Sacrifice

3

THE SMALL MAN CAME FORWARD, HOLDING OUT A BONY hand. There were traces of eczema around his wrist. I took it, trying not to shiver at how cold it felt.

'Miss Hamilton, Stephen Renney. I'm so grateful. I've just been explaining to the detectives that, in the interests of completeness, I really do need-'

The doors opened again and a porter wheeled in a trolley. We all had to stand back against the wall to let him past. Gifford spoke and, away from the tension of theatre, I realized he had one of those deep, educated Highland voices that, prior to my moving here and hearing them on a regular basis, had been guaranteed to put a tickle behind my knees and a smile on my face. One of those 'oh, just keep talking' voices.

'Why don't we go into your office for a moment, Stephen?'

Stephen Renney's office was small, windowless and absurdly tidy. Several pen-and-ink drawings hung on the walls. Two orange plastic chairs were placed, too close together, in front of his desk. He waved his hand at them, glancing from DS Tulloch to me, then back to the detective sergeant. She shook her head. I remained standing too. With a tight smile, Renney lowered himself into his own chair behind the desk.

'This is entirely inappropriate,' Tulloch said to her inspector, gesturing towards me. She was probably right, but I don't like being described as inappropriate; it tends to put my back up.

'Miss Hamilton isn't under suspicion, surely?' said Gifford, smiling down at me. I was surprised and intrigued to see that he wore his hair unusually long for a man, especially a senior surgeon. As he leaned under the powerful electric light above Stephen Renney's desk it shone golden-blond, as I imagined it would do in the sun. His eyebrows and lashes were the same pale colour as his hair, destroying in one fell swoop any claim he might otherwise have had to conventional attractiveness.

'She's only been here six months,' he went on. 'From what you tell me, our friend next door is headed for the British Museum. What's your best guess, Andy? Bronze Age? Iron Age?' He was smiling, not quite pleasantly, as he spoke. I had the feeling Andy Dunn wouldn't know his Bronze Age from his Iron from his Stone, and that Gifford knew it.

'Well, actually…' said Stephen Renney, rather quietly, as if afraid of Gifford.

'Something like that,' agreed Dunn, and I was struck by how alike he and Gifford were – huge, fair-skinned, rather ugly blond men – and also by how many island men I could think of who resembled them. It was as though the islands' gene pool had been pretty much undisturbed since the time of the Norwegian invasions.

'Wouldn't be the first to be found up here,' Dunn was saying. 'Peat bogs are notorious. I remember one in Manchester in the eighties. Police identified it as a woman they suspected of being murdered by her husband twenty years earlier. They brought him in and he confessed. Only it turned out the body was two thousand years old. And a bloke at that.'

Sergeant Tulloch's eyes were darting from one man to the next.

'But if I can-' tried Renney.

'We saw Tollund man once,' said Gifford. 'Do you remember that trip to Denmark in the lower sixth, Andy? Absolutely incredible. Came from the Pre-Roman Iron Age but you could see the stubble on his chin, wrinkles on his face, everything. Perfect preservation. Even the contents of his stomach were still there.'

I wasn't remotely surprised to hear that Gifford and Dunn had been high-school contemporaries. Shetland was a small place. I'd long since got used to everyone knowing everyone else.

'Exactly,' replied Dunn. 'We've got a forensic anthropologist coming over. Maybe we can hang on to it. Be good for tourism.'

'Sir…' said Tulloch.

'I really think…' said Renney.

'Oh, for God's sake!' I snapped. 'She isn't from the Pre-Roman Iron Age.'

Dunn turned to me as if only just remembering I was there. 'With all due respect-' he began.

'Correct me if I'm wrong,' I interrupted. 'But as far as I'm aware, women in the Pre-Roman Iron Age didn't paint their toenails.'

Dunn looked as though I'd slapped him.Tulloch's mouth twitched briefly, before she pulled it straight again. Gifford stiffened but I couldn't read his expression. Stephen Renney just seemed relieved.

'That's what I've been trying to tell you. This is not an archaeological find. Absolutely not. Peat is confusing. You're right about it having remarkable preservative properties but there are traces of nail varnish on her toenails and her fingernails. Plus some very modern dental work.'

Beside me I heard Gifford take a deep sigh.

'OK, what can you tell us, Stephen?' he asked.

Dr Renney opened the one file that lay on top of his desk. He looked up. I wondered if he felt uncomfortable, staring up at the four of us, but he was such a tiny man he was probably used to it.

'You understand the subject was only brought in just under three hours ago. This is very much an initial report.'

'Of course,' said Gifford, sounding impatient. 'What have you got so far?'

I saw Dunn glance sharply at Gifford; technically, the police inspector was in charge, but the hospital was Gifford's patch. I wondered if we were going to see a clash of the titans.

Stephen Renney cleared his throat. 'What we have,' he began, 'are the remains of a female, aged between twenty-five and thirty- five. The peat has tanned her skin but I've had a good look at her face, her bone structure and her skull and I'm pretty certain she was Caucasian. I'm also as certain as it's possible to be that death wasn't due to natural causes.'

Well, there was an understatement if ever I'd heard one.

'What then?' asked Gifford.

I turned to look at him, wanting to see how he took the news.

Dr Renney cleared his throat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him glance at me.

'The victim died from massive haemorrhage when her heart was cut out of her body.'

Gifford's head jerked; his face blanched. 'Jesus!' he said.

The two officers didn't react. Like me, they'd already seen the body.

Having got the worst over, Renney seemed to relax a little. 'A series of slashes, some ten, possibly twelve, in all, with a very sharp instrument,' he said. 'I'd say a surgical instrument, or maybe a butcher's knife.'

'Through the ribcage?' said Gifford. It was a surgeon's question. I could think of no common surgical instrument that would cut straight through a ribcage. Neither could he, judging by the way his eyebrows had knit themselves together.

Renney shook his head. 'The ribcage was opened first,' he said. 'Forced open with some sort of blunt instrument, I'd say.'

Saliva was building at the back of my mouth. The orange plastic chair in front of me started to look very inviting.

'Could the heart have been used again?' asked Dana Tulloch. 'Could she have been killed because someone needed her heart?'

I watched DS Tulloch, following her train of thought. One heard of such things: of people being abducted and their organs forcibly removed; of covert, evil operations, organized and funded by people with poor health but heavy wallets. It happened, but in far-away countries with strange-sounding names, where human life, especially that of the poor, was cheap. Not here. Not in Britain and certainly not in Shetland, the safest place to live and work in the UK.

Renney paused before replying and studied his notes for a moment.

'My guess is not,' he said. 'The inferior vena cava was quite neatly removed. As were the pulmonary veins. But the pulmonary trunk and the ascending aorta were quite badly hacked about. As though someone had made several failed attempts. This was no harvest. I'd say someone with a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy, but not a surgeon.'

'I'm off the hook then,' quipped Gifford.

Tulloch glared at him. I bit the inside of my lip to stop the giggle slipping out. I was nervous, that's all; it was really no joking matter.

'I've done a few quick tests and there are very high levels of Propofol in her blood,' continued Renney. He looked at DI Dunn. 'She was almost certainly very heavily anaesthetized when it happened.'

'Thank goodness for that,' said DS Tulloch, still shooting daggers at Gifford.

'How easy is it to get hold of Pro…' she began.

'Propofol,' said Renney. 'Well, you can't buy it at the chemist but it's a pretty common intravenous induction agent. Anyone with access to a hospital wouldn't have too much trouble. Maybe someone who worked at a drug company.'

'You can buy just about anything on the black market these days,' said Dunn. He looked at Tulloch. 'Let's not go chasing any red herrings.'

'I also found evidence of trauma around her wrists, upper arms and ankles,' continued Renney. 'I'd say she was restrained for quite some period before death.'

I'd done with being macho. I stepped forward and sat down. Renney caught my eye and smiled. I tried to reciprocate but couldn't quite manage it.

'OK, so we know the how,' said Gifford. 'Any thoughts on the when?'

I leaned forward in my seat. This had been exercising my mind, whenever it hadn't been totally focused on other things, for the whole afternoon. I should explain that, before choosing obstetrics, I'd toyed with the idea of making a career in pathology and had done some rudimentary training. That was before realizing that the moment of life, rather than that of death, held infinitely more appeal. Typical Tora, my mum had said, always swinging from one extreme to the other. Actually, she'd been hugely relieved. Anyway, thanks to the preliminary training, I had a slightly better than average idea of the decomposition process.

First, the golden rule: decomposition begins at the moment of death. After that, it all depends: on the condition of the body – its size, weight, any wounds or traumas; on its location – indoors or out, warm or cool conditions, exposed to weather or sheltered; on the presence of scavengers or insects; on whether burial or embalming has taken place.

For example, take a corpse abandoned in woodland in a temperate climate such as that of the British Isles. Upon death, the body's internal chemicals and enzymes will combine with bacteria to begin breaking down tissue.

Between four and ten days after death, the body will start to putrefy. Fluid is released into body cavities and various gases – foul- smelling to humans but as tempting as a gourmet dinner to insects – are produced. Gas pressure inflates the body whilst young mag- gots rampage their way through, spreading bacteria and tearing through tissue.

Between ten and twenty days after death, a corpse reaches the stage of black putrefaction. The bloated body collapses, its exposed parts turn black and it gives off a strong smell of decay. Body fluids will drain into the surrounding soil and, by this stage, several generations of maggots and other larvae will have enjoyed a spell of residence.

By fifty days, most of the remaining flesh will have been removed, the body will have dried out and butyric acid will give it a cheesy smell. Parts in contact with the ground will ferment and grow mould. Beetles will replace maggots as the primary predator and the cheese fly makes a late arrival to finish off any remnants of moist flesh.

A year after death, the body will have reached the stage of dry decay, with only bones and hair remaining. Eventually, the hair too will disappear, eaten by moths and bacteria, leaving only the skeleton.

That's one example. A body frozen in Alpine ice, neither exposed to sunlight nor torn apart by glacier movement, might remain perfect for hundreds of years. On the other hand, one placed in an above-ground vault during a New Orleans summer would be expected to disappear almost completely within three months.

And then you have peat.

Stephen Renney was talking. 'Yes, exactly: when? When did she die? When was she buried? Million-dollar questions, I expect.'

Behind me I heard a sharp intake of breath and felt a stab of sympathy with the detective sergeant. Stephen Renney seemed to be enjoying himself just a little too much. I didn't like it and neither, I guessed, did she.

'Very interesting questions, anyway, because the normal process of decay is completely thrown into the air when you bring peat into the equation. You see, in a typical peat bog – especially one on these islands – you have the combination of cold temperature, the absence of oxygen – which, as we know, is essential for most bacteria to grow – and we also have the antibiotic properties of organic materials, including humic acids, in the bog water.'

'I'm not sure I'm following you, Mr Renney,' said DS Tulloch. 'How can organic materials slow down decomposition?'

Renney beamed at her. 'Well, take sphagnum moss, for example. When the putrefactive bacteria secrete digestive enzymes, the sphagnum reacts with the enzymes and immobilizes them in the peat. The process is brought to an abrupt halt.'

'You're very well informed, Stephen,' said Gifford.

I swear I saw Stephen Renney blush at that point.

'Well, the thing is, I'm a bit of an archaeologist in my spare time. Sort of an amateur Indiana Jones. Part of the reason why I took this job. The wealth of sites on these islands is, well… anyway, I've had to learn quite a bit about the nature of peat bogs. Did a bit of reading up when I first came here. Every time there's a dig I go along and volunteer.'

I'd risked a sneaky glance back at DS Tulloch, wanting to see how she took the comparison of the mouse-like Stephen Renney with Harrison Ford. There was no hint of amusement on her face.

'I'm sure Miss Hamilton will correct me if I step out of line,' said DI Dunn, making me jump, 'but nail varnish was around for most of the last century. She could still have been down there for decades?'

Tulloch threw a quick glance at her boss, three tiny frown lines creasing the skin between her eyebrows.

'Well, no, I don't think so,' said Renney, for all the world as though he were apologizing. 'You see, although soft tissue can be very well preserved by acid peat bogs, the same thing just doesn't apply to bone or teeth. In a peat bog, the inorganic component of the bone, the hydroxyapatite, is dissolved away by the humic acids. What's left behind is the bone collagen, which then shrinks into itself and deforms the original outline of the bone. Another thing that happens is that the finger and toenails,' he glanced at me, 'although preserved in themselves can separate from the body. I've taken bone samples and examined her teeth and I can say with some confidence that there is no trace of this process happening. Her nails are all intact. On the strength of that alone, I'd say she can't have been buried for more than a decade, probably fewer than five years.'

'Looks like you could be a suspect after all, Miss Hamilton,' drawled Gifford, behind me. I decided to ignore that.

Renney looked up at him in alarm. 'No, no, I really don't think so.' He looked down again and shuffled through his notes. 'There's a bit more I have to tell you. Ah yes, when I heard the body was coming I ran a quick Internet check on Miss Hamilton's village. Tresta, I think it's called?'

He waited for confirmation. I nodded.

'Right. Well, I wanted to find out if the area has a history of bog finds. It hasn't, as a matter of fact, but I did find something very interesting.'

He waited for us to respond. I wondered which of us would. I really didn't feel like talking myself.

'What would that be?' asked Gifford, impatient now.

A massive sea storm took place in the area in January 2005. Severe gale-force winds and three very high tides. The tidal defences – such as they are – were breached and the whole area was flooded for several days. The village had to be evacuated and dozens of livestock were lost.'

I nodded. Duncan and I had been told about it when we bought the house. It had been described as a one-in-a-thousand-year event and we hadn't let it worry us.

'How would that be relevant?' I asked.

'If a bog gets flooded,' replied Renney, 'by either sea water or very heavy rain, its tissue-preserving abilities become impaired. Soft tissue, flesh, internal organs start to deteriorate and skeletonization kicks in. If our subject was in the ground when that storm occurred, I would expect her to be in a much poorer condition than she is.'

'Two and a half years,' mused Gifford. 'Starting to narrow the field down.'

'This will all have to be confirmed,' said Dunn.

'Of course, of course,' gushed Renney. 'I also had a look at her stomach contents. She'd eaten, a couple of hours before she died. There were traces of meat and cheese, some possible remains of grains, maybe from wholemeal bread. Also, something else, that took me a while to identify.'

He paused; no one spoke but this time our unwavering attention must have been enough for him.

'I'm pretty certain they're strawberry seeds. I couldn't find any actual berries, they're very quickly digested, but I'm pretty sure about the seeds. Which would suggest to me a death in early summer.'

'Strawberries are available all year round,' I said.

'Exactly,' snapped Renney, looking delighted. 'But these seeds are unusually small. Less than a quarter the size of normal strawberry seeds. Which suggests

He was looking at me. I looked back, stupidly, with no idea what he was driving at.

'Wild strawberries,' said Gifford quietly.

'Exactly,' said Renney again. 'Tiny wild strawberries. They can be found all over the islands but have a very short season. Less than four weeks.'

'Late June, early July,' said Gifford.

'Early summer 2005,' I said, thinking I'd misjudged Stephen Renney. He was self-important and irritating but a very clever man nonetheless.

'Or early summer 2006,' said DS Tulloch. 'She could have been in there just a year.'

'Yes, possibly. The key will lie in the tanning process. Matter doesn't tan instantly when it's put in peat; the whole process will take some time. But our subject was completely coloured, meaning the acids had time to seep through the linen and stain the corpse. The time all that takes will be pretty crucial. I intend to get on to it this evening.'

'Thank you,' said Tulloch, sounding as though she meant it.

Wild strawberries. As a last meal I could think of worse. She had eaten wild strawberries and then, a few hours later, someone had cut out her heart. I started to feel sick. Ghoulish curiosity had been satisfied and I wanted to go. Unfortunately, I'd yet to play my part.

'What do you need me for, Dr Renney?' I asked.

'Stephen,' he corrected. 'I need to check something with you. Something in your area.'

'Was she pregnant?' asked Tulloch quickly.

Stephen shook his head. 'No; that I could have spotted for myself. A foetus in the uterus, even a tiny one, is pretty much unmistakable.' He seemed to be waiting for me to speak.

'How big is it?' I said.

'About fifteen centimetres across the diameter.'

I nodded. 'Probably,' I said. 'I'd need to see it to be sure, but maybe…' I turned to Inspector Dunn.

'What?' he said, eyes flicking from me to Stephen Renney.

'Our victim had given birth,' said Renney. 'What I can't tell you, and I'm hoping Miss Hamilton can, is how shortly before death it occurred.'

'The uterus swells during pregnancy,' I explained, 'and then starts to contract again immediately after delivery. It usually takes between one week and three. Generally, the younger and healthier the woman, the quicker it happens. If the swelling is still in evidence, it means she gave birth within a couple of weeks of her death.'

'Are you happy for Miss Hamilton to examine the body?' asked Stephen.

DS Tulloch's eyes shot to her boss. He raised his wrist, checked the time and then glanced at Gifford.

'Is Superintendent Harris coming over to take charge?' asked Gifford.

Andy Dunn frowned and nodded. 'For the next couple of days,' he said.

Of course, I had no idea who Superintendent Harris was, but I assumed some bigwig from the mainland. I guessed, from the speed at which they'd arrived at my house earlier, that DI Dunn and DS Tulloch were local and were shortly to find themselves sidelined. Given the rarity of serious crime on Shetland, that had to be incredibly frustrating for them and one look at Tulloch's face told me I was right. Dunn, I was less sure about. He looked troubled.

'Can't hurt to know,' said Gifford. 'Are you OK to do this, Tora?'

I had never felt less OK in my life.

I nodded. 'Of course. Let's get on with it.'

We gowned and scrubbed up, the five of us, each witnessing that the others had totally followed procedure. We put on gloves, masks and hats and followed Stephen Renney into the examination room. It took about fifteen minutes and I had an absurd sense of urgency; of time running out; of needing to make haste, get it done before the grown-ups arrived and put an end to our games.

She lay on a steel trolley in the centre of a white-tiled room. Her linen shroud had been cut clean away, leaving her naked. She looked like a statue, a beautiful brown statue; almost like a bronze carving that had lost some of its lustre. I found myself wandering up towards her head.

She'd been pretty, I thought, but it was hard to be sure. Her features were small and dainty, close to perfect in their regularity. But beauty is so much more than perfection of feature; the particular mix of colour, light and warmth that gives a face beauty are totally lacking in a corpse.

She had very long hair; so long it trailed over the sides of the trolley. It twisted in long spirals; it was the sort of hair I'd dreamed of having as a child. I started to find it hard to look at her face and moved down the body.

Although I'd attended post-mortems in the past – an essential part of training – I'd never seen a murder victim before. Even if I had, I don't think anything could have prepared me for the damage I was looking at.

On her abdomen Dr Renney had made a Y-shaped incision to enable examination of her internal organs. It had been crudely sewn up; an ugly, disfiguring wound. The damage to her chest area was even more extensive but, in this case, Dr Renney carried no responsibility. There was a deep wound between her breasts, roughly oval in shape and about two inches long, where I guessed the blunt instrument had been inserted. I tried to imagine the force needed to inflict such a blow and was glad Dr Renney had told us what he had about Propofol. A jagged tear stretched vertically from the wound in both directions, reaching close to her neck and down almost to her waist, where the forcing open of the ribcage had torn her skin. I had a sudden vision of hands, red with blood, plunging themselves into her and of large, scarred knuckles tensing white with strain as the rib bones started to crack under the force. I swallowed hard.

When I'd found her, the ribcage hadn't been properly closed. I'd seen something of the damage inflicted inside and the missing organ had been conspicuous by its absence. I was inclined to agree with Renney. A heart removed in such a fashion couldn't have been used again.

The room had fallen silent. I realized everyone was waiting for me.

'It's here,' said Renney, from behind me. He was holding a steel dish. He carried it over to the worktop that ran along three walls of the room and I followed. Tulloch stood to my left, Gifford slightly behind. I could hear his breathing above my right ear. Dunn kept his distance.

Bracing myself, I lifted the uterus. It was heavier and larger than you would expect in a woman of her size. I put it on the scales. Fifty-three grams. Dr Renney offered me a ruler. I measured the length and the breadth at its widest, superior level. An incision had already been made and I opened it. The cavity was large and the muscular layers thicker and more defined than you would find in a woman who had never gone to full-term pregnancy. The whole process took about three minutes. When I was satisfied I turned to Stephen Renney.

'Yes,' I said. 'She gave birth between a week and ten days before death. Difficult to be more precise.'

'Will you have a look at her breasts for me?' he asked, smiling, delighted to have been proved right. I swallowed my irritation. This was his job; naturally he wanted to do it thoroughly.

I walked back to the trolley. Our victim was slim, but now I knew what I was looking for, I could see a few rolls of pregnancy fat around her midriff. The flesh around her abdomen looked slack and her breasts seemed large on a small frame. I went closer and ran my hands around the right one; the left was too badly damaged. The lactiferous ducts were swollen and her nipples were large and had cracked in places.

I nodded.

'She'd been feeding,' I said, hearing my voice tremble and not caring. I couldn't look at any of the others. 'Are we done?' I said.

Renney hesitated. 'Well, I was wondering…' He glanced down the body. Oh no, I was not examining this woman's vagina. I knew what I would find.

'Perhaps we should leave it for the others now,' I said.

He paused for a moment. 'There is one other thing the officers should see. Will you help me turn her?'

Gifford caught my eye. 'I'll do it,' he said, stepping forward. He walked to the head of the trolley and slid his gloved hands beneath her shoulders. Stephen Renney held her around the hips, counted down, 'Three, two, one, turn,' and she was lifted up and turned. We could see her slender back, freckled shoulders, long slim legs and curved buttocks. No one spoke. The two police officers stepped closer to the trolley and – I couldn't help it – I did too.

'What the hell are they?' asked Gifford at last.

Symbols, three of them, had been carved into the victim's back: the first between her shoulder blades, the second across her waist and the third along her lower back. All three symbols were angular, made up of entirely straight lines; two of them were vertically symmetrical, the third was not. The first, the one between her shoulder blades, reminded me a little of the Christian fish symbol:

The second, across her waist, consisted of two triangles lying on their sides with their apexes touching; how a child might draw an angular bow on a kite string:

The third was just two straight lines, the longest running diagonally from just above the right hip bone to the cleft of her buttocks and the second crossing it diagonally:

Each one measured about six inches at its longest dimension.

'Very shallow wounds,' said Renney, the only one of us not trans- fixed by what we were looking at. 'Painful, but not life-threatening in themselves. Made with an extremely sharp knife. Again, a scalpel springs to mind.' He glanced at Gifford. So did I. Gifford was still staring at the woman's back.

'While she was alive?' asked Tulloch.

Renney nodded. 'Oh yes. They bled a little, then had time to heal partly. I'd say a day or two before she died.'

'Which would explain the need for restraint,' said Dunn.

Tulloch glanced down and then up at the ceiling, her hands clenched into fists.

'But what are they?' asked Gifford again.

'They're runes,' I said.

Everyone turned to me. Gifford screwed up his already deep-set eyes and twisted his head as if to say, Come again.

'Viking runes,' I elaborated. 'I have them in my cellar at home. Carved into some stone. My father-in-law identified them. He knows a lot about local history.'

'Do you know what they mean?' asked Tulloch.

'Haven't a clue,' I confessed. 'Just that they're some sort of ancient script brought over by the Norwegians. You see them quite a lot around the islands. Once you know what you're looking for.'

'Would your father-in-law know what they mean?' asked Tulloch.

I nodded. 'Probably. I'll give you his number.'

'Fascinating,' said Gifford, seemingly unable to take his eyes off the woman.

I peeled off my gloves and was the first to leave the room. Tulloch followed close on my tail.

'So, what happens next?' Kenn Gifford asked, as the four of us walked back down the corridor towards the hospital entrance.

'We start combing through the missing-persons lists,' replied Dunn. 'We get the nail varnish tested, find out what make it is, maybe even what batch, where it was sold. Same with the linen she was wrapped in.'

'With DNA and dental records, and what we know about her pregnancy, it shouldn't take long to find out who she is,' said Tulloch. 'Fortunately, we have a relatively small population up here to work with.'

'Of course, she might not be from the islands at all,' said Inspector Dunn. 'We might be just a convenient dumping ground for a body. We may never know who she was.'

My stomach twisted and I realized how totally unacceptable that possibility was. There would be no closure for me until I knew who she was and how the hell she'd got into my field.

'With respect, sir, I'm sure she was local,' said Tulloch, surprise clear on her face. 'Why would anyone travel out here to bury a body when there are miles of ocean between us and the nearest mainland? Why not just dump her at sea?'

It occurred to me that, had I murdered anyone, I'd have done that anyway. The Shetland Islands have an estimated coastline of around 1,450 kilometres, but a land mass of just 1,468 square kilometres: a very uncommon ratio. Nowhere on Shetland is more than about five miles from the coast and nothing could be simpler than accessing a boat. A weighted body flung overboard a mile or so out to sea would stand a much smaller chance of being discovered than one buried in a field.

At that moment, my pager and Gifford's went off simultaneously. Janet Kennedy's blood had arrived. The two officers thanked us and left, heading for the airport to meet the mainland team.

An hour later, all had gone well and I was back in my office, trying to summon up enough energy to go home. I was standing at the window, watching the day growing dimmer as banks of cloud rolled in from the sea. I could just about make out my reflection in the glass. Normally I change before going home but I was still dressed in surgical trousers and one of the tight vests I always wear under my coat in theatre. I had a sharp, almost stabbing muscle-pain between my shoulder blades and I reached back with both hands to massage it.

Two hands, warm and large, dropped on to my shoulders. Instead of nearly jumping out of my skin, I relaxed and allowed my hands to slide out from underneath them.

'Stretch your arms up, high as you can,' commanded a familiar voice. I did what I was told. Gifford pushed down on my shoulders, rotating backwards and down. It was almost painful. Actually, it was very painful. I felt the urge to protest, as much at the impropriety as at the physical discomfort. I said nothing.

'Now, out to the sides,' he said. I reached out, as instructed. Gifford wrapped his hands around my neck and pulled upwards. I wanted to object but found I couldn't speak. Then he twisted, just once, to the right and released me.

I span round. The pain was gone, my shoulders were tingling and I felt great; as though I'd slept for twelve hours.

'How'd you do that?' I was barefoot and he towered above me. I took a step back, came up sharp against the window ledge.

He grinned. 'I'm a doctor. Drink?'

I felt myself blush. Suddenly unsure of myself, I looked down at my watch: six forty-five p.m.

'There are things I need to talk to you about,' said Gifford, 'and I'm going to be snowed under for the next few days. Besides, you look as though you need one.'

'You got that right.' I found my coat and shoes and followed him out. As I locked my office I wondered how he'd managed to open the door and cross an uncarpeted room without my hearing him. Come to think of it, how come I hadn't noticed his reflection in the window? I must have been deep, deep in a daydream.

Twenty minutes later we'd found a window seat in the inn at Weisdale. The view of the voe was grey: grey sea, grey sky, grey hills. I turned my back and looked at the fire instead. At home, in London, the blossom would be out in the parks, tourists starting to crowd the streets, pubs dusting off their outdoor furniture. On Shetland, spring arrives late and sulking, like a teenager forced to attend church.

'I'd heard you didn't drink,' said Gifford, as he put a large glass of red wine down in front of me. He sat and ran his fingers through his hair, sweeping it up and back, away from his face. Allowed to fall, it just brushed his shoulders. It was fringeless and layered, a style you sometimes see on men who've never quite got over the rebellion of their youth. On a member of the Royal College it seemed ridiculously out of place and I wondered what he was trying to prove.

'I didn't,' I replied, picking up the glass. 'That is, I don't. Not much. Not usually.' Truth was, I used to drink as much as anyone, more than many, until Duncan and I started trying for a family. Then I'd taken the pledge, and tried to persuade Duncan to do the same. But my resolution had been increasingly weakened of late. It's just so easy to tell yourself that one small glass won't hurt and then, before you know it, one glass becomes half a bottle and another developing follicle is seriously compromised. Sometimes I wish I didn't know quite so much about how the body works.

'I think you have a pretty good excuse,' said Gifford. 'Have you read Walter Scott's Ivanhoe?'

I shook my head. The classics had never really been my thing. I'd struggled with, and eventually despaired of, Bleak House whilst studying for O-level English. After that, I'd concentrated on the sciences.

Gifford picked up his drink, a large malt whisky. At least that's what it looked like, but for all I knew, it could have been apple juice. Whilst his attention was elsewhere I allowed myself to stare. His face was a strong oval, the dominant feature being his nose, which was long and thick, but perfectly straight and regular. He had a generous mouth, rather well drawn, plump and curved with a perfect Cupid's bow; one could almost say a woman's mouth were it not far too wide to suit a woman's face. That evening it sat in a half smile and deep indentations ran from the corners of his nose to its edges. Gifford was not a good-looking man by any standards. He certainly couldn't measure up to Duncan, but there was something about him all the same.

He turned back to me. 'Pretty nasty thing to happen,' he said. 'Are you OK?'

He'd lost me. 'Umm, finding the body, getting dragged into the post-mortem, or being deprived of Ivanhoe?' I queried.

Around us the pub was getting busy; mainly men, mainly young: oil workers, without families, seeking company more than drink.

Gifford laughed. He had large teeth, white but irregular, his incisors particularly prominent. 'You remind me of one of the characters,' he said. 'How are you settling in?'

'OK, thanks. Everyone's been very helpful.' They hadn't, but this didn't seem like the time to grouse. 'I saw the film,' I said.

'There've been several. That yacht's in very shallow water.'

He was looking over my shoulder out of the window. I turned round. A thirty-foot Westerly was sailing close to the shore. It was keeled over hard and if the skipper wasn't careful he'd end up scraping his hull. 'He has too much main up,' I said. 'Do you mean the woman played by Elizabeth Taylor?'

'You're thinking of Rebecca. No, I meant the other one, Rowena the Saxon.'

'Oh,' I said, waiting for him to elaborate. He didn't. In the voe the Westerly crash-tacked and sped off at an obtuse angle to its original course. Then someone on board released the halyard and the main- sail collapsed. The jib started flapping and a rush of movement in the water behind the stern told us he'd started his engine. The boat was under control and heading towards a mooring but it had been a close shave.

'Gets them every time,' said Gifford, looking pleased. 'Wind pushes them too far to the western shore.' He turned back to me. 'Quite an experience you've had.'

'Can't argue with that.'

'It's over now.'

'Tell that to the army digging up my field.'

He smiled, showing his prominent incisors again. He was making me incredibly nervous. It wasn't just his size; I am tall myself and have always sought the company of big men. There was something about him that was just so there. 'I stand corrected. It'll be over soon.' He drank. 'What made you go into obstetrics?'

When I got to know Kenn Gifford better, I realized that his brain works twice as fast as most people's. In his head, he flits from one topic to another with absurd speed, like a humming bird dipping into this flower, then that, then back to the first; and his speech follows suit. I got used to it after a while but at this first meeting, especially in my keyed-up state, it was disorientating. Impossible for me to relax. Although, come to think of it, I don't think I ever relaxed when Kenn was around.

'I thought the field needed more women,' I said, sipping my drink again. I was drinking far too quickly.

'How horribly predictable. You're not going to give me that tired old cliche about women being gender and more sympathetic, are you?'

'No, I was going to use the one about them being less arrogant, less bossy and less likely to jump on their dictatorial high horse about feelings they will never personally experience.'

'You've never had a baby. What makes you so different?'

I made myself put my drink down. 'OK, I'll tell you what did it for me. In my third year I read a book by some chap called Tailor or Tyler – some big obstetrical cheese at one of the Manchester hospitals.'

'I think I know who you mean. Go on.'

'There was a whole load of bunkum in it, mainly about how all the problems women experience during pregnancy are due to their own small brains and inability to take care of themselves.'

Gifford was smiling. 'Yes, I wrote a paper along those lines myself once.'

I ignored that. 'But the bit that really got me was his dictum that new mothers should wash their breasts before and after each feed.'

Enjoying himself now, Gifford leaned back in his chair. 'And that is a problem because…'

'Do you have any idea how difficult it is to wash your breasts?' From the corner of my eye, I saw someone glance in our direction. My voice had risen, as it always does when I'm sounding off. 'New mothers can feed their babies ten times or more in twenty-four hours. So, twenty times a day, they're going to strip to the waist, lean over a basin of warm water, give them a good lather, grit their teeth when the soap stings the cracked nipples, dry off and then get dressed again. And all this when the baby is screaming with hunger. The man is out of his tree!'

'Clearly.' Gifford's eyes flicked round the room. Several people were listening to us now.

And I just thought, "I don't care how technically brilliant this man is, he should not be in contact with stressed and vulnerable women."'

'I completely agree. I'll have breast-washing taken off the post- natal protocols.'

'Thank you,' I said, feeling myself starting to smile in response.

'Everyone I've spoken to seems highly impressed with you,' he said, leaning closer.

'Thank you,' I said again. It was news to me, but nice news all the same.

'Be a shame for you to be thrown off course so early'

And the smile died. 'What do you mean?'

'Finding a body like that would unsettle anyone. Do you need to take a few days off? Go visit your parents, maybe?'

Time off hadn't even occurred to me. 'No, why should I?'

'You're traumatized. You're handling it well, but you have to be. You need to get it out of your system.'

'I know. I will.'

'If you need to talk about it, it's better that you do so away from the islands. Actually, much better if you don't do it at all.'

'Better for whom?' I said, understanding, at last, the real reason for our cosy little chat down the pub.

Gifford leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. For several seconds he didn't move; I even started to wonder if he'd fallen asleep. As I watched, his mouth, not his nose, became the most prominent feature of his face. It almost became a beautiful mouth. I found myself thinking about stretching out a finger, gently tracing its outline.

He sat up, startling me, and glanced around. Our audience had all returned to their own conversations but he lowered his voice all the same.

'Tora, think about what we saw in there. This is no ordinary murder. If you just want someone dead, you slit their throat or put a pillow over their face. Maybe you blow their brains out with a shotgun. You don't do what was done to that poor lass. Now, I'm no policeman but the whole business smacks of some sort of weird ceremonial killing.'

'Some sort of cult thing?' I asked, remembering my taunts to Dana Tulloch about witchcraft.

'Who knows? It's not my place to speculate. Do you remember the child abuse scandal on the Orkneys some years ago?'

I nodded. 'Vaguely. Satanism and some stuff.'

'Satanism codswallop! No evidence of wrongdoing or abuse was ever discovered. Yet we had family homes broken into at dawn and young children dragged screaming out of their parents' arms. Have you any idea what the impact of all that was on the islands and the island people? Of the impact it's still having? I've seen what happens on remote islands when rumour and hysteria get out of hand. I don't want a repeat of that here.'

I stiffened. Put my drink down. 'Is that really what's important right now?'

Gifford leaned towards me until I could smell the alcohol on his breath. 'Too right it's important,' he said. 'The woman in Dr Renney's tender care is none of our concern. Let the police do their job. Andy Dunn is no fool and DS Tulloch is the brightest button I've seen in the local police for a long time. My job, on the other hand, and yours, is to make sure the hospital continues to function calmly and that a ridiculous panic does not get a hold on these islands.'

I could see the first prickles of a beard jutting through his chin. The hairs were mostly fair but some were red, some grey. I made myself look back up into his eyes, but looking directly at him was making me uncomfortable; his stare was just a little too intense. Green, his eyes were, a deep, olive green.

'You've had a terrible experience, but I need you to put it behind you now. Can you do that?'

'Of course,' I said, because I didn't have a choice. He was my boss, after all, and it was hardly a request. I knew, though, that it wasn't going to be that easy.

He sat back in his chair and I felt a sense of relief, although he hadn't been anywhere close to touching me. 'Tora,' he said. 'Unusual name. Sounds like it should be an island name, but I can't say I've heard it before.'

'I was christened Thora,' I said, telling the truth for the first time in years. 'As in Thora Hird. When I got brave enough I dropped the H.'

'Damnedest thing I ever saw,' he said. 'I wonder what happened to the heart.'

I sat back too. 'Damnedest thing I ever saw,' I muttered. 'I wonder what happened to the baby.'