The Trowie Mound Murders

by Marsali Taylor

  The hospital doors slid open reluctantly to let me through into a blast of warm air and cleaning fluid smell.

  ‘I was wanting to visit Anders Johansen,’ I said to the girl behind the glass panel labelled ‘Reception’. ‘He was admitted yesterday. Ward 1.’

  ‘It’s on the first floor,’ she said. ‘Follow the signs.’

  I followed through the pale green corridors with their photographs and paintings – mostly of Shetland, as if patients might forget where they were – up the echoing stairs, and into the ward.

  I don’t know what I’d expected: Anders looking as I’d seen him last, with the colour drained from his face, rigid with suppressing pain, bandaged, fettered by drips of scarlet blood, of colourless solution. It was a shock to see him pillowed upright, by the window, with his face turned towards the ward. The only sign of injury was the bandage around his shoulder. He had his colour back, and he was relaxed and smiling – he’d obviously just made some joke at the young nurse in the pale-blue overall, for she was telling him off with mock-severity. A pang I didn’t want to recognise squeezed harsh fingers around my heart. He was younger than me, and so handsome, and I’d a scarred cheek, and a wardrobe of jeans and sailing gear –

  Then he turned his head and saw me. His face lit up; he launched straight into Norwegian, forgetting the pretty nurse. ‘Cass! I’m glad to see you. You couldn’t bring Rat, I suppose, but is he okay without me?’

  I dumped my contribution to his five-a-day in his lap, and put his kitbag with a selection of clean clothes on the floor. ‘He’s missing you. He’s either going to ground in his nest or watching for you.’

  He held his brown hand out, and I put mine in it. His fingers closed warm around mine. I looked down at it, the smooth skin, the faint blue of the veins running up the back of it. The colour and texture of the two hands matched. I couldn’t look at his face.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Sore. But the doctor says it is not serious, the muscle and shoulder-blade will heal, and the horn did not go too deep. I was tossed rather than gored.’

  Relief swept through me. ‘Good. I was worried about your arm.’

  ‘You are okay?’ he asked. ‘The bull did not touch you? I did not manage to ask, yesterday.’

  ‘You’re a hero,’ I joked. ‘You got both me and Kirsten out of the way. It’s all over the Shetland news website. I should have brought my laptop, to show you.’

  ‘And last night? I was worried about you.’ I looked up then. His eyes were the blue of the sea out of the window behind him, fringed by his long, fair lashes. ‘I didn’t like the idea of you being alone on Khalida. The killer might think you could identify him.’

  ‘He did,’ I said, and forgot my shyness in telling him the end of the story. ‘Luckily Khalida hadn’t touched ground,’ I finished, ‘and so she’s fine. They drove the boy off in a police car, and I’ve heard no more of that.’ Poor Kirsten, waking to this second disaster.

  ‘But the cavalry were there all the time. Your policeman.’

  ‘Him too.’ I smiled. ‘He wasn’t very pleased that I’d risked being taken hostage.’

  Anders snorted. ‘A landsman. I would have done the same as you.’ He grimaced. ‘I phoned my parents, this morning, as soon as I was awake enough. They are coming, today, by plane, and they want me to go home.’

  ‘You’ll need to rest for a bit,’ I agreed.

  ‘I cannot take Rat home on a plane.’ His hand tightened on mine. ‘You would let me mend on board Khalida.’

  I thought about that for a moment. I could see it so easily, us continuing our gipsy life, with meals at odd times, and evenings together with the lamp shedding its candle glow over us. Then, when he was healed, before the winter set in, we could forget about college and regular work, and go adventuring, across to the Caribbean, where the warm water was aquamarine over yellow sand, and the night stars hung so low you could reach out and touch them. We were two of a kind, Anders and I. The selkie wife should have stayed with her own kin, instead of trying to make a life ashore … except that I’d tried that already, with Alain, and it hadn’t worked. I wouldn’t steal this son from his parents.

  ‘Of course I would,’ I said, ‘but I think you’d be better at home, in a clean bed, with real sheets, and a shower next door.’

  Anders pulled a face. ‘And regular meal-times, and my mother watching everything I do, and the neighbours calling.’

  ‘Sometimes you need that.’

  ‘And you will look after Rat, till I can come back for him?’

  ‘I’ll bring Rat to Bergen,’ I promised. ‘The first fair wind, I’ll bring him over.’ I drew my hand out of his and stood up. ‘You keep getting better, now. Is there anything I can get you, in town?’

  He shook his head. ‘Although I have not tried hospital food, yet.’

  ‘Then, if I don’t see you before, I’ll see you in Bergen.’ I leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, but his head turned, as I had known it would, and his mouth found mine, warm, clinging, and I felt giddy as I felt myself respond, it was only a kiss – and then I pulled myself back from him when I was wanting to lean forward, to crouch down beside the bed so that we could hold each other, never let go. I tried to keep it casual.

  ‘Keep taking care of yourself. If the forecast’s good, I’ll see you in a few days.’

  I turned to wave as I left the ward. He was leaning back against the immaculate pillows and smiling.

  I’d a dozen things to do before I could leave. Both the short-range and long-range forecast were clear. I could go tomorrow, with a southerly force 4-5 to give me a fast reach each way, a day to Out Skerries, then a thirty-two hour passage. After that, a low was heading for us, with gale force winds and rain. If I didn’t go now, I wouldn’t go at all. Maybe it was just as well. The next time I saw Anders, he’d be his mother’s son again, bandaged and scrubbed, not fit to go adventuring, safe under her eye. Returning would be in the lap of the weather gods.

  I sent him a text: Weather good now see you in Bergen.

  There was one more week of the sail training, but twarthree phone calls got the other instructors to cover that. I checked Khalida’s rigging and made sure the autopilot was working properly. I went through the lockers and made a list of stores for the voyage; I stowed all the loose items and put the little table away. Rat watched intelligently; he knew what we were doing. I hoped Cat wouldn’t be seasick on his first proper voyage. A trip to the shop, and we were ready for sea.

  I had just spread my North Sea chart, tide-tables, pencils and paper out on the table when I heard footsteps on the pontoon. Rat looked up hopefully, then dived into the forepeak as Gavin’s voice called my name. I stood up and stuck my head out of the hatch. ‘Kettle’s about to go on. Come aboard.’

  He swung over the guard rail. ‘I can’t stay long. My flight’s at 18.20.’ He came down into the cabin. I moved my heavy-duty oilskins forrard.

  ‘Have a seat.’

  Gavin put the cushion between his back and Khalida’s wooden shelf and leaned back, looking at the spread charts, the streamlined grey autopilot. Silence fell as I made the coffee, only partly the comfortable silence of friendship. I was too conscious of his physical presence. Anders had once said, You know how it is, at the end of a voyage, you have become close, and perhaps for that last night you become lovers. Even you, Cass who walks by herself.

  Suddenly I wasn’t Cass who walked by herself any longer. It was the end of this voyage, and I couldn’t look at his face. I watched his hands instead, a countryman’s hands, weathered brown and made for strength, but with beauty in their deftness. They were hands for lifting sheep, for mending fences. Land hands, that would hold a selkie wife ashore. I avoided touching his fingers as I handed him the mug which was close to becoming his, and kept a careful distance between us as I sat down. ‘What news?’

  ‘They caught Madge in Bergen – though only because a sharp-eyed policeman spotted that she was a woman alone on the right sort of moto
rboat. She must have had her disguise all ready aboard: a long, dark wig, with brows and lashes to match, shoes to make her two inches taller and clothes to make her look slim, rather than plump. The art works stowed aboard were a giveaway, though. Your ‘sisters’ guess was bang on. She’s insisting, of course, that she was an innocent partner in David and Sandra’s shady dealings. They met through her, fell for each other, and worked out this scheme. David had already had dealings with Olaf, and they decided to exploit his connection with Brian to find out about security in likely houses to rob. Sandra of course could find out about drug dealers through Peter, and she did those negotiations, with David passing the actual selling down the line. A very nice earner.’

  ‘And was the clumsiness of this deliberate?’

  ‘It was indeed. Sandra was planning just to leave, but when Peter insisted on coming up to Shetland, with these burglaries particularly in mind, David took fright and decided he had to go. If anyone in Newcastle was worried, well, Sandra had her mobile and could reassure them for a bit – then, when there was a suitable nasty storm forecast, she’d do a last call from that area then drop the mobile overboard. Meanwhile, she and David would be living it up abroad. If there were more investigations, well, it was as we figured, there could be a conclusion that Peter had uncovered something, and those responsible had eliminated them both. I’m pretty sure we’ll have no trouble convicting her. Norman’s a juvenile, of course.’ He looked at the chart spread on the table. ‘Where are you off to?’

  I lifted it to show him. ‘Bergen. I have to deliver Rat home.’

  ‘Anders is going by a more conventional route?’

  ‘By plane, with his parents.’

  I felt him withdraw from me. ‘So you’re giving up your college plan.’

  ‘No,’ I said vehemently. I spread my hands, trying to conjure the thoughts I couldn’t quite articulate. ‘I don’t know if I’ll fit in there or not, but I need to grow up. I can’t stay a footloose hippy all my life.’

  ‘People do.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s different.’

  ‘There’s a weather-window now. I’ll take Rat over, then I’ll return as soon as I can.’

  His grey eyes were steady on mine. ‘What about Anders?’

  ‘I’m coming back,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what he’ll do.’ It wasn’t quite what he’d asked, and he saw that. He shook his head.

  ‘For a woman who rules her own life, you’re leaving the initiative open.’

  ‘I’ve never been good at this part of it,’ I confessed.

  ‘If you come back from Bergen, call me.’

  ‘I’ll come back,’ I said.

  A note on Shetlan

  Shetland has its own very distinctive language, Shetlan or Shetlandic, which derives from Old Norse and Old Scots. Magnie’s first words to Cass in Death on a Longship are:

  ‘Cass, well, for the love of mercy. Norroway, at this season? Yea, yea, we’ll find you a berth. Where are you?’

  Written in west-side Shetlan (each district is slightly different), it would have looked like this:

  ‘Cass, weel, fir da love o’ mercy. Norroway, at dis saeson? Yea, yea, we’ll fin dee a bert. Quaur is du?’’

  Th becomes a d sound in dis (this), da (the), dee and du (originally thee and thou, now you), wh becomes qu ( quaur, where), the vowel sounds are altered (well to weel, season to saeson, find to fin), the verbs are slightly different (quaur is du?) and the whole looks unintelligible to most folk from outwith Shetland, and twartree (a few) within it too.

  So, rather than writing in the way my characters would speak, I’ve tried to catch the rhythm and some of the distinctive usages of Shetlan while keeping it intelligible to soothmoothers, or people who’ve come in by boat through the South Mouth of Bressay Sound into Lerwick, and by extension, anyone living south of Fair Isle.

  There are also many Shetlan words that my characters would naturally use, and here, to help you, are some o’ dem. No Shetland person would ever use the Scots wee; to them, something small would be peerie, or, if it was very small, peerie mootie. They’d caa sheep in a park, that is, herd them up in a field – moorit sheep, coloured black, brown, fawn. They’d take a skiff (a small rowing boat) out along the banks (cliffs) or on the voe (sea inlet), with the tirricks (Arctic terns) crying above them, and the selkies (seals) watching. Hungry folk are black fanted (because they’ve forgotten their faerdie maet, the snack that would have kept them going) and upset folk greet (cry). An older housewife like Barbara would have her makkin (knitting) belt buckled around her waist, and her reestit (smoke-dried) mutton hanging above the Rayburn. And finally … my favourite Shetland verb: to kettle. As in: Wir cat’s joost kettled. Four ketlings, twa strippet and twa black and quite. I’ll leave you to work that one out on your own … or, of course, you could consult Joanie Graham’s Shetland Dictionary, if your local bookshop hasn’t joost selt their last copy dastreen.

  There are a number of grammar constructions which are Scots / Shetland. One I’ve used is needs + ed – for example, something in the fridge needs used.

  Adults using the diminutives Magnie (Magnus), Gibbie (Gilbert), and Charlie may also seem strange to non-Shetland ears. In a traditional country family (I can’t speak for toonie Lerwick habits) the oldest son would often be called after his father or grandfather, and be distinguished from that father and grandfather and perhaps a cousin or two as well, by his own version of their shared name. Or, of course, by a peerie in front of it, which would stick for life, like the eart kyent (well-known) guitarist Peerie Willie Johnson, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday. There was also a patronymic system, which meant that a Peter’s four sons, Peter, Andrew, John, and Matthew, would all have the surname Peterson, and so would his son Peter’s children. Andrew’s children, however, would have the surname Anderson, John’s would be Johnson, and Matthew’s would be Matthewson. The Scots ministers stamped this out in the nineteenth century, but in one district you can have a lot of folk with the same surname, and so they’re distinguished by their house name: Magnie o’ Strom, Peter o’ da Knowe …

  Glossary

  For those who like to look up unfamiliar words as they go, here’s a glossary of some Scots and Shetlan words.

  aa : all

  an aa : as well

  aabody : everybody

  ahint : behind

  allwye : everywhere

  amang : among

  anyroad : anyway

  auld : old

  aye : always

  bairn : child

  banks : sea cliffs, or peatbanks, the slice of moor where peats are cast

  bannock : flat triangular scone

  birl, birling : paired spinning round in a dance

  blootered : very drunk

  blyde: glad

  boanie : pretty, good looking

  breeks : trousers

  brigstanes : flagged stones at the door of a crofthouse

  bruck : rubbish

  caa : round up

  canna : can’t

  clarted : thickly covered

  cowp : capsize

  cratur : creature

  crofthouse : the long, low traditional house set in its own land

  darrow : a hand fishing line

  dastreen : yesterday evening

  de-crofted : land that has been taken out of agricultural use, e.g. for a house site

  dee : you. du is also you, depending on the grammar of the sentence – they’re equivalent to thee and thou. Like French, you would only use dee or du to one friend; several people, or an adult if you’re a younger person, would be ‘you’.

  denner : midday meal

  didna : didn’t

  dinna : don’t

  dis : this

  doesna : doesn’t

  doon : down

  drewie lines : a type of seaweed made of long strands

  duke : duck

  dukey-hole : pond for ducks

  du kens :
you know

  dyck, dyke : a wall, generally drystane, i.e. built without cement

  ee now : right now

  eela : fishing, generally these days a competition

  everywye : everywhere

  fae, frae : from

  faersome : frightening

  faither, usually faider: father

  fanted : hungry, often black fanted, absolutely starving

  folk : people

  gansey : a knitted jumper

  geen : gone

  greff : the area in front of a peat bank

  gret : cried

  guid : good

  guid kens : God knows

  hae : have

  hadna : hadn’t

  harled : exterior plaster using small stones

  heid : head

  hoosie : little house, usually for bairns

  isna : isn’t

  joost : just

  ken, kent : know, knew

  kirk : church

  kirkyard : graveyard

  knowe : hillock

  Lerook : Lerwick

  lintie : skylark

  lipper : a cheeky or harum-scarum child, generally affectionate

  mair : more

  makkin belt : a knitting belt with a padded oval, perforated for holding the ‘wires’ or knitting needles.

  mam : mum

  mareel : sea phosphorescence, caused by plankton, which makes every wave break in a curl of gold sparks

  meids : shore features to line up against each other to pinpoint a spot on the water

  midder : mother

  mind : remember

  moorit : coloured brown or black, usually used of sheep