‘So you wouldn’t know why anyone would want to kill him? There were no rumours? No stories of enemies or grudges?’ She understood that in small, tight communities grudges could be held for generations.

‘He worked as a reporter on the Shetland Times for a while,’ Sandy said. ‘Before he got that chance to work on the London newspaper. It didn’t always make him popular. Folk don’t like their dirty washing done in public. And it’s read by everyone. Maybe he thought he was practising for the big time while he was here, always on the lookout for the exciting story. But that was ten years ago. I don’t think it could be the cause of him getting killed yesterday.’

Suddenly he crossed the road and pulled the car into a lay-by. He nodded down the bank towards a big house that stood right on the shore. It was built of grey stone and there was a high stone wall all round it.

‘That’s the Ravenswick Hotel,’ Sandy said. ‘Jerry’s parents own it. Peter and Maria Markham.’

‘What do local people make of them?’ Willow thought it must be expensive, keeping a place like that going. None of the hotels on the Uists were that big or that smart.

‘They like them fine. It’s work for local people. The place is a bit pricey, but it always seems to be busy. It’s for tourists and folk here on business, but the locals eat in the bar or in the restaurant if they have something special to celebrate.’ And Sandy continued giving a history of the Markhams. Willow thought he’d go back a couple of generations, if she encouraged him. But she liked that. She liked to know that these people had roots. Her roots had very shallow soil to grow in. As Sandy talked she wished she’d thought to take a notebook from her rucksack to write it all down.

Lerwick seemed like a big town, with traffic lights and supermarkets and factories on the edge of it. ‘Do you want to drop your stuff at the hotel,’ Sandy said, ‘or should we go straight to Aith to look at the crime scene?’

‘To Aith.’ It was Vicki Hewitt, shouting from the back. ‘The poor man has been there all night. That’s long enough, don’t you think? Has James seen him yet?’

James Grieve, the pathologist, was based in Aberdeen. Willow had never met him and felt a little excluded. It was like being the new girl at school and not quite fitting into the established gang, no matter how kind the other children were.