She carried her tea to the living room and looked down the bank to the voe. There had been thick fog for most of the day, but it had lifted as she’d driven home from Lerwick and now the scene was washed with the clear light of spring. For as far as she could see, low green hills and water. Every evening after work there was the same ritual. The drive back from town, the tea, then a few minutes spent looking at the view. Even in the winter, when it had long been dark. A flat barge was making its way to the salmon cages further out towards the sea. The surface of the water was marked by mussel strings, the floats looking like jet beads on a thread. Everything as it should be. Then, closer to the marina, she saw that the yoal they would race at regattas during the forthcoming season was floating on the water. It should be hauled up onto the grassy bank, and there was no wind to have shifted it. They’d only brought it out from its winter storage the weekend before. She thought the local children, bored at the end of the Easter holidays, must have pushed it out, thinking it would be fun to cause mischief for the women of the place.

Rhona rowed with the Aith veteran women’s team. Her only gesture towards becoming a part of her community. As Fiscal, she’d always thought she should set herself a little apart. It was hard in a place with such a small population to keep work and home separate, but she’d never felt the need for intimate friends. Yet she enjoyed being part of the vets’ rowing team. The training nights followed by glasses of wine in one of the houses. The regattas when everyone turned out to cheer. She’d thought she’d be the fittest and most competitive in the group, but that hadn’t turned out to be the case – a crofter from Bixter could beat her every time. Rhona liked the physical activity (she missed her Edinburgh gym sessions) and last year had felt stronger as the season progressed. So although she’d not long got in from work and was enjoying the tea, she felt responsible for the yoal drifting out on the tide. She changed out of her office clothes and went down to the marina.