I look out the bunkhouse’s only window. I can see a narrow run of stars overhead, solid and linear like the lintel of a door. And below them the sea. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know what to feel.

‘After …’ Charlie rubs a forefinger under his nose, and then dangles his arms between his knees. ‘Nothing was ever the same. The Stewarts – Kelly’s parents – they voted yes, but they didn’t come down to the beach. Afterwards, Thom bought the black-house, took over the lease for the land. And stood it for little over a year before he took his family away to North Uist for good.’ He shakes his head. ‘And Kenny. He might have been the only one to vote no, but he was on the beach that night anyway. And when I realised … when I saw that Robert wanted to come back, Kenny was the first one to go for the skiff. He’d left it pulled up against Roeness. Maybe he’d planned to use it all along.’ He sighs. ‘Alec never forgave us. When we started trying to put the boat out to sea, Bruce had to knock him out cold.’

Charlie stands up, looks out at that line of stars. ‘The guilt we’ve always felt over what we did is our cross to bear.’ He turns back to me. ‘My cross to bear. I suppose that’s justice too.’

‘The dig. That’s why Femi thought someone had been poking around, moving tarps, after Miko switched the dig back to the old barrow, isn’t it? Why Jaz became their shadow? Because you were all worried about Lorne’s body being discovered?’ It’s easier to ask Charlie questions. To seek out more things to accuse him of instead of having to think about what he’s actually done.

Charlie nods, sits back down. ‘Robert had been the one to suggest burying Lorne there.’ His smile is awful. ‘We couldn’t bury him in the cemetery, not without … not without explaining what had happened, but Robert said that the whole ridge up to the moorland and standing stones had been sacred ground for millennia.’

‘But why, Charlie? Why couldn’t you just explain to the police what happened? I don’t understand.’

He opens his mouth, closes it. Shakes his head. ‘Maggie, I can’t – it’s hard to explain. We—’

‘And the whisky festival?’ I say. ‘I know you faked that photo. Why?’

He sighs. ‘Robert had reported us as being responsible for killing his sheep. He’d told the police in Stornoway we were all against him, out to get him.’ He shakes his head again. ‘We didn’t trust Kenny, or Mary’s silence. And Alec thought that if the police found the blood – I mean, we’d cleaned it up, but you know, they can still find it, can’t they, if they want to, and there was so much of it – he thought they’d think he killed Robert.’

Charlie closes his eyes, and his voice gets quiet, small. ‘And we were still waiting to hear back about the Land Fund application. We were up against at least six other communities for the money. None of us ever said it, not outright, but if it had got out – the truth, never mind Alec being accused of Robert’s murder – we would never have been awarded the funding to buy Euan out.’