Noreen was trying to save her family by covering up a rape committed by her husband Michael. Annie had been confided in by Lisa Friel, a client Michael had attacked at Shetland’s HEM centre, and told Noreen that she planned to report Michael to the police the next morning. Instead of confronting Michael, Noreen chose to silence Annie. She followed her to the party at Bray, then on to the lab at Nesting where she picked up Anton, and finally to the croft where she confronted Annie, picking up the gun Annie had taken from Lisa (whom she feared would use it to get revenge on Michael) earlier that day.
Noreen threatened Annie, who lunged for the gun, which went off, apparently accidentally, and killed her. Anton was drawn by the noise and Noreen shot him dead.
So That’s What Annie Wanted to Talk to Tosh About?
Yes. Annie was planning to report Michael’s crime against Lisa to Tosh. Because of Lisa’s criminal background and reputation for violence, and because there was no physical evidence of the rape, it’s assumed that Lisa would have had a hard time being believed if she’d made the report herself. Community member Annie reporting her own brother in law though, would legitimise the report. Annie may also have wanted to report the gun she’d taken from Lisa.
Why Did Annie Call Rossi For Help?
On the night she was killed, Annie called her former MI5 handler Euan Rossi in London using their secret code for needing help: “It’s getting late.” That doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Lisa Friel, or Michael and Noreen Stack, but to do with her and Anton Bergen’s plan to rescue Astrid from her father’s experiments and smuggle her off the isles and to Estonia to live with her mother.
In a major contrivance that turned out to have no impact on anything, Annie had identified Astrid’s stepmother Karin as a former Swedish intelligence agent codenamed “Brutus”, who had shot Annie in a bungled operation over a decade earlier. Perhaps she feared being recognised by “Brutus” and wanted Rossi’s help.
What Was “the Lizard”?
That was what little Noah’s mind had transformed his aunt Noreen into in his nightmares about his mother’s murder on account of the green, hooded waterproof coat she was wearing, which made her resemble a lizard to him. We know that Noah has an active imagination because he thought the two cranes at the Nesting lab site were a dinosaur. Noah had the breakthrough that the “lizard” chasing him and his mum in his nightmares was Noreen when they were standing outside the croft with her arms around him, wearing that same jacket.
