Silently, swiftly, Roisin rises to her feet. Still barefoot, her soles blooding, she moves without a sound to where the angler huffs and puffs his way past the far end of the wood-store. Up ahead, a pile of soggy, mossed-over fence-posts; a mosaic of smashed tiles. She waits until he is at the very edge of the wooden building, then sprints forward, placing her feet firmly on the sodden grass. She catches him as he turns. Hits him with her shoulder and watches as he spins; a yelp of surprise erupting from his throat as he slips, tumbles, falls.

Roisin snatches up a slate from the pile by the floor.

‘Bastard!’ she hisses, spit-flecked venom in every word. She wants to hit him. Christ how she wants to bring the slate down on his exposed scalp. Wants to make this one pay for all that has been done to her by the others. Wants to beat the stranger into the dirt and leave him bloodied: leave him incapable of harm.

She throws the slate away. Puts her wet, mud-streaked sole on his damp face and pushes him over – the weight of his bags, his burdens, causing him to topple all the way over, wrapped like a bird in a mesh of wires.

The phone, still live: a gleaming square a little near-miraculous possibility …

She scoops it from the earth. Feels her hand close around it as if she were grasping a rope thrown into pounding, crashing waves.

The woods close around her like a mouth.

TWELVE

7.13 a.m.
Sunk Island

‘Some people say it’s like Holland, but I don’t see it myself. Windmill would take off with the winds we get here. I make myself laugh sometimes, picturing big old wheels of Edam bowling past the front door. That’s when you know you’ve gone mad, isn’t it? When you’re chuckling about cheese. And I’m not one for clogs – not with my high instep. We had a writer here, reckoned it was like Ullapool but I haven’t been to Ullapool so couldn’t really say. That your way, is it? I caught some Edinburgh in your accent when you introduced yourself. Wonderful city. What’s that sugary fudge they do? Wonderful stuff – like Kendal Mint Cake but you don’t end up with jittery fingers. I’ve a guidebook, somewhere. Here, not Edinburgh, I mean. Odd place, but you sort of fall in love with it. Or you don’t. My husband has his fits and starts. You need a strong unit, when there’s just the two of you and miles and miles of not a lot …’

Mrs Dash is doing a commendable job of masking her grief at the demise of her nearest neighbour. She seems positively effervescent: thoroughly delighted to have a little excitement in her life, and an opportunity to use the good china. She’s a small, grey-haired lady with a slightly brittle air, as if she is holding on to the atmosphere all around her and doing her best to keep it a nice, safe bubble where nothing bad can happen. She’s wearing a purple dressing gown over flannel pyjamas, and her bare, blue-veined feet are hidden inside fluffy slippers with loose Velcro fastenings around the sides. Behind her, through the bare window, the sun is continuing its torpid ascent into the misty grey sky: a scalded bald head emerging from the neat polar neck of the horizon.