“Our house is somewhere over there in the mist on the other side of the loch. I’m afraid that we have to go right up to the end and then back again to get to it.”

“How far are you from Fort William?” Dan asked.

“About twenty miles.”

“And you do the journey every day?”

“Not just once. I come home every day for lunch.”

“That’s eighty miles a day!”

“And more. I have to pick up the children from the school bus as well. It’s probably nearer ninety.” Katie glanced across at him. “Different from living in London, isn’t it?”

“Just a little. On the other hand, one leg of your journey would most likely take less time than it would take me to travel from Clapham up to the City.”

Katie changed up a gear once more and zipped past a slow-moving car. “Most likely.”

Dan gave the fascia of the dashboard an appreciating pat. “And much more fun too.”

By the time that they pulled off the road and drove through a pair of rough stone pillars, they had listened to Sooty’s song three times. The tune now hung in Dan’s brain like a constant taunt, and he had begun to make up names for the bloody goldfish that could never be mentioned, other than maybe at a rugby club dinner. The short drive led up past an unkempt garden with overgrown flowerbeds bordering a lawn that was in desperate need of mowing. In the centre of this hay-field, a large round trampoline with a gaping hole in the centre of its bouncing mat dripped inconsolably. The stone-built farmhouse, on the other hand, which was situated at the top of the garden, looked comforting and happy, its white-astricaled windows smiling out across the loch, despite the fact that its view was significantly curtailed by the low-lying mist.

Katie drove around to the back of the house and parked the car in one of a series of arched openings in a long, barnlike building, next to an ageing Mercedes estate car. She retrieved her canvas bag from the well at Dan’s feet and got out of the car, pulling the seat forward for Sooty.

Dan squeezed himself out of the passenger door, trying to avoid bumping the lurid purple mountain bike that leaned against one of the heavy wooden beams supporting the floor of the loft above.

“Take care you don’t slip on these flagstones,” Katie said as she stepped deliberately across the courtyard to the back door. “They’re an absolute deathtrap.”