After a few miles of bumping along the narrow, potholey track beside the river, which relied on passing places to cater for the possibility of two vehicles’ meeting, they came to the fork Jeff Barton had mentioned and saw a signpost pointing left to Wester Finterie, and right to Upper Finterie. Marnie stopped the car but left the engine running.

‘I imagine we’ll go left here tomorrow to see the Reverend Donald – if we manage to get past the female Rottweiler, that is.’ Christopher looked at the map. ‘I don’t think it can be very far now. I see exactly where we are and Eilean Dobhran is marked on the other side – can’t be more than a mile or so.’ He smiled at her. ‘Excited?’

‘You bet! I can’t believe it!’ she said. ‘I want it so bad it’s scary. You wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve imagined this moment. When I was a child I used to lie in bed at night imagining what it would be like – hearing the Contessa’s voice telling me stories about it, describing it. Memory’s a funny thing. It’s hard to be sure how much of what I think I remember are her actual words and how much I may have unconsciously added to them in my head.’

‘That had occurred to me too. Just so long as you’re prepared for the fact that it might not live up to your expectations . . .’ Christopher gave her rather an anxious look. ‘Are you sure you’re ready to risk losing your dream to cold reality?’

‘I’m sure. I have to.’

‘Shall we go on, then?’

To start with, birch trees more or less obscured the view to the left, but gradually these petered out and the road ran close to the edge of the loch with nothing but heather, couch grass and bog myrtle and the occasional rowan tree between the car and the water, which looked almost black in the evening light. Christopher saw the castle before she did.

‘Pull off the road at that passing place that’s coming up,’ he instructed, ‘and don’t look to your left till you’ve got out of the car.’

Behind the hills on the far shore clouds were streaked with such vivid pink and orange light it looked as though a forest fire was blazing somewhere and the flames had got reflected in the water. Against the palest lemon sky stood the castle – stuck out into the water on a tongue of land, hills to the left and right forming a perfectly balanced backdrop. If it had been a stage set for an opera it could not have looked more unreal or more romantic. They stood gazing at it in complete silence, neither wanting to be the first to break the spell.