“Yeah. Hard to believe.” The guard tipped his head towards one end of the corridor. “The boys used to be in that wing, apparently. The girls in the other. The exhibition room along there on the left used to be the headmaster’s office. Or whatever he was called.”

“I want to go,” Marsaili said suddenly, and Fin saw that there were silent tears reflecting light on her cheeks. He slipped his arm through hers and led her back out through the entrance, watched by a bemused guard wondering what it was he had said. She stood breathing deeply at the top of the steps for almost a minute. “We can find out from the records, can’t we? Who he really was, I mean. Where his family came from.”

Fin shook his head. “I checked online last night. The records are kept locked up for a hundred years. Only the children themselves have a right of access to them.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s designed to protect them. Though I suppose the courts could grant the police a warrant to gain access. This is a murder investigation, after all.”

She turned teary eyes in his direction, wiping her cheeks dry with the backs of her hands. He saw in her face the same question he had been unable to answer on the beach the night before. Had her father killed his brother? Fin thought it unlikely they would ever know, unless by some miracle they were able to find the girl called Ceit, who had boarded at the O’Henley croft.

They walked in silence back down the cobbled path to Belford Road, the Dean Cemetery brooding in shaded tranquillity behind a high stone wall. As they arrived at the gate Fin’s mobile phone alerted him to an incoming email. He scrolled through its menu with his finger and tapped to open it. When he took some time to read it, frowning thoughtfully, Marsaili said, “Something important?”

He waited until he had tapped in a response before replying. “When I was looking for references to the Dean Orphanage on the internet last night I came across a forum of former Dean orphans exchanging photographs and reminiscences. I suppose there must be some kind of bond between them all that they still feel, even if they didn’t know one another at The Dean.”

“Like family.”

He looked at her. “Yes. Like the family they never had. You still feel a greater affinity to a second cousin you’ve never met than to some complete stranger.” He pushed his hands deep into his pockets. “A lot of them seem to have emigrated. Australia the most popular destination.”

“As far away from The Dean as they could get.”