I’m not a man that men like. I’ve never tried to be. I think of Euan’s smug superiority; Thom’s snide asides. I think of the deep and angry wound my confession has left inside me. The expression on Charlie’s face when he called me an arsehole.

I grab a tighter hold on the swinging bag as I lean forwards, turn the key back to neutral, and press the start button again. Finally the four-stroke engine rumbles into life, and I accelerate fast away from that shadow between the mountains. I take the corner back onto the road too tightly, momentarily rocking the ATV onto two wheels. And I keep going, splashing west through mud and freezing water, and throttling off only when home is in sight, its light and warmth spilling over my skin.

I will protect myself and my family. And I will trust nothing – no one – that isn’t mine. That’s what people do. What they have always done. No one is going to chase me away. No one.

CHAPTER 20

The ruined church outside Blairmore always looks less benign in daylight than it does at night; mean and peremptory, even without a roof or windows. I flinch when two bickering crows launch themselves off a stone corbel to fly across my path, reluctantly reminded of Charlie’s vándr-varði; the three mummified birds inside my rucksack in the mudroom.

I haven’t spoken to Charlie since that day on Big Beach almost three weeks ago now; Kelly, for nearly as long. Will and I have been living inside a bubble of sex and sleep and little else, and I feel guilty. It’s the only reason I’m heading into Blairmore. I glance across at the blanket bog ahead of Ben Donn. The careful piles of heather-and-moss turf stacked beside the road. The peat harvest has begun to loom very large in my mind. I was never supposed to still be here now, in April, never mind May. But the dread that grabs hold of me every time I think about leaving, about going back to London, looms even larger.

When I get to the village, there’s no answer at Charlie’s cottage, so I start making my way towards the pub. Fiona MacDonald is on her knees in her small front garden. When she sees me, she stands up.

‘Maggie.’ Her smile is warm; today there are no anxious lines creasing her forehead or the skin around her eyes. ‘Going to see Kelly?’

‘Yes, I thought I’d—’

‘I think she’s working in the pub today. Restocking the cellar.’

‘Oh.’

‘Can I maybe offer you a coffee? Tea?’

She’s nervous, I realise. Not anxious, but definitely nervous. She’s taken off her gardening gloves, and her fingers wind restlessly around one another.

‘Um … I really should—’

‘Alec’s not here.’ Her cheeks flush pink. ‘He went back to the rigs a few weeks ago. And Sheena’s in the shop until six.’ She blinks twice. ‘Are you still writing your story?’

My nod is automatic, if only because it’s easier than saying no.