Thanks to the half sleeping tablet she’d taken, she’d conked out. Had her sister fared as well, she wondered. There was nothing worse than lying in the dark, listening to someone else snoring and being unable to sleep.

Brigid’s bed was already neatly made and her case packed for their departure. She’d obviously taken care to be very quiet, because Imelda had not stirred from her sleep. Brigid had become extremely disciplined and immaculately tidy, Imelda acknowledged, remembering how untidy she’d been when they shared a room at home. And her sister had made an effort not to wake her. She would try hard to be nice today, Imelda decided. She’d been a bit spiteful in her comments last night.

Out of the blue, Imelda remembered what the message on her Magdalene card had been and her jaw dropped. Was it really a message from beyond the veil or just some random choice of card that she’d selected? It certainly was most pertinent to her behaviour towards her sister, she thought uncomfortably.

‘No! It’s all nonsense,’ she muttered, shaking her head. But was it? Keelin had such faith in these things, and when Imelda had been in Rosslyn Chapel, she had to admit she’d felt different. From the moment she’d walked in through the big church doors she’d felt a . . . a . . . great welcome, and a sense of tranquillity. A feeling that someone had said, ‘Well done. You’re here’. Was it her imagination, or was there more to it all? Was Mary Magdalene guiding this trip, as Keelin so firmly believed?

Imelda threw back the duvet and went across to the window, pulling open the curtains to reveal a rain-spattered window and a gloomy vista ahead. The roiling sea was as grey as the sky. In the distance she could see a shadowed Iona melting into the gloom. Shrouded in mist, she could hardly make out the small village behind the ferry port across the water, where lights had glimmered so brightly the previous night. She hoped she wouldn’t feel sick on the journey across. She’d done well on the ferry from Oban the previous evening, but the sea had only rippled gently across the Sound of Kerrera, on the short trip from the mainland to Craignure.

Imelda turned her back on the dismal view and went and rooted in her case for a clean pair of knickers and vest. Keelin had advised her to pack layers of clothes to wear on their jaunt to the windswept isle.

‘Good morning, Imelda.’ Brigid emerged from the bathroom, already dressed, with her winceyette nightdress folded over her arm. She was wearing a pair of black tailored woollen trousers, a mauve roll-neck jumper and a pair of sturdy brogues. Imelda couldn’t hide her shock. She’d never seen her sibling wearing trousers.