“Yes,” said Isla. “Insane people.”

Outside an owl hooted. It was so late and dark and odd to be in the kitchen, they both half smiled, Isla immediately stopping herself in case it looked like she was smiling at him on purpose.

They parceled out the dough between them and tried to smear the cold butter over.

“If anything gets warm it is . . . ‘poubelle, ’” said Isla, reading carefully off the instructions. “What does that mean?”

“It means you put it in the bin,” said Konstantin without thinking.

Isla glanced at him. “You speak French?”

Konstantin shrugged, annoyed he had given himself away. “Ah, hardly any.”

He certainly didn’t mention he also spoke Swedish and German.

“I mean, why are you working here?” said Isla. “You obviously hate it.”

“Well, seeing as you know everything about me, I don’t think I have to answer that question,” he said as they each carried on with the butter, then put the layer to chill for twenty minutes in the fridge. A silence descended.

Isla got up and made coffee. Konstantin was delighted.

“So, tell me what’s great about Mure then,” said Konstantin, sipping the coffee, which was in fact excellent, surprisingly enough.

“You really want to know?”

“No, but I’ve got to wait twenty minutes and I don’t have any credit on my phone.”

Isla sniffed. “Well, you obviously just haven’t been paying attention.”

“I have,” said Konstantin. “But the wind keeps blowing my hat over my eyes.”

Isla almost smiled. “Well. It’s got the most beautiful views everywhere you go. It’s just a wee island, but when you stand on the ben, it feels huge. You feel like you’re nowhere near anybody, but if you want company, then everyone is pleased to see you, or at least will be happy to have a chat. You’re safe wherever you go. Nothing bad is going to happen to you as long as you don’t fall in the harbor.”

“Does that happen often?”

“When I was wee,” said Isla, smiling despite herself, “I heard that someone had fallen off the gangway to the ferry and the selkies took them, and I was so terrified .”

“Did you know them?”

She shook her head. “It was always someone’s friend’s cousin who was visiting from the mainland. Then my mum said she’d been told that when she was small, and her mother too back when it was the old boats. I think it’s just something they tell children to keep them away from the water.”

Konstantin smiled. “What’s a selkie? A drowned person?”

“Not quite. A seal person would take you to play with you. And sometimes they send a seal back in your place who would be good-looking but weird.”

“We have something like that too! The King of Ekeberg. He hated his own children, so he would swap his for yours. So if you woke up and your child was different . . .”

“That’s strange,” said Isla. “That there’s different stories about changeling children.”