‘Who the fuck is that?’

Will turns, looks up. ‘Oh, that’s Sonny.’ He wipes the sand from the wine bottle’s neck. ‘Kilmeray’s resident hermit. He’s been living over there on West Point for years – long as I can remember – in what’s pretty much a one-room bothy. Folk take him food sometimes, but he’s pretty self-sufficient, prefers to be left well alone.’

I watch that figure as he continues to watch us, and think of that someone in the dark. I let out my breath only when he turns away from the cliff edge and disappears down out of sight.

‘Hey, he’s fine. He’s harmless.’ Will touches my shoulder. ‘He’s just Sonny.’

The words come out before I can stop them. ‘You haven’t asked me yet. If I believe it. If I believe that I used to be Andrew MacNeil.’

‘I figure you’ll tell me,’ Will says, catching my gaze and keeping it. ‘If you want to talk about it.’

I clear my throat. Scramble clumsily to my feet. ‘We should probably get back.’

He nods and stands up, brushes sand off his jeans. ‘Kelly mentioned you needed to go to Stornoway. I’ll take you.’

‘You’ll take me?’

‘Sure. I need to go anyway. Tuesday okay?’

And when he grins again and I nod without hesitation, without any kind of reservation whatsoever, I realise Kelly was right. I am in trouble.

CHAPTER 9

On Monday, I wake up early, and manage to potter about the blackhouse for a couple of hours before my restlessness gets the better of me. Even though it’s threatening rain, I put on my mac and wellies and peer through the door’s little window before stepping out onto the path. Every morning, I’ve been checking that no weird dead birds have appeared in the night; it’s in danger of becoming an unhealthy habit. When I reach the road, I turn right, away from Blairmore. I’m tempted to go northwest again, to that valley of machair and rabbits and the roar of the ocean, but instead I turn southwest onto the muddy Coffin Road, heading towards the sounds of the dig.

I assume I’ve reached the Lair of the Big Dog when the way gets gloomier and muddier, and the sheer face of Ben Wyvis on my left is mirrored by a slow-rising ridge of earth and grass on my right. I’ve guessed, too, that this is Tòrr Dìseart even before the sounds of machinery and shouting grow louder, but I’m still relieved when the way opens up enough that I’m able to see the diggers and people those sounds belong to.

The ridge is bigger than I imagined. Maybe as much as a hundred yards across, and instead of one mound at its summit, there are two wide and low sloping banks, one significantly larger than the other. I climb up onto a grassy shelf that tracks up the flank of the ridge, growing steadily steeper until it reaches the top.

The summit is a hive of activity. As many as thirty people are milling around the site or hunkered down in long shallow trenches. Close to the larger mound and the low wall of Kilmeray Cemetery in the east, a JCB loader is moving great buckets of earth, although it looks like most of the excavation has been carried out on this end of the ridge.