On Fair Isle, nobody notices yet another Russian nuclear attack.

The story so far: A hoax which seemed to be the  decapitation of Feargal Birkadale, suave, not to say greasy communications officer for the massive Shetland windfarm known as Archie, short for Archipelagic Renewables, was followed by the actual removal of the real Feargal’s head (and hands, but that’s not important right now). A murder inquiry saw an elite  team of the usual drunken hack coppers flown up from Inverness, meaning that local sergeant Mary Lou Everly and her sidekick Detective Constable McKinstry have been sent to Fair Isle, in pursuit of possible suspect and anti-windfarm campaigner Louise Finlayson, head of SOW (Shite on Windfarms). She has already admitted perpetrating the original de-heading hoax.

Arriving on Fair Isle courtesy of the seriously dodgy Swaabie Airways, Mary and McKinstry are met by Louise herself, who breaks the news that Shetland’s chief forensic crimes investigating officer, Greta Skolosovinski, who everyone thought was on leave recovering from trench (or foot) mouth, or foot in mouth, or foot in trench, has also been found, decapitated and on this, the second most remote island in Shetland after Foula, which is halfway to America instead of Orkney.

Apparently Greta’s head is missing. Which is, after all, the meaning of ‘decapitation’. It’s also become evident from embarrassed flushes and flashing glances, that something has been going on between Louise and McKinstry.

Now Louise is taking McKinstry and Mary for coffee. Or something. Possibly…

They climbed into the ancient Bentley Fiona had guided them to , having fought their way through the still-skirmishing twitchers, one of whom had torn open a tin of baked beans with a penknife and was spooning the orange delights into his mouth with his fingers. Another was slugging Lagavulin like lemonade.

“Birdwatchers,” muttered McKinstry. “What would we do without them?”

“Have more Lagavulin and baked beans to ourselves, no doubt,” said Mary, who was more of a Speyside woman, being particularly partial to heavily-sherried Aberlour cask strength, known as A’Bunadh, which she had found was extremely effective at removing stickers from car bodywork, dissolving warts and silencing annoying men. One sip and they were stricken dumb, sometimes requiring hospital treatment for laryngeal abrasion..

“Nice car,” said Mary. She didn;t mean it. It may have once been a prestigious motor but this large contraption was held together mainly by rust and fertiliser bags. The seats were essentially sacking and beachcombed fishing nets, while the windows and windscreen were so scratched and dirty it was almost impossible to see out. Only the engine, a gigantic 7-litre affair, roared with intention and power. As was the case on all the outer Shetland Isles, neither an MOT test for roadworthiness nor road tax was necessary. This was known as the Grimond amendment to the Road Traffic Act, and the only reason Orkney and Shetland – still – voted LIberal Democrat. Cars were driven until they stopped working, and were then turned into animal accommodation or art installations, or both. All over Unst, for example, there were Rolls-Royces and Mercedes abandoned due to mechanical failure, painted in garish colours – one reputedly by Banksy – and used for housing pigs, goats and in one case, an entire order of Albanian Orthodox monks.

“We’ll head for Malcolm’s Head, for the processing plant,” said Linda. “The office there has a very acceptable Rancilio Silvia coffee machine someone stole from the Radio Shetland offices. And they import beans from one of the Edinburgh roasters. 

“No chance of a civet shit coffee,?” Mary was joking. The only place in Shetland you could get coffee made from beans that had been eaten and defecated undigested by civets was Mareel, the arts centre in Lerwick, and then only on Fridays. Someone in North Roe was currently pioneering coffee production made from beans eaten and shat out by pedigree Shetland sheep, but three teams of consultants were required before the necessary grants could be applied for. And the grants necessary to employ the consultants had yet to be awarded.

The processing plant had been set up, Marty knew, by grants channeled  from the windfarm through the Zetlandic Community Bribery Fund. The idea was that the many thousands of birds that perished due to collision with the whirling blades of Archipelagic Renewables’ wind generators could be recycled into something useful and environmentally practical, if questionable, namely feed pellets for fish farms. Fair Isle was chosen as it had a small number of birds constantly being shot by renegade armed birdwatchers and a constant difficulty with stray whales killing themselves  after getting lost on the way to Orkney. All could be recycled in the Malcolm’s Head meal factory. Protein was protein.

“It was good to have the last surviving Antarctic whalers training up young men to flense the blubber off the dead humpbacks,” said McKinstry.

“No, it was not,” said Mary.”Those whales only got lost due to their sonar being buggered by the underwater heavy metal disco broadcasts they have in Scapa Flow.”

“I heard the Peter Maxwell Davies one they had was especially hard on swans and dolphins,” said McKinstry. “Classical music’s a bastard for birds and cetaceans.”

The ancient Bentley bumped and rattled to a halt outside a massive metallic building which, oddly for Fair Isle, was marked by the complete absence of bird life around it. Louise led them through a small door into a comfortable office which smelled deliciously of coffee.

“Ethopian beans,” said Louise.”I’ll just grind some for us.” when she turned around from the Rancilio machine she had a long, wicked-looking knife in her hand. “I suppose it’s time I owned up.”

“Och, Louise,” said McKinstry. “This is all so unnecessary. You’ve lost your head completely, woman.”

“More than one head, I fear,” said Mary. “Explain yourself, McKinstry. Or let me guess: this is not an anti-windfarm head-removal protest is it? It’s all about ill-advised sex.”

“That’s correct, came a voice, lightly accented with the Polish of her parents and roughened by the trench mouth she had been diagnosed with, though it was actually a condition caused by chewing Gauloise cigarettes.

“Greta Skolovinski, as I live and breathe,” said Mary. “Louise, you fibber. She’s completely attached to all her various appendages. Some heads-up that turned out to be.”

“I am indeed,” said Greta, a six-and-a-half foot Amazonic type with hair liked barbed wire caught in a goat. “And if you’re looking for the head and hands of the bastard Feargal, they are already on their way to a Norwegian salmon farming concern, where they will nourish some oily fish, salmon, or possibly halibut, in a way that conniving mouthpiece for the pillagers of Shetland’s landscape never nourished no-one!”

“Bad grammar,” said McKinstry. “Always a problem with you Greta. I tried to prevent this. Louise, you know, I…I …I love you. Well, I quite liked you. Please, this folie a deux with a forensic scientist has already led to one death. Surely you can see you can go no further?”

“We have a boat ready to head for North Ronaldsay,” said Greta. “From there, we can go anywhere. Possibly Wick. And you speak of love? Louise and I have a passion beyond love, sealed in the blood of that weasely creature Birkadale, who threatened to come between us. And now you too, indeed you two too, will join him as organic fish feed, along with whales, birds, cows and one or two dogs and cats the locals wanted rid of.”

She threw open a door, produced another long-bladed knife, and with Louise herded McKinstry and Mary through it. Along a corridor they went, through another door and immediately they were hit by a wave of mechanical sound and the smell of surprisingly fresh flesh. It was like being in a butcher’s shop at Christmas. Below them something like the drum of a massive washing machine, only with vicious looking blades and no fabric softener, spun slowly.

“You won’t get away with this,” said McKinstry. “Louise, doesn’t that night in the Hrossey’s linen cupboard mean anything at all to you?”

“How did you get the heads and hands here?” said Maqry. “And why?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” said Louise, I had the head on my hold baggage and the hands…

“As hand luggage, yes I get it,” said Mary. “McKinstry, where did you get that gun?”

Lousie and Greta turned to look at McKinstry, who looked at his empty hands in puzzlement, then at Mary, who shook her head. “Ah well, it was just an idea.”

Suddenly silence fell, and the great machine below them ground to halt, leaving a somewhat dishevelled sea eagle corpse shedding feathers at the bottom. The door behind them burst open  and with a series of drunken shouts, a couple of inebriated birdwatchers burst in, waving empty Lagavulin bottles, their faces stained red with baked beans and tomato sauce.

“Islay coffee!’ one cried. “Urgent! Urgent! More beans! More beans! Stuff the whimbrels!”

“I’m bored with this,” said Mary, grabbing a bottle and smashing it over Louise’s wrist. The knife went flying. Holding the jagged remains of the bottle she jabbed it forcefully in Greta’s direction. “Trench mouth,” eh? I’ll give you trench mouth. Who  eats French cigarettes anyway? And what did you do with all the filters?”

The machinery below them started up with with terrible grinding screech. The two birdwatchers stumbled forward in fascination and in a terrible dance of death, they, Louise and Greta fell into the greedymaw of ill-advised recycling technology, and within minutes, were reduced to perfectly acceptable salmon food, on their way to pelletisation and the great circle of edible life.

“Well, that’s that then,” said McKinstry.

“What on earth did you see in her?” asked Mary.

“Well, neither of us could get a cabin on the Hrossey that night, so we both bedded down in the linen cupboard next to reception and one thing led to another,” he said. “I admit I should have mentioned it.”

“Oh, fair enough,” said Mary. “let’s go and get that coffee.”

But just then the rumble and squelch from the flesh recycling machinery was subsumed by a greater vibration. The ground itself was shaking and all the interior lights went out as the entire plant ground to a halt. There was a roar from outside and a flash visible even in the depths of the factory.

“That’ll be a Russian tactical nuclear attack on the Unst missile launching site,” said McKinstry.

Mary shrugged.

“Another one?”

“Just as well it’s so windy here,” said McKinstry. “A stiff south easterly should send the radiation firmly towards Faroe as usual.”

“Serves them right for eating all our puffins,” said Mary. “Fancy an orca steak for supper if we’re stuck here? It’s a well-known Fair isle delicacy.”

“Whale meat again?” said McKinstry. “I hope not.”

THE EN

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