“Did you?” She was pleased by his answer but somehow daunted by it. Her decision to go with George had been unthinking, frivolous, and he made it sound so serious. “I’m sorry,” she went on. “ It can’t be easy for you. Do you want me to stop? I’m not really involved. I don’t know why George was so keen to have me there.”

He thought about it, looked at her. He never makes any decision on impulse, she thought. Everything’s carefully considered. Then she thought that he had been romantic and impulsive in his love for Elspeth, and she disliked Elspeth for having changed him, robbed him of spontaneity.

“I meant what I said.” He stood up, prepared to go out again. “I do trust you. Carry on if you feel you have to.”

George Palmer-Jones had no intention of going to the sale until Alec’s car drove past the school house and he saw Will’s moody, teenage face at the car window. Will had been living at Sandwick when Mary had died. He was closest to her in age. Perhaps she had confided in him. Perhaps he knew her secret. The children were out to play and he walked round to the school room to tell Jonathan Drysdale where he was going.

“It’s like a glorified jumble sale,” Jonathan said. “Everything he has to sell is trash. But they’ll all be there convinced that they’ve got a bargain.”

“I think I’ll go and see what’s going on. I might buy you a present.”

Drysdale was not amused. He went into the playground and rang the school bell with a bitter ferocity.

Will sat outside the hall, on the grass, leaning against the outside wall of the graveyard. He knew that it was a churlish and ineffective gesture to refuse to go into the sale, but he felt manipulated and frustrated. It was quite clear that his mother expected him to live on the island forever. He would have to tell her that it was impossible, and there would be a scene. He felt, too, that some important information was being kept from him. Robert’s death had not been mentioned, and when they spoke of Mary it was with anger. They expected so much of him, but gave very little in return. He was wearing binoculars and began to look at the skylarks at the edge of the stubble field below him. For a while he forgot his family and became absorbed in watching the birds in the sharp, clear light. He stared at a smaller, more compact bird which attracted then held his attention.