Catrina was a photographer friend of Jamie’s who was working as an anti-oil campaigner in South Sudan in 2017 when she was killed as a result of her activism. Catrina’s death radicalised Jamie to want to go further than just staging an anti-oil publicity stunt in Shetland and to explode a bomb at an oil company headquarters. When American Bill Rogers infiltrated the group to move their protest to the next level, Jamie swallowed it whole.
When Connor got cold feet about the direction the group was heading and wanted to call off their explosive scheme, he confided in Jamie, who felt he couldn’t let Connor ruin the plan. When Connor – whose chemical engineering experience meant he was the group’s bomb-maker – wouldn’t tell Jamie where the explosive-containing caravan was, Jamie kidnapped and tortured Connor and Bryd. He tied them up at the abandoned kirk using coconut fibre rope he’d taken from the Flett fishing boat, and eventually killed them both and attempted to frame Connor for Bryd’s murder and stage his suicide.
But Jamie didn’t kill Bill Rogers?
No, that was Alison Woods, who did it to protect her beloved husband Lloyd. American art teacher Lloyd’s real name is Walter Edwards. He’d been living for decades under a false name after escaping America where he was framed for the murder of a Texan police officer. Lloyd/Walter was totally innocent of that murder and of the recent Shetland deaths. He was, as his wife Alison told Jimmy, a gentle soul incapable of causing another person harm, and the best person she’d ever met.
In an extraordinary coincidence, US eco-terrorist Bill Rogers and Lloyd/Walter were schoolmates back in Texas and one day both ended up in the same Lerwick supermarket. They recognised each other, prompting Lloyd/Walter to tell Alison about his secret past. When Bill came looking for Lloyd/Walter the next day, he met Alison. Bill threatened to expose Lloyd/Walter if he said a word about Bill’s presence on the island, and so, to protect her man, Alison killed Bill with a hammer and disposed of his body in a suitcase. That’s why the case contained traces of artist’s oil paint – they were from Alison, not Lloyd.
Once Jimmy had worked out that Bill had driven to Lloyd and Alison’s place on the day he disappeared, and that Alison’s alibi didn’t stack up, he confronted her and she confessed it all.
What happened to Lloyd/Walter?
He was being held at the station while they awaited his extradition orders from America. Once there, Walter would likely be put on death row for the murder he didn’t commit. Unable to let a good, innocent man suffer such a fate, Jimmy chose to sacrifice his career and let Walter go. He gave him his passport and released him, advising Walter to take an early flight and to disappear so that Alison’s sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain. Jimmy did this in full knowledge that it would cost him his job, but it was a price he was willing to pay. As he told his trusty sidekick, “He’s innocent, Tosh, and he doesn’t stand a chance over there.”
