I remember asking her months ago why her parents had left the island so soon after buying the blackhouse from Euan Morrison. Her answering shrug; Maybe they realised they’d made a mistake and wanted to cut their losses. Or perhaps Robert’s ghost had haunted them too. Perhaps that mistake had been a bigger one than Kelly knew. A mistake that had them leaving for North Uist barely a year after Robert’s death.

I glance across the grazing pasture to the low row of bunkhouses ahead of Long Stride. They look so small, so fragile in the darkness. I know pretty much all the archaeologists have already left, and I wonder if Miko and Femi were among them. I suddenly feel very alone. As if I’m the only person left on the island. The only person left in the world.

I actually shriek when the ATV roars out of the southwest, swiftly decelerating when they see me, my yellow mac probably the only thing visible in the gloom.

It’s Bruce, bundled up inside a huge black anorak, his face wet and red.

‘You shouldn’t be out in this,’ he says by way of greeting. ‘There’s a storm coming.’

‘Have you seen Charlie today?’

He frowns, shakes his head. ‘If he’s any sense, he’s battening down the hatches. You want a lift to Ardcraig?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

He presses his lips together, his dark eyes unreadable. I think of that photo in my bag. And then he’s gone, the roar of the wind and his ATV swallowing any goodbye.

When I get back to the farm, its lights are off, and I can’t hear the sheep in the barn. I can maybe hear the rumble of another ATV out towards Big Beach. I should go inside, start a fire, wait for Will. But still there’s that restless sense of urgency in me, the feeling that I can’t stop moving. I know I’m okay. I know I’m not manic. But I suspect now that I’m grabbing on to what happened to Lorne and Robert because it’s something to grab on to. To feel in control of.

And then I see the birds. Four dead crows lying in a straight dark line, joined beak to tail, in front of the blackhouse door. My leg muscles tense and burn with the need to run. But I don’t. I pull out my phone and take a photo instead.

‘Fuck you.’ I don’t shout it, but I mean it.

I turn away from the blackhouse. I don’t look at the birds again. Instead, I start climbing the hills west towards Lovely Place. Probably because I associate it with safety. With Will. Even with Mum. In my mind, its riotous flowers, sparkling lochans, and bustling rabbit city will somehow be immune to the weather. An oasis of calm.

It isn’t, of course. It’s less lovely than it is a muddy quagmire that I struggle to negotiate without losing my balance, slipping into boggy puddles that climb wet up my jeans to the knees. By the time I manage to clamber halfway up the bluff, I’m exhausted. I have to grab fistfuls of tall, scratching grass as I pull myself up towards the summit, my ankles twisting over rocks and hidden rabbit holes. I stop for a moment and lean heavily against a flat rock close to the bank. Take the Stornoway photo out of my bag again. Look at those blurry faces. Try to see anything in them – any lie, any guilt. Jimmy, Charlie, and Bruce. Alec and Fiona. Euan. Kelly’s parents.