The blast of wet air took Anna’s breath away as she followed Robbie out into the darkness, clutching her coat around her. He turned to her again and pulled her close. She held on to him, her face against his shoulder, hands clutching at his jacket as the wind threatened to blow them off their feet and the waves tugged at their ankles.

‘The lights,’ he yelled, his lips against her ear. ‘Make for the lights.’

Then he was gone. Anna didn’t know what he meant, and without his bulk surrounding her she felt as if she’d been cast into the maelstrom. The second Robert moved away he was lost to the stormy darkness. Anna felt a hand on her back – David, holding on to her. None of them could hear each other speak over the wind. They moved like a flock of sheep down the sea wall, staying as far from the edge as they could, holding each other upright as waves crashed around their feet. Then, up ahead, something shone through the roiling black. It looked like a festival of lights, huge blue-white slices of illumination scything through the night. Through it, Anna could see the rain slashing against the shore, the cold waves reaching up from the ocean.

The lifeboat.

As they stumbled on, figures ran towards them. All was confusion and the Crovie survivors were swept along. David let her go and someone else grabbed hold of her. She couldn’t see who it was until she got to the harbour and gloved hands touched her face, raising it to meet eyes she recognized looking at her anxiously beneath his drenched wool hat.

‘Liam!’

‘Are you all right?’ she read on his lips.

‘What are you doing here?’ she tried to ask, but her words were torn away by the wind.

He pushed her towards the lifeboat. The others were already being helped aboard.

‘Wait!’ she shouted, ‘Wait!’

She turned back towards the village, but it was impossible to see anything at all beyond the halo of light. Liam kept tugging her towards the boat. She dragged him close enough to bring her lips to his ear.

‘Robert!’ she bellowed. ‘He went for Douglas McKean!’

Liam looked into the darkness, but there was nothing to see but storm. He pushed Anna towards the lifeboat again. Other hands took hold of her.

‘No!’ Anna shouted, as she realized what Liam was about to do. She’d only meant they should wait. ‘You can’t—’

There was no point. A second later he was lost to the darkness, forcing his way along the sea wall beneath the rain and waves. Anna found herself aboard the pitching, bucking deck. Someone wound a survival blanket around her, the silver glinting a vivid blue beneath the boat’s shocking lights. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, as if she could keep the baby inside her safe from the world as it destroyed itself around them.