“My wife used to be a social worker,” he said. “I miss her expertise at times like these. Elspeth’s very unhappy, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “ Very.”

She asked George to Unsta for lunch.

“Jim will be there,” she said. “You can talk to him.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“It won’t be an intrusion. Besides, he was out yesterday evening. Alone. With a shotgun.”

He said nothing. She would have preferred some reassurance, an insistence that Jim could not be under suspicion.

Jim was washing his hands in the kitchen sink when they arrived. He was angry. The police had spoken to him. They had implied that the islanders were negligent in their use of firearms, that they were trigger happy, that someone had been shooting in bad light, and that Robert had been hit without anyone noticing.

“It’s impossible,” Jim said. “Everyone here knows what they’re doing.”

“I agree,” George said. “It’s impossible.”

Sarah put on the kettle and began to fry bacon and eggs. The men sat at the kitchen table.

“Did you see Robert when you were out yesterday?” George asked.

“Yes. I was up on the top field and you can see Tain from there. He walked north up the road.”

“You were shooting rabbits?”

“No. Not then. That was later.”

“What time did you see Robert?”

Jim shrugged. “ Soon after lunch.”

“Did you see anyone when you were out with your gun?”

“No.” Jim leaned back in his chair. “I didn’t kill him,” he said. “I stayed on my own land. I didn’t go near to the Loons.”

“Do you know what secret Mary had?” George asked suddenly. “She mentioned it at the harbour and again at the party. It wasn’t a child’s game, forgotten in five minutes. What could it have been?”

“There’s no privacy here,” Jim said. “The most trivial thing a person wants to keep to himself becomes a secret.”

Sarah was carrying plates of food to the table.

“What about you?” she asked. “ Do you have a secret?”

“No,” he said. “ Not me.”

As they ate George asked Jim the questions which had become routine: when had he last seen Mary at the party, had he left the hall at any time, had he noticed anybody else leave the hall, had he seen anyone talking to Sylvia Drysdale on boat day? Jim answered courteously but he had nothing to add. He was no real help.

As soon as the questions were over George was impatient to move on. If the policemen were moving down the island, there was a danger that they might get to Buness before he did. Jim watched impassively as Sarah rushed to clear the plates and followed George out.