‘Will he be up for this?’ The superintendent’s voice was uncertain.

‘I think he’d want to know,’ Sandy said. ‘I think he’d hate something like this going on in his patch and not knowing.’ This had only just come to him, but now he was sure it was true.

‘So you’ll do that, will you, Sandy? You’ll tell him. I don’t want Perez finding out on the grapevine and thinking we’ve excluded him on purpose. These days he can be a prickly sod.’

Sandy replaced the phone and felt overwhelmed by the choices he had to make. The Fiscal expected him in Aith, which was a good half-hour’s drive to the north, and the superintendent wanted him to talk to Jimmy Perez, who lived in Ravenswick to the south of Lerwick. Sandy was happier when he was told what to do. More than anything in the world he longed for Jimmy Perez to be back and normal, clever and sharp. And telling him what to do.

He got back on the phone and organized a couple of uniformed officers to get to Aith and screen off the crime scene. ‘We’ll need someone on duty there until the team from Inverness gets in.’ When he told his colleagues that the Fiscal had found the body, he sensed their hostility. She wasn’t a popular woman. He couldn’t think of anyone in the islands who liked her or who would consider her a friend. When he went outside to pick up his car, the light was starting to fade. Perez would be at home because it would nearly be Cassie’s bedtime. Cassie, the child of his lover, left to him in her unofficial will. The only reason, Sandy thought, that Perez hadn’t run away from the islands and the memories of Fran’s death.

The house was a converted chapel, very low and small, with a view over Raven’s Head and down to the houses by the pier. Perez’s car was parked outside. The door opened before Sandy reached it, and Jimmy Perez stood there, a mug of coffee in his hand. He looked as if he hadn’t slept since Fran had died and was skinny and unshaven. Though he’d never been a tidy man, Sandy thought. He’d never much been one for caring about his appearance.

‘Is Cassie in bed?’ Sandy didn’t want to start talking about bodies and murder if the girl was listening in.

‘She’s staying with her father,’ Perez said.

Duncan Hunter, who’d been the wild boy of the islands, living in his huge inherited house on the voe at Brae. Duncan Hunter, ex-husband of Fran. Ex-best friend of Jimmy Perez.