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Back Dead Water Save as PDF
Chapters (47)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-One
  22. Chapter Twenty-Two
  23. Chapter Twenty-Three
  24. Chapter Twenty-Four
  25. Chapter Twenty-Five
  26. Chapter Twenty-Six
  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  30. Chapter Thirty
  31. Chapter Thirty-One
  32. Chapter Thirty-Two
  33. Chapter Thirty-Three
  34. Chapter Thirty-Four
  35. Chapter Thirty-Five
  36. Chapter Thirty-Six
  37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  40. Chapter Forty
  41. Chapter Forty-One
  42. Chapter Forty-Two
  43. Chapter Forty-Three
  44. Chapter Forty-Four
  45. Chapter Forty-Five
  46. Chapter Forty-Six
  47. Chapter Forty-Seven

Perez nodded. Rhona Laing wasn’t stupid. He’d check and find that everything was as she’d said. But a car wasn’t the only way to travel round Shetland. The Fiscal had a fine boat, and most of Shetland’s communities could be reached from the water. There’d been no roads in Shetland for centuries – all travel had been by sea. Perhaps this wasn’t much of an alibi; he’d ask around and see if the boat had been there all morning too.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Rhona Laing closed the door gently behind Jimmy Perez and stood for a moment, leaning against it, as if blocking the way to other unwelcome intruders. Then she went upstairs and stood, hidden by the curtain like some nosy Shetland wife, to watch him walk back down the bank. Only when she saw his car drive up the hill towards Bixter did it feel as if she was breathing again.

Has it come to this? That I hide in my house like a common criminal?

Her plans for the day – to take out the boat with a picnic, to explore the voe and to moor up at a little beach for lunch – now seemed impossible. She had once represented a client with agoraphobia, and although she’d been professional throughout the court proceedings, her impulse had been to shake the woman. What was wrong with this person? Was it such a huge step to open the front door and walk out onto the pavement? Now, for the first time, Rhona Laing began to understand the irrational fear of the space outside one’s home. The stranger’s face. The unfriendly buildings. The threatening landscape. It would be easy to curl up in her chair with her back to the window. To drink tea or whisky. To shut out the world.

But to start down that path would be the worst possible mistake. Rhona could see that. And if she were in the house she’d be trapped, at the mercy of telephone calls and people knocking at her door. Perez might come back. Willow Reeves with her wild, untidy hair and her staring eyes might turn up with questions. Rhona thought she could mislead Perez, but the woman from the Hebrides would be harder to deceive. She couldn’t face it.