She continued knitting. The anchor pattern was finished and she felt a moment of calm. It was superstition, but knitting the anchor always made her uncomfortable. Now she had three rows of mourrit to work. Easy and needing no concentration.

James Mackie, quiet and respectable, from somewhere on the west coast of the Scottish mainland, with an accent that was soft like cream. All three sisters, starved for so long of new male company, dreamed of James Mackie when they went to sleep at night. Even Joan, who understood that she was too old to have a chance with him, who would always be a spinster. By then their father had died, drowned in an accident, his body never found, and they were just four women living at Holmsgarth. Joan’s stepmother and the three sisters.

Without realizing it, she’d finished the three rows of plain knitting and she took up the graph paper again and focused on the pattern.

There had been a dance in the community hall and they’d all gone along. It had been planned for weeks. The band was from Cullivoe; the boys were fine musicians, famous throughout the islands. In Holmsgarth, the women had baked, even Joan, who’d been working all day in the post office in Lerwick. They’d packed up the bannocks, the tray-bakes and the fancies into old biscuit tins and carried them very carefully along the road to the hall. Edie had got there early. She’d cut long sheets of white paper to make tablecloths for the trestle tables set at one end of the room, and the band was on the stage, tuning up. There’d already been an air of excitement. More than that – an air of tension. Like just before a thunderstorm.

Joan turned back to her knitting. There was more noise on the road outside. She looked at the clock on the mantel shelf. Stuart must be working late tonight, or perhaps they’d invited pals along to a party in their house. They’d not be doing so much of that once the bairn arrived. Joan felt a sudden pang of regret. All her pals had grandchildren now, and she had to look at the photos and pretend to be interested. She turned her mind back forty years to the dance in the hall, saw James Mackie walking in. You could tell that he’d prepared for the party too, that he’d had a shower after work, chosen an ironed shirt. His dark hair was slicked back. Some of the local boys walked with a kind of swagger, but he moved lightly. Joan could see that he’d be a splendid dancer.

She was jerked back to the present by a banging on the door. ‘Come in,’ she said. She didn’t want to get up and disturb the knitting attached to her belt. Besides, her door was never locked. She turned in her seat and saw a man walk in. He was dark and he walked lightly, just like Mackie. Perhaps because she’d been thinking about the engineer, for a strange moment she wondered if it was Mackie and if she’d slipped back in time somehow and into the world of her memories. Then she recognized the newcomer as the police inspector from Ravenswick. ‘Jimmy Perez, what can I do for you at this time of night?’