Were there other men?’
Dougie nodded. He expected other questions, a demand for specifics, but Perez didn’t follow that line of inquiry.
‘What did she say about the marriage?’
‘That Maurice was a sweet man but sometimes he bored her so much that she thought she would die. She wasn’t sure she could stand living with him any more. “And he’s crap in bed.” That was what she said.’ Dougie felt he should apologize for Angela.
She wasn’t malicious, not really. Sometimes she said outrageous stuff just to make me laugh.
But he had the feeling Perez understood anyway.
‘Do you think she was seriously considering divorce?’ Perez asked.
‘Nah! Maurice was just what she needed: someone to look after the domestics so she could spend all her time birding. He was too convenient to have around. And he was besotted with her. She knew he’d let her get away with anything.’
‘Did you go and see her in the bird room the night she died?’
Dougie was astonished. Was the inspector some sort of magician? Could he read men’s thoughts?
‘Because it’s the sort of thing a friend would do,’ Perez went on. ‘There’d been that scene with Poppy. Angela might have been upset. I thought you might call in to check that she was all right.’
‘I heard her go into the bird room,’ Dougie said. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I’d brought a bottle of whisky to the island with me. I don’t drink much, but other people do.’
And you still feel the need to buy friendship, don’t you, Dougie?
‘I took it down. I offered a drink but she didn’t want one. “Not for me, Dougie. You have one if you like.” I didn’t stay for long. She was working. She made it clear I was disturbing her. If we had any sort of friendship it was always on her terms.’
‘Did you have a drink? Was there a glass on her desk?’
‘Nah, I didn’t bother either. Like I said, I don’t really like it.’
‘Did she tell you what she was working on?’
‘No. We talked about Poppy. Angela said if the wind didn’t change soon, so she could get rid of the teenager from hell, there’d be a murder.’ Dougie looked up at Perez. He didn’t want the Shetlander to think he’d made some sort of crass joke, but Perez still focused on the notes on the paper before him.
The detective looked at him. ‘Was she alive when you left her?’
‘Yes!’ Dougie felt himself flush. Would Perez assume that was a sign of guilt? He couldn’t help himself. He always blushed like a girl when he was nervous. In the distance he thought he heard the sound of the plane coming in. Jane had said there’d be no flights today, but perhaps she’d got that wrong. Would it be full of birders? He wanted to be on the hill to meet it, to show the incomers his find.
But Perez still had questions: ‘Were there any feathers in the bird room? Was Angela working with them?’
‘That night? No.’
‘Any time?’
Dougie knew what this was about. Ben had described the feathers in the hair. ‘I don’t understand why there should be. Unless there was some special study I knew nothing about.’
‘Was Hugh asleep when you went back to the dormitory?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you have heard him if he left the room in the night?’
‘No,’ Dougie said. ‘It takes me a long time to get to sleep, but when I finally go off, I sleep like the dead.’
