Tom walked for some time without any thoughts in his head at all. It was a kind of release, for a while, to focus only on the tramp of his footsteps and the cold on his face, carrying with it the damp of sea air even when the sea was nowhere in sight. He would tire himself out, and later he would sleep. But though he walked fiercely and fast, the restlessness didn’t leave him completely. The island, being so unpeopled, gave the illusion of freedom and space, made you think you could walk for hours and hours until you had exhausted yourself, and still be left with great tracts of ground to cover. But this wasn’t the case. In reality, it was a small rock, bounded by the sea on every side. It was little more than a large pen and you were no less confined for being outside than if you’d been locked in a room with no windows. Tom thought you could probably go mad here, trying to walk yourself free but seeing no escape beyond the endless sea and sky. He thought of the Vikings, those ruthless warriors for whom the sea had been no barrier but rather a rousing challenge, a call to arms. It troubled him that he couldn’t say now whether he’d admired them as a child for their courage or for their violence.

He’d been walking for about half an hour when he saw in the distance, before the road curved out of sight, a figure in a pink waterproof. No, he thought. He would not talk to any of these islanders today, and he would certainly not talk to Fiona McKenzie. Not caring if the distant figure had seen him or not, he turned and left the road, walking down the slope to his right where the road was slightly raised, and out on to the moorland. The terrain was so uneven, the rocky hummocks and ridges so numerous, that he was soon hidden from the sight of the road.

And now, away from the road, he felt the strange scale of the place more keenly than before. It was not that of a small island. Surrounded by jagged outcrops and the expanse of moorland, you felt yourself lost in a vast, mountainous wilderness.