Donald looked at him for several long seconds. “This sounds more professional than personal to me, Fin.”

“Believe me, it’s personal. I’m no longer in the force.”

Donald nodded. “Okay. Let me show you.” And he headed off up the aisle to the far end of the church and opened the door into the vestry. Fin followed him in and watched as he unlocked and opened a drawer in the desk there. He took out a printed form and waved it at Fin. “A marriage schedule. This one’s for a couple I’m marrying next Saturday. It’s provided by the registrar only after the couple have provided all the necessary documentation.”

“Which is?”

“You’re married, aren’t you?”

“Was.”

Donald’s pause to absorb this information was almost imperceptible. He carried on as if he hadn’t heard. “You should know, then.”

“We had a quickie marriage in a registry office nearly seventeen years ago, Donald. To be honest, I remember very little about it.”

“Okay, well you would have had to provide birth certificates for both of you, a decree absolute of divorce if you’d been married before, or the death certificate of your former spouse if you were a widower. The registrar won’t issue the schedule unless all documentation has been provided and all forms completed. All the minister does is sign on the dotted line once the ceremony is over. Along with the happy couple and their witnesses.”

“So your dad would have had no reason to doubt the identity of the people he was marrying.”

Donald’s eyes creased in bewilderment. “What’s this about, Fin?”

But Fin just shook his head. “It’s about nothing, Donald. A silly idea. Forget I ever asked.”

Donald slipped the marriage schedule back into the drawer and locked it. He turned to face to Fin again. “Are you and Marsaili back together, then?”

Fin smiled. “Jealous?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“No, we’re not. I’m back to restore my parents’ crofthouse. Pitched a tent on the croft, and roughing it till I get a roof on and some basic plumbing installed.”

“So this silly idea that you had is all you called about?”

Fin gave him a long look, trying to subdue the flames of anger his own emotions were fanning somewhere deep inside him. He had not meant to embark on this. But it was an unequal struggle. “You know, Donald, I think you’re a damned hypocrite.”

Donald reacted as if he had been slapped in the face. He almost recoiled in shock. “What are you talking about?”

“You think I don’t know that Catriona was pregnant when you got married?”

His face coloured. “Who told you that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it? The great Donald Murray, free spirit and lover of women, fucked up and got a girl pregnant.”

“I’ll not listen to language like that in the Lord’s house.”