‘And I suppose we’re hoping for . . . a girl?’ said Dana tentatively. I heard Duncan give a soft laugh and it seemed like a very good sign.
A sudden noise grabbed my attention. On the fence that ran the length of the field were a group of pale-grey birds with forked tails, black heads and red beaks. They were Arctic terns, come back from their long winter in the southern hemisphere. Hoping to nest in our field, as was their usual custom, they were frustrated at the sudden human invasion. Terns are not placid birds. They jumped around on the fence, circled overhead, yelling down at the police officers to be off and find somewhere else to dig. Didn’t they know this was breeding ground?
‘I think they’ve found something,’ said Dana.
My attention snapped away from the birds. ‘Where?’
‘That group near Helen. Tall man with sandy hair. Woman with thick-rimmed glasses. Near the reed bed.’
I watched. The small group Dana was talking about was no longer one team among many, it had become the focus of activity up on the field. One by one, other white-clad officers were stepping closer.
‘Oh, they’ve been doing that for the last hour,’ said Duncan. ‘I think that team’s just more excitable than the rest.’
‘They’re very close to where I found Melissa,’ I said, in a voice I wasn’t sure would carry. Nobody spoke. Up in the field four men started digging in earnest.
‘We should go inside,’ said Duncan. Nobody moved.
The digging went on. Activity around the rest of the field had stopped. All eyes were on the four men with spades. Even the terns seemed to have quietened down.
Clouds began to roll in from the voe. The land, so rich in colour just moments earlier, fell into shadow. No one, either in the field or on the back terrace of the house, seemed able to talk. We listened to the regular thud of spades against damp earth and waited.
When I didn’t think I could bear it any longer, the digging stopped. The men with spades stepped back and others strode forward. Cameras began clicking, people were talking into radios, equipment was unloaded from the vans parked in our yard and a surge of excitement ran through the press ranks. Helen started to walk down the hill towards us.
The perfectly preserved, peat-stained bodies of four women were eventually found on our land. The first they dug out of the ground that day was Rachel Gibb; the others have since been identified as Heather Paterson, Caitlin Corrigan and Kirsten Hawick. All were names I knew: I’d seen them on my computer screen the night I met Helen. In the days that followed I learned more about them, where they’d lived, who they’d been, how they were believed to have died. And I spent more time than was good for me imagining their final year. Torn from their lives, cut off from everyone they loved, these women had to face the long, painful drudge of pregnancy and the terrifying ordeal of childbirth alone and in fear. They’d had the best medical attention possible, but no one to hold their hand, give them a reassuring hug, tell them it would all be worth it in the end. Prisoners of their own bodies as much as of the men of Tronal, these women had sat in their pens like pregnant cattle, biding their time until their purpose was served and they were needed no more. And if thinking of this makes you want to howl with rage, then join the club, my friend, join the bloody club.
Each woman brought out of the earth that week had had her heart cut out, just as Melissa’s had been. Each had three runic symbols carved into the flesh of her back: Othila, meaning Fertility; Dagaz, the rune for Harvest; and Nauthiz: Sacrifice.
The search has been called off now, much to my dismay, because I know there must be two more bodies buried somewhere; seven KT boys were born a year after these women supposedly died. The police team insist, though, that the fields behind our house have been thoroughly searched; even Duncan and Dana are telling me to leave it now. So these women will stay out there. They may lie in the Shetland earth for all time, along with all the other women who have disappeared without trace on these islands over the centuries. Or they may turn up out of the blue one day when someone, too ignorant to know better, dares to disturb the ground.
The terns have found somewhere else to build their nests now. We don’t blame them: we’re going to do the same.
Afterword
The stories on which Sacrifice is based are documented, but not extensively; largely because for many years Shetlanders felt no need to write them down. The remote location of the land kept its population stable and for a long time word of mouth was considered enough. I have learned that there was even a certain reluctance amongst the islanders to talk about these strange and supernatural events.
But gradually, over the years, people from outside the islands became interested, then intrigued, and books about Shetland lore began to appear in our bookshops. It was my discovery of the chilling legend of the Kunal Trows (in Aylesbury Public Library of all places) that gave rise to the idea for Sacrifice. I wrote this in the English home counties, not venturing north until it was all but complete.
And so my first real glimpse of Shetland was on a clear, crisp morning in late November. The huge expectations I’d built up over several years of writing about the land were not remotely disappointed; I thought it easily the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.
From Sumburgh airport I drove north up the main island, unable to stop smiling as each bend in the road offered a view more stunning than the last; across Yell, the colour of an autumn leaf, and on to Unst, which truly must be the loveliest and loneliest place on earth.
Throughout the day the people I met were warm and friendly, effortlessly helpful and entirely normal (what, I asked myself, had I really expected?), and I wondered that these marvellous islands could be so little understood, so rarely visited. I began to have misgivings: could I really have written such a grim story about such a warm and wonderful land? And yet . . .
Later that evening, Lerwick seemed unnaturally quiet and uncomfortably dark as I followed my map to the small church of St Magnus. Try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to walk down the shadowy, silent street with the weird trees and the empty, brooding buildings. I decided to come back in daylight, and walked instead towards the sea. Dark, damp fishing nets were strewn across every driveway: quite what or who they were destined to catch I didn’t like to dwell on. I reached the beach, only to find a group gathered silently around a massive bonfire on the sand. Was it a delayed Guy Fawkes celebration (it was long past November 5), or something else entirely? I remembered all the stories I’d read, of women disappearing, of prisons on remote islands, of shadowy grey men who preyed on their human neighbours, and Richard’s words crept, unwanted, into my head. ‘So many stories, so much nonsense: little grey men who live in caves and fear iron. Yet, tucked away inside all legends, a kernel of truth can be found.’
I headed quickly back to my hotel, reflecting that, whilst I might technically still be in Britain, I was a long way from home . . .
THE END
Acknowledgements
Up front, a very special thank-you to Kerry and Louise, my two first readers, for proving that true honesty is something you will only ever hear from true friends (and younger sisters).
For patiently checking the medical detail, I am sincerely grateful to Dr Denise Stott and Drs Jacqui and Nick Socrates. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.
On the subject of mistakes, I tried very hard to make my portrayal of Shetland as accurate as possible, but there were a few occasions when its geography just didn’t fit the demands of the story. I hope the islanders will forgive the occasional liberty I’ve taken with their wonderful landscape.
I relied a great deal on reference material and would like to acknowledge the following works: The Book of Runes by Ralph Blum, Shetland Folklore by James R. Nicholson, British Folklore, Myths and Legends by Marc Alexander, Exploring Scotland’s Heritage, HMSO Books, Northern Scotland and the Isles by Francis Thompson, Encyclopaedia of World Mythology by Arthur Cotterell, Shetland: Land of the Ocean by Colin Baxter and Jim Crumley, Around S
hetland: A Picture Guide, published by the Shetland Times Ltd, British Regional Geology: Orkney and Shetland from the Natural Environment Research Council, Grammar and Usage of the Shetland Dialect by T. A. Robertson and John J. Graham, Bodies from the Bog by James M. Deem, Human Remains: Interpreting the Past by Andrew Chamberlain, Modern Mummies: The Preservation of the Human Body in the Twentieth Century by Christine Quigley, The Scientific Study of Mummies by Arthur C. Aufderheide, Conception, Pregnancy and Birth by Dr Miriam Stoppard and Natural Solutions to Infertility by Marilyn Glenville. For procuring most of these books for me, and never once batting an eyelid at my ever more peculiar requests, I am grateful to Sheila and her colleagues at my local library.
‘There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls’ is taken from the book Brain Droppings by George Carlin. Copyright © 1997 Comedy Concepts Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hyperion. All rights reserved.
I would like to thank Sarah Turner at Transworld for her confidence in the book and for her hard work in polishing away its rough edges; and also the rest of the Transworld team, especially Patsy Irwin, Nick Robinson and Kate Samano.
Last, and by no means least, my heartfelt thanks to Anne Marie Doulton of the Ampersand Agency and to the wonderful Buckman family: the best agents any author could wish for.
About the Author
Sharon Bolton (previously S. J. Bolton) is the author of six critically acclaimed novels: this is her seventh novel and features the popular DC Lacey Flint and DI Mark Joesbury.
She has been shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel of the Year, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA Dagger in the Library.
Sharon lives near Oxford with her husband and young son. For more information about her and her books, or to check out her addictive blog, visit www.sharonbolton.com. You can also join her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SJBoltonCrime.
HAVE YOU READ THEM ALL?
THE LACEY FLINT THRILLERS
NOW YOU SEE ME
A savage murder on London’s streets, 120 years to the day since Jack the Ripper began his reign of terror. Lacey Flint hunts a psychopath whose infamous role model has never been found . . .
‘Probably the best thriller that you’ll read all year’ Choice Magazine
DEAD SCARED
A spate of suicides at a prestigious university, each more horrific than the last. The only way to find the killer is to send someone undercover: Lacey Flint becomes the bait . . .
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IF SNOW HADN’T FALLEN (A SHORT STORY)
Tensions come to the boil when a young Muslim man is brutally murdered by a masked gang. There’s just one witness: DC Lacey Flint.
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LIKE THIS, FOR EVER
Twelve-year-old Barney Roberts is obsessed with a series of local murders. His neighbour DC Lacey Flint joins the hunt for the killer . . .
‘Spine-tingling’ Lisa Gardner
A DARK AND TWISTED TIDE
Police Constable Lacey Flint thinks she’s safe. Living on the river, working on the river, swimming in the river, she’s never been happier. It can’t last . . .
‘Bolton’s latest gripper. Suffused with menace’ The Times
THE STAND-ALONE THRILLERS
SACRIFICE
Tora Hamilton, a newcomer to the remote island of Shetland, discovers a woman’s body preserved in the mud of her field. Who is she, and why is Tora so unwelcome here?
‘If she carries on like this she will have worshippers in their millions’ The Times
AWAKENING
A series of unnatural events are occurring in Clara Benning’s village. The reclusive vet discovers a connection to an abandoned house, and a fifty-year-old tragedy the villagers would rather forget . . .
‘This book writhes and glides and slithers its way into the reader’s psyche’ Guardian
BLOOD HARVEST
Harry, the new vicar in town, is subjected to a series of menacing events. What secret is his parish hiding from him, and who is the young girl lingering in the graveyard?
‘Well-crafted, original and spooky’ Daily Mail
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SACRIFICE
A CORGI BOOK: 9780552159753
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781407033532
First publication in Great Britain
Bantam Press edition published 2008
Corgi edition published 2009
Copyright © Sharon Bolton 2008
Sharon Bolton has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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