The room doesn’t erupt, but releases its collective breath. Isla presses her hand against her mouth, stifling a sob.

‘I know this is hard,’ Inspector Lynn Urquhart says. ‘But obviously we need to establish how Lorne died and why he was buried on this island when he was supposed to have drowned at sea.’

She comes out from behind the table and walks to the centre of the room. ‘Initial postmortem findings have failed to establish a cause of death, and although we’re waiting on lab results, there’s a chance that no COD will be established forensically. That means we have to speak to everyone who was living here in April 1994. In a few minutes, my colleagues, Detective Sergeant Munro and Detective Constable Scott, will start to hear witness statements. That will take some time, so we’d appreciate your patience. And if you could not discuss any specifics with one another while you’re waiting, we’d appreciate that too.’

She looks around the room. ‘Anyone who wishes to speak to me in confidence is welcome to do so. Phone Stornoway Police Station and ask for me by name. Anything you say will be treated as completely confidential.’ She leaves a long silence before folding her arms and moving back towards the table. ‘Anyone who was not living here in ’94 is free to leave.’

Will sighs. ‘I’m going to stay with Mum,’ he says. ‘She doesn’t look great today.’

‘D’you want me to stay too?’ I ask, praying he says no. Although the rain is now lashing down hard against the windows, I suddenly want to be anywhere but here.

He gives me a brief smile, shakes his head. ‘You should go back to the farm. I’ll come as soon as I can.’

Charlie walks by our table, heading towards the toilets, and I spring up.

‘Charlie.’

He half-turns, wards me off with the flat of his palm as he keeps on walking, his gait shambling and unsteady. I can feel the anxiety radiating from him.

‘Charlie!’ But I let him go because I can’t bear to see his distress. I can’t bear to add to it. To ask him about what he knows, what he’s been hiding all this time. Because I haven’t been able to forget how clear his eyes had been that night in the pub; I know who murdered Robert.

*

It’s barely four p.m. by the time I get back to the farm, but the sky is the colour of dusk and there are shadows everywhere. The rain has relented to a fine damp mist that blurs and shifts like muslin curtains. I stop, for a moment, on the road looking west. The police tape has come away from one of the old gate posts ahead of the cemetery; it waves and frantically flaps in the wind like a tethered bird.

Femi said that the north end of the main trench collapsed as they were filling it in, exposing the body. I remember him telling me way back in February that it looked like someone had been poking around in the dig at night. Muddy footprints and moved tarps. Earth disturbed around the recently excavated part of the main barrow. Which suddenly makes sense, if someone was afraid that the dig might uncover what they’d buried there twenty-five years ago. If they were trying to find it first.