Red Bones (Shetland Quartet 3)

left Setter. Hattie watched them go and it was only as she felt her pulse steady at their departure that she realized how anxious the men had made her. She was kneeling in the main trench, carefully easing her trowel around what could have been the base of a stone doorpost. The soil was a slightly different colour here and she wanted to dig in context. Sophie had gone to turn on the outside tap so the water would run into the flot tank. She was planning to wash the soil from the second trench, allowing the soil to float off and the more dense fragments to sink and be collected in the net beneath. Sophie called over from the tank: ‘Did you get the impression that Mima’s son doesn’t want us here?’
    Hattie was surprised. She’d got exactly the same impression but had wondered if she was being paranoid again.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I did.’
    Sophie stretched her arms above her head to ease the tension out of her muscles. ‘I don’t think we have to worry about him throwing us off the croft. Evelyn’s all in favour of the project and none of the men in that family stands up to her.’
    Hattie looked up at her and considered. ‘Do you think so? Joseph seems very easy to manage, but if there was something he really wanted I’m sure he’d get his own way in the end.’
    Sophie gave one of her wide, easy, slightly predatory smiles. ‘All the men on this island are easy to manage. Don’t you think so?’
    Hattie didn’t know what to say to that. She disapproved of Sophie’s relationships with the island men. Sophie continued: ‘I mean what they really want is a bit of fun. The women here take themselves so seriously.’
    Hattie thought some of the Whalsay men must want more than fun, but she didn’t answer. As she looked back into the trench the pale sun caught something softly metallic.
    Hattie leaned forward on the kneeler. She could smell the soil, felt it damp through her sweater where she must have propped herself on her elbow. She trowelled back the soil around the object. Sometimes it felt that the trowel was an extension of her arm, more sensitive even than her fingers. She could be as delicate as she would be with a brush. Sophie must have sensed her excitement because she jumped across the trench so she could get a better view without blocking the light. Hattie could tell the other woman was holding her breath and realized she was too. Now Hattie did take a brush and cleaned the object that stood in relief proud of the soil.
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘A coin.’ Sophie looked down with a huge grin. For a moment the tension between them evaporated.
    ‘Similar to the ones they found at Dunrossness?’ It had been in Hattie’s mind from the moment she’d seen it. At a dig in the south of Shetland mainland, a dwelling had been validated by the discovery of a store of medieval coins.
    ‘Absolutely.’ Sophie grinned again. ‘I’d say you’ve found your merchant’s house. And I think the boss will be in on the next plane.’
    And now , Hattie thought with relief, I’ll be able to stay in the islands for ever.

 
Chapter Sixteen
     
    Perez walked off the ferry to Whalsay after the cars had driven down the metal ramp. This should be a pleasant task – he’d be telling Ronald Clouston that no charge would be brought against him – yet he felt a gloom settling on him as he walked past the two huge fishing boats moored at the pier. A strange sort of claustrophobia. Though he’d grown up in Fair Isle and that was smaller than Whalsay, here he felt trapped, as if it was hard to breathe. Perhaps that was because from Fair Isle there were low horizons in every direction; even on a very clear day the Shetland mainland was no more than a smudge to the north. From Whalsay the Shetland mainland seemed a close and oppressive presence. The low cloud just made it worse.
    A couple of men stood outside the fish factory, smoking and chatting. Perez didn’t recognize the language. Something eastern European, Polish or Czech. He was distracted for a moment, wondering what they made of Whalsay and if the island’s famous friendliness extended to them. He thought it probably would. Sailors were the most open-minded people he knew; they travelled the world and came into contact with strangers all the time. It was the people left behind who distrusted incomers.
    Sandy was waiting in his car. He seemed anxious, jumpy, and Perez realized he’d read his boss’s arrival as a bad sign. He assumed that