Sacrifice (2 page)

I saw a human foot.

I didn’t scream. In fact, I smiled. Because my first feeling as the linen fell away was enormous relief: I must have dug up some sort of tailor’s dummy, because human skin is never the colour of the foot I was looking at. I let out a huge breath and started to laugh.

Then stopped.

Because the skin was the exact same colour as the linen that had covered it and the peat it had lain in. I reached out. Indescribably cold: undoubtedly organic. Moving my fingers gently I could feel the bone structure beneath the skin, a callus on the little toe and a patch of rough skin under the heel. Real after all, but stained a rich, dark brown by the peat.

The foot was a little smaller than my own and the nails had been manicured. The ankle was slender. I’d found a woman. I guessed she would have been young, in her twenties or early thirties.

I looked up at the rest of the linen-wrapped body. At the spot where I knew the chest would be was a large patch, roughly circular in shape and about fourteen inches in diameter, where the linen changed colour, becoming darker, almost black. Either something peculiar in the soil had affected this patch of
linen or it had been stained before she’d been buried.

I really didn’t want to see any more; I knew I had to call the authorities, let them deal with it. But somehow, I couldn’t stop myself from taking hold of the darker linen and making another cut. Three inches, four, six. I pulled the cloth apart to see what was beneath.

Even then I didn’t scream. On legs that didn’t feel like my own I stood up and backed away until I came up against the side of the pit. Then I turned and leaped as if for my life. Clambering out, I was surprised by the sight of the dead horse just yards away. I had forgotten Jamie. But the crow had not. He was perched on Jamie’s head, digging furiously. He looked up, guiltily; then, I swear, he smirked at me. A lump of shiny tissue, dripping blood, bulged from his beak: Jamie’s eye.

That was when I screamed.

I sat by Jamie, waiting. It was still raining and I was soaked to the skin but I no longer cared. In one of our sheds I’d found an old green canvas tent and laid it over Jamie’s body, leaving just his head exposed. My poor old horse was not going to be buried today. I stroked his lovely bright coat and twisted show plaits into his mane as I kept silent vigil by my two deceased friends.

When I could no longer bear to look at Jamie, I raised my head and looked out across the inlet of sea water known as Tresta Voe. Voes, or drowned
valleys, are a common feature of this part of the world, dozens of them fraying the coastline like fragile silk. It is impossible to describe accurately the twisting, fractured shapes they make, but from the hill above our house I could see land, then the water of the voe as it formed a narrow, sand-rimmed bay, then a narrow strip of hill, then water again. If I were high enough and had good enough vision, I would be able to see it go on, striping alternately, land and sea, land and sea, until my eyes reached the Atlantic and the rock finally gave up the fight.

I was on the Shetland Islands, probably the most remote and least known part of the British Isles. About a hundred miles from the north-eastern tip of Scotland, Shetland is a group of around a hundred islands. Fifteen are inhabited by people; all of them by puffins, kittiwakes, bonxies and other assorted wildlife.

Socially, economically and historically, the islands are unusual; geographically, they verge on the bizarre. When we first stood together on this spot, Duncan wrapped his arms around me and whispered that, long ago, a terrible battle was fought between massive icebergs and ancient granite rocks. Shetland – a land of sea caves, voes and storm-washed cliffs – was its aftermath. At the time, I liked the story, but now I think he was wrong; I think the battle goes on. In fact, sometimes I think that Shetland and its people have spent centuries fighting the wind and the sea . . . and losing.

It took them twenty minutes. The white car with its distinctive blue stripe and Celtic symbol on the front wing was the first to pull into our yard.
Dion is Cuidich
,
Protect and Serve,
said the slogan. The police car was followed by a large, black, four-wheel-drive vehicle and a new, very clean, silver Mercedes sports car. Two uniformed constables got out of the police car, but it was the occupants of the other cars that I watched as the group headed towards me.

The Mercedes driver looked far too tiny to be a policewoman. Her hair was very dark, brushing her shoulders and layered around her face. As she drew closer I saw that she had fine, small features and hazel-green eyes. Her skin was perfect, lightly freckled across her nose and the colour of caffe latte. She wore new, green Hunter boots, a spotless Barbour coat and crimson wool trousers. There were gold knots in her ears and several rings on her right hand.

Beside her the man from the four-wheel-drive looked enormous, at least six two, possibly three, and broad across the shoulders. He too wore a Barbour and green wellingtons but his were scuffed, shiny and looked a dozen years old. His hair was thick and gingery-blond and he had the high-coloured, broken-capillaried complexion of a fair-skinned person who spends a lot of time outdoors. His hands were huge and callused. He looked like a farmer. I stood up when they approached and dropped a piece of canvas over Jamie’s head. You can say what you like, but in my book even horses have a right to privacy.

‘
Tora Guthrie?’ he asked, stopping two yards away and looking down at the huge, canvas-covered form at my feet.

‘Yes,’ I said, when he’d looked up at me once more. ‘And I think you might be more interested in that one.’ I indicated the hole. The woman was already standing on the edge, staring down. Behind her I watched two more police cars pull into my yard.

The policeman-farmer took two strides to bring himself to the edge of my pit. He looked in and then turned back to me.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Andy Dunn of the Northern Constabulary,’ he said. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Dana Tulloch. She’ll take you inside now.’

‘About six months,’ I said, wondering when I was going to stop shivering.

We were in the kitchen, Detective Sergeant Tulloch and I sitting at the pine table, a WPC standing in the corner of the room. Normally, our kitchen is the warmest room in the house, but it didn’t feel so today. The sergeant had unbuttoned the neck of her coat but hadn’t removed it. I could hardly blame her, but seeing her all bundled up wasn’t exactly making me feel any warmer. The constable, too, had kept her outdoor coat on, but at least she’d made us coffee and the hot mug between my hands helped a little.

Without asking, DS Tulloch had plugged a tiny notebook computer into a socket on the wall and, in
between shooting questions at me, had been typing away at a speed that would have impressed a 1950s typing pool.

We’d been inside about thirty minutes. I’d been allowed to change out of my wet clothes. Actually, they’d insisted. Everything I’d been wearing had been taken from me, bagged and carried out to one of the waiting cars. I hadn’t been given a chance to shower, though, and I was very conscious of peat stains on my hands and dark-brown earth under my fingernails. I couldn’t see the field from where I sat but I’d heard several more vehicles pull into the yard.

Three times already, in increasingly tiresome detail, I’d described the events of the last hour. Now, it seemed, it was time for a different line of questioning. ‘Five or six months,’ I repeated. ‘We moved here at the beginning of December last year.’

‘Why?’ she asked. I’d already noticed her soft, sweet east-coast accent. She wasn’t from Shetland.

‘Beautiful scenery and a good quality of life,’ I replied, wondering what it was about her that was annoying me. Nothing specifically to complain of: she had been polite, if a little detached; professional, if a little cold. She was particularly economical with language, not a word escaping her lips that wasn’t strictly necessary. I, on the other hand, was talking too much and getting edgier by the minute. This tiny, pretty woman was making me feel oversized, badly dressed, dirty and – of all things – guilty.

‘And it’s one of the safest places to live in the UK,’
I added, with a mirthless smile. ‘At least, that’s what it said on the job ad.’ I leaned towards her across the table. She just looked at me.

‘I remember thinking it a bit odd,’ I gabbled on. ‘I mean, when you apply for a new job, what are the questions you like to ask? Does it pay well, how many days’ holiday do I get, what are the hours like, how expensive are the local houses and are there good schools in the area? But “Is it safe?” How many people ask that? Almost makes me think you have something to prove up here.’

Detective Sergeant Tulloch had the sort of self-possession I could only dream of. She broke eye contact and looked down at her mug, so far untouched. Then she raised it and sipped carefully before putting it down again. Her lipstick left a faint pink smudge. I never wear lipstick myself and hate to see lipstick stains. They look too personal, somehow, to be left behind like litter; a bit like dropping a tampon wrapper on someone’s lounge carpet.

DS Tulloch was looking at me. There was a glint in her eyes that I couldn’t identify. She was either pissed off or amused.

‘My husband is a ship-broker,’ I said. ‘He used to work at the Baltic Exchange in London. Around the middle of last year he was offered a senior partnership in a business up here. It was too good a deal to turn down.’

‘Bit of an upheaval for you. Long way from the south of England.’

I bowed my head, acknowledging the truth of what
she said. I was a long way from the gentle, fertile hills of the English county where I’d grown up; a long way from the dusty, noisy streets of London, where Duncan and I had lived and worked for the past five years; a long way from parents, brothers, friends – if you didn’t count the equine kind. Yes, I was a very long way from home.

‘For me, perhaps,’ I said at last. ‘Duncan is an islander. He was brought up on Unst.’

‘Beautiful island. Do you own this house?’

I nodded. Duncan had found the house and put in an offer on one of several visits he’d made last year to sort out the details of his new business. Thanks to a trust fund he’d come into on his thirtieth birthday, we hadn’t even needed to apply for a mortgage. The first time I’d seen our new home was when it was already ours and we’d followed the removal vans along the A971. I’d seen a large, stone-built house, about a hundred years old. Large sash windows looked out over Tresta Voe at the front and the hills of Weisdale at the back. When the sun shone (which, I grant you, it sometimes did), the views were stunning. There was plenty of land outside for our horses; plenty of room inside for the two of us and anyone else who might happen to come along.

‘Who did you buy it from?’

Realizing the significance of the question, I came out of my little daydream. ‘I’m not really sure,’ I admitted.

She said nothing, just raised her eyebrows. It wasn’t the first time she’d done so. I wondered if it
was an interrogation technique: say the minimum yourself and let the suspect gabble. That’s when I realized I was a suspect in a murder investigation; and also that it’s possible to feel scared, angry and amused, all at the same time.

‘My husband handled it,’ I said.

Her eyebrows stayed up.

‘I was working out my notice in London,’ I added, not wanting her to think me one of those women who leave all the financial stuff to the menfolk, even though I am. ‘But I do know that no one had lived here for quite some time. The place was in pretty bad shape when we moved in.’

She glanced around my none-too-tidy kitchen, then looked back at me.

‘And the previous owners were some sort of trust. Something to do with the church, I think.’ I’d taken so little interest. I’d been busy at work, completely unenthusiastic about the move and preoccupied with . . . stuff. I’d just nodded at what Duncan told me and signed where he’d asked me.

‘Yes, definitely something to do with the church,’ I said, ‘because we had to sign an undertaking that we’d behave appropriately.’

Her eyes seemed to get darker. ‘Meaning?’

‘Well, daft things, really. We had to promise that we wouldn’t use it as a place of worship of any kind; that we wouldn’t turn it into a drinking or gambling house; and that we wouldn’t practise witchcraft.’

I was used to people being amused when I told
them that. DS Tulloch looked bored. ‘Would such a contract be enforceable, legally?’ she asked.

‘Probably not. But as we don’t practise witchcraft, it’s never really been an issue.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said, without a smile. I wondered if I’d offended her and decided I didn’t care. If her sensitivities were that delicate she should have chosen a different profession. The room seemed to be getting colder and my limbs were stiffening up. I stretched, stood up and turned to the window.

Behold the crime scene: more police had arrived, including several wearing jumpsuits that appeared to have been made from white plastic bin-liners. A tent had been erected over my excavations. Red-and-white-striped tape stretched the length of our barbed-wire fence and marked out a narrow pathway from the yard. A uniformed policeman was standing just a little too close to Jamie. As I watched, he flicked cigarette ash on to the canvas that covered him. I turned back.

‘But given the state of the corpse out there, maybe someone around here dabbles in the black arts.’

She sat up, lost her bored look.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You should wait for the post-mortem. I could be wrong. The pelvic region is my specialty, not the chest. Oh, and could you ask your colleagues to be careful? I was fond of that horse.’

‘I think they have more on their minds than your horse right now, Dr Guthrie.’

‘It’s Miss Hamilton. And they can show some respect.’

‘What do you mean?

‘Respect for my property, my land and my animals. Even the dead ones.’

‘No, what do you mean, “It’s Miss Hamilton”?’

I sighed. ‘I’m a consultant surgeon. We are addressed as Mr or Miss. Not Dr. And Guthrie is my husband’s name. I’m registered under my own.’