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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

‘I’m not sure what he was after,’ Reg said. ‘He was playing things very close to his chest. At first it was all gossip, a chat about friends. I thought he’d lost his edge. Then he let on he was interested in the green industries – the big new wind farm and the tidal-energy project that’s planned in the Sound. I said it wasn’t like him to be saving the planet, and he just grinned. “That’s where the future lies, Reggie and we’ll all have to change.” I told him I hadn’t heard anything interesting about those developments. He asked about a couple of Nimbys who’ve been making a fuss about the tidal project, but I said there’d be no story for him there. The council’s always been supportive in attracting new industry.’

‘You’d have pushed for more information, though.’ Through the rain-spattered windows Sandy saw a police car arrive and Vicki Hewitt get out of the passenger door. ‘You’d have tried to find out what he’d heard. You wouldn’t want a story like that on your doorstep and not be part of it.’

‘Of course I wanted more.’ Reg Gilbert sniffed. ‘I wanted to know what he was doing here, snooping around on my patch.’

Sandy thought Willow Reeves would have liked to know that too. He felt as if he’d let her down by getting so little out of the interview.

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Jimmy Perez was counting the hours to Sunday night and Cassie’s return. Literally counting the chunks of time, aware of every minute. He hated the empty house and he couldn’t settle to anything. When Cassie was around, there were distractions, obligations. Some days she irritated him so that he wanted to scream, but when she was here he couldn’t give in to the self-pity that was always on the edge of his mind, waiting to take him over. He’d not fallen asleep until the early hours, but on Saturday morning he still woke at six. Radio Shetland news ran a piece about the dead man in the racing yoal at Aith. Still no identification, which was odd. There weren’t many tourists in the islands this early in the season, and Sandy and the team would surely manage to put a name to a local within minutes. Maybe they hadn’t passed on the news to the relatives yet, and that was the reason for the secrecy. Jimmy thought perhaps he’d made a mistake not going with Sandy to Aith the night before. That too would have been a distraction. But everything seemed to take so much effort these days. The doctor said it was depression; Perez saw it more as a kind of idleness.