Red Bones (Shetland Quartet 3)

hoped Perez hadn’t picked up the unpleasant note of satisfaction in her voice. Sandy knew what Evelyn was thinking. Her son’s fancy education and all that money he’s making will be no use to him now. Standing back to avoid her embrace, he saw that the drizzle had stopped and the sky was lightening a little. Perhaps the weather would clear soon. Then he thought that of course Perez would know just what his mother was thinking. He could pry inside people’s heads like a mind reader or a magician.
    Inside the house, he saw his mother through Perez’s eyes: little, round, short hair that she trimmed herself if she couldn’t get into Lerwick, dressed today in her best hand-knitted sweater because she was expecting guests. Enough energy to power Shetland Hydro. She’d already warmed the pot and made the tea and she was still talking. But she’s not a stupid woman , Sandy thought, and Perez will see that too. She got all that money out of the Arts Trust for the community theatre project last year and everyone says she’s the best chair the island forum has ever had.
    There was a newborn lamb in a cardboard box next to the Rayburn. ‘An orphan,’ Evelyn said. ‘We’re hand-rearing her. No one else would bother, but Joseph’s a soft old thing.’
    Now that the tea was brewing she turned back into the room. ‘What can I get you to eat? We’ve got some of our own bacon and Mima gave me a dozen eggs yesterday, so I have plenty to spare. Will that do you?’
    Sandy found himself remembering the day his father had killed the pig. Because it was for the family’s own use there’d been no need to send it out to the abattoir, but it was a horrible job. The pig always made a dreadful noise before the throat was cut. He’d seemed to sense what was about to happen to him. Sandy had been on the island that day, but he’d not been a lot of use. He’d stood watching along with Anna. His father had been the strong one, finishing off the job with Ronald’s help, and Evelyn had caught the blood in a bowl.
    ‘It sounds brilliant, Mrs Wilson,’ Perez said. He’d made himself at home already. His shoes were left in the porch and he’d taken the chair by the table where Sandy’s father usually sat. She beamed, took down a heavy frying pan from the wall, opened the Rayburn hotplate.
    ‘Mrs Wilson, indeed! No one’s called me that in this house since that politician from the SNP came canvassing at the last election.’
    It was warm in the kitchen and Sandy felt himself nodding off, heard the conversation between Perez and his mother as though from a long distance.
    ‘What time did you last see Mima?’ Perez asked.
    ‘About two o’clock. I called round to have a chat about the dig. The two lasses from the university were there. What nice wee girls they are, though I think that Hattie could do with a bit of feeding up. She’s a skinny little thing. All eyes and bone.’ She paused to take breath.
    Sandy knew his mother had hoped he’d take up with one of the ‘nice wee girls’. She thought he should settle down and give her grandchildren. Michael, after all, had obliged by marrying an Edinburgh lawyer and producing a daughter who was already attending private nursery. But that wasn’t like having a grandchild close at hand to meddle with. Jackie scored now on that too. Sandy had liked the students well enough. Not Hattie so much, who was intense and far too clever for him, but Sophie, who was more laid-back. She liked a few beers and a bit of a laugh, she was kind of flirty. Posh, but friendly all the same. The boys teased him because he always had a different woman on the go, but he was starting to think it was time for him to settle down. It was tiring chasing after the lasses and there were more single men in Shetland than there were women. But would he really want to be like Ronald, married to a woman who nagged and bossed? It would be like living at home again.
    ‘The dig is so exciting!’ Evelyn was distracted from Mima’s death by her passion of the moment. ‘Hattie thinks there’s a merchant’s house there. It was built at the time when the Hanseatic League was starting to collapse and folk were told they couldn’t trade through Bergen any more. I found a skull, you know. Part of a skull. Hattie thinks it might belong to the merchant who built the house. It’s been sent away for carbon dating. They’ve been exploring the same trench and Sophie found more bone. Part of a rib and maybe the