CHAPTER 16

‘What did Sheena say to you?’ Kelly says. ‘You seem upset.’

‘Nothing really.’ I try to shrug, but I can’t shake off that look in Sheena’s eyes as she’d said You’re not safe here. ‘Just telling me I should leave again.’

‘Ignore her. God, she’s just so dour.’

The sun might be out, but it’s still chilly and all the picnic tables behind the pub are empty. We pick one close to the fenced-off cliff edge, overlooking the sound and Lewis.

Fraser runs towards us. ‘Look! Look! I found another curly seashell.’ He opens his hand and thrusts it towards Kelly. ‘And it’s still got its thing in it.’

‘That’s another snail,’ Kelly says. ‘Just put it back down, and be very gentle, okay?’

She makes a gagging face at me as soon as he does, and I laugh.

I can see the whitewashed cottages of Longwick on the other side of the causeway and the narrow stone bridge that Jaz and I drove over when I first arrived. Shadows of clouds move slowly over grey rock and brown-and-purple moorland.

‘Come on, Fraser, sit down and have your lunch,’ Kelly says, opening a Tupperware container. She hands a sandwich to me. ‘Bacon, egg, and brown sauce. Complete filth.’

‘Where’s that?’ I point at what looks like another white-sand beach a little further up the opposite coast. It’s much smaller than either Long Stride or Big Beach, more like a cove or inlet.

‘Hollow Beach,’ Kelly says. ‘It’s nowhere near the road, so a bit of a scramble to get down to.’

The name rings a bell until I remember what Charlie said at Isla’s house. ‘That’s the beach where they found wee Lorne’s dinghy after the storm.’

‘Was it?’ Kelly looks out over the sound. She shivers. ‘Kind of creepy, I guess. Bit like those monuments at Long Stride.’

‘I’ve been meaning to ask, have you spoken to your parents since the weekend? Asked them about Robert?’

Kelly stops eating, her sandwich frozen in mid-air. ‘No. Sorry.’

‘They must have moved into the blackhouse pretty soon after Robert died, I guess,’ I say, feeling suddenly like I’m prying, or walking on eggshells like that day in Isla’s cottage.

‘Yeah. I mean, I don’t remember it, obviously – I was, like, two. But yeah, they bought the blackhouse from Euan Morrison sometime in ’94, I think. Like I said, Dad was set on becoming a farmer, God knows why.’

‘But didn’t you say your parents left Kilmeray in ’95? Do you know why?’

‘Actually, I think it was ’96,’ Kelly says with a quick shrug. ‘I dunno. I mean, they never really talked about it. The storm was the worst to hit the island in decades, even without the deaths. It did a lot of damage.’ She shakes her head. ‘Maybe they realised they’d made a mistake and wanted to cut their losses. Get out of here.’

I glance again at Hollow Beach and the white-topped waves. It was a bad black time. ‘I suppose it must have been horrible.’