In Springfield, Mary and Fran waited for news. Fran thought: Throughout history, it’s been the women who’ve waited. The men have it easy. They see the action and they know what’s happening. The women sit, imagine disaster, and peer through gaps in the curtained windows for the men to return. Then she thought she was being ridiculously melodramatic. She was hardly the French Lieutenant’s Woman, staring out from the end of the pier. These days there were mobile phones. She could always phone Perez and ask him what was going on. Waiting would have been more bearable if she could have had a proper drink. She was drowning in tea. Perhaps because of James’s puritan influence, Mary seemed to think alcohol was sinful and corrupting, especially for women. If James took a dram she considered that almost medicinal, but she never joined him. Fran had bought a bottle of wine in the shop when she was last there, to have with dinner when they all got together. It seemed that was unlikely to happen in the near future, and the bottle was still in her room, tempting her. It had a screw top. She wouldn’t even have to steal a corkscrew from the kitchen. Already, in her head, she was forming this as an amusing story to tell her London friends. They’d be in a bar somewhere and she’d be talking about her first visit to Fair Isle and the religious in-laws, about sneaking into her bedroom, drinking the wine straight from the bottle. She was a good storyteller. She’d have them in stitches.
She phoned Cassie as she did every evening. Duncan had taken the girl to Whalsay with him on business and Fran sensed she’d been bored. ‘When are you coming home?’ Cassie demanded. ‘Jimmy promised to take me swimming.’
‘Just a couple of days. I promise. Not long now. Get Dad to invite Jenny to play tomorrow.’ Jenny was Cassie’s new best friend.
Fran had just replaced the receiver when Big James arrived home. She knew Perez found it hard to get on with his father. They’d discussed the relationship: parents and how to survive them. But Fran thought James was a sweetie. He’d been pleasant enough to her at least. When Perez was busy he’d walked round the croft with her, explained the crops he was growing, told her how they worked the sheep. It had seemed to her that he was a man who enjoyed the company of women.
Now she thought he looked very tired and quite old. She’d always considered him a strong man, muscular and fit, but this evening she saw the lines on the back of his hands and the slackness in the skin around his eyes and his jaw.
‘I don’t know how Jimmy does that work,’ he said. ‘It would be too much of a strain for me.’ He sat in his usual chair by the fire and pulled off his boots.
‘The plane got in all right?’ Mary asked.
‘No problem at all. It was the new pilot, but he knew what he was doing.’ James got to his feet and poured himself a glass of whisky. He lifted the bottle towards Fran. ‘Will you take a dram?’ A sign that these were indeed unusual times.
She hesitated for a moment and then she nodded. He poured her a measure that was as large as his own.
‘Have they made an arrest?’ Fran asked. It had occurred to her that at least a second murder might have brought a fresh impetus to the investigation. Surely now Jimmy would have more idea what had happened.
‘I don’t think so,’ James said. ‘Jimmy couldn’t talk about the case. I understand that.’
‘So you have no news at all.’ It was Mary, looking up from her knitting. She set it down on the floor beside her. ‘I can’t understand why anyone would want to kill Jane. That Angela was a different matter. I never took to her.’ She looked up sharply at James. ‘You know what I thought of her.’ Fran had never heard her speak ill of the woman before and thought this a sign of how the murders were affecting everyone on the island. ‘But Jane? What harm was there in her?’
‘We never knew her,’ James said. ‘Not really.’
‘I knew her enough to know that I liked her. She was in here the other day when the birdwatcher came banging at the door with news of the rare swan. We laughed together about the obsessions men have. We decided that women had more sense.’
They sat for a moment in silence.
‘That new Fiscal came in on the plane,’ James said at last, an attempt, Fran thought, to distract Mary with a snippet of gossip. ‘She seems a fine woman.’
Fran was going to say that Jimmy didn’t get on with her so well, but stopped herself. It wasn’t the sort of subject Jimmy would want to discuss with his father.
James turned to her and his voice was unusually gentle. He could have been speaking to a baby. ‘Jimmy wants you to come out with us on the boat in the morning. He thinks you’ll be safer at home.’
‘No!’ How much harder would the waiting be, if she were at home in Ravenswick. Even with Cassie to keep her company, she couldn’t bear it. ‘Absolutely not.’
He shrugged, as if that was the answer he’d been expecting, as if he’d told his son already that she wouldn’t be persuaded.
‘Have you any idea when he’ll be back here?’ Mary asked.
‘He said not to wait up for him. He could be out all night.’
Fran felt desolate. Was this how her life would be? Jimmy would have his work. She’d be at home worrying. Perhaps she couldn’t deal with that. Perhaps they’d be better moving on to Fair Isle. If he were working on the croft and the Shepherd he wouldn’t be poking around in the private lives of killers. She wouldn’t spend her time thinking he was in danger.
She was still awake when Perez came in. It must have been after three in the morning; she’d glanced occasionally at the alarm clock by the bed. Now the wind had stopped she heard a vehicle approaching, a couple of whispered words, and then the sound of the engine disappearing north again. Sandy Wilson would have driven him home. Perez must be exhausted. She hadn’t appreciated before his ability to do without rest. The relief of his return made her relax and she thought now sleep would be possible.
He came to bed immediately. No whisky for him, no tea. She switched on the bedside light when she heard him come in. He blinked. She thought he was disappointed she was still awake and tried not to feel hurt. He was too tired to talk. So, no questions. No recriminations about him wanting to send her away. She lay in silence and watched him take off his clothes, opened her arms when he climbed into bed beside her.
His whole body was cold. He couldn’t have driven straight from the North Light; he wouldn’t be that chilled. She rubbed his arms to bring the life back into them and twisted her legs around his. She felt herself drifting into sleep, but could sense him lying beside her, rigid and quite awake. It was as if he’d suffered a personal grief; it didn’t feel as if he were a professional investigating the death of a stranger.
She woke again when it was still dark. There were domestic noises in the house – a tap being run, the clatter of pans. James was up early to take out the Good Shepherd. She was alone in the bed. It was hard to believe that Perez had come back at all, that she had held the cold and silent man in her arms.