‘Right to left at the front, there is definitely Jimmy Struthers. Next to him I reckon might be Charlie MacLeod.’ He moves his finger across the photo. ‘That’s poor wee Lorne’s parents, Alec and Fiona MacDonald, and in front could be Bruce MacKenzie, maybe. Couldn’t swear to it, but I’m pretty sure. Right height and hair colour.’ He picks the photograph up again. ‘Bobby Rankin would probably be a better bet than me; he grew up in Urbost, but he’s off on annual leave the next fortnight.’ He squints as he holds it closer. ‘The man and woman at the end there, I don’t know. Looks like water or something’s damaged the emulsion on that side.’ He hands back the photograph and shrugs. ‘And the man standing behind them, no idea either, I’m afraid.’

Which leaves who on Kilmeray? Charlie’s wife, Moira, and Isla, who I already know were looking after the children. Jaz, who’d stayed on at the dig to prepare for any storm damage, and had later seen Robert down on the beach. Isla’s husband, Kenny, who’d come back from creel fishing, gone looking for Lorne, and said he thought he saw a man going into the sea. Who else? Gillian? Euan? Unless he’s the blurry man at the far side of the photo. And Mary, Robert’s wife, who, according to Gillian, had raised the alarm a couple of hours after Robert had gone out to check on the sheep.

I stand up. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘You’ve been really helpful.’

He nods, then cocks his head to one side, frowns. ‘You know, library next door’s been doing a bit of a hard-copy clearout to microfiche. Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll just nip over, see if they have any of the original newspaper articles about what happened.’

‘That would be really kind of you,’ I say, although I’ve already read everything local in my online research.

He smiles as he opens the door. ‘Maybe I’ll get top billing in those acknowledgments of yours.’

I sit as I wait. Rub at that tightness inside my chest. I don’t why I’m still here, why I didn’t leave as soon as I saw that death certificate. Why I’m still asking questions about Robert’s death. Maybe – even in the face of indisputable proof that I was born nearly two months before Robert died – all that desperate hope isn’t abandoned so easily after all.

Murdo Black comes back less than ten minutes later, out of breath and pink in the face.

‘Already microfiched and off to storage, I’m afraid,’ he says, coming back round the desk. ‘Although you can always print from one of the readers for a couple of quid if you’re interested.’

‘Thanks.’ I stand up again to leave. ‘I really appreciate—’

‘I got this, though,’ he says, brandishing a paper. ‘Stornoway Gazette. Strange thing a few years later – a wee girl from the mainland claimed she was the reincarnated soul of a man who was drowned, she said – murdered, if you can believe it – in 1994. Created quite the stir.’