The SeeMs Agency detectives, employed in 2019 to discover if Anastasia murdered her first four husbands before she marries the fifth, are following any leads they can find. They discover that the first husband lived and worked in the Shetland Islands in 1987 and Cat, the lead detective, goes there to investigate. As she interviews people who were working on the oil rigs at the time, she finds that Shetland in 1987 was a very different place from the modern island it is today.
Chapter 8: Shetland November 1987
The forty-knot wind forced the November downpour into harsh curtains that reversed into spray guns as they hit the tarmac. Inside the Scatsta Airport hut, a young boy looked intently out into the maelstrom. Weather like this was not unusual in Shetland, but why was the helicopter flying out to the oilrigs tonight? What could be so important that they needed to fly in a storm?
Yes, even the best pilots got caught out, but Clement was better than the best. He was infallible.
Peering out into the fading light, the boy rubbed the pane automatically, willing the visibility to improve. Clement will be back, he told himself, his leg tapping up and down in a curiously constant rhythm. Ignoring the goosebumps growing on his arms and legs, his eyes searched the sky, but there was no sign of the helicopter.
The airfield cat rubbed itself against his leg. The boy reached down and stroked it; his gaze still glued to the horizon.
‘Don’t worry Cashy,’ he told the cat, ‘he’ll be here soon. He’s the best pilot in Shetland. And he knows the helicopter and the weather like … like … like you know which cat food is best.’
The cat gave a soft meow and the boy smiled.
‘Sorry, Cashy, are you hungry? We’ll just wait a bit more.’
Then, through the crashing cascades and howling wind, the boy recognised the whoop whoop beat of Bolkow blades. His whole body shuddered and then relaxed.
‘See, Cashy,’ he said. ‘I told you Clement would be OK. I told you he was the best pilot in the world.’
The cat rubbed itself on his leg, purring. The helicopter nosed out of the rain curtain, arcs of steam around its blades reflected in the hangar lights. The boy grabbed the cat and ran like a gazelle, his clothes immediately saturated by the downpour, arriving at the heliport ready with the trolley just as Clement landed.
Measuring the moment to drive the trolley under the helicopter’s belly, the boy’s heart gave a jolt of surprise. Clement was not alone in the helicopter. The boy recognised the people with him and knew it was against regulations.
Why? Clement never broke the rules. He would lose his licence if he was caught, and for Clement flying was life. What could Clement and his passengers have been doing that would be worth risking his licence, and potentially his life, for?
Here’s the blurb:
Is murdering husbands an addiction or merely a bad habit?
This is the question facing Private Investigator Cat Harrington when rich builder, Tom Drayton, dies shortly after his wedding night. Suspicion falls on his widow, Anastasia Rodriguez, the survivor of three previous ‘lost’ husbands.
Two years later, Anastasia is engaged again, to Cat’s friend Angelo, an Italian snail collector.
Angelo’s sister, Gia, employs Cat and the SeeMs Detective Agency to discover if her brother’s financé is a killer.
The search for Anastasia’s lost husbands takes Cat and her team from Scotland to the South of Spain and on to Argentina.
They have just a few weeks before the wedding to discover if Anastasia is a murderer and save their friend from becoming victim number five.
For fans of Arsenic and Old Lace and The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency
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Meet the Author
Gina has worked as a physiotherapist, a pilot, freelance writer and a dog breeder.
As a child, Gina’s parents hated travelling and never went further than Jersey. As a result she became travel-addicted and spent the year after university bumming around SE Asia, China and Australia, where she worked in a racing stables in Pinjarra, South of Perth. After getting stuck in black sand in the Ute one time too many (and getting a tractor and trailer caught in a tree) she was relegated to horse-riding work only. After her horse bolted down the sand, straining a fetlock and falling in the sea, she was further relegated to swimming the horses only in the pool. It was with some relief the racehorse stables posted her off on the train into eastern Australia to work in a vineyard… after all what could go wrong there?
In the north of Thailand, she took a boat into the Golden Triangle and got shot at by bandits. Her group escaped into the undergrowth and hid in a hill tribe whisky still where they shared the ‘bathroom’ with a group of pigs. Getting a lift on a motorbike they hurried back to Chiang Rai, where life seemed calmer.
After nearly being downed in a fiesta in Ko Pha Ngan, and cursed by a witch in Malaysia, she decided to go to Singapore and then to China where she only had to battle with the language and regulations.
Since marrying the first time, she has lived and worked in many countries including Spain and the USA.
For a few years Gina was a Wingwalking pilot, flying, amongst others, her 64-year-old mother standing on the wing to raise money for a cancer charity. She was also a helicopter instructor and examiner and took part in the World Helicopter Championships in Russia and the USA.
She became a writer because her first love was always telling a good yarn!
Under the name Georgina Hunter-Jones she has written illustrated children’s books such as The Twerple who had Too Many Brains, and Nola the Rhinoceros loves Mathematics.
She now lives in Sussex with her husband and dogs, one of who inspired the Biscuit and Pugwash Detective Series about naughty dogs who solve crimes.
The Mystery of the Lost Husbands is the first in the SeeMS Detective Agency series and Gina’s first crime novel for adults.
Connect with Gina
M J Porter 