Published: March 18th, 2014
Description:
A sunny evening, a tranquil garden - and an old man brutally gunned down on his doorstep.
In a pretty and tranquil town, a proposed superstore development has divided the population in an increasingly bitter war. The low-level aggression of bored youth that is generally tolerated has become sinister. The bloodied carcass of a sheep abandoned in the streets is more than just unpleasant vandalism and teenage bikers, terrorizing a woman to breaking point, are impossible to control.
When a second victim is killed in what seems a random shooting, the fear in the town becomes tangible. Detective Fleming will not accept that the crimes are motiveless, but she struggles to make sense of the two murders, when nothing makes sense any more and no one will believe anything. Not even the truth.
Author about the series
When I was thinking about starting a series, I knew what I didn’t want my detective to be. I didn’t want her to be a loner with a drink problem, a totally dysfunctional personal life, and an aggressive attitude to her superiors and the rule of law. I’d been a lay justice for ten years and knew a lot of women police officers and they seemed perfectly normal to me – just working women with husbands, kids, elderly parents, doing a difficult, demanding but very rewarding job.
I could see Marjory quite clearly: a tall, athletic-looking woman (Big Marge to her officers) at breakfast-time trying to get to work and her kids out to school. Just at that time I went to do an event in Wigtown in Galloway, the Scottish Book Town. It ‘s farming country and it was at the time of the dreadful foot-and-mouth epidemic when sheep and cattle were being slaughtered, the fields were eerily empty and you could smell the smoke of funeral pyres. I was thinking how hard it would be to be a police officer in a community like this where the farmers you were forcing to allow the killing squads on to their land were probably people you knew, ha grown up with. It came to me then that if that was hard, how much more difficult it would be if you were also a farmer’s wife and your job pitted you against not only your friends but your husband as well. So Marjory became a farmer’s wife and that has been the background to her family life.
EXCERPT
Ashley became aware that Luke was shifting restlessly in his seat. He had barely said a word, making only monosyllabic replies to anything directly addressed to him; Ashley had put it down to seasickness and having suffered from it herself once - though only once - knew that not throwing up took every atom of concentration.
She leaned across to him. 'Won't be long now. Hang in there!'
He didn't turn his head, or even seem to notice that she had spoken to him and Ashley eyed him warily. He would be smart enough to lean out over the side if the worst came to the worst, wouldn't he?
Luke was fiddling with the fastening of his Crewsaver lifejacket with the integral harness that kept crew attached to the boat if they went overboard, for operational reasons or otherwise. It must be constricting his suffering stomach, Ashley surmised, but he couldn't be allowed to release it. In a boat bucking like this one it was much too dangerous.
'Luke!' she said sharply. 'Be sick if you have to be, but don't –'
He snapped the release, shrugged off the jacket and stood up unsteadily.
Feeling the shift of movement, Rob turned his head in alarm. 'You stupid bugger! Sit down!' he yelled. 'That's an order – you'll have us over!'
Ashley flung herself across, grabbing at Luke with both hands and dragging him back. Unbalanced, he fell back into the seat and she threw her weight across his knees trying to pin him down.
Luke was crying now. 'Just let me go,' he begged. 'I'm going over the side. Leave me – don't come back looking.'
Rob swore. 'Christ, he's suicidal! Ashley, can you cope?'
'Just,' she managed, through gritted teeth. 'How much further?'
'I'm looking for the lights now.' Rapidly over the radio he described the situation to the shore control room, peering towards the land through the fog of rain and flying spume.
Luke was struggling fiercely. Ashley was a fit young woman but he was taller and stronger; it was only by using her bodyweight across his legs and clinging, almost upside down, to one of the iron grab handles on the boat's side that she was able to stop him standing up. She couldn't do that forever.
'For God's sake, Rob, are we nearly there?' she screamed.
Like an answer to prayer, Rob saw a row of lights high above sea-level. They were well past Port William, and Knockhaven, with its villas up on the cliff-top, was the next coastal village. 'Five minutes, max,' he said, easing back the throttle; no point in being in such a hurry you missed the harbour.
And yes, there were the harbour lights now, just visible through the drifting veils of rain: the green one flashing on the higher rocks to the south which encircled the harbour protectively, the red fixed light to the north on the side of the lifeboat shed.
'I've got a fix on the harbour lights now,' he announced, 'We're heading in. Two minutes.'
He heard Ashley gasp, 'Thank God!' followed by a cry of heart-rending misery and despair from Luke.Poor lad, Rob thought as he opened the throttle again and swept round the curve of the rocks into the harbour.
But where were the familiar, welcoming lights of the village? Where – The waves, boiling to and fro in the seething cauldron of Fuill's Inlat, seized the Maud'n'Milly, lifting her into the air with contemptuous ease to smash her down on the teeth of the jagged rocks beneath. Ashley's scream of terror, the sound of the ripping of the nylon tubes and the rush of escaping air were the last things Rob heard before the shock of the icy water hit him and he too was snatched up only to be tossed aside, like a toy flung down in a toddler's tantrum.
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About the author:
Aline Templeton grew up in the fishing village of Anstruther, in the East Neuk of Fife. She has worked in education and broadcasting and was a Justice of the Peace for ten years. Married, with two grown-up children and three grandchildren, she now lives in a house with a view of Edinburgh Castle. When not writing, she enjoys cooking, choral singing, and traveling the back roads of France.
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