CHAPTER 2

‘So, left takes you back to Urbost and the causeway, via Sheltered Bay – Bàgh Fasgach. Ben Donn’s maybe five hundred yards that way, over a thousand feet high, a good day’s hiking, if that’s your thing. But that beast up ahead is Ben Wyvis. Beinn Uais. “Terror Mountain”. Not such a fun hike.’

Kelly barely stops talking to draw breath as we fast-march past the old red phone box at the junction out of Blairmore. The evening air is bitterly cold. I can hear distant waves. I can smell the sea and the distinctive heavy sweetness of peat fires.

‘Gleann nam Bòcan. The Valley of Ghosts.’ She shines her phone light over the road and into a shadow between the mountains so dark it’s just black – flat and impenetrable. Her snort puffs white ahead of us like fog. ‘Wouldn’t recommend a hike there either.’

I nod in the darkness, watch her bright light bouncing off the tarmac as we turn right onto the main road west. I think of Alec’s Jesus Christ. It’s you. All those looks of shock and anger. It was worse than I expected. No. It was exactly what I expected.

‘There’s a torch in the house,’ Kelly says. ‘And if you have to give way to a car, make sure you get onto the grass over this side, especially at night. The other side is nothing but bog. Oh, and the old Coffin Road, where folk used to carry their dead to the cemetery in the west.’ She flashes her torchlight over an old stone building, and I realise that it’s a ruined church, its roof collapsed and windows boarded up with wood.

‘Those lights out towards the beach are the bunkhouses where the archaeologists are staying. They’re absolutely teeny; just looking at them makes me feel claustrophobic.’

There are no lights anywhere inland, I realise. The whole island must live on this narrow coastal strip between mountain and cliff. And up ahead, beyond the small line of bunkhouses, there’s nothing but more darkness. No people, no distant squares of gold. I shiver, pulling the lapels of my coat tighter against my throat. You’re Andrew fucking MacNeil. Right?

‘Welcome to the Outer Hebrides in February.’ Kelly laughs, briefly blinding me with her torchlight before turning it back onto the road. ‘Hope you packed some thermals. Oh, hey, and before I forget, there’s a ceilidh in the pub tomorrow night. I know, bit tragic, but they’re usually pretty fun. You should definitely come. We can get ready together in my flat and preload on vodka Red Bulls like we’re eighteen again.’

‘Sounds good,’ I lie. Because I have to go. Despite what just happened, I can’t forget why I’m here.

Eventually, a long stone barn looms out of the blackness alongside the road, and next to it a smaller two-storey cottage, stone-built and blazing with light.

‘Will Morrison’s farm,’ Kelly says, her torch swerving wildly again as she thumps her palm against her breastbone. ‘Sexy Will Morrison’s farm. I mean, it’s slim pickings obviously, but still. Very Sexy Will Morrison’s farm.’