'In the house at the end of the voe: she said. 'Next to the school!

'Your mother's the schoolteacher!

Now he could place her. The mother was a little woman. She'd come from one of the north isles. Unst. Yell, maybe. Married a man from Bressay who worked for the council. Magnus had seen him driving around in a big 4x4.

'Aye,' she said and sighed.

'And you?' he said to the dark girl, who interested him more, who interested him so much that his eyes kept flickering back to her. 'What do they call you?'

'I'm Catherine Ross: she said, speaking for the first time. Her voice was deep for a young lassie, he thought. Deep and smooth. A voice like black treacle. He forgot where he was for a moment, picturing his mother spooning treacle into the mixture for the ginger cakes she'd made, twisting the spoon over the pot to catch the last sticky threads, then handing it to him to lick. He ran his tongue over his lips, became embarrassingly aware of Catherine staring at him.

She had a way of not blinking.

'You're not local! He could tell by the accent.

'English?'

'I've lived here for a year!

'You're friends?' The idea of friendship was a novelty. Had he ever had friends? He took time to think about it. 'You're pals. Is that right?'

'Of course we are,' Sally said. 'Best friends.' And they started laughing again, passing the bottle backwards and forwards, throwing back their heads to ' drink, so their necks looked white as chalk in the light of the naked bulb hanging over the table.

Chapter Two

Five minutes to midnight. They were all on the streets of Lerwick around the market cross and it was jumping. Everyone was steaming, but not fighting drunk, just mellow and you felt that you belonged, you were a part of the laughing, drinking crowd.

Sally thought her father should have been here. He'd have realized then that there was nothing to get uptight about.