Now Mima was dead and Hattie would never find out what had so disturbed her. Setter felt quite different without Mima there. Even from outside it was different. Before, they’d have heard the radio, Mima singing along or shouting at it if she disagreed with one of the speakers. Sophie saw Sandy through the window as they were walking past and it was her idea to go in.

‘Come on,’ Sophie said in her loud, confident, public-schoolgirl voice. ‘We’d better go in and tell him we’re here. Besides, he might have the kettle on.’ They hadn’t seen Joseph at that point and could hardly turn round and go out again when they realized Mima’s son was there.

Then Hattie had brought up the matter of the dig. So eager to please, so apologetic, the words had tumbled out. And Joseph had frowned and refused to give any sort of commitment about the future of the project. At least that was how it had seemed to her. She thought she might be banished from Shetland and never allowed back. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut? she thought. Why didn’t we just sneak past the house and go on with our work?

After Sandy’s phone had rung he and his father left Setter. Hattie watched them go and it was only as she felt her pulse steady at their departure that she realized how anxious the men had made her. She was kneeling in the main trench, carefully easing her trowel around what could have been the base of a stone doorpost. The soil was a slightly different colour here and she wanted to dig in context. Sophie had gone to turn on the outside tap so the water would run into the flot tank. She was planning to wash the soil from the second trench, allowing the soil to float off and the more dense fragments to sink and be collected in the net beneath. Sophie called over from the tank: ‘Did you get the impression that Mima’s son doesn’t want us here?’

Hattie was surprised. She’d got exactly the same impression but had wondered if she was being paranoid again.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I did.’

Sophie stretched her arms above her head to ease the tension out of her muscles. ‘I don’t think we have to worry about him throwing us off the croft. Evelyn’s all in favour of the project and none of the men in that family stands up to her.’

Hattie looked up at her and considered. ‘Do you think so? Joseph seems very easy to manage, but if there was something he really wanted I’m sure he’d get his own way in the end.’

Sophie gave one of her wide, easy, slightly predatory smiles. ‘All the men on this island are easy to manage. Don’t you think so?’