I hold the bag stiffly by my side as I open the front door. The path is empty. I don’t lock the door behind me, if only because I want to. The wheelie bins are beside the house; I open the lid of one and throw the bag in with an involuntary shudder. Two black-faced sheep in grimy, shaggy grey coats watch me from the grass.

I can hear faraway shouts out past the road in the west. The distant drone and creak of machinery. Maybe the archaeologists’ diggers. The sheep turn tail and run round to the back of the blackhouse as it starts to rain. I pull up my hood and follow them. I’m not ready for real company just yet.

The wind hits me like a hammer. I can hear the sea; the blackhouse is much closer to it than I realised – there’s no more than maybe forty yards between the house and the edge of the headland. I start walking before I’ve any idea to where, and slow only once I reach the end of the narrow track, and the way grows steeper. The wind and a huddle of cross-looking sheep do an admirable job of keeping me well back from the cliff edge, but the view is staggering all the same. In all directions, the Atlantic Ocean reaches away to the horizon, grey and vast and flat, save for a tiny island in the northeast. I can see nothing at all of the main islands; it’s as if Kilmeray is entirely alone in the world. The ground beyond the track is grassy and muddy, swiftly growing muddier, and as I pass the farm, the only signs of life are yet more sheep sheltering next to its barn. I should probably introduce myself to Kelly’s Very Sexy Will, but, after a moment’s hesitation, I keep on walking.

A fog rolls in from the sea as the rain gets heavier, settling in smoky wreaths that soon obscure my view completely. When the track turns, I follow it gingerly until two solid shapes rise suddenly out of the gloom. I swallow, a little shocked by how easily I’ve become disorientated. The smell of the sea is far stronger; the wind has changed shape and sound, its howl echoing loud and urgent somewhere below me, and I wonder just how close I am to the edge.

The shapes get taller as I creep closer, and when I finally reach them, I see that they’re slabs of stone, evenly spaced and rectangular like gravestones. Behind them is the sharp edge of the cliff, and then beyond, a distant cluster of lights that must be Blairmore. Between both headlands is only that howling, urgent wind and murky space – the impression of a drop so sheer that I’ve no intention of venturing any closer.

I push my wet hair away from my face and hunker down in front of the first stone, weatherworn around its edges, but engraved with intricate swirls and scrolls and inscribed with the words FOR LORNE. And underneath: 9TH APRIL 1994. Its neighbour is taller, sterner, made of hard granite instead of soft sandstone. THE FISHERMAN is chiselled deep and stark across its centre.