swack: smart, fine
swee: to sting (of injury)
tak: take
tatties: potatoes
tay: tea, or meal eaten in the evening
tink: think
tirricks: Arctic terns
toorie, toorie-cap: a round, knitted hat
trows: trolls
tushker: L-shaped spade for cutting peat
twa: two
twartree: a small number, several
tulley: pocket knife
unken: unknown
vexed: sorry or sympathetic: ‘I was that vexed to hear that’
vee-lined: lined with wood planking
voe: sea inlet
voehead: the landwards end of a sea inlet
waander: wander
waar: seaweed
whatna: what
wasna: wasn’t
wha’s: who is
whit: what
whitteret: weasel
wi: with
wir: we’ve – in Shetlan grammar, ‘we are’ is sometimes ‘we have’
wir: our
wife: woman, not necessarily married
wouldna: would not
wupple: to twist or turn a bit of rope around something, to tangle
yaird: enclosed area around or near the croft house
yoal: a traditional clinker-built six-oared rowing boat
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To Captain Sture and all the real crew of the sail-training ship Sørlandet: thank you for a wonderful voyage from Kristiansand to Belfast. My highlights include Freida taking me up to the first platform, and Lydia taking me out on the yard, the dolphins in the North Sea, the joy of just being out at sea, with no land in sight, and, proudest moment of all, being at the helm as we came into Belfast, with Captain Sture giving me orders just as if I was one of her crew. I apologise, sir, for giving your ship such a crew as would never be tolerated aboard the real Sørlandet. Thank you, Jenn, for letting me use your ‘moments of awesome’; thank you, Simon, for the shanties; thank you, Jill, for showing me how to use a sextant, and Tom, for teaching me to end-splice; thank you, Chief Steward Carsten and the hjalleygirls, for keeping us fed. Thank you, Kjell Sigurd, for the cups of tea, and Lena, for your enthusiasm and beautiful smile. Thank you, Marko, back at the office, for encouraging me to bring murder and mayhem on board – I wish I could have used all the ideas for ingenious and gory deaths that I was offered!
Particularly, hello and thank you to all the members of the blue watch: Tom, the third mate and navigator; Drew, our watch leader; ABs Lydia and Freida; and my fellow trainees: Aage, Anna, Ben, Dimitris, Ellen, Gabriel, Ismail, Jan-Ole, Johan, Ludwig, Maria, Naseem, Nine, Nora, Samir and Sindre. Thank you, fellow trainees, for letting me use you as Cass’s watch in this book. To the young people on board, it was a great pleasure meeting you all. I hope that by the time you read this book your lives have gone upwards and upwards, and that you are moving towards fulfilling the potential you showed aboard.
On the publishing side, thank you, as always, to my wonderful agent, Teresa Chris, for her advice, encouragement and support. Thank you, all the members of my new publishing family at Allison & Busby, for your welcome. It’s lovely being with you!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARSALI TAYLOR grew up near Edinburgh, and moved to Shetland as a newly qualified teacher. She is a tourist guide who is fascinated by history, as well as a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own yacht. She currently lives on Shetland’s scenic west side.
marsalitaylor.co.uk
@MarsaliTaylor
BY MARSALI TAYLOR
Death in Shetland Waters
COPYRIGHT
Allison & Busby Limited
12 Fitzroy Mews
London W1T 6DW
allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2017.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2017.
Copyright © 2017 by MARSALI TAYLOR
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2207–5
Death in Shetland Waters Page 30