The rain comes out of nowhere. Heavy and icy-cold. I keep on running, slipping through mud, entirely disorientated. I follow the sound of the waves, and when I see the small inlet less than fifty yards from the track, I pick up speed, sliding down to its sandy edge more on my backside than my feet, palms soaked and studded with stones.

I can barely see the sea at all in the gloom. But suddenly, I do see lights. High on a dark headland too far out to be here on the main island. And suddenly I remember sitting in Am Blàr Mòr’s beer garden with Kelly and pointing out this very place. I’m on Hollow Beach. Where Lorne’s dinghy washed up.

I have an almost visceral urge to reach those lights, to reach Kilmeray – the pub, the people, the place – so strong that I find myself running towards the choppy surf. It washes icy cold over my boots and jeans, far higher and faster than I’d been expecting. And then I see closer, brighter lights. Hear a diesel engine.

I grab for my phone and turn on its torch. Start waving both arms high above my head as I shout into the wind. The boat is far enough out that I’m sure they won’t see me, but within seconds they slow and start to turn. I look back at the growing dark, the mountains behind me now little more than darker shadows. I can see nothing. No one. My light, I realise, is probably the only one for miles.

The boat reaches the edge of the inlet in minutes. Two large masthead lights are turned on, momentarily blinding me, and then I see a dinghy being lowered into the water out beyond the surf. I watch as it powers towards me – its outboard engine high and loud like a chainsaw. I’m overwhelmed by so much noise after the ominous suffocation of the Old Glen Road. Now that most of my fear has diminished, I’ve time enough to feel slightly embarrassed about my situation, until the dinghy pulls up onto the sand, and I recognise the big dark-haired figure that starts to climb out.

‘Jimmy!’

He squints, wipes his eyes. ‘Maggie?’ He shakes his head. ‘Quick, get in before the waves get any higher.’

I wade awkwardly through the icy surf, and Jimmy presses a neon-orange lifejacket over my head before helping me clamber into the dinghy. He turns it round quickly, and we roar out against the waves, reaching the fishing boat in what feels like seconds. My climb up onto the boat is made even harder by the bone-deep cold of the water, and by the time Jimmy pulls the dinghy in after us, all the strength in my body seems to have left through my legs.

‘Here, come into the wheelhouse,’ he says before half-hauling me there himself.

Inside the small, cramped space, another fisherman – younger than Jimmy and dressed in the same dirty yellow waterproofs – swivels in his chair away from a crowd of computer screens and electronic controls. He looks just as startled to see me as Jimmy was.