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Back Red Bones Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. ANNCLEEVES
  2. Contents
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-one
  24. Chapter Twenty-two
  25. Chapter Twenty-three
  26. Chapter Twenty-four
  27. Chapter Twenty-five
  28. Chapter Twenty-six
  29. Chapter Twenty-seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-one
  34. Chapter Thirty-two
  35. Chapter Thirty-three
  36. Chapter Thirty-four
  37. Chapter Thirty-five
  38. Chapter Thirty-six
  39. Chapter Thirty-seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-one
  44. Chapter Forty-two
  45. Chapter Forty-three
  46. Chapter Forty-four
  47. Chapter Forty-five
  48. Acknowledgements

Sandy shook his head. The trows were part of Shetland folklore, but he’d never believed in them, even when he was a peerie boy.

‘Maybe it was before you started school. It was one of those crazes that start suddenly then disappear. They said she was a trowie wife and she’d put a spell on her husband and made him die. For a couple of weeks I wouldn’t come here on my own. Then the kids had something else to talk about and I forgot all about it. Until now.’

‘Are you saying it was a trow killed Mima?’

Michael laughed out loud. ‘A trow named Ronald? I think he’s kind of large, don’t you?’

Sandy was tempted to tell Michael that maybe Ronald wasn’t the culprit but things between the men seemed easy now and he didn’t want to spoil that.

‘Mother’s right about Setter,’ Michael said. ‘Father should sell it.’

‘He’ll never do that.’

‘I don’t think he’ll have any choice,’ Michael said. ‘How much do you think he makes from the crofting? I doubt Duncan Hunter gave him a pension plan and he’s not getting any younger.’

‘They manage OK.’

‘Do they? I don’t understand how.’

They sat for a while in silence. Sandy offered Michael another dram but he shook his head. ‘I should get back and see how Amelia’s getting on.’

Sandy would have liked to ask about Amelia. What possessed you to take up with a woman like that? But what good would it do? They were married with a bairn. Michael would have to make the best of it. ‘Will you find your way back?’ Michael laughed again. ‘Oh, I think I’ll manage.’ The first thing Sandy did when he was on his own was to change out of his suit. Then he began to think of what Michael had said about their parents’ income and the implications of it. It kept him up late into the night. Once he got up to make coffee, but the rest of the time he sat in Mima’s chair, thinking. He would have liked to discuss his thoughts with Perez. Perez would likely reassure him that he wasn’t on the right track at all. He was Sandy Wilson and he always got things wrong. But Perez must have thought Sandy would want to be on his own on the evening of his grandmother’s funeral and he never turned up.

Chapter Thirty-one