THE MAN STANDS at the window, feeling the great rumble of the boat’s engine beneath his feet, watching as the lights of Castlebay, gleaming like flecks of white gold in the distance, draw slowly closer. The winter night fell hours ago, and now it is as if they sail through space; the thick dark of the sea can be distinguished from that of the sky only by the occasional streak of white foam at the top of a wave, and the way the heaving swell catches the reflection from the ferry’s lights at a certain angle.

He is light-headed, delirious from the pain that has been getting steadily worse since he boarded. The fight with Sam in the early hours was more difficult than it ought to have been. When he’d seen that Ruby and Leonie had already gone, he’d been too angry to react efficiently. He must have made a noise that woke Sam, who’d managed to get a few good punches in before things were properly under control. All that time wasted waiting to follow them, when he hadn’t even needed to. Imagine if he’d left it any longer—he might have missed the ferry altogether.

The drive up in the car he’d stolen at Ripon had been calming, the landscape through the Scottish lochs and valleys soothingly dramatic, but something about being at sea seemed to disagree with him. The moment he was on the ferry, he’d slipped into the first bathroom he’d come across, knowing that Ruby and Leonie were somewhere nearby. The choice of hiding place was rather appropriate, it turned out, because only minutes after the boat set sail, he’d been overcome with the worst seasickness he’d ever experienced. The force of the first great expulsion of vomit was too much for his injured head: he’d blacked out.