‘Is Bev here?’

He took a breath, shut his mouth, and didn’t say anything for five seconds. ‘She’s not. As it happens.’

I kicked my toe into the rug. ‘I don’t know who else to ask.’

I could hear his brain ticking. His eyebrows couldn’t decide which way to go and just sort of wiggled about. He nodded at the sofa. I plonked myself down, crossing my legs and facing him as he joined me. A coat of whisky still needed stripping from the inside of my head.

‘How long have you been living here?’

Adam looked faintly relieved. He put his elbow on the arm of the sofa. ‘Eight years now.’

‘Have you ever – has anything ever happened round here?’ I couldn’t quite believe I was even thinking about this. ‘Like, bad things?’

An inscrutable look. ‘What sort of things?’

‘I don’t know.’ I gripped the underside of my sofa cushion. ‘Something dark. Some crime.’

He regarded me like I was an earnest Year 10 pupil doing a local geography project. ‘Not much. I’m not quite sure what you mean.’

I wasn’t either. ‘Doing stuff to animals, or maybe stalking or assaults or something.’

‘There’s a spot of theft occasionally. Domestic abuse perhaps, if you’re lucky.’ I didn’t return his smile and it disappeared behind a mildly curious frown. ‘It’s a pretty safe place, Polly. The police mostly have to deal with motorbike accidents and lambs going astray and people losing their keys.’

I put my cheeks in both palms.

‘Can I get you anything, Polly? You don’t seem quite—’ He went to put a hand on my knee. I raised my face and we both watched it suspended in the air. I felt strangely blank, neutral. He drew it back and rubbed his thigh self-consciously. ‘There’s coffee on.’

Adam came back with some posh little cups. ‘There was something that happened a long time ago here, if you’re really keen. Before we moved up. Not animals, mind.’

I took one from him. Bitter, old earth smells. It needed sugar. ‘What?’

‘I’d have to look it up. A murder, I think. Twenty years ago or so.’ He smiled at me. ‘It probably made the police station’s decade.’

Jim

Actors, comedians, high heels. The cursor blinked.

Jim murder

Madonna, The Doors. This was ridiculous.

James murder

I added the name of the village. The loch.

Assassinations and revenge killings in the sixteenth century. Clan history. King James IV. Death-row stuff on Wikipedia. More genealogy on the second search page. I clicked on Images and saw snapshots of the village – the swings, the shop on a sunny day and the loch, surprisingly blue. Maps, old church records, and—

Something clotted in my throat. I sat up on my bed.

A blurred shot, hair floppier and no beard, but definitely him. The same deep pencil marks between his eyes. I put the cursor at the side of his mouth, on his lips. He looked pained, harassed – more than I’d ever seen him – and the strangest thing was what he was wearing.