“Well, a ghràidh, I grew up here in the days when all the crofts were still occupied. So if anyone can tell you what you want to know, it’s me.” She drained her glass and stood up stiffly, her hand shooting out suddenly to support herself on his arm. “Damned rheumatics! Come back to my place, Mr. Fin Macleod, former policeman, and I’ll pour you a drink or three while I tell you.” She leaned confidentially towards him, although her voice remained well above the level of a stage whisper. “The booze is cheaper there.”

Outside she said, “Leave your car here and come with me. You can always walk back for it.” She slipped into her pink Mercedes to an ecstatic welcome from the Yorkie. And as Fin slid into the passenger seat she said, “This is Dino. Dino meet Fin.” The dog looked at him then jumped into her lap as she started the car and lowered the roof. “He loves the wind in his face. And on those rare days when the sun shines, it seems a shame not to have the roof down, don’t you agree?”

“Absolutely.”

She lit a cigarette. “Damned government laws. Can’t enjoy a good smoke over a drink any more, except in your own house.” She sucked smoke deeply into her lungs and breathed out again with satisfaction. “That’s better.”

She crunched the car into first gear and kangarooed towards the gate, narrowly missing the gatepost as she swung the wheel to turn them on to the road up the hill. Dino had draped himself over her right arm, face pushed out of the open window into the wind, and she juggled her cigarette and the gear lever to propel them at speed up towards the primary school and the road leading off to the church. Fin found his hands moving down to either side of his seat and gripping it with white knuckles at the end of arms stiff with tension. Morag was oblivious, veering left, and sometimes right, each time she changed gear. Her cigarette ash, and the smoke from her mouth, were whipped away in the rush of air.

“The Mercedes dealer said they didn’t do pink, when I told them what colour I wanted,” she said. “I told them, of course you do. I showed them my nails, and left them a bottle of the nail varnish so they could get the match just right. When they delivered the car I said, you see, anything’s possible.” She laughed, and Fin wished she would keep her eye on the road rather than looking at him as she spoke.

They crested the hill, then accelerated down towards the harbour at Haunn, veering right at the last moment around the small bay, and turning up on the new driveway towards Morag’s big white house. They rattled over a cattle grid and crunched across granite chippings interspersed with coloured glass beads.