Quotes from Ann Cleeves

to side with the scrotes.

Typical of this place. All show and no substance. And just like these people, who were acting their hearts out in an attempt to persuade her that they were sophisticated, intelligent and entirely blameless in the matter of Tony Ferdinand's death.

I'm a writer, Inspector. I choose my words carefully.

Getting her team onside was a piece of piss. Who needed management training?

She didn't sound scared. Excited, if anything. The invulnerability of the young.

Before she spoke again, he cut off her call because he didn't need her misery as well as his own

She'd managed photographers who could make grown men cry, but Mrs Henry made her feel like a nervy six-year-old.

Writers were like parasites, preying on other people's stress and misery. Objective observers like spies or detectives.

Here it seemed hope and the possibility of redemption abounded. It made Jen feel like punching someone.

She'd always thought he missed having his laundry done more than he missed his wife's company.

She liked it when Joe stood up to her, as long as he didn't do it too often.

I will tell him, but when I've reached a state when I can't pretend any longer.' 'Isn't it a strain, all this pretence?' Lorraine gave a little laugh. 'All couples pretend about something. We'd go mad if we were honest all the time. Successful relationships are made up of white lies, small attempts at flattery, aren't they? We want our partners to be happy, so we tell them the stories they want to hear.

She was scared of people when they were alive and dangerous. At least the dead could do you no harm.

After all, it was easy enough to be virtuous if there was no temptation.

All couples pretend about something. We'd go mad if we were honest all the time. Successful relationships are made up of white lies, small attempts at flattery, aren't they? We want our partners to be happy, so we tell them the stories they want to hear.

It was typical that now he was being offered what he'd dreamed of he couldn't make a decision.

Since the funeral there had been an undercurrent of tension, a tetchiness

I went to the Anderson,' Perez said at last. 'I expect things are different now. Then it was all cliques. We had to stay in the hostel. I came from Fair Isle and us and the Foula kids, we couldn't even get home at weekends. Then there were the people who came in by ferry every week from Whalsay and Out Skerries. The lads from Scalloway were always fighting with the Lerwick boys. It wasn't that you didn't make friends from a different group, but you knew where you belonged.

She'd always been eager to please – part of her problem.

Looking over the cliffs, even at a safe distance, she had felt dizzy and breathless. She could see the waves breaking on the boulders below, but couldn't really believe in them. It was like staring down into nothing. She'd thought she was at the end of the world and there was nowhere else to go. Now, sitting opposite Robert Isbister, she had the same feeling of panic.

That was the way things worked in Shetland. It wasn't necessarily significant. People were related in complicated and intimate ways. Coincidence couldn't be allowed to appear sinister.

We're not the sort of couple who lives in each other's pockets. We live our own lives. It means we have something to say to each other when we finally get together.

She pretended to be a dutiful daughter, yet there were times when she wished her mother was dead. Even her friendship with Catherine hadn't been what it seemed and it had been a real effort to keep the resentment and jealousy from floating to the surface. Sometimes the effort of all that acting made her feel weird, cut off. Like she was looking down at herself.

That was why he hated Duncan. Not because he was a bully but because he'd forced Perez to see him as one. Because when he was fourteen, he'd been Perez's best friend.