S Bolton - Sacrifice

'Why are you telling me?'

'Because you need to know. You need to make the effort, too. Your technical skills are all there but you don't handle people that well.'

That pissed me off, big time. Probably because I knew he was telling the truth. I stood up. 'If you have a problem with my performance at work there are procedures you need to follow. You don't need me to tell you that.'

Gifford wasn't remotely intimidated. 'Oh, get over yourself. We can do it by the book if you want. It will take an immense amount of time that neither of us can spare and the end result will be no different, except there'll be a cumbersome and potentially damaging paper trail on your file. I'll see you tomorrow.'

He turned and was gone, leaving me alone with a very sore arm and my self-esteem in tatters.

TEN MINUTES LATER THE VET HAD BEEN SUMMONED AND the pain in my arm had faded to an ache. I sat on the fence, watching Charles hobble around, knowing there was nothing more I could do for him but reluctant to leave him by himself. I found both pairs of pliers and used the stronger pair to cut several strands of wire from the broken fence posts. Then I gathered it up and carried it back to the yard.

Goddamned Gifford for a patronizing, manipulative bastard. I knew exactly what he was up to. I'd come across those exact tactics before, the first time in the primary-school playground. Sally Carter had taken me gently to one side and told me that none of the other girls in our class liked me. They thought I was stuck up and bossy and a know-it-all. But I wasn't to worry because she, Sally Carter, thought I was nice and had stuck up for me. To this day I can remember the bewildering mix of emotions that hit me at that moment: misery at my recently discovered unpopularity; a sort of pathetic gratitude for having at least one friend; fury at the said friend for telling me all this and ruining my day; and, at the bottom of it all, a sneaking, half-formed suspicion that she wasn't much of a friend anyway, if she could make me feel this bad. I'd met other Sally Carters over the years and learned to recognize this crude but highly effective piece of professional one-upmanship.

I took the pliers back inside. Duncan was fussy about his tools and took a dim view of my using and abusing them.

Of course, recognizing the tactic was a long way from being able to deal with it. I could (and was frequently tempted to) dismiss it as a bit of obnoxious power play. On the other hand, I've always known I'm not popular: I don't have the gift of making small talk and I'm uncomfortable in large groups; I know I don't smile easily and I have quite a way with the clumsy remark and the ill-timed joke. Much of the time I try, unsuccessfully, to be different; but sometimes I just want to scream at the people around me to grow up. I am a perfectly competent doctor; I work hard, commit no crimes, never knowingly carry out a mean or dishonourable act. I'm one of the bloody good guys, but because of a lack of surface charm, I'm doomed to be disliked by those around me. Well, fuck that for a game of soldiers!

On the third stair up there was a gold ring.

I stood, staring at it. It was a wide band, with some sort of pattern etched around the upper and lower circumferences. Gifford, I wondered briefly, but Gifford hadn't left the kitchen all the time he'd been here. In any case, this ring hadn't been worn for some time; it was caked in dried mud.

I bent down to pick it up. Some of the mud flaked away, a sizeable piece with a definite indentation down one side. I sat down and took off one of my boots. Hunter boots have a distinctive pattern on the underside and the piece of mud that had fallen away from the ring seemed a pretty good match. The ring must have spent the last few days stuck to the underside of my boot. My running up the stairs earlier or, more likely, my falling down them had dislodged it.

I felt a bolt of panic. I'd been wearing these boots when I'd found the body last Sunday but had taken them off before entering the house to get a knife. The police forensics team had taken away the trainers I'd replaced them with, but I'd forgotten all about the boots. I'd seriously fucked up a major investigation.

It's her ring. That's what they were looking for in the field the other night.

I sat there, thinking hard. I really didn't want this ring to be connected in any way to my lady from the field. For one thing, I found it highly disturbing that I'd been walking round with a piece of her jewellery stuck to the underside of my foot. For another, if someone had been looking for it, then whoever killed her was, without question, still on the islands.

Suddenly, I was nervous. I stood up, listening for sounds in the house, as though someone might be creeping up on me even now. Then I walked back into the kitchen and closed the back door. I even considered locking it. Instead I went to the kitchen sink and ran about two inches of lukewarm water. I dropped the ring into it, waited a few seconds then rubbed it between my palms. I dried it on a tea towel and held it up to the light. Without really thinking, I slipped it on to the third finger of my left hand. It wouldn't go past the knuckle; it had been made for slim fingers.

The body I'd seen on the morgue trolley was that of a slim woman. Was I now looking at her ring? When I'd cut open her linen shroud, pretty much all my attention had been on the horrific chest wound. If a ring had fallen off her left hand, I could have stood on it without noticing.

Well, her ring or not, I had to let Bossy Tulloch know immediately. Naturally, she'd be furious with me. Not only had I been responsible for carrying a crucial piece of evidence away from a crime scene and delaying its discovery by several days, but I'd even gone as far as to wash away the surrounding mud. I'd pretty much driven a cart and horses through the forensic evidence.

I put the ring down on the kitchen worktop and crossed to the phone. As I started to dial the sun flashed in through the window, making the ring gleam. I put the phone down and picked up the ring again. There was an inscription inside.

Too easy, I thought, too, too easy. I glanced round at the door again. This time I did move to lock it before holding the ring up to the light. The inscription was hard to read, written in that pretty but virtually indecipherable script that I think is called italic calligraphy. A period in the peat hadn't helped much.

The first letter was J, the second H or maybe N. Then there was a K followed by what could have been a C or a G. Then there were four numbers: a four, a five, a zero and a two. If they were the initials of the marrying couple and the wedding date and if- big if, this – the ring had come from my friend, then we'd done it. We'd identified her.

I turned round to look at the phone. Over here, now! it barked. I turned my back on it and found the phone book. There were twenty registration districts on Shetland. I dialled the number for the Lerwick office. It was answered immediately. I took a deep breath, heart pounding, feeling ridiculously, inexplicably guilty, and then told the woman who I was, stressing my position of seniority at the hospital. As usual, it worked; she became interested, eager to help.

'We've found a piece of jewellery,' I explained. 'I think you may be able to help trace its owner.'

'Of course, what can we do, Miss Hamilton?'

'I think it's a wedding ring. It has an inscription that looks like a wedding date and some initials. You keep records of weddings, don't you?'

'All weddings in Lerwick, yes. Did the wedding take place in the town?'

'I'm not sure; I think so. I don't have a name, though. Can your records be searched just with a date?'

'Well, you could look up all the weddings that took place on that particular day and see if your initials matched any of them.'