‘Hey.’ Donnie claps a hand on Will’s shoulder before picking up a tray full of drinks from the bar. ‘You guys here for lunch? Got the kids this week. Why don’t you join us?’ He nods towards a nearby table where Gillian and Bruce are sitting next to a little girl with tight black curls and a younger boy, maybe about five, swinging his feet on a low stool.

Will turns to me, an apology in his eyes. ‘Do you want to?’

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I’ll get the drinks.’

‘I’ll go grab us some chairs,’ Will says, still looking sorry enough that I make myself smile.

After he goes and I order from a barman I don’t recognise, I realise that Donnie is still loitering next to me with his tray of drinks.

‘So,’ he says, and there’s no mischievous grin for me today. ‘You decided how long you’re sticking around yet?’

His frown is almost a glower, and I’ve no idea if it’s because Will and I spent the night in Stornoway or because his parents have told him what was said in Isla’s cottage on Monday. I can’t see why either of those things would piss him off, but I’m beginning to suspect there are a lot of things that I don’t know or understand, a lot of things that people are not saying, perhaps even hiding. Whether that’s more clutching at straws, I don’t know either, but the possibility – the suspicion – pisses me off enough to glare back.

‘Why d’you ask?’

He shrugs, quickly schools his expression into something more friendly as he reaches across the bar to put my drinks onto his tray. ‘Just making conversation.’

I look over his shoulder at the wall of photos, and see that Miko and Femi are sitting alone at the table nearest to it. ‘I’m just going to go say a quick hello,’ I say, returning his lukewarm smile with one of my own before moving away from him.

I skirt the red wall, pretending casual curiosity. Glance quickly over my shoulder at the lounge before pulling the photo out of my bag and hanging it back in its space using my body as a shield. When I turn back round and walk to Miko’s table, she greets me with a polite smile. ‘How are you, Maggie?’

‘I’m fine, thanks. How’s the dig going?’

‘We’re finding some really exciting artefacts,’ she says, with a small shrug. ‘We haven’t found any satellite graves yet like I was hoping, but the main barrow is still producing a ton of Bronze Age pottery. Yesterday we found a gold torc, a kind of high-status bracelet, which could even be Neolithic, so …’

Femi snorts. ‘I’ll tell you what’s really interesting.’ And he’s looking at Miko rather than me. ‘Ever since we started re-excavating the site of the first dig as well as the southwest ridge, weird things have—’

‘Femi …’ Miko says, and I hear the warning in her voice even if he doesn’t.