‘There’s a permanent light up on Aird Einish, which protected boats coming into the Bay’s harbour from the rocks and headlands. But that night, in that storm, there was no light. The boats were ripped up on the rocks and sank in the surf, yards from shore, while the entire village watched. Everyone lost someone.’ She looks at me. ‘Robert told Charlie that he broke the light. That he was angry with his father, and so he went up to Aird Einish when the boats went out on the morning of the storm, and he hit the light’s lamp with a slingshot and rocks.’

‘What?’ I think of Robert standing in a grassy meadow, arms folded and alone. That sad, stubborn frown.

‘And it weighed so heavily on his conscience that it ruined his life.’

‘God.’ I realise that my hands are still tight fists only when my nails dig into my skin enough to sting.

‘You don’t know the whole story, Maggie. Not yet.’ Fiona’s lips curve up into an abrupt and humourless smile that makes me want to shiver. ‘If you really want to write Robert’s story, go to Ardshader and see what kind of a man he was.’ She stands up so suddenly, I almost drop my coffee. ‘In fact, I have time. Why don’t I take you?’

*

‘Hey, Fiona, Maggie,’ Jaz says, as we walk back down the path. He’s hauling a canvas sack filled with branches and leaves towards the neighbouring cottage’s front gate, and I realise he must have been the shadow in its window. ‘Where are you two off to?’

‘Ardshader,’ Fiona says, after a pause.

Jaz pauses almost as long, and then puts down the sack. ‘I can take you, if you like?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Fiona says. ‘We can just as easy get the bus from Longwick.’

‘It’s no trouble.’ Jaz’s smile is brief. ‘I was going to burn these, but I can take them to the recycling yard at Timsgarry instead.’ He swings the sack over his shoulder and opens the gate without looking back at either of us. ‘Come on.’

I hesitate, suddenly reluctant. I don’t want to go to Ardshader. I don’t want to know the whole story. Not any more. But because I can think of no way of explaining why – that I’m happy and I’m afraid of anything that might take that away – I follow them anyway.

CHAPTER 21

The sun is blinding as we crest a steep hill and Jaz brings the car to a stop.

‘See those houses?’ he says to me, pointing towards a flat and grassy headland to the southwest of a huge bowl-shaped bay of wide white sand. ‘That’s Ardshader.’

Fiona gets out of the car. There’s been a very strange atmosphere between her and Jaz all the way here. Nothing that I can define, but nonetheless, like static electricity, an undercurrent of tension. Although part of that might be down to me. Because I can’t deny that, despite my reluctance, some of the old excitement is back. I’ve been certain for months now that Robert Reid and the Andrew MacNeil born in Ardshader in 1967 were the same person. The same Robert Reid who made Norse talismans to protect himself from something or someone. Norse talismans that someone has been leaving for me. And Charlie has been lying to me about him.