She shook her head in confusion and frustration, and held the door wide for the two men to come, dripping, into the hallway. “You’d better get those wet things off you.”

Fin smiled. “Better keep mine on, Catriona. I don’t want to inflame your delicate sensibilities.” He held open his oilskin to reveal his vest and boxer shorts. “I was only popping out to get a book from the car.”

“I’ll get you a dressing gown.” She canted her head to take a closer look at him. “What happened to your face?”

“Your husband hit me.”

Her eyes shot at once towards Donald, the slightest frown drawing creases between her brows. The guilt on his face, and his lack of a denial, deepened them.

Fifteen minutes later the two men sat around a peat fire in the living room, sipping on mugs of hot chocolate by the light of a table lamp and the glow of the peats. Donald wore a black silk dressing gown embroidered with Chinese dragons. Fin wore a thick white towelling robe. Both men were bare-foot and only just beginning to feel the circulation returning. On a nod from Donald, Catriona had retired to the kitchen, and the two men sat sipping in silence for some minutes.

“A splash of whisky would be good in this,” Fin said at last, more in hope than expectation.

“Good idea.” And to Fin’s surprise Donald got up to retrieve a bottle of Balvenie Doublewood from the dresser. More than two-thirds of it had already gone. He uncorked it and poured generous measures into each of their mugs, and sat down again.

They sipped some more, and Fin nodded. “Better.” He heard Donald sigh deeply.

“It sticks in my craw, Fin, but I owe you an apology.”

Fin nodded. “Damn right you do.”

“Whatever the provocation, I’d no right to hit you. It was wrong.”

Fin turned to look at his one-time friend and saw genuine regret in his face. “Why? Why was it wrong?”

“Because Jesus taught us that violence is wrong. Whoever shall strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other.”

“Actually, I think it was me who turned the other cheek.”

Donald threw him a dark look.

“Anyway, whatever happened to an eye for an eye?”

Donald took a mouthful of chocolate and whisky. “As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye and we’d all be blind.”

“You really believe all this stuff, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. And the least you could do is respect that.”

“I’ll never respect what you believe, Donald. Only your right to believe it. Just as you should respect mine not to.”

Donald turned a long, penetrating look upon him, the glow of the peats colouring one half of his pale face, the other in shadow. “You choose not to believe, Fin. Because of what happened to your parents. That’s different from not actually believing.”