I think of his ex-wife. His dreams about the Coffin Road. The easy-going guy who loved to laugh, who’d taught Will how to swim in Loch Dubh.

‘And there’s nothing wrong with being scared either. Sometimes, happy can make you stupid. Or blind.’ He reaches out to pat my hand, and awkwardly enough that I can tell he’s not used to doing it. His eyes darken. ‘Be happy. Just don’t let it carry you away.’

He stares out at the horizon, and I wonder what – who – he’s thinking of. And then he lets out a sigh and gives a sharp whistle for Bonny.

Before he can leave, I shrug the rucksack off my back and unzip it, pull out the hastily wrapped hand towel. I put it down on the sand to unwrap it; brace myself for the sight of empty eye sockets and long, thin wing ribs.

‘Jesus,’ Charlie says, but when I look up, the sun is over his shoulder, hiding his expression.

‘What are they?’ I ask, squinting up at him. ‘I’ve kept them in the blackhouse mudroom for four weeks. They don’t smell, they don’t rot. I thought they might be stuffed, but—’

‘Where did you find them?’ His voice is still calm and impassive, but something has changed. Perhaps it’s too calm.

‘You know what they are.’

He nods, still looking down at the birds. He moves, blocking out the sun. His face has gone pale. ‘Vándr-varði.’

‘Is that Gaelic?’

He shakes his head. ‘Old Norse. They’re talismans. Varði means “to guard against something” and vándr …’ He pauses. ‘Means “evil”.’

‘Evil? What, like spirits?’ I search for the word. ‘Bòcain?’

Charlie looks at me sharply. ‘Like bòcain, yes.’

‘But why do they look like that?’ I ask, when I realise that he isn’t going to say anything else.

Charlie gives the birds another reluctant glance. ‘They’ve been mummified. In peat. That’s how you make them.’

‘Make them?’ I think of Miko describing those bog bodies discovered at the first dig; Femi’s glee as he talked about human sacrifices and Frankenstein. ‘Someone made them?’

I look at their skin, the brown shafts of their bones. I think of their wings fanned out and heads touching like an arrow pointing straight at the blackhouse. I think of someone running around the blackhouse in the middle of the night, knocking on its door, perhaps even coming in. Am I the evil thing that needs to be guarded against? The thought that someone might think so revives the shiver between my shoulder blades.

‘Have you ever made them?’

‘What? No.’ Charlie rolls his eyes. ‘Christ, I know life is a wee bit different here, Maggie, but we don’t all sit around inside our cottages making thirteenth-century Norse talismans. I didn’t even know what they were until—’ He stops himself, shakes his head. ‘It’s just superstition, like nailing horseshoes to a mast or always turning right out of the harbour.’ He finally manages to look at me. ‘Just like that piece of quartz around your neck that you always rub whenever you’re worried about something.’