Yet two days later he found himself on the Good Shepherd on his way home. He still wasn’t quite sure how he’d allowed himself to be persuaded. He’d arrived back at his house by the harbour after the interview with Rhona Laing, exhausted. It was as if he’d relived the nightmare days on the island; he felt again the claustrophobia, and the tension hit him as a headache, so fierce that he could hardly see.

His father had greeted him with the small whisky that had become a habit. They both allowed themselves just the one. ‘Your mother phoned.’

‘Oh, aye.’ Mary phoned every evening. She’d been a bit earlier than usual, but that was hardly worthy of comment.

‘She wants us home.’

That was hardly worthy of comment either. Mary liked her men around her; she thought they were incapable of caring for themselves.

‘You go if you like,’ Perez had said. In fact he felt a sudden panic. Left to himself he thought he would sink into a depression he’d never get out of. But in the end, he thought, did that really matter? And his father couldn’t live with him for ever. The Shepherd crew would need their skipper back and though it wasn’t a busy time for the croft, there was always work to do.

‘You come,’ James said. ‘Just for a day. We’ll make sure you get off on the plane on Wednesday. One night. You can stand that.’

In the end Perez hadn’t found the energy to fight them. His father drove them south to Grutness in Perez’s car. They had to pass Fran’s house in Ravens-wick, could see it down the bank. Hunter’s 4x4 wasn’t there. Perez hoped Cassie was in the school close to the beach, that somehow with her friends and her teacher she was coping.

‘That’s where Fran lived,’ Perez said. ‘That little house. The old chapel.’

‘Do you want to stop?’

‘No!’ He thought Fran’s parents might be inside. He got on with them well enough. They were friendly, intelligent. But he couldn’t think what he might say to them. They’d left a message on his phone asking if he’d ring them, but he hadn’t responded. He couldn’t imagine what might be worse: that they blamed him openly for their daughter’s death or that, prompted by their liberal principles, they were sympathetic and understanding.