Free The Trowie Mound Murders by Marsali Taylor Page A

dark with earth, and the strip of turf lay at the base of the wall.
    There was one of these chambered cairns, excavated in Victorian times, above my favourite anchorage on Vementry Isle. I frowned, trying to visualise what it was like. My impression was of a small, square chamber, set with shelves for the bones. It was mostly a rumble of stones, but you could still see the crawl-through entrance. That faced south, down the spine of Shetland towards Fair Isle and Orkney, the stepping stones their ancestors had used to get to Shetland. I came slowly around the mound until I’d got a quarter of the way round.
    The rustle came again, from behind me. I jerked my head around. My rucksack was wriggling as if there was something inside it. I turned and crept back, but the vibration of my feet on the soft turf must have been sensed, for just as I got to it a tiny grey-striped kitten backed rapidly out, and vanished under the stone I’d been sitting beside.
    I knelt to look. The smooth turf had crept up the stone, but at the side of it the grass was scrabbled into bare earth beside a hole, like the mouth of a rabbit burrow. Perhaps this was where the dead kittens had come from. This one could be the last survivor of the litter, and starving. I spread some bits of mackerel and buttered roll in a line coming forward from the hole, sat back, and waited.
    The kitten came out straight away, bolting the crumbs ravenously. It could only have been a few weeks old, staggering on its little paws, with its high-domed head seeming too heavy for its tiny body. Its eyes were that opaque colour of sea-washed blue glass found on the tide line, and its stubby tail was tucked in under its body. It was grey above, cream below, with darker over-hairs on a cloud-grey undercoat, and its white paws were grubby with earth, as if it couldn’t quite wash itself. Its ears were flattened, its eyes alert on me as it gollopped the food. As I moved to get the second roll out, it flinched, froze, then dived back into safety. There was a pause, then the little moon face peered out again from under its rock, hoping for more, but ready to retreat.
    I sat very still, thinking my next move through. A feral kitten wouldn’t take kindly to being carried, but I’d have to try. I couldn’t leave it here to starve. It watched nervously as I pulled off my fleece and put it in my rucksack, curling it into a nest and adding a few pieces of the buttery roll. Then I laid out another trail of mackerel. The taste of food had made it bolder; it came almost to my hand as I laid the first piece, and followed it forwards, so that it was easy to turn my hand and lift it, tiny paws scrabbling helplessly in the air. I put it straight into the rucksack. The kitten gave one protesting mew, then crouched there, sniffing, found the pieces of roll, and began eating again. I pulled the drawstrings almost closed and carried the rucksack in front of me as I made my way carefully down the hill.
    The dinghy was going to be the worst bit. The kitten had to stay in the rucksack for that. I felt the prickling sensation again as I tightened the drawstring and put the bag on the dinghy floor, but I was too busy to worry about phantoms just now. I shoved the dinghy afloat, rowed out to Khalida, handed the rucksack up into the cockpit, and climbed aboard after it.
    Boats aren’t like houses; you don’t have an under-stairs cupboard or back room where you can stow cardboard boxes that might come in useful some day. The best I could manage was a blue plastic mushroom box that kept tins out of the leak in the mid starboard locker. I dried it off and wound my woollen scarf inside it, making a kitten-sized nest. It would have to do for now. I put a dribble of milk in a soup bowl, and I even had a little cooked mince to offer, from remnants intended to make the base of tomorrow’s tea.
    I slid the washboards into their groove, so that the kitten couldn’t bolt on deck, but