‘We were in shock,’ Charlie says, in that same strange voice. ‘I told you that. But I didn’t … that doesn’t explain how … it was like time had stopped. After Robert did what he did, after we did what we did and he was gone, it was like everything just … stopped.’

I can hear him move closer, but I don’t look up.

‘We couldn’t decide what to do, none of us. And then it was too late – we’d waited too long, we couldn’t tell the police anything even if we’d wanted to. We’d cleaned up the blackhouse; we’d buried Lorne.’ Charlie’s voice breaks. ‘The storm woke us up. The Hammer of the Sea. The worst spring storm to hit the west coast in two decades. And we … God help us, we saw the opportunity in it. Robert had never come back. He’d never washed up anywhere. He’d just gone. So. We decided to say that both he and Lorne had been lost to Òrd na Mara.’

I squeeze my eyes shut, try to grab hold of the calmness of this place, the peace, but it’s like trying to grab hold of smoke. Belching up from a fire that’s burning everything I own.

‘Robert died on a different night,’ I whisper. ‘A different storm.’

I can hear Charlie swallow. ‘Aye.’

‘How many days before the festival?’

When he doesn’t answer me, I make myself look at him. He looks back – tired, beaten. Old.

‘Charlie. How many days before the festival did he die?’

He closes his eyes. ‘Fifty-three.’

‘Fifty-three?’ Something halfway between a sob and a laugh comes out of me. My fingers are numb when I press them against my mouth. ‘What date?’

Charlie lets out a long, shuddering breath. He reaches his hands towards me but doesn’t move closer. ‘The fifteenth of February.’

My birthday.

I scramble backwards, push myself to my feet. ‘No. No.’ I start climbing, half-crawling up the bluff towards its summit, ignoring Charlie shouting my name.

At the top, the wind is as fierce as ever, and I welcome its fury. I look down. The storm hasn’t only carved deep wounds into the sand of Big Beach, it’s changed the topography of its dunes and shoreline – so much so that it no longer looks like the same place, the same beach. As if it’s an imposter. A replacement. I look out across the Atlantic. Quiet and flat beneath white puffs of cloud. Clear and turquoise blue. I think of that sharp memory against a backdrop of white. The squeeze of my fists; the hoarseness of my throat; the hotness of my tears.

I’m Andrew MacNeil. I’m Andrew MacNeil. I’m Andrew MacNeil!

Mum, with that light in her eyes, that serene smile. Yes, you are.

And then I look west towards Roeness, that low grey shadow of Sonny’s bothy. Did he know? Had they all known?

‘You knew,’ I say, when Charlie climbs up beside me, breath wheezing. ‘You knew.’