Despite a host of theories for the murder of Shamsuddin Mahmood – from unpaid gambling debts to a falling out over a local woman – the only explanation advanced during the six-week trial was that he was targeted because of the colour of his skin.

Days before the death, Michael Ross, who was yesterday found guilty of the killing, was among a group of youths seen shouting racist abuse and threats at the 26-year-old Bangladeshi waiter outside the Mumutaz Indian restaurant in Kirkwall, Orkney.

A week after the shooting on June 2, 1994, Moina Miah, the restaurant’s owner, said that he feared there was a killer at large who “wants blacks out from the island”.

Later that month he claimed that one of his sons had been threatened on his way home from school. At about the same time, police voiced concern after British National Party leaflets were posted through letterboxes on the island.

Ross’s former friends told the High Court in Glasgow that at the time of the murder they had all openly used racist terms such as “Paki” and “nigger”.

Jimmy Deerness, 57, a neighbour of the Ross family, admitted to The Times that such language was widespread. “Even I would talk about them as Pakis but it didn’t mean anything bad,” he said yesterday. “It was just the way we talked.”

However, Kenny Pirie, 57, a friend of the Ross family, denied that there was a problem with racism on the islands. He said: “People would occasionally say things like Paki but just because it’s short for Pakistani, just as Scot is short for Scottish. We’d call them darkies but that was because they were dark – simple as that.”

But in a small community, it seems there were few people, if any, prepared to stand up and question prevailing mentalities. Proof that racism on Orkney went further than a few derogatory words came again three weeks after Mr Mahmood’s murder, when the islands’ only Asian female taxi driver was assaulted by two youths who screamed: “Get the balaclava, we’ll shoot the bitch.”

Orkney has moved on over the past 14 years, and even has an Asian police officer. But in a place where the number of nonwhites remains low – there are about a dozen Asian families, according to most estimates – it is no surprise that, in some quarters at least, allegations of racism persist.

Steve Dsouza, 26, from Goa, told The Times: “People have been really nice to me but you do get the odd thing said. They say things like ‘Paki’ but I just ignore it because I don’t want to get into fights. It doesn’t happen much – I’ve never felt threatened by it.”

However, another Asian disputed this claim. “Ten or fifteen years ago you would, it’s true, have got the odd word of racism, but there’s nothing now,” he insisted.

Although the restaurant that Mr Mahmood managed is no longer called the Mumutaz, it is still an Indian restaurant – one of two in Kirkwall – and the Miah family still owns the site in Bridge Street.

Now called Dil Se, it is run by Mr Miah’s son, Anwar Hussain, who was 12 when the shooting took place. He left Orkney to study in Dundee, but has set about transforming the restaurant since he took over three years ago. The exterior has been given a vivid pink makeover, while the inside has been renovated and includes polished wooden floors and brightly coloured wall hangings. The food, a combination of North Indian and Bangladeshi cuisine, has also changed beyond recognition. Last year it was named the best takeaway in Orkney, and it was recently recommended by the Which? Good Food Guide.

The single bullet-hole in the wall has long since been filled in and painted over, and there is nothing to remind anyone of what happened there on June 2, 1994. The only memorial to the past is a plaque outside that recalls a visit in 1814 by the writer Sir Walter Scott, who dined at the inn that once stood on the site.

Even the jokes made about the restaurant by Ross’s friends and neighbours (“the curries will blow your head off”) are rarely told these days. The waiters do not talk about the murder; nor, it seems, do customers.

For Mr Hussain, 26, the silence has allowed his business to thrive, but has also been unsettling. Like the rest of Orkney, he just wants to move on. “On a business level it’s brilliant, but on a personal level it’s a bit weird,” he said. “No one ever asks about it when they come into the restaurant – never. There’s a wall of silence.”

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