Shadows of Death Read Online Free

something I’d never seen elsewhere. Small stone farmhouses dotted the landscape here and there, with their outbuildings sprawled in the manner of farm buildings everywhere in the world. Cottage gardens appeared in front of most of the houses, and neat kitchen gardens at the back. But …
    ‘Alan, there are no trees!’
    ‘No. The winds in winter can be rather fierce, I understand, so trees don’t thrive. Wildflowers, on the other hand, grow in profusion, including a kind of wild orchid that’s found nowhere else.’
    ‘Hmm. I like trees. I
need
trees.’
    ‘There’s a nice little wood at the castle on Shapinsay, though I don’t know if we’ll go up there on this trip.’
    ‘Castle?’ My ears perked up. I’m a sucker for castles.
    ‘Not a real one. Not medieval, that is. Victorian, or thereabouts. We’ll have to find you a guidebook or two, and you can read all about it.’
    We drove on. There was almost no traffic, which was a good thing, because the road was quite narrow. The landscape was beautiful, no denying it. The sweep of hill and sky made me wish I were a painter. But it all seemed much of a muchness, the same pattern of fields, livestock, farm, road repeating around every—
    ‘Alan! What’s
that
?’
    Alan slowed the car to a stop by the side of the road to let me gape to my heart’s content.
    Quite close to me, a piece of stone rose out of the ground. More than three times as tall as it was wide, and quite flat and thin, it looked like a piece of modern sculpture. The top slanted at a perfect forty-five degree angle. Nearby, three other stones thrust against the sky, one nearly a twin of the nearest one, another appearing to have been damaged, and the third more like a petrified tree trunk.
    ‘What
is
it?’ I repeated. I had edged a little closer to Alan. Something about those stones …
    ‘It is what remains of an ancient stone circle, a henge, probably around five thousand years old.’
    ‘Something like Stonehenge?’
    ‘A bit, but much older.’
    We sat in silence. Even Watson seemed struck dumb, until someone walked down the road with a dog in tow, and our dog barked, breaking the spell.
    ‘I took us a bit out of our way to show you that,’ said Alan as he turned the car around. ‘It’s far from the most impressive monument on the islands, but I wanted you to have a glimpse of Neolithic Orkney straight off.’
    ‘It’s … uncanny, somehow. I’m …’ I couldn’t finish my thought. I wasn’t sure what I felt, or what I wanted to say. If I remembered what I thought I remembered of high school French, I was
bouleversée
.
    If this was the effect of a few minutes at one of the less impressive sights, I wondered whether I’d have any wits left at the end of a week.

TWO
    W e found our holiday flat without the slightest difficulty. It would, indeed, be a little difficult to get lost in Stromness, which has only two principal streets, the one skirting the harbour, by which we entered town, and the one above it (above in the literal sense: the town is built on a hillside). Our modern flat faced the harbour, almost across the street from the ferry landing. It had an attached garage, which was an important consideration, since parking is always at a premium in old towns.
    ‘Where will we get the key?’ I asked as Alan pulled the car up in front of the garage door.
    ‘Andrew said the door would be open. No one ever locks doors in Orkney.’
    Sure enough, the door was unlocked. It opened on a minute entrance hall and thence directly into a lovely, well-equipped kitchen. There was a pot of flowers on the table.
    ‘From Andrew,’ I said, reading the card. ‘How nice of him! Is that one of his own pots?’
    ‘Probably.’
    ‘It’s beautiful! And look,’ I said as I continued to explore the kitchen, ‘he’s given us some food, as well. Cereal, bread, butter, milk, tea, coffee … even a couple of bottles of wine!’
    ‘He’s a good chap. I’ve not seen him for years, but