Fin shook his head. “He shouldn’t have had the right to do that.”

“Oh, they had the right to do what they pleased in those days. But Donald Seamus—that was the man that Donald John boarded with—he took exception. Went up to the school and beat the living shit out of that headmaster. Excuse my French. He took Donald John out of school that very day, too, and the boy never went back.” She smiled. “Bidgood returned to England with his tail between his legs within the month.” She smiled. “It was a colourful life we lived back then.”

Fin looked around and thought that it was a colourful life that she was living still. “So do you have any idea what happened to Ceit?”

Morag shrugged and sipped again at her gin. “None at all, I’m afraid, a ghràidh. She left the island not long before myself, and for all I know never came back.”

Another dead end.

By the time Fin came to leave, the cloud was gathering ominously all along the western bay, the wind had stiffened and carried the odd spot of rain. Somewhere much further to the west, beyond the cloud, the sun was drizzling liquid gold on the ocean as it dipped towards the horizon.

Morag said, “I’d better run you back over the hill, a ghràidh. It looks like you could get caught in a downpour. I’ll just open the garage doors now, so that I can drive straight in when I get back.”

She tapped a code into a controller at the side of the door, and it swung slowly upwards to fold flat into the roof. As they got into the car, Fin spotted an old spinning wheel at the back of the garage. “You don’t spin wool, do you?” he said.

She laughed. “Good God, no. Never have, never will.” Dino jumped up into her lap and she closed the door, but kept the roof down this time. He snuffled and yelped and rubbed his wet nose all over the window until she lowered it, and he draped himself in his habitual place over her arm to poke his face out into the wind. As she drove down the driveway she said, “It’s an old one I’m having restored. It’ll sit nicely in the dining room. A reminder of days gone by. All the women spun wool here when I was a girl. They would oil it and knit it into blankets and socks and jerseys for the menfolk. Most of the men were fishermen in those days, at sea five days a week, and the Eriskay jerseys knitted with that oiled wool were as good as waterproofs. They all wore them.”

She swerved at the foot of the drive as she took a draw on her cigarette, and missed the fencepost by inches.