‘Should I tell Jimmy? Inspector Perez?’ This had been troubling him since he first realized the implication of her call. Jimmy Perez wasn’t himself, hadn’t been since the death of his fiancée. He was given to black moods and bouts of rage that came from nowhere. His colleagues were sympathetic and had given him time. He’d come back to work too early, they said. He was depressed. But after six months their patience was wearing thin. Sandy had picked up mutterings in the canteen: maybe Perez should resign and devote himself to looking after Duncan Hunter’s child. Promotion in the Shetland police service was about filling dead men’s shoes. Perhaps Perez should do the decent thing: move on and give somebody else a chance to do the job properly.

At first there was no answer from Rhona Laing. Sandy wondered if her phone had cut out. Then she spoke. ‘I don’t know, Sandy. That’s a judgement for you to make. You know Jimmy better than I do.’ And her voice was almost human.

He put off the decision until he’d spoken to Inverness. There was a new man in charge there. He was English, and Sandy had to concentrate hard to understand the accent. ‘I’ll send up an inspector and a team,’ the man said. ‘You know Roy Taylor went back to Liverpool?’

‘I’d heard.’ Sandy thought it was all change now. Jimmy Perez was a quite different man, and Roy Taylor had moved south. Sandy had never enjoyed change. He’d grown up on the small island of Whalsay and it had been a huge adventure to go south to train for the police service.

‘Taylor’s replacement is a woman.’ The superintendent came from London and his voice made Sandy think of gangster movies. ‘Grew up in North Uist. Almost one of you.’

No, Sandy wanted to say. The people of the Uists are quite different. They speak Gaelic, and the crofts are all sand and seaweed. A different landscape and a different culture. In the Hebrides you can’t get a drink on a Sunday. Only an Englishman could think a Hebridean would have anything in common with a Shetlander. He’d spent two days in Benbecula on a training course with the Highlands and Islands Police and thought he knew all about the place. But he said nothing. He wouldn’t mind having a boss who was a woman.

‘She’s called Reeves,’ the superintendent went on. ‘Willow Reeves. You’ll meet her and her team from the plane?’ Sandy was thinking that didn’t sound much like a Hebridean name. Weren’t they all MacDonalds in the Western Isles? The superintendent had to repeat the question. ‘You will meet them from the morning plane? Find them accommodation and show them the ropes? I take it Jimmy Perez is still out of action?’

‘He’s back part-time,’ Sandy said. ‘Still under the doctor.’