Although the Christmas lights in Fort William were like a pencil torch in comparison to the vast illuminations of Oxford Street, they had twinkled merrily on the snow-covered streets of the town for at least a month before Dan and Josh decided that it was time that the cottage should also be decked out in festive cheer. In his own typically enthusiastic way, Josh arrived home on the appointed evening of decoration with a Christmas tree sticking out at least four feet above the opened-top Saab. It was, of course, impossible to get it into the cottage without severe surgery. So the tree went back into the car and was chauffeured along to Auchnacerie where it was gratefully received. Consequently, the Porters were roped into helping with the decoration of the Trenchards’ house under the slave-driving orchestration of Patrick, who sat at the kitchen table, pointing out misplaced baubles on the tree with his holly-bedecked walking stick. There was a moment of great consternation when the fairy for the top of the tree could not be found, so Patrick suggested that Katie had really nothing much to do for the next few weeks and could easily cope with being a stand-in. With screams of delight, Max and Sooty immediately set about winding tinsel around their mother, and it was left to Dan to hoist her onto his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and climb precariously up the stepladder to put her in place. With a protesting creak of metal, the aluminium ladder gave way slowly under their combined weights, and they ended up helpless with laughter on the ground amidst the prickly branches of the fallen tree. And so the decoration process had to be started all over again.

As a result, Dan and Josh did not arrive home to their bare little cottage until two o’clock in the morning, and with a good number of Patrick’s Glendurnich malts swirling around in their heads, both slept through the cacophony of their alarm calls three and a half hours later. It was only the crash of the front door opening that woke Dan from his alcoholic slumber.

He sat up in bed and rubbed at his gritty eyes, then squinted at the figure of Katie standing in the doorway of his bedroom. He glanced at his alarm clock.

“Oh, bugger!” he groaned as he threw back the bedclothes. “Sorry, Katie. Is Patrick waiting?”

“I’ve had to call for an ambulance, Dan. I’ve got to get Patrick to Inverness.”

“Why?” Dan asked, looking up at her with concern as he stuck a finger down the back of his shoe to get it on. “What’s happened?”

“Patrick had another collapse last night on the bathroom floor, and I didn’t hear him. I found him this morning and he was having real difficulty breathing. I just pray to God he hasn’t got pneumonia.”