“Malcolm,” she said. “Tommy. It’s so nice that you could come. Oh, a claret, how lovely.” She took the bottle from Malcolm and ushered them through to the small, bright living room where Chris and Mary Dougdale were on their feet, drinks in hand, talking to Gavin.

“Malcolm! Tommy!” Gavin said, with a cheeriness that seemed overdone to Malcolm. “Good to see you again.” He came over and shook Tommy’s hand vigorously, then clapped Malcolm on the shoulder. Malcolm had never seen this mild man act so heartily, and was slightly alarmed; Gavin had been normal with them the other day, but he wondered if he had been primed by Fiona this time. Make sure you’re jolly, Malcolm imagined her telling him. Be as jolly as possible, Gavin. He almost laughed out loud at the idea.

The Dougdales’ greeting was more muted. Although they had been on the island for almost twenty years by now, they were still regarded as incomers by most of the islanders, one or two of whom were given to wondering, with more curiosity than malice, when the Dougdales might pack up and go back to Stirling. Furthermore, Chris’s work as a graphic designer, running a small company from his study, continued to baffle the islanders, some of whom had not yet adjusted to the arrival of broadband on Litta. Mary was the island’s teacher, having taken over from the woman who replaced Aileen Brown, the one who’d only stayed a year, finding the island, she said, impossibly lonely, impossibly remote. (This was still joked about in the bar from time to time: the idea that someone could have gone so far as to get a job on Litta and move their whole family there without noticing beforehand how remote it was. They had all been kind, however, at the time, trying hard to ensure Hilda Grady felt welcome. None of them ever admitted how their feelings had been hurt by her departure, by her declaration of loneliness in the face of all their efforts.) Despite having been on the island so long, Mary still seemed to carry with her a faint air of city glamour; though when Malcolm said something along these lines to Heather once, Heather had snorted and said, “Mal, she’s from Stirling, not Paris. You just mean she looks a wee bit less windswept than the rest of us.”

Tonight, Mary was wearing make-up—not a common sight here—and Malcolm was momentarily taken aback by the insistent dark red of her lipstick. He thought it made her mouth look thin, but that might have been because he wasn’t used to it and, as Heather had often said, he didn’t like things he was not used to.

They were sensible people with no nonsense about them, but Malcolm thought that they must feel some discomfort all the same at finally meeting the boy whose family was killed in their house.