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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

Then fury took over from shock. He tried to control it, to breathe deeply and stay calm, but failed. Some bastard had almost driven into him and could have killed him. Could have wrecked the car, which at the moment mattered more. The headlights of the vehicle that had run him off the road had been turned off, but he hadn’t heard the maniac drive off. He got out of his vehicle and felt the aggression pulsing like a vein in his neck. He wanted to hit somebody. He hadn’t felt like this for months and the anger was like a drug entering the system of an addict, providing a familiar comfort, the buzz of excitement. Since arriving in Shetland he’d been polite and understanding. He’d controlled his frustration. Now it had found a legitimate target and he let rip.

‘What the shit were you playing at, you moron?’

No answer.

He couldn’t see the car, except as a block of darker shadow, because the fog was so thick. He walked towards it, intending to pull open the door and force the offending driver out. Behind him there was a movement, sensed rather than heard, and he turned round.

Another movement. Air. A whistling sound of air moving. A sharp pain. Then nothing.

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Rhona Laing made tea. Earl Grey decaffeinated. The community shop in Aith had started stocking it specially for her. Her home had once been the Schoolhouse, solid and grey, and folk thought it was too big for her, a single woman. Folk thought all sorts of things about her, and occasionally she caught the tail-end of rumours that amused and irritated: that she flew to Edinburgh every six weeks to get her hair done, that she’d had a child out of wedlock and given him up for adoption, that she had a secret lover who sailed into Aith Marina after dark most nights and left again in the early morning. It was her policy neither to confirm nor deny the stories.

The house had been her project for her first six months after moving to Shetland and now it was finally arranged to her satisfaction. Furniture built to fit, so it looked like the interior of a grand ship. The captain’s cabin. Everything with its place. The Procurator Fiscal’s office in Lerwick was just as tidy. Clutter and mess made her physically ill.