The MSV room buzzed with low-grade panic. Tosh (Detective Sergeant Alison McIntosh) had pulled the phone records. Connor’s last call wasn’t to a dealer or a girl. It was to a blocked number routed through a Norwegian server. And thirty minutes before his death, he’d sent a single text to his mother, Helen, who had left the family ten years ago: “They know about the boat.”
Perez left the farmhouse with a name: Helen Vik, née Cairns, now living in Bergen. And a single photo Connor had kept in his wallet—a Polaroid of his mother standing next to a man in a Solus Marine jacket.
“His mother. Helen.”
Perez’s jaw tightened. “They’re not repairing pipelines. They’re tapping them.”
“The Cairns family farm is three miles from the burn site,” Perez said, ignoring him. “Connor left his father’s house at 10 PM on Tuesday. Said he was going for a drive. His father, John Cairns, didn’t report him missing for forty-eight hours.” shetland s07e02 msv
Tosh clicked the handcuffs shut. “Thank you for confirming that, Mr. Slater. You have the right to remain silent.”
“So what do you do?”
John cracked. Not dramatically, but like a hull taking on water. “He came to me two weeks ago. Said he was in trouble. Said he’d been working for a man—a man from the mainland. He wouldn’t tell me the name. Just that they’d promised him a way out. A new life in Norway for him and his mother.”