He Bought My Father's Name to Make Me Kneel, but I Was the One Who Cut His Chains novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Black Book Read
We took the sixareen across the Sound before the sun was up, the cooper at the sheet and Erlend at the tiller.
Nobody spoke.
The wind was west and cold.
Lerwick came up out of the grey, a long town of stone gables stacked along the harbour.
The masts of the herring fleet stood thick in front of it.
Erlend stood with one bare hand on the tiller and his eyes on the town.
I had never seen him in a boat.
He handled her as he did everything, with all his attention, and he did not look at me.
I sat in the bows with the notebook in my lap and my father's brass key round my neck on a string.
We tied up at the Victoria Pier.
The sheriff's officer who had written the bond at my counter was standing on the stones.
He took his hat off when he saw us, and put it on again, and looked at his boots.
"Miss Isbister," he said. "Mr Garriock."
"Where is he?" I said.
"Mr Isbister is in the cells at the court house, miss. He was brought in at seven last night by Mr Torvald Garriock's agent, on a charge of forgery."
"By whose warrant?"
"There was an information laid." He did not look up. "By a man who swore he was the factor to the Garriock estate and had found a page in his late father's papers."
"A page," I said.
"A forged page, miss. That says the late Mr Garriock's croft was sold to Mr Isbister on a false mark."
I stopped on the stones.
I looked at Erlend.
He had gone very white about the mouth.
"He has turned it round," he said. "He has put the forgery on your father."
"It's in Hallgerd's hand," I said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Bought My Father's Name to Make Me Kneel, but I Was the One Who Cut His Chains are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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