Anna picked up the notebook and saw page after page of sketches and notes detailing types of wood and measurements. It would have been a beautiful piece of furniture, Anna saw, made with such love that looking at the designs made her cry again.

‘We shouldn’t stay too long,’ Anna said, through her tears. ‘Pat, we’ll come back again as soon as we can, but right now – what do you want to take with you?’

Pat gathered up a few things – photographs of Frank mainly, a few pieces of jewellery and some clothes.

‘You keep that,’ she said to Anna, of the notebook full of Frank’s designs. ‘He would have wanted you to have it. He would have wanted you and the baby to have such a lot of things.’

As they came back downstairs they saw Robert talking quietly with Terry and Susan.

‘I want to see the rental next,’ Pat said, holding one of the photographs of Frank that had been on the sideboard tight to her chest. ‘I need to check out the damage.’

Robert smiled at her gently. ‘Best not, Pat. Not right now.’

Pat’s face crumbled. ‘It’s gone, then?’

‘I think so, yeah,’ Robert MacKenzie said softly, and Pat sunk her head against his shoulder with a sob that cracked Anna’s heart wide open. Robert wrapped his arms around his friend and rocked her where they stood.

‘Come on,’ he said, after a few minutes. ‘Let’s head back for now, shall we?’

The helicopter followed them as they left, a weary band of survivors carrying what possessions they could. The sound of the whirring blades blurred with the noise of the waves and the increasing wind as the Cassie’s Joy pulled out into the bay. No one spoke. They simply clung to each other. Anna studied Pat’s face, but Pat had become silent, staring steadily out to sea, and Anna wondered whether she was seeing anything at all.

‘I saw you on the news,’ Cathy told her later. ‘Oh Anna, I’m so sorry.’

Anna rubbed a weary hand across her face. The emotional strain of the past few days was taking its toll. She longed to hide away in a dark room, but she had arranged to meet up with Rhona to oversee the catering for Frank’s funeral. It was the least she could do. Pat herself had asked Phil to take her into Elgin – something to do with a meeting with her bank. Anna had begged Pat to leave it for a while, but she had been insistent. Anna had the sense that she needed to feel in control of something again, and could see why that would be important.

‘You’ll know more about what the village looks like than me then,’ she told Cathy. ‘I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it yet.’