“Maybe Kirrinfief is magic,” said Lissa, which was precisely the wrong thing to say to a dreamy bookworm like Nina, who immediately got a distant expression and started talking about Brigadoon.

Robbie was the last passenger to disembark, everyone else swallowed up in a mass of happy families welcoming home students or grannies who’d been on a trip to the Big Smoke. Robbie emerged barely looking up, as if he never expected to be greeted anywhere, his few belongings in an army-issue canvas bag.

“Uh, hello,” said Nina.

Lissa looked at him curiously. Was this what Cormac was like? Shaggy around the edges, covered in homemade tattoos—an old soldier by any measure? Robbie didn’t look frightening, though, or violent. His eyes were haunted; he looked very, very tired.

“Did you sleep on the coach?” asked Nina gently, and he shook his head.

They led him to the book bus out front. He looked at it inquiringly but didn’t say anything.

“Things been tough?” said Lissa, and he nodded sadly, and she looked at him and suddenly, piercingly, felt simultaneously ashamed of her own trauma and more determined to push through it. Because when you couldn’t, it could consume you. She was lucky; she had a loving family, friends, and a job that had given her an amazing opportunity to start over. Robbie had been unlucky. But maybe Scotland gave everyone a second chance. “Let’s get you back and checked over.”

ROBBIE WAS QUIET as a lamb as she examined him in the room next to the barn after he’d washed up. He had scabies, but that would clear up with permethrin. He’d shaved his head, which would probably help with lice, and his skin wasn’t as yellow as she’d feared; hopefully he wouldn’t present with liver complaints, but it was too early to tell. Then they discussed withdrawal and alcohol management.

She had done this many, many times working in A&E. Sometimes, though, she felt that it might work. Robbie might be one of the lucky ones. She directed him to the nearest group, gave him every leaflet Joan had, and added him to be checked up on by her twice a week.

“And now,” she said with a slight smile, “I think they probably have work for you to do.”

Lennox had already arrived at the doorway, little John in his carrier on his back as usual, carrying two trowels in his pockets and two cups of tea in his hands.

“Three sugars,” he grunted. “We’ve got a few poison berries on the upper field to get rid of. The buggers eat ’em, then we’re really in trouble. You up for it?”

Robbie’s face, however, had completely changed when he saw the baby.