Bushes laden this day, the note read. Looked down upon the shore and saw a dolphin belly-up on the beach, poor wee beastie. Rolled in a net, t’was, and drowned. August 1976.

Anna pressed the fingers of one hand to her lips, her heart racing. What else had Robbie told her, the night she’d ended up baking with him? He’d talked about how lost fishing nets were terrible for dolphins and how they were always washing up in that cove, especially after a storm.

With a cry Anna was off the sofa and out of the door, pausing only to push her feet into her walking boots and grab her coat. Outside, she crossed to the Weaver’s Nook amid a squall of wind and rain and banged rapidly on the door.

‘Anna! Whatever’s the matter?’ Frank Thorpe asked, as he opened the tradesman’s entrance.

Selkie lass,

I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. If you’re out there, keep him safe. I’ll find him. I promise I’ll never leave him alone again.

Bring him back to me.

Please. Please.

I can’t lose him too.

I can’t—

Twenty-Six

Frank insisted on coming with her, despite the wind and rain.

‘I don’t even know if I’m right,’ Anna told him, shouting into the wind as they climbed the village steps towards the cliff track.

‘Better safe than sorry, love. We’ve got to check,’ Frank shouted back, hefting the rope she’d asked for with him. He’d insisted on carrying it. Pat had tried to suggest that Anna went to David and Glynn instead, and as soon as she’d said it, Anna wished she’d thought of that herself in the first place. Once he’d heard what was going on, though, Frank was adamant. He was going with her, he was carrying the rope, and that was that.

They didn’t talk much as they rushed along the route, concentrating instead on keeping their footing on the wet ground. The rain blatted at their faces as Anna looked for the place where she’d left the path the first time she’d been up here on her own. They reached the gorse bush that blocked the way.

‘Be careful,’ she warned Frank. ‘It looks as if there’s been more slippage.’

‘Probably last night,’ he told her. ‘There’s been another over the village. Poured yet more earth on the rental’s roof. On Dougie’s place, too. It’s a mess.’

The sea was still washing rough waves against the shore, scattering tattered, breaking curls of ashy blue-green. The rain had lessened but Anna had to shield her eyes and squint to make out the lower cliff.

‘I can’t see anything,’ she called. ‘I don’t think he’s—’

Her words died in her throat as she saw something in the tide. It caught her eye, turned over by a wave, disappeared, rose again.