‘Tell me. Please, Sonny. Please!’ I can’t go without knowing. Even though I’m every bit as scared as he said I should be. Because I’m every bit as scared as he said I should be.

He barks out another laugh. ‘You sure, girl? You sure even now?’

‘Yes!’ I have to shout to be heard over the rain rattling against the roof and the wind howling around the headland, and after the stifling closeness of the bothy, it’s almost a relief. ‘Who killed Robert? Please.’

My heart drums faster than the rain as he walks towards me, still holding the shotgun, still wearing that humourless smile. He stops.

‘We all did.’

‘What?’ I take one step back. And then a second.

‘We killed him.’ Another flash of teeth as he brings up the gun against his shoulder, aims the muzzle at my chest. ‘Every last one of us.’

When he pulls the trigger, I let out the scream that’s been trying to batter its way out of my chest. And when nothing answers but a dull metal click barely audible over the storm, I stagger backwards again, tears stinging my eyes, bile choking my throat.

Kenny doesn’t lower the shotgun. He grins at me along the length of its barrel. ‘Bang.’ And then he winks.

And I run.

CHAPTER 34

I run back towards the bluffs. It’s the easiest route and affords the best view. The rain and wind have changed direction, barrelling westwards in rising gusts, trying to shove me back towards the bothy. Dusk is coming; the stormy skies are heavier with it – an oppressive gloom that blurs and hides the edges of what I can see.

Just get back to the farm. I put my head down and press forwards, looking only at my feet until the bluff widens and starts to slope less steeply down to the meadow. Get back to the farm, get back to Will, and then work out what to do next. I can’t think about We killed him. I can’t think about all those dead birds in front of the blackhouse door. Because it feels like something might break inside me if I do. Something crucial that’s barely managing to function as it is. I just need to get back to the farm.

I glance left only once, out across the furious Atlantic, when I realise there’s someone on the beach. Not Kenny, it can’t be – although my heart does an unpleasant flip all the same. My second thought is of Robert.

I shield my eyes from the worst of the wind. They have their back to me, whoever it is, and they’re wearing a cobalt-blue cagoule; it flaps and ripples like a flag on a pole, its hood pulled tight around their head. They aren’t moving. Just standing in the middle of the sand, and staring out at the wild surf and wilder ocean beyond. Something about the way they’re standing makes me shiver. So still, so decided, despite those gale-force winds that can be no less brutal on the beach. I think again of Jaz watching Robert from the top of this bluff. You’d have to have been a madman to go down there.