“Then why are you treating Fin and Donna so badly? It’s wrong to keep them apart. I know you think you are protecting your daughter, but that baby is Fionnlagh’s daughter, too. How would you feel if you were Fionnlagh?”

“I wouldn’t have got her pregnant in the first place.”

“Oh, come on! I bet you can’t even remember how many girls you slept with at that age. You were just lucky that none of them got pregnant.” He paused. “Until Catriona.”

Donald glowered up at him from beneath a gathering of brows. “Fuck you, Fin!”

And Fin burst out laughing. “Now, that’s the old Donald.”

Donald shook his head, trying to hold back a smile. “You always were a bad influence on me.” He got up and crossed to the dresser, finding and opening the fresh bottle. He returned to top up both their mugs and slumped again into his chair. “So after everything, we share a grandchild you and me, Fin Macleod. Grandparents!” He blew his disbelief through pursed lips. “When did you find out that Fionnlagh was your boy?”

“Last year. During the investigation into the Angel Macritchie murder.”

Donald raised an eyebrow. “It’s not generally known, is it?”

“No.”

Donald fixed him with curious eyes. “What happened out on An Sgeir last August, Fin?”

But Fin just shook his head. “That’s between me and my maker.”

Donald nodded slowly. “And the reason for your visit to the church the other day . . . is that a secret, too?”

Fin thought about it, staring deep into the embers of the peats, and decided that there would be no harm in telling Donald the truth. “You probably heard about the body they found in the bog at Siader a couple of weeks ago.”

Donald inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“It was the body of a young man of seventeen or eighteen, murdered some time in the late 1950s.”

“Murdered?” The Reverend Murray was clearly shocked.

“Yes. And it turns out he’s related in some way to Tormod Macdonald. Who turns out not to be Tormod Macdonald.”

Donald’s mug paused halfway to his mouth. “What?”

And Fin told him the story of his trip to Harris with DS Gunn, and what they had found there. Donald sipped thoughtfully on his whisky as he listened.

“The problem is,” Fin said, “we’ll probably never find out the truth. Tormod’s dementia is well advanced and getting worse. It’s hard to get any kind of sense out of him. Marsaili was there today and he was talking about using seaweed to fertilize crows.”

Donald shrugged. “Well, that’s not so daft.”

Fin blinked in surprise. “It’s not?”

“Sure, feannagan means crows here on Lewis, or Harris. But in the southern isles it’s what they called the lazy beds.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Donald.”