Blue Lightning Read Free

for James and Mary. Especially James. It’s bad enough for him that Jimmy won’t be home to take on the Good Shepherd . James wants a grandson.’
    Jane moved out into the dining room and began to lay the tables.
    Angela made her appearance after the rest of them had sat at the table. There were times when Jane thought she came in late just so she could make an entrance. But today there hardly seemed enough of them to make a good audience: four visitors plus Poppy, Maurice’s daughter, and the field centre staff, who should be used by now to her theatrics. And Maurice, who seemed to adore her, who seemed not to mind at all his changed role in life as long as it made her happy.
    Angela had helped herself to soup from the pan still simmering on the stove and stood looking down at them. She was twenty years younger than Maurice, tall and strong. Her hair was almost black, curly and long enough to sit on, twisted up now and held by a comb. The hair was her trademark. She had become a regular commentator on BBC natural history programmes and it was the hair that people remembered. Jane supposed Maurice had been flattered by her attention, her celebrity and her youth. That was why he had left the wife who’d washed his clothes and cooked his meals and looked after his children, nurturing them to adulthood – if Poppy could be considered an adult. Jane had never met this deserted wife but felt a huge sympathy for her.
    Jane expected Angela to join them, to move the conversation quickly and skilfully to her own preoccupations. That was the usual pattern. But Angela remained standing and Jane realized then that the woman was furious, was so angry that the hands that held the soup bowl were shaking. She set it on the table, very carefully. Conversation in the room dwindled to nothing. Outside, the storm had become even more ferocious and they were aware of that too. Even through the double-glazed windows they heard the waves breaking on the rocks, could see the spray like a giant’s spit blown above the cliff.
    ‘Who’s been into the bird room?’ The question was restrained, hardly more than a whisper, but they could hear the fury behind it. Only Maurice seemed oblivious. He wiped a piece of bread around the bowl and looked up.
    ‘Is there a problem?’
    ‘I think somebody has been interfering with my work.’
    ‘I went in to check the bookings on the computer. Roger phoned to see if we could fit in a group next June and for some reason the machine in the flat wasn’t working.’
    ‘This wasn’t on the computer. It was a draft for a paper. Handwritten.’ Angela directed the answer at Maurice, but her voice was pitched loudly enough for them all to hear the words. Listening, Jane was surprised by the image of Angela writing by hand. She never did, except perhaps her field notes when no other form of taking a record was possible. The warden was beguiled by technology. She even completed the evening log of birds seen with the aid of a laptop. ‘It’s missing,’ Angela went on. ‘Someone must have taken it.’ She looked around the room, took in the four visitors sitting at their own table and her voice was even louder. ‘Someone must have taken it.’
    Chapter Three
    Perez had told Fran exactly what to expect of his parents’ house. He’d described the kitchen with its view down to the South Harbour, the Rayburn with the rack above for drying clothes in the winter, the oilskin tablecloth, green with a pattern of small grey leaves, his mother’s watercolours hanging on the wall. He’d talked about his childhood there, then listened to her tales of growing up in London; the intimate conversations part of the ritual of a developing relationship, absolutely tedious to any outsider.
    ‘Mother will probably hide all her pictures away,’ Perez had said. ‘She’ll be embarrassed for a professional artist to see them.’
    And Fran supposed that she was a professional artist now. People commissioned her paintings and