‘It was a bad time, like Gillian said,’ Bruce says. His shoulders as set and tense as Charlie’s. ‘Tempers were frayed. People were stressed. Relationships were strained. And folk the world over are inclined towards superstition when so much of their livelihoods, their lives, their survival depends on the undependable.’ His mouth presses into a thin line. ‘Everyone needs someone – something – to blame. And Alec – not only Alec – blamed Robert first and the dig second.’

‘A curse,’ I say. Thinking of Femi’s This island is a hotspot for human sacrifice, unusual burial rites. That image I can’t shake of a mummified composite body sitting at the head of a dining table.

The rain is heavier. In the following silence, I can hear it drumming against the living room’s windows, the wooden front door.

Finally Jaz nods, his expression blank. ‘Triggered when we excavated the bog bodies.’

*

Charlie and I stay behind after everyone else leaves. As Isla and I collect cups and plates, I almost knock over a small wooden photo frame on the coffee table.

‘That’s my David,’ she says, picking it up. ‘Twenty-eight next week. I don’t know where the time goes.’ She wipes the glass with the elbow of her cardigan. ‘I’d been told I couldn’t have children, so he was our wee miracle.’

In the picture he can be no more than five or six years old. Small and knobbly-kneed, with a mop of blond hair and a toothy smile. I think of Kelly’s David lives in Glasgow. Single and hot as fuck, and nearly laugh.

‘I never forgave myself for that night,’ Isla says. Her eyes are sharp and dry, but the frame trembles in her hands. ‘For letting Lorne out of my sight. If Fiona had lost David, I would have killed her stone dead.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. And it sounds woefully inadequate, especially as I’m the one who’s brought it all back up.

‘I believe it, you know,’ she says, and when she grips a hard hold of my hand, her own is so icy-cold I can’t hide my flinch. ‘That your coming back here now is important. Is for a reason.’

I turn round when I hear Charlie clear his throat; he’s standing inside the doorway holding my mac.

‘Come on, Maggie. Let’s leave Isla in peace, eh?’

Outside, the rain has stopped and the sky is no longer overcast. Charlie and I walk towards Blairmore until I can’t stand the silence any more.

‘Who went to Stornoway with you that Saturday? For the whisky festival?’

For a long moment, he doesn’t reply. And then he stops walking.

‘I lied back there, Maggie,’ he says. ‘When I said that you asking if we thought Robert’s death might have been murder was because you had to. I think this was a mistake. I chose to help you because I felt like I owed you and I owed him. But you’re upsetting people I love. You’re hurting them. And a witch hunt is worse than a sideshow.’