Thin Air

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Thanks to everyone who has helped make this book better: my agents Sara Menguc and Moses Cardona and my editor Catherine Richards. I’m grateful to the Pan Macmillan team of Jeremy, Becky, Emma, Sam and all Andy Belshaw’s group. Thanks to my friends in Shetland, specially Ingirid Eunson and Jim Dickson for great food and company, Mary Blance for advice in all things Shetland, Steven and Charlotte for giving me the idea and everyone else who’s provided tea, beer and stories. Any mistakes are my own – I do know that it’s impossible to send an email by iPhone from Unst, but this is a story. Finally, let’s raise a glass (of champagne) to my fairy godmother Elaine.

The music started. A single chord played on fiddle and accordion, a breathless moment of silence when the scene was fixed in Polly’s head like a photograph, and then the Meoness community hall was jumping. Polly had spent thirteen hours on the overnight boat from Aberdeen to Lerwick and when she’d first come ashore the ground had seemed to shift under her feet, and this was another kind of illusion. The music appeared to bounce from the walls and the floor and to push people towards the centre of the room, to lift them onto their feet. Even the home-made bunting and the balloons strung from the rafters seemed to dance. The band’s rhythm set toes tapping and heads nodding. Children in party clothes clapped and elderly relatives clambered from their chairs to join in. A young mother jiggled a baby on her knee. Lowrie took the hand of his new bride, Caroline, and led her onto the dance floor to show her off to his family once more.

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