Setting out together an hour later, Tommy now wearing Malcolm’s old waterproof and a spare pair of boots, they followed the track from Malcolm’s cottage until it joined the island’s single road, which circled the middle of the island in a loop. Once you ran out of road, you were reliant on finding your own way across the rocky hills and moorland, but the island was only eight miles by three miles across, and its crags and heaths, its cliffs and beaches and black rocks held few mysteries for its inhabitants.

Malcolm and Tommy followed the bottom of the road’s loop from the west to the east side of the island. The walk was only an hour and the weather was damp but mild. For a while they continued in silence. Malcolm found himself looking around him more than he normally did, trying to see his home through Tommy’s eyes. Hills rose up on either side of them, bracken and heather only half covering the protruding clusters of rocks. As they passed the sheep grazing on the croft that used to be his, Malcolm felt a greater pang than usual.

“How’s Angus MacIntyre?” Tommy said at last. “Is he still on the island?”

Malcolm had to think for a few moments before he could place the name. “The lad at school with you?”

Tommy nodded.

“The MacIntyres left,” Malcolm said. “Went to Mull, as I remember it, when Angus was a teenager. Don’t know if they still live there now.” He stopped, trying to dredge up more from the depths of his memory. “I think Moira left Joe in the end. Or perhaps that was just a rumour. Heather kept in touch for a while, but eventually . . . you know.”

He felt Tommy glance round and then pause fractionally beside him, but it took him a few moments to work out why. They were on the east side of the island now, two thirds of the way through their walk, and were approaching the rough track that led to Tommy’s old house.