‘It had been pecked, you understand, pecked and partly eaten,’ said Camron, the new Tolbooth keeper, a simple farmhand from Crail way who was perpetually hungry and in awe of the reverend, so unlikely to question his orders. What the reverend didn’t see, but the women did, was the kind heart beneath the blank face and the loneliness that had made him accept the repellent position in the first place.

‘And it stunk worse than me brother’s shit. Not that it stopped people going to gawk at it or blathering ’bout his missing eye, the colour of his skin — blue and purple in case you be interested, especially ’long his arms and back.’ Camron rubbed his belly. ‘Och, you should have seen the marks on his body and the way his bones poked out like they were ’bout to puncture his skin.’ That those he was telling bore the same marks, if not worse, escaped Camron altogether. Nor was he the type of man able to sense when his comments weren’t appreciated and shut up. Unaware of the effect of his lurid descriptions, Camron stood in the centre of their cell, ignoring the stench and bleak conditions and blethered on. Sorcha was too scared to stop him lest he cease giving them any information, and forced herself to listen to his terrible tale. No one knew who had removed Thomas’s body, but it wouldn’t be too hard to guess. She hoped his family were not only careful, but that wherever they did inter Thomas, they offered prayers from her as well.

According to Camron, the sightseers who’d come to Pittenweem in droves from all over the country to see the witches were bitterly disappointed when Thomas’s corpse vanished. Some attributed it to evidence of more witches (an idea that made Sorcha’s heart plummet), or to Satan himself retrieving the body of a disciple. She could imagine them exchanging more vivid and outlandish ideas over ale in the tavern, the locals feeding the imaginations of the incomers. Camron said there were so many now, farmers were charging them rent to camp in their fields behind the village.