‘Idiot. If this were a date, I’d be wearing my good socks,’ she grinned, leaning forwards to look to the top of the castle walls. ‘But for what it’s worth, I agree with you. William Wordsworth wrote, “I look for ghosts; but none will force their way to me; ’t is falsely said that there was ever intercourse between the living and the dead.” Isn’t that beautiful?’

‘I’m sure it is, but I may be having trouble directly translating it. My English is still pretty literal and most words only have one meaning.’

Ava frowned in confusion momentarily, then closed her eyes and shook her head in mock disgust.

‘Forget it, Romeo. If that’s the best you can do when I’m providing a backdrop of poetry, you should probably just keep quiet.’ She zipped up her waterproof and tried to open the door, the wind slamming it back hard against her shin as she went to exit. ‘Ow! For fuck’s sake!’ she growled.

‘Yup, you’ve got all the poetry tonight,’ Callanach said. ‘Let me get that door for you.’ He exited and jogged round to offer her a hand up as she rubbed her bruised leg. ‘Are you sure you want to do this now?’

‘No, but the way this storm’s rolling in, if there is anything to see it’ll be gone before morning, so it’s now or never. Come on.’

They went through the visitor centre, where some unlucky local uniformed officer had been stationed with an employee to allow them access, and walked towards the front entrance of the castle, still imposing even in its semi-ruined state. A gale was buffeting them from the north and the rain was only a degree short of freezing. Ava pulled up her hood and shook long dark brown curls of wet hair from her eyes.

They took the wooden footbridge over the old moat and entered through the arched doorway of a greenish brick structure. Below them and to the right, encompassing an area of loose fallen rocks and part of the moat, was a section of crime-scene taping. Beyond that, they were met with slippery cobblestones before the castle grounds opened up ahead of them. In front, a grassed area led to cliffs that crumbled into the sea. A fierce whistling echoed around the ancient structure and it was easy to see why visitors had imagined ghosts there, stepping back hundreds of years in time. It was clear that no attacker could have approached from the direction of the sea and also that Ava was right. Suicide in the direction of the cliffs would have been the much more obvious option.