Once there’d been a community here and you could still see where the houses had been, the crumbling walls and the outline of the fields, but now the church was all that was left and most of the congregation came by car. It was one of those still, sunny days that came occasionally in late spring. The light was reflected from the sea and from a small loch close to the road. He was sitting only a few miles from Sullom Voe terminal, but there was no sense of the oil industry here. Perez had been dragged to services regularly when he was a boy. His father was a lay preacher and his mother’s faith had always seemed strong enough to carry her through difficult times. More recently he’d wondered if the Sunday mornings of worship – the fine singing and the thoughtful sermons – had been more about continuing the tradition, a kind of comforting habit for her, than the reality of belief. Fran had dismissed faith as a trust in fairy tales. On impulse, at the last moment, he got out of the car, walked across the sheep-cropped grass and slipped into the back of the building.
