Red Bones (Shetland Quartet 3)

at the sink rinsing the dishes for the machine. Sandy put the kettle on and offered to make them tea. He was relieved that it was all over. Soon he’d get back to Setter. He thought Perez might drop by to tell him what he’d found out from Hattie’s letters. Joseph brought a tray of empty glasses through from the living room. He looked more tired than Sandy had ever seen him, more tired than when he’d been travelling out on the first ferry every day to work for Duncan Hunter.
    ‘I’ll just light a fire in there,’ Joseph said. ‘A day like this, a fire would be kind of comforting.’
    ‘Do that.’ Evelyn looked round from the sink and smiled at him.
    The fire was made and they sat in there drinking tea. The weather had changed and there was a rattling of rain against the window. Drawing the curtains, Sandy thought the wind had gone northerly; a north wind always brought the weather into this side of the house. The baby was quiet now, but Michael and Amelia hadn’t reappeared. Evelyn took up her knitting. She found it impossible to sit and do nothing, even on a day like today.
    Suddenly she seemed to make up her mind about something.
    ‘Robert spoke to me,’ she said. ‘He wants you to sell Setter to him.’
    ‘I know.’ Joseph looked up from his tea. ‘He spoke to me about it too.’
    Sandy could tell his father was angry, though there was nothing in his voice to give him away. It was quiet and even.
    ‘You won’t sell it to him, will you?’ Evelyn continued to knit, the needles clacking a background rhythm to her words.
    ‘I won’t. I told him: Setter is not for sale.’
    Evelyn seemed not to hear the last words, or perhaps she already had her own speech prepared in her head and nothing would stop it coming out. ‘Because if you are going to sell, I think we should approach the Amenity Trust. We need the money right enough, and I think they would give us a decent price. The coins the lasses found would give the place an even greater value, don’t you think?’
    ‘Don’t you listen to a word I say, woman? Setter is not for sale.’ It came out as a cry. Not so loud but much louder than he usually spoke, the words passionate and bitter. The sound was so shocking that the room fell silent. Even the knitting stopped. Looking around the room, Sandy saw Michael in the door, frozen and horrified.
    Sandy didn’t know what to do. Occasionally his father teased his mother about her projects and her meddling into other folks’ business but he never raised his voice to her. Sandy hated what was going on in his family. For the first time he began to think he would find it hard to forgive Ronald for killing Mima. He hoped Perez was right and someone else was responsible. Someone he would feel it was OK to hate.
    In the end it was his mother who put things right. She set down her knitting and went up to his father and put her arms around his shoulder. ‘Oh my dear boy,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
    Over Joseph’s head she motioned to her sons to leave them alone. Sandy thought his father was crying.
    Embarrassed, Sandy and Michael stood in the kitchen. Sandy longed to get out of the house. ‘You’ve not been into Setter since you got back,’ he said. ‘Would you like to come? See the old place?’
    ‘Aye. Why not? Amelia’s asleep on our bed. She finds this sort of family occasion exhausting.’
    Sandy bit his tongue. Another sign of his greater maturity.
    They walked to Setter despite the wind, which made it feel like winter again, and the sudden showers of rain. Sandy felt more awake than he had all day. The range was still alight in the kitchen. Sandy brought in peat from the pile outside and set it beside the Rayburn to dry for later. Without thinking he poured a dram for both of them.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Mother tells me you don’t drink any more.’
    Michael smiled. ‘Oh, don’t believe everything she tells you. I make an exception for special occasions.’
    ‘It seems so strange in here without Mima, don’t you think so?’
    ‘When I was growing up,’ Michael said, ‘there was one time when I believed Mima was a trowie wife. Did you ever hear those stories?’
    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