‘You’ll be telling no one about this,’ he said as we got back in the cab. His tone was fierce. ‘Or else I’ll have Elizabeth Bishy working everyone into a frenzy, saying there’s a wolf on the estate, or a big cat, or some such. I’ve got no time to be patrolling for mythical beasts, not with real bloody foxes to contend with.’

We stayed silent all the way to the incinerator behind the Big House. We both knew it wouldn’t be ‘wolf’ that Elizabeth Bishy cried if she got word of this. She’d say it was a ritual slaughter, part of some ceremony or spell, proof that supernatural practices were alive again on the island. From what we had seen – the goat’s belly neatly sliced, the removal of its organs, the torn-off horns – would we be in any position to deny it?

My mother reprimanded us for arriving late, for the smears of blood on our clothes and the bacon-like smell of the incinerator in our hair.

‘Got one that put up a fight, did you?’ she asked, after delivering orders to change our clothes quickly so that lunch didn’t spoil.

‘One daft bastard, yeah,’ said my father, loosening his boots. ‘They’re clever beggars, foxes, but you’d think they’d work out that keeping still in them snares was the best way not to get hurt.’

It was smooth, his lie, astonishingly so.

The Billet House was as minimal and characterless as I had been led to believe. The walls and floor were panelled with strips of treated pine, giving the place a temporary, unfinished air, a nod to its rapid construction all those years ago. Still, it was neater than I had anticipated. A log burner beamed warmth from the corner and on the dining table, alongside a vase of clumsily arranged anemones, music played from a small speaker connected to the thinnest, sleekest computer I had ever seen.

‘It’s… nice,’ I said, unable to keep the surprise from my voice. ‘Tidy.’

‘I’ve been cleaning all day,’ Ben replied. ‘Don’t look under anything, will you? Don’t open any cupboards or you’ll be killed in the avalanche.’

I listened for the other residents as he took my coat, could smell the musky recent presence of them under the high notes of furniture polish.

‘They’re at the Anchor,’ Ben said, seeing my gaze twitch towards the open-tread staircase that presumably led to the bedrooms. ‘I bribed them.’

He had only just showered, I noticed – I could see the afterglow of it on his skin – and it made me ache for the intimacy of his body again. Would it be so bad, I asked myself, just to give in?

‘Wine?’ he asked.

‘Please! And who did you bribe to get a bottle outside of Christmas week?’