‘Okay, thanks.’ I need to visit the GP surgery that Dr Abebe has registered me with, and I’m relieved I won’t have to explain why. I’m glad to be doing this alone too. I already feel a bit ridiculous. And uncertain about what it is I want to find.

After waiting less than five minutes, I’m shown into a small office, where a middle-aged man with a thin-lipped smile and a small halo of dark hair sits at a desk.

‘Hello,’ he says, glancing up at me. ‘I’m Murdo Black. Pull up a pew. How can I help you today?’

I sit down. ‘I’m looking for a death certificate.’

He types something before looking round his screen at me. ‘Was it within the last fifty years?’

‘Nineteen ninety-four.’

‘Then it can’t be looked at online. You have to order a copy certificate, I’m afraid, which will cost you the princely sum of twelve pounds.’

‘That’s fine. I just wanted to check the date and cause of death.’

‘All right.’ More tapping. ‘What was the name?’

‘Robert Reid.’

There’s a definite pause before the typing resumes. ‘Can you confirm the place of death? The district?’

‘District? No, um. It was off the island of Kilmeray. He … drowned.’

He clears his throat, looks at the screen. ‘Right. Here it is. Would you like to order the certificate?’

‘How long will I have to wait?’

He props his elbows on the desk and steeples his fingers. ‘Normally it’s a couple of weeks, but …’ He flashes neat teeth. ‘We’re quiet. How about I print you off a copy now? Can be my good deed for the day.’

‘Thank you, that would be brilliant.’

He smiles as he gets up, closes the door behind him with a gentle click. And while he’s gone, I try not to get my hopes up about Charlie being wrong about the date. I try harder not to think about why he might even have lied about it. I think about the blackhouse instead, and then try not to think about a potential murderer running and scratching circles around it.

Murdo Black comes back in about ten minutes, waving a couple of A4 pages, which he sets down on the desk in front of me. The first says ‘Extract of an entry from the REGISTER OF DEATHS in Scotland.’ I scan down past Robert Reid’s name to When died.

1994 April Ninth

Estimated 1900 hours

Charlie was right about the date after all. Something shifts inside me then. It’s a little like panic, but it’s diluted, fuzzy around its edges. Maybe for me there is no escape after all, no excuses, no starting from scratch. After all that desperate hope, it’s nearly a relief. That I’m just me. The me who stopped taking her meds because she doesn’t deserve to be able to look at herself in the mirror.

The cause of death is listed as Probable drowning or hypothermia and Probable hypoxia and acidosis leading to cardiac arrest or hypothermia leading to cardiac failure.