Millie Partridge desperately needs a party, and she’s invited to a Hebridean Island for New Year’s Eve – just the ticket. Thing start going wrong almost immediately, made worse when an acquaintance from her past goes missing, but no one is sure the how, when, or why. Read an exclusive extract below on Books from Scotland about a Hogmanay sure to go off with a bang. 

Auld Acquaintance
By Sofia Slater
Published by Swift Press  

No one seemed sure what to say at first. It was horrible, of course, but for who? Until we knew who had been in the car, our exclamations of sad surprise could only be general, and the deaths were no one’s specific grief. The tragedy sat in the centre of the dining table, unclaimed. In my head the words not Nick, not Nick, not Nick ran on a loop, and I could see by the mixture of determination and anxiety on everyone else’s faces that they too were picturing friends and mentally crossing their fingers. At last Winston spoke up, addressing the one person we could be sure had experienced some kind of loss, albeit of a petty variety. 

‘That puts out your bookings rather sadly, Mrs Flyte.’  

‘Oh, no.’ She waved her hand to dismiss that minor concern, but continued, contradicting the gesture, ‘Though, after all, it is too bad; I put linens in the Great Room.’ 

No one was asking what we were all wondering. I forced myself to speak. 

‘Did the police tell you what happened?’ ‘They weren’t sure. They thought perhaps the husband fell asleep at the wheel. The ferry leaves so early, you know.’  

Husband. I was relieved. So, it couldn’t have been Nick. Unless… But no, when I thought of his message, I couldn’t believe it had come from a married man, and I’d done plenty of casual online stalking since he and I stopped working together. If he was with someone, if he had got married, I would have found a trace. 

It was Penny who asked the question we really wanted answered.  

‘Who – who were they?’  

‘A married couple,’ answered Mrs Flyte, before speaking the two names I was least expecting: ‘Drew and Lorna Strang.’  

Penny’s hand flew to her mouth, but it couldn’t strangle her cry completely. 

‘I’m sorry… I have to…’ She stood, clutching at herself, and hurried from the room.  

‘Did she know them?’ asked Winston, looking around the table with a raised eyebrow. Everybody else, obviously relieved that no one they knew had died, shrugged and made sympathetic grimaces. I was struggling to clear my throat; it was as though shock had put a stopper in it. 

‘We used to work together. I did too. But they were… close.’  

‘Of course,’ said Mrs Flyte. ‘I didn’t really think, but then of course you’d all know each other, wouldn’t you? Oh, this is terrible. The weekend isn’t going to plan at all. First the mix-up with Mr Harriot, then my help from the big island not showing up, and now this. I don’t know how the party can go ahead under the circumstances.’ 

‘Don’t say that!’ exclaimed Ravi. ‘This is our New Year’s. We can’t let an accident stop us.’  

‘I don’t know, Rav,’ said Bella. ‘It’s not a good look, is it? Drinking and dancing when somebody’s just died.’  

‘I’m so sorry,’ said James to me in an undertone while the others debated how soon was too soon when it came to doing shots in the aftermath of a tragedy. ‘It must be terrible for you, since you knew them.’  

‘It’s more the shock. I haven’t spoken to them in a year or so.’ I paused, wondering when Penny and Nick had last spoken. ‘We weren’t exactly friends. But it’s weird when something like this touches your life, you know?’  

‘Trust me, I do.’ 

We fell silent. At the other end of the table, Ravi and Bella were still arguing. She was concerned about ‘optics’, and he wasn’t about to let the kind of New Year’s party he felt was his due slip from his grasp. All the while, Winston watched them, smiling faintly and, whenever the discussion threatened to die down, dropping a gentle pot-stirring comment to set them off again. Mrs Flyte had her hand at her heart still and was rather urgently gulping down the dregs of the wine. 

‘Marjorie, let me clear for you,’ James called down the length of the table. ‘I didn’t realise you were having to do everything without help.’ 

‘Would you?’ She gave him a shaky smile as he stood and began gathering the glass dessert dishes, all streaked with red. ‘I usually have a couple of girls come over from the next island. They should have arrived this afternoon. I can’t think what’s happened. I need their help in the kitchen just to keep everyone fed until the ferry comes back, though I’m sure we won’t have the party as planned.’  

‘Nothing goes ahead as planned on this island, does it?’ 

Auld Acquaintance by Sofia Slater is published by Swift Press, priced £8.99.