Willow threw back her head and laughed. The sound was surprisingly infectious and Rhona found herself smiling.

‘I tend to make things complicated,’ the detective said. ‘Always have done. It’s a failing – comes up at every appraisal I have – but humour me. This case is odd. Markham wasn’t killed in Aith, but someone took the risk of sticking him in the yoal and floating him out to sea. It was a foggy day – everyone tells me that. All the same, it was a crazy thing to do. In the islands the fog can clear as suddenly as it arrives, and then everyone in the village, a crofter on the hill with his sheep, kids on the beach, a woman hanging out her washing would see the killer trying to lift a fully grown man into your boat. And, even with the fog, there was a chance that the killer would be disturbed. Dog-walkers, fishermen, they don’t care about the weather. So why do it? And why there?’

‘You think it was a message for me?’ Rhona kept her voice impassive and wondered if she should encourage this line of enquiry or dismiss it immediately as ridiculous.

‘I know – daft, isn’t it? But like I said, humour me. Is there anyone who hates you that much? An offender who thought you’d treated him unfairly maybe?’

‘This is Shetland, Inspector, not Glasgow. We don’t much go in for revenge killings here. A man who’s lost his licence for six months for drunk-driving is unlikely to go to the trouble of committing murder because he feels aggrieved.’ Rhona found herself relaxing; she’d almost begun to enjoy this exchange.

‘Anything more personal then?’ Willow was staring ahead of her and it was hard for Rhona to tell if the question was to be taken seriously.

‘A jilted lover, you mean? Something of that kind?’ Best, she decided, to treat it as a joke.

Willow turned slowly to face her. ‘Perhaps. Why not? You’ve had no stalkers? Odd phone calls?’

‘No, Inspector, nothing of that sort. As I said before, this is Shetland. It would be extremely hard to get away with that sort of behaviour here and not be found out.’

Rhona thought Willow was forming an answer, but she didn’t speak for a while and, when she did, it was to say that she wouldn’t need to keep the Fiscal any longer. Rhona opened the car door and climbed out. Her shoulder muscles were already stiff after the day’s activity. There was no longer any warmth in the sun and she felt chilled and achy, as if she might be coming down with a fever. Willow swung her long legs out of the car and stood up to say goodbye.

‘Thank you for your time,’ she said. ‘Get off home.’

Rhona drove off, feeling as if she’d been dismissed and that the woman from Uist was very much in charge.