They’d lain on a pile of clothes on a large flat rock, in shadow now that the sun was so low. The woman’s hunger for his body had scared and flattered him at the same time. And excited him. Of course he’d been excited. It had been like every adolescent’s dream.

When he’d returned home that night, everyone was in bed. He’d half-expected his father to appear, to stand at his bedroom door ranting about sin. This had been such a momentous occasion for Jimmy Perez; how could the whole world not guess what had happened? But everyone had continued sleeping and in the morning his mother had given him breakfast just as usual.

Thoughts of Beata had consumed him for months. While the work camp was still in the Puffin he’d haunted the place, but she’d taken no more notice of him than of any of the other island kids. The eyes that had been so predatory were now amused. ‘It was nothing, Jimmy,’ she’d said at last, irritated by his attentions. ‘A little fun thing on a summer’s night.’ Her absence had allowed his dreams to become wilder. But they’d never been purely physical: in every scenario his imagination created they’d become a real couple, setting up home together in a bohemian city bedsit or walking across a moonlit beach hand in hand.

The storm must have lifted a tile from its place because there was the crash of it shattering in the yard; the noise was blurred by the sound of the wind but it brought him back to the present with a start. Even then, he thought, I was an emotion junkie. I needed to be loved. Fran stirred beside him.

He wondered now whether it had been right to bring her here at all. She was an independent woman and she must resent the interference in her life by his family. What right did his parents have to make assumptions about their marriage? Soon they would be dropping hints that it was time she considered having another baby: Better not leave it too late. You might not have a boy first time round. He hated to think what Fran’s response to that might be.

The wind made everything a hundred times worse. Even the islanders who were used to the extreme weather started to bicker like toddlers. Most of them didn’t leave the place for months at a time, but in fine weather there was the understanding that you could leave if you wanted to. In summer the mail boat went three times a week and there were regular flights. In an emergency it was possible to charter a plane. Now they, like the visitors, were trapped. The children who were studying at the Anderson High School in Lerwick wouldn’t make it home for the half-term break and their parents were missing them. He should have waited until the spring to bring Fran here. Cassie could have come too and they would have seen the place at its best.