Marsaili and Fin had left Fionnlagh with no idea of how long they might be gone, so she had given him her phone in order that she could always reach him. And late that morning he had driven down to Crobost stores to stock up the larder for the next few days.

It was a filthy morning, the wind sweeping in explosive gusts across the point, bringing with it waves of fine wetting rain, and laying flat the new-growth spring grasses. But he didn’t mind. He had grown up with this. It was normal. He loved to feel the rain stinging his face. He loved, too, the way the sky would open up at unexpected moments to let the light through. Flashes of cold, blinding sunlight on the surface of the ocean, like pools of mercury. They could last minutes or seconds.

Dark clouds lumbered across the landscape in folds so close to the earth it was almost possible to believe you could reach up and touch them. The top of the hill was nearly lost in cloud as Fionnlagh drove back up to the bungalow. Donna had promised to have lunch waiting for them. Nothing special. A bacon and egg salad, she had said. He was surprised to see a white Range Rover drawn up on the gravel above the house where he would normally park his Mini. He didn’t recognize the licence plate. On Lewis it was customary to look at the number of an approaching vehicle and wave if you recognized it. Faces were rarely seen through windscreens reflecting light, or smeared with rain. This wasn’t an island number.

He drew up beside the Range Rover, and as he got out of his car saw a copy of the Edinburgh Evening News lying on the back seat. He grabbed his bags of provisions from the back of the Mini and made a dash through the rain to the kitchen door. He managed to stoop down and turn the handle without dropping the paper bag he was supporting in his right hand, and as the door swung in he saw Donna standing in the doorway to the hall. There was an alien smell of smoke in the house, and Donna was holding Eilidh to her as if she might fly away if she dared to let her go. Her face was the colour of the Range Rover parked at the top of the path, her pupils so dilated her eyes looked black. He knew at once that something was very wrong.

“What is it, Donna?”

Her frightened rabbit’s eyes darted across the kitchen, and Fionnlagh turned to see a man sitting at the kitchen table. He was a big man with cropped silver-grey hair. He wore a white shirt open at the neck beneath a Barbour jacket, jeans and black Cesare Paciotti designer boots. He was smoking a very large cigar which had already burned halfway down to his nicotine-stained knuckles.