The land slipped while Jimmy Perez was standing beside the grave. The dead man’s family had come from Foula originally and they’d carried the coffin on two oars,
the way bodies were always brought for burial on that island. The pall-bearers were distant relatives whose forebears had moved south to England, but they must have thought the tradition worth
reviving. They’d had time to plan the occasion; Magnus had suffered a stroke and had been in hospital for six weeks before he died. Perez had visited him every Sunday, sat by his bed and
talked about the old times. Not the bad old times, when Magnus had been accused of murder, but the more recent good times, when Ravenswick had included him in all their community events. Magnus had
come to love the parties and the dances and the Sunday teas. He’d never responded to Perez’s chat in the hospital, and his death had come as no surprise.
The coffin was lowered into the grave before the landslide started. Perez looked away from the hole in the ground, as the first earth was scattered on the coffin, and saw the community of
Ravenswick stretching away from him. He could see Hillhead, Magnus’s croft, right at the top of the bank next to the converted chapel where Perez lived with his stepdaughter Cassie. Nearer to
the coast was the kirk and the manse that had been turned into a private home, much grander than the kirk itself. There were the polytunnels at Gilsetter farm and a tiny croft house hidden from the
road. He didn’t know who stayed there now. The school where Cassie was a pupil was further north, not visible from the cemetery; and hidden by the headland was the Ravenswick Hotel and a
smart holiday complex of Scandinavian chalets. This was his home and he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
