Elspeth vomited, her lunch taking a swan dive off the small pier into the bay below. She had never been one for boats or the sea. As far as she was concerned water belonged in taps where it couldn’t cause any trouble. She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her coat and took a deep breath. The air had a faint stench, almost fishlike and it caused her to double over again retching.

“You going to be ok?” Gregor asked. He had smiled the entire way across, through what Elspeth considered forty-five minutes of watery hell. Gregor had leapt into the pier before the ramp had even been deployed, jauntily walking off into the town. He was clutching a newspaper in his hands. Mercifully it wasn’t raining, a rarity, and he was reading the headline, back resting against a lamppost. “Not a boat person?”

"Not in the slightest. Fucking hate the fucking things." Happy the vomiting had stopped, Elspeth straightened herself, stretching her arms outwards as she did. "Never have. Not really a big fan of water if I'm honest. Mum got me my bronze badge when I was little, but that was it. The fucking sloshing around. Turns my stomach."

"I can see. The trip back is going to be fun for you then." Gregor chuckled to himself. "Personally, I love boats and the water."

“You went to one of those fucking stuck up English fucking schools, though right? You probably were in one of those rowing club kind of things I bet.” Elspeth smiled at him, a poor choice considering her circumstances. It was a constant source of gentle ribbing. Whilst Gregor was Scottish like herself, he had spent most of his youth enrolled in an expensive, and notably English, boarding school.

“I was. You’re right.”

“What position were you? Cocksucker?”

“Coxswain,” Gregor corrected, ignoring the insult. “But no, just a regular rower myself.”

“Makes sense. Having a big lad like you is a bit like having a motor though. Cheating just a wee bit ain't it."

“Nah. You think I’m big? You should see some of the other lads. Anyway, take a look at this." He held the newspaper out, it flopped as he waved it. Elspeth grabbed it and stared at the front page.

“Not sure what I’m looking at, seems perfectly normal.”

“Exactly. Little place like this? Local paper?”

Elspeth nodded her head in realisation. “Nothing about the murder.”

“Exactly. This is a small place. There’s what, one hundred fifty, maybe two hundred people here? Christ that paper is probably made by hand by some little old lady in her garage. There is no way that the news hasn’t gotten around yet.”

“Right,” said Elspeth. “Somewhere like this, someone takes a particularly nasty shit, and everyone knows about it. You think they’re covering it up?”

Gregor stood up straight, taking his considerable weight off the lamppost. “Maybe. Either that or they’re ignoring it or pretending it didn’t happen until it goes away. Not the best reaction regardless.”

“Well, good thing we’re here then,” Elspeth slamming a fist into an open palm. “We’ll get their heads pulled out of their arses.”

There was the gentle tinkling of a bell as Elspeth pushed open the door. She stepped through, followed swiftly by Gregor. He slammed into the back of her as she came to an abrupt stop, confused at her surroundings. The building appeared to be a small shop, tins stack neatly on shelves, magazines nestled into racks.

“Oh, we must have the wrong address,” she mumbled.

“Can I help?” can an inquiring voice from behind the shelves.

“Yeah,” replied Gregor. He could easily see the source of the voice. “We’re looking for the police station? We must have the wrong address.”

“Oh no, this is right,” replied the voice. Elspeth stomped to the end of the shelves, storming past the tins so she could see. It seemed the world wasn’t designed for anyone under five foot two sometimes. She reached the end peering round to see a small counter. Behind it was an elderly woman. She was sat on a stool, a white apron draped over her simple blue dress. “This is the police station, corner shop, post office and sometimes press office. I see you have one of my papers,” said the woman nodding at the broadsheet in Elspeth’s hand.

“That’s certainly a lot,” Gregor said leaning atop the shop shelves.

“Hah! You think that’s bad I’m also on the local council and the tourism board. Name is Agnes Lang. Guess you’re looking for one of the boys?”

“Boys?” Elspeth said.

“Yeah. Hang on.” Her voice raised to a shout. “Graham!” she screamed.

There was a series of loud thumps from somewhere within the shop. A door on the far side of the room swung open and from inside a heavily overweight man lumbered out. He was wearing a police uniform, or at least was trying to wear one. His shit ill-fitted him, its buttons putting up a herculean effort. His hat was bent, as though it had been sat on. He seemed out of breath, his hair tussled as though he had recently awoken.

“What is it Agnes,” he panted. “What’s the emergency?”

“No emergency. These people were looking for you.”

“Jesus fucking Christ woman you nearly gave me a heart attack screaming like that.”

“Worked didn’t it?” Agnes asked. She leant back on the stool.

“Detective Constables MacAdams and Lythgoe,” said Elspeth. “And you are?”

“Officer. Graham Officer. Constable Graham Officer,” he reached out to shake her hand. His palm was oddly sweaty.

“Constable officer?”

“Yes. I know,” he said with the exasperation only possible from someone who had heard a joke a thousand times. “So, what can I help with Detectives?” Gregor and Elspeth exchanged glances.

“The murder?” Gregor asked. “You did call us about a murder. There is one here right? Our department is very…specialist, we don’t have time to be messing about on cases.”

"Oh, no, no there is one," Graham spluttered. "It's just, we're trying to keep it on the hush-hush. The town has just finished a new visitor centre, we're hoping tourism might take off. Didn't want to scare anyone away."

"No offence," said Elspeth, something she always said directly before saying something offensive, "but this isn't exactly sunny Cornwall. You get many tourists eager to get lightly drizzled on after riding the fucking fun boat you got coming over here?"

“Well, no” Agnes admitted. “But it’ll pick up. We’ve got a lot a great history around these parts. Goes back to the stone age.”

“There many people big on stone age holidays?”

"Leave it, Liz," Gregor said, using a nickname he knew Elspeth hated.

“Fine, fine.” Elspeth held her hands up in defeat. “Ok well, let’s get to fucking work at least. Show us what we’re dealing with.”

Graham led them back the way they came, towards the pier, before taking a sharp turn onto the beach itself. It was a short walk, shockingly close to the town in truth, the grisly scene hidden by simply fifteen minutes worth of walk and an outcropping of rocks. Disgusting murder backdropped by the sleepy rural town.

The local police force had at least the foresight to erect something to obscure it, though in place of a forensic tent that simply had a selection of cheap beach windbreakers. Describing them as a force was a stretch, evidently, there were three police officers for the entire island including Graham.

Elspeth pulled back the windbreaker, looking at the obscene display inside. She let out a long whistle.

“Yeah, well, this is one of ours alright,” she said replacing the windbreaker.

“You know, when they said they were sending specialists, I imagined, I don’t know. More?” Graham said. “Not locals.”

“Nah, we’re based in London,” Gregor said, stepping towards the windbreaker. “But because we’re the two Scots guess who gets all the cases up here? Not that we mind really.”

“The others are back and forth all over the place. Hard to complain,” added Elspeth.

“Right, let me take a look at what we’ve got.” Gregor moved the breaker and let out his own long whistle to join Elspeth’s on the wind. “You’re right. This is one of ours.”

It sat on a throne. One cobbled together from sand and stone. A selection of rocks had been set into a pile of sand, the body placed against them, coming to rest in a seated position. It was an older slightly overweight man, his hair slick with his own blood, his face torn open. He wore a selection of clearly brand-new hiking clothes. Khaki trousers, green waxen waterproof cloak, black heavy boots. Around his waist, he wore a black zip-up bag, the kind a child might wear.

"American tourist?" Elspeth asked, more vocalising her thoughts than asking the question.

“What makes you say that?” replied Gregor, taking steps towards the corpse, his feet crunching in the sand.

“The bum bag. Who else wears those?”

“Aye,” came the voice of Graham from behind them. “I recognise the fella, American lad, arrived on the ferry the other day. Fancied himself a Scotsman if I recall. You know the sort?” The detectives nodded in unison. “I think his name was, Michael maybe? Maurice? Milton! That was it. Milton.”

“You talk to him then?” Gregor asked.

“Nah, not really. One or two words. He came by the visitor centre during my shift. I’m the security guard there in my off time.”

“Two jobs?” Gregor zipped up his jacket. The wind had a chill to it, and he could feel the rain building in the clouds above.

“Aye, everything here is fucking expensive. Everything needs to be shipped over, so fuckers love whacking an extra tenner on the price. That and the houses are fucking old. Every wee thing needs repairs constantly.”

“Right. Right. Makes sense.” Gregor turned back to face the body. Elspeth had slipped on a pair of rubber gloves with a slap and was examining its wounds. A line of gashes that started in his stomach, before stretching up through his chest, finally leaving his body in an eruption of blood. It reminded Elspeth of dragging her fork through mashed potatoes as a child. The odd raking wounds would have been enough to elicit their department's involvement, but the second wound tipped it firmly into their laps. The man's stomach had been sliced across the bottom, a long thin deliberate cut. From there his intestines had been slowly dragged out, placed onto the sand in a deliberate pattern. Lain out in straight lines that took sharp ninety-degree angles, spiralling in itself in an ever-shrinking square.

“Right Constable, I think we need some privacy to do our work here. Do us a favour and contact, hang on,” Gregor dug about in the inside pocket of his jacket for a second, before producing a card, “this coroner. They’ll arrange for the body to be collected.”

“This is way the fuck off in London?”

“Yeah, it’s a…specialist, like ourselves. Don’t worry, they’ll sort all the transport.”

The constable nodded, vanishing behind the windbreaker as he walked away. "This is a new one for me. Weird fucking shit show this," Elspeth said.

“Weird is our job. Any ideas?”

“Not a fucking clue. I’ve never seen wounds like this. It’s all very ordered. Deliberate. No beastie I’ve ever seen is like this.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She was, Gregor had seen a lot of bodies in his time in the department. Too many. Werewolf attacks, angry ghosts, and a million other different creatures, but the victims there had always been savaged. Everything about this spoke to deliberate order. “So, this not one of ours then? Just your regular kind of weirdo?”

“Nope. This is one of our fuckers, I can tell you that.” Elspeth placed two gloved fingers one each side a trench carved into the body. “Each one of these is the same size.” She moved her fingers to the next, keeping the same distance between them. “And each one is the same distance apart. These had to be done at the same time, with some kind of weapon.”

"And no human is strong enough to do this. The weapon would have to be pretty heavy to do this many separate wounds, and I would bet good money it was one blow. Something else seems off…”

“And that is?”

"The sand," Gregor said. "There's no footprints aside from our own. The tide can't have come in or our friend's chair would be mush. The way these rocks are, they had to have been placed right?"

"That's a good bet," Elspeth said, nodding in agreement. "I get where you're going. There ain’t no fucking marks at all. No footprints besides ours, no drag marks for these stones.”

“So, whatever is was is strong enough to do this to poor Milton and carry these rocks. But light enough it doesn’t leave marks in the sand. So, I’m thinking some kind of fairy or ghost?”

“Could be. I will tell you one fucking thing though,” Elspeth said. “This,” she gestured to the glyph written in entrails, “is very ritualistic. There’s no way it’s going to stop with just old Milton here.”