I shiver and step onto the wet grass. If Charlie was telling the truth the night of the peat harvest and someone really did murder Robert, then maybe they murdered Lorne too? Maybe Lorne saw them kill Robert, or maybe Robert saw them kill Lorne. And if Charlie knows, then doesn’t it stand to reason that he saw something too? Maybe he’s protecting the person responsible, and that’s why he’s blown so hot and cold. Or maybe, he … I think of his weather-beaten face, the wild tufts of hair that poke out from under his tweed caps, the finger he runs under his nose whenever he feels uncomfortable, uncertain. The awkward but determined way he patted my hand when he was telling me that it was okay to be happy. Charlie wouldn’t kill someone.

I open the farm door and step inside, close it quickly against the wind. I turn on the light, sit down on the sofa, pull a tweed blanket over my legs. I feel cold and ill at ease. Because if any of that is true than the person responsible isn’t just a theoretical possibility that weeks ago I decided probably didn’t exist. They’re not even some formless, nameless stranger. It’s someone Charlie would protect. It’s someone here. Someone I know.

*

I wake up suddenly from a nightmare, forgotten but still squeezing the breath inside my chest. I realise that it’s dark. Cold. Will isn’t back yet. I look at my phone. Eight p.m. Sunset isn’t for another two hours, but it already looks like night outside. I think of the sun that streamed through the pub’s windows just forty-eight hours ago. I get up. I should eat. Instead, I start restocking the fire grate before going on the hunt for matches in the kitchen. I freeze in front of its only window. There’s a light on inside the blackhouse.

I shouldn’t go. The old me would never go. And I can already feel her creeping back. I’m having bad dreams again. And I’m letting everything I’ve begun to love about this place become warped and poisoned.

Face it, I think in Dr Abebe’s voice. See it and confront it.

Maybe I left the light on. Even if I know I didn’t.

I grab Will’s heavy-duty torch, pull open the door. When I step outside, I struggle to pull it shut again. The wind is ferocious now, battering against me from all directions, its echoes howling and trapped in the spaces between cliffs and the sea. I walk quickly towards the blackhouse before I lose courage. I test the door and its iffy lock, and when it swings open I step back. My heart trips. I can’t see anything through the little inset window, so I make myself switch off the torch and hold it high like a club. And go in.

There’s no one there. Everything looks the way I left it a few days ago. Except the light that’s coming from the standard lamp next to the sofa. I can hear the cheerful tick-tock of the cartoon Highland cow on the mantelpiece behind it. On the other side of the room, the bed and wardrobe are in darkness.