Red Bones (Shetland Quartet 3)

can turn Setter into a museum now, a celebration of Whalsay history. Wo uldn’t that be a fine thing? We could name it after Mima.’
    ‘I’m not sure that would be what she wanted.’ Hattie paused, remembered conversations in the Setter kitchen, drinking tea. ‘She said she wanted a young family to move into the house when she died. She was always teasing Sophie and me. “Find a nice island lad and settle down here. You can rent this place when I’m gone. The boys won’t want it. Bring up your bairns in Lindby.”’
    ‘Aye well,’ Evelyn said. ‘Mima was a great one for telling other folk how to live their lives.’
    She scattered flour over the meat in the bowl and tossed the mutton in it with her fingers until all the pieces were covered, then tipped it all into the pan. There was a smell of searing flesh and the oil hissed and spat. She pushed at the meat with a wooden spoon to stop it sticking.
    How competent she is! Hattie thought. I’d never know how to turn a dead animal into a meal. There was a sweetish smell coming from the pan, which made her feel again that she was going to throw up.
    ‘I’m not sure what plans Sophie has for this evening,’ she said. ‘The boys were going to show her around Artemis . It’s just come back from Lerwick.’
    ‘She’s a fine boat.’ Evelyn tipped a jug of water over the stew, continued stirring while it thickened and came to the boil. ‘Call Sophie’s mobile and ask her. They won’t feed her on board.’
    ‘I will.’ Hattie made no move to find her phone though.
    ‘I wonder how Anna’s getting on with the baby,’ Evelyn said. She’d put the pot in the oven and turned, her hands still in the oven gloves. ‘She wasn’t getting much sleep last time I saw her. Maybe we should take a walk down to the bungalow. Anna was talking about working on her website if she got the chance. It would be good to put something up about the coins. The folk keen on signing up for her workshops would be interested in hearing about the project. And maybe you’d like to see the baby.’
    Hattie thought that was the last thing she wanted; she’d much rather go back to the Bod and begin her plans for the project.
    ‘You could write something about the dig for her site,’ Evelyn went on, ‘It might persuade folks to book up. It’d help put Whalsay on the map.’
    ‘We can’t do that yet!’ Hattie felt anxious just at the thought of it. She looked up at Evelyn in horror. ‘We should keep the find secret for as long as we can. If word gets out you’ll have a bunch of people trespassing on the site, looking for buried treasure. It could damage the project.’ She had the image of geeky men in grey anoraks with metal detectors marching all over her dig.
    Evelyn seemed not to have heard her. ‘Maybe we should take the coins to show Anna. She has a digital camera. I’d love to have a photo of them.’
    ‘Not yet. Paul Berglund should be coming in tomorrow. I think I should wait and see what he says.’
    ‘Maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with your boss. And it would be good to keep a bit of mystery about them, before we show them to the public.’ Evelyn put the knives and chopping board in the sink to soak. ‘Come on then. Let’s go and look at your treasure.’
    The desk was in the living room and locked with a small brass key, which Evelyn took from her jeans pocket. Hattie had put the coins into a clear plastic box. They were small and dull. They were in the box just to prevent the need for their being handled, but Hattie longed to touch them. ‘Imagine them being in Mima’s garden all the time,’ Evelyn said. ‘All those hundreds of years.’
    Hattie shut her eyes for a moment and resisted the temptation to lift the lid of the box and put in her nose to sniff the coins. ‘I can’t do any more until Paul comes in tomorrow,’ she said. She replaced the coins in the desk on top of a file containing the Amenity Trust documents and a chequebook.
    ‘I’ll need someone else to countersign the cheques for the project,’ Evelyn said. ‘Mima used to do it. If we’re going to expand the project it might make sense for you to be a signatory.’
    Hattie wondered how the woman could discuss Mima’s death so dispassionately. She still felt herself falling apart whenever she thought about it. What would it feel like to know that you were dying? To be lying in the grass in the rain knowing there was no one to help you or hold