Chapters (43)
- Pronunciation
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Acknowledgments
Still, he hesitated to take the plunge. It was wild out there. It was why generations of his ancestors had built houses with walls two and three feet thick. How foolish was he to believe he could survive weeks, even months, in a flimsy little tent like this? He breathed out through clenched teeth, screwed up his eyes for a moment, then made the dash. Out into rain that stung his face, the force of the wind almost taking the legs away from him.
He reached his car, fumbling for keys with wet fingers, and a light came on in his peripheral vision. He paused, peering down the hill through the rain, to see that it was the light above Marsaili’s kitchen door. It threw a feeble yellow glow up the path towards where Fionnlagh’s car stood idling. He couldn’t hear the engine, but he could see exhaust fumes belching from the rear of the old Mini to be whipped away into the night.
And then a figure with a suitcase dashing from the kitchen door to the car. Just a silhouette, but recognisably Fionnlagh. Fin called out his name, but the bungalow was a couple of hundred yards away, and his voice was lost in the storm.
Fin stood, hammered by rain that ran in sheets off his oilskin, blowing into his face, running down his neck, and watched as Fionnlagh opened the boot and jammed his case inside. He ran back to the house to turn off the light, and was the merest shadow as he dashed up the path again to the car. Fin saw his face caught for a moment in the courtesy light as the door opened and then closed again. The car pulled away from the side of the road and started off down the hill.
Fin turned to his own car, unlocked the door, and slid into the driver’s seat. He started it up, slipped into first gear and released the handbrake. As long as he kept Fionnlagh’s lights in sight, he could keep his own turned off. He rolled down the hill after the Mini.
Fin kept a good two hundred yards between the cars, and slowed to a stop as the Mini pulled up outside the Crobost stores at the foot of the hill. By the light of Fionnlagh’s headlamps, he saw the tiny figure of Donna Murray dart out from the shelter of the shop doorway, hefting a carrycot in both hands. Fionnlagh jumped out to tip the driver’s seat forward and she slid it inside before running back to fetch a small suitcase.