‘You stuck the Jamieson’s receipt behind the clock,’ Perez said. He wanted her to know that she’d taken some control in the situation.

‘It was in his jacket pocket. I thought maybe if the worst happened, it might help. Fingerprints. I don’t know . . .’ Her voice tailed off.

‘It did help! I knew it wasn’t yours. I didn’t have you down as a knitter.’

She gave a sudden smile, winced because of the bruising on her cheek.

‘But Jessie Watt . . . ’ he said.

Rhona continued more strongly. ‘Watt threw me into the hatchery. There was a padlock on the outside. Then he disappeared. To provide himself with some kind of alibi, I suppose. Jessie must have been around in Aith to collect the van and she’d picked him up. I heard the engine. The dutiful wife. Then I lost consciousness again. When I woke it was dark.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘And Watt was in the shed. I smelled him, heard him moving. And you turned up.’ She looked directly at Perez. ‘He was going to drown me. I love sailing and the water, but I’ve always had nightmares about drowning.’

There was a pause. A small bird was singing very loudly in the bush behind them. Perez thought he should just walk away, but he was too curious.

‘Agnes knew about you and John, didn’t she?’

Another silence and Perez thought he’d overstepped the mark and she’d refuse to answer.

‘John told her,’ Rhona Laing said. ‘He was hopeless at lying. Just as he would have told Evie eventually.’ She looked at him. ‘Agnes gave me her blessing. She said John needed someone to help him through it. She said she was grateful to me for making him happy. I went to see her. She was a remarkable woman.’

‘And the painting in your room?’ Perez nodded towards the Old Schoolhouse.

‘Yes,’ the Fiscal said. ‘Agnes gave that to me too.’ Another pause. ‘She thought John and I would stay together. But he couldn’t do it, once Agnes died. Guilt, eating away at him every time he looked at me. If Watt had seen that, he’d have known that John had suffered enough.’

‘What will you do now?’ Perez asked. ‘Will you stay in Shetland?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, Jimmy. It’s time to move on. To leave the past behind.’ Rhona looked up at him, put a hand on his arm and said more urgently, ‘Don’t you think so, Jimmy? Isn’t it time for you to move on too?’

He stood up and looked down to the sea and thought that, for him, it wasn’t that easy.

By Ann Cleeves

A Bird in the Hand

Come Death and High Water

Murder in Paradise

A Prey to Murder

A Lesson in Dying

Murder in My Back Yard

A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy

Another Man’s Poison

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