In the dormitory Dougie turned on to his back. Somewhere in the lighthouse below a door shut and there were muttered voices. Usually in these sleepless hours before dawn, he passed the time with sexy daydreams about Angela. She’d always terrified and fascinated him at the same time, with her brown legs, her full breasts and the long black hair that made him think of a witch or a vampire. Perhaps she was one of the reasons he’d kept returning to Fair Isle. She’d said once he was the best field observer she knew and he still remembered the remark, treasured it.

Today he found no comfort in thoughts of Angela and he was glad when his alarm clock went off. Although it rattled and jumped on the bedside cupboard, Hugh slept through the noise and stayed asleep even when Dougie switched on the light. Dougie thought the man looked younger lying asleep in the bunk. He had long, dark eyelashes. Dougie watched him surreptitiously for a moment, as if he were doing something shameful, and then he got up.

The dining room was empty though the table had been laid and through the serving hatch he could see Jane in the kitchen. There was the smell of bacon. The islander whose engagement they’d been marking the night before was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a big mug of coffee. It crossed Dougie’s mind that he could have been in the centre all night. Now the lighthouse was almost empty there’d be plenty of room if some of the partygoers had overdone the celebrations and decided to stay over. The man looked at Dougie, stared at him, then gave a small nod. No smile. Dougie thought the islanders were all strange bastards. He helped himself to a bowl of cereal. Jane walked through to the dining room and rang the bell to let people know the meal was ready.

John and Sarah Fowler came in almost immediately. Dougie didn’t really understand what they were doing in the centre. Everyone had heard of John Fowler: he’d been a big twitcher in his day. He wasn’t much older than Dougie, but Dougie thought of him as part of an earlier generation, the gang that had hung around the north Norfolk coast in the early seventies. Now Fowler was more famous as a bookshop owner and collector of natural history books. You never saw him in the field much these days and if you did people just took the piss. Over the years he’d made a couple of really bad identification mistakes; on one occasion he had all the Shetland birders turning out to Virkie just for a dark meadow pipit! Of course everyone made mistakes but Fowler had gained the reputation as a stringer, as someone who regularly claimed to see impossibly rare birds. Dougie thought if people talked about him the way they spoke of Fowler he’d never go birdwatching again. He’d probably kill himself. In the field centre Dougie found it awkward to talk to Fowler – it wouldn’t do his reputation any good to be too friendly. He was polite enough, passing the marmalade and the butter when required, but he showed no interest in the couple’s lives away from the island.