He recognized many of the other passengers on the bus. Some of them he had been to school with. There was Florence who had cooked in the Skillig Hotel before she retired. They had been pals of a kind when they were young. She had been a pretty girl and a fine dancer. There'd been one dance in the hall at Sandwick. The Eunson boys had been playing and there'd been a reel when the music had gone faster and faster and Florence had stumbled.

Magnus had caught her in his arms, held on to her for a moment until she'd run off laughing to the other girls.

Further down the bus was Georgie Sanderson, who'd hurt his leg in an accident and had had to give up the fishing.

But Magnus chose a seat on his own and none of them spoke to him or even acknowledged his presence. That was how it always was. Habit. They probably didn't even see him. The driver had turned the heat full on. Hot air blew from under the seats and melted the snow on everyone's boots until water trickled down the central aisle, backwards and forwards depending on whether the bus was going up or downhill. The windows were covered in condensation, so he only knew it was time to get out because everyone else did.

Lerwick was a noisy place now. When he was growing up he'd known everyone he met in the street. Recently even in the winter it was full of strangers and cars. In the summer it was worse. Then there were tourists. They came off the overnight ferry from Aberdeen, blinking and staring, as if they'd arrived at a zoo or a different planet, maybe, turning their heads from one direction to another looking all around them.

Sometimes huge cruise ships slid into the harbour and sat there, towering over the buildings. For an hour their passengers would take over the town. It was an invasion. They had eager faces and braying voices, but Magnus sensed they were disappointed by what they found there, as if the place had failed to live up to their expectations.