But his father considered before speaking and then it wasn’t a direct answer. ‘It wasn’t easy growing up here,’ he said. ‘My father died while I was still a baby and Mima was never the sort of island wife to have a meal on the table when I got in from school and clean clothes for me to put on each morning. I learned to look after myself pretty quickly. But it was a happy time. She was full of stories. She said it was us against the world.’ He laughed. ‘She always did have a dramatic turn of phrase. I grew up with tales of my father, about how well off we’d have been if only he’d lived. “He promised me the earth. Fine clothes and a fine house.” She loved telling stories; it was a mix of real island characters, make-believe and myth. I could have listened to her for hours, though sometimes I’d have preferred to do it with a full belly.’

For the first time Sandy could see what had attracted his father to Evelyn. She’d make sure there was dinner ready for him when he got in from work and the house was always clean, the clothes washed and ironed.

‘Why do you think she went out that night?’

‘Why did Mother do anything?’ Joseph laughed. ‘I’d known her all my life and she was still a mystery to me.’

Sandy thought that was too easy and was just about to push it, when there was a tap on the open door. He saw the two lasses from the dig standing outside. Sophie was wearing a shirt that was open at the neck and one size too tight around the chest. She had on shorts with walking boots and thick socks; that should have made her look like a geek, but her legs were long and brown and shapely. He tried not to stare. He didn’t want to get attracted to a girl with a brain. It was Hattie who spoke.

‘We wondered if it’d be all right to get on with our work. The police don’t mind, but we’ll understand if you’d prefer it if we left it for a while. I mean I suppose you might rather we stopped the project all together.’

Sandy could tell that was the last thing she wanted. He’d chatted to her a couple of times in the Pier House Hotel, when he was there visiting the boys. She was always on the edge of the crowd and her work was all she could talk about, all he could imagine her being passionate about. He remembered her leaning over the table towards Ronald Clouston, giving him a lecture about Iron Age tools. Sandy thought it was good to have the lasses in Lindby. They brought a bit of life to the place. ‘What do you think, Dad?’

His father frowned.