I should have gone to the police in Stornoway. I should have taken this to Detective Inspector Lynn Urquhart. And I should have told her what Bobby Rankin told me. It’s proof of a lie. And perhaps – probably – it was one that was told to them as well as to me. But instead, I came back here. I’m stuck here. I think of the birds. And all at once I wish I were anywhere else.

The beach below is a dark grey blur of sea and whipped-up foam. Waves batter the sand, the headland cliffs. The wind tastes of salt. The noise is incredible; a barrage of exploding shells. I think of Robert standing down there in a storm far worse than this. The rain is like hailstones, blurring my vision, but when I look across to West Point, where Jaz had been standing that night he saw Robert, I see someone else. Standing on that cliff above the western end of the beach. And looking. Just like the last time, straight at me.

No.

Because it’s enough. I don’t want to run. I don’t want to hide. I look at that figure looking at me. See it and confront it. I shove the photo deep inside a large but abandoned rabbit burrow, the corners of the wooden frame dislodging old earth. Dangling grass roots tickling my skin like spiders’ legs.

And then I start walking along the bluff towards that western cliff. And Sonny.

*

My courage lasts until I reach the beginning of the Roeness headland. I can see stony ruins some hundred yards away. Perhaps the remains of the medieval church that gave Kilmeray its name. It looks murky out there. Less a headland than an island, long and narrow and shrouded in gloom and sea spray.

Sonny is gone. But less than twenty feet from the cliff’s edge is a small stone bothy. It has one square window. A low wooden door, dirty grey and scarred with jagged cracks. Its corrugated tin roof is rusted brown and orange.

I approach the building slowly because suddenly I feel dizzy, unbalanced. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I reach that grey door. And then I’m spared the decision when it swings open with a nerve-jangling shriek.

In the roaring wet silence that follows, we look at each other. He’s tall and broad. When he crosses his arms, his shoulders span the doorway. His beard is thick, rusted brown like the roof, amid bigger patches of grey. His hair is short, his dark eyes stony, his mouth a mean pressed line.

‘Robert?’ And I’m appalled when it comes out as a choked whisper.

Those eyes narrow. That mouth gets meaner. When the door bangs hard inside a gust of wind, I flinch.

He smiles. ‘Suppose you’d better come in, then.’

CHAPTER 30

Robert

Everyone is inside the pub. Bright gold windows at the end of the village road. And as I’m standing outside in the gloom looking in at them all, I feel such sorrow and shame that it has to become rage before it crushes me.