“A-oooo,” she started, then gave up. “Are you Mr. Collins?”

“Aye,” said Aonghas, who was thinking it must be lunchtime.

“I’m standing in for Cormac. I’m here to look at your back.”

Aonghas didn’t want this bossy person—a woman no less—to have anything to do with his wound but didn’t quite have the courage to say so in case she yelled at him again.

“Aye,” he said.

He looked in pretty good health from what Lissa could see, as she followed him into the farmhouse.

Inside the low building was a nearly bare kitchen with a long, low table. One cup, plate, and knife were neatly washed up on a draining board. Minimal supplies—porridge, flour, a small bowl of apples—were on the surfaces of the old wooden kitchen; a fire was dying down in the corner. Aonghas paced over the flagstones, scowling. He didn’t have people in the house very often, and he was never there himself during the day. He led Lissa to the table and sat on one of the ancient wooden chairs.

“Okay,” said Lissa. “Can I have a look?”

Aonghas took off his heavy shetland jumper and unbuttoned his frayed check shirt until he was sitting in his undershirt; the air in the dark house was chill, but he didn’t seem to notice. Lissa gasped when she took off the blood-soaked bandage: a great curl of skin had come off his back and the top of his right shoulder. It was all on the surface, but it was a horrible thing to see, like he’d been sandpapered. It must have hurt like hell.

“Are you all right? Doesn’t it hurt?”

Aonghas shrugged.

“What happened? It looks like a burn?”

“Aye, Maisie got right cross with me.”

Lissa rummaged in her bag for the disinfectant and Sudocrem and looked at him. Was that his wife? Girlfriend? Was she going to have to hand out one of her domestic violence leaflets?

“Oh yes,” she said, keeping her voice neutral as she always did in these situations. “Did you have a bit of an argument? Had you been drinking?”

Aonghas snorted. “Naw! She just kicked me.”

“You know,” said Lissa, inspecting it. It didn’t smell, which was a good sign; it wasn’t suppurating. She remembered suddenly that Barnabas had been on her list today. Oh crap. She really should have warned Cormac about him.

“I’m going to clean it out,” she told him. “It might hurt a bit.”

“Aye,” said Aonghas as if this didn’t bother him, which indeed it didn’t.

She ran a bowl with very hot water. “So,” she said, launching into the spiel, “relationships can be tricky, can’t they?”

Aonghas wouldn’t know about that, as he had a special lady friend in Inverness whom he saw strictly on market days and the rest of the time got along with just fine, thank you very much.