His own among them. Sad and bittersweet memories lingered still within the decaying walls of the old whitehouse that sat up on the hill overlooking the harbour. The house where he had done most of his growing up, tolerated by an aunt who had reluctantly taken on the responsibility of her dead sister’s orphan. A house empty of warmth or love.

There was still glass in the windows, and the doors were locked. But once-white walls ran black with damp, and door and window frames were rusted or rotten. Below it, on the stretch of grass along the clifftops, the deserted stone house where he had played forlornly at happy families as a boy still stood as it had then, two gable ends, two walls. No roof. No doors. No windows. Whoever had once called it home had built it for its view, but abandoned it long ago to the cruel arctic gales that assaulted this coast in winter. Long, hard winters that he remembered well.

A grassy path led down to a shingle beach. The black rocks around the cliffs had turned orange, crusted with the tiny shells of long-dead sea creatures, stained by the seaweed that rotted all along the shore. On the far headland stood three solitary cairns that had been there for as long as Fin could remember.

Nothing changed really, except for the people who came and went and left their evanescent traces.

He heard the rumbling of a car’s engine above the roar of the wind, and turned to see Marsaili pulling in at the side of the road in Artair’s old Astra. She got out and slammed the door, thrust hands deep into her jacket pockets, and walked slowly along the path to join him. They stood in a comfortable silence for some moments, looking at the DAF houses strung out along the cliffs on the west side of the bay, before she turned to look at the abandoned house above the harbour.

“Why don’t you restore your aunt’s house? It’s in much better condition than your parents’ place.”

“Because I don’t own it.” Fin cast sad eyes over the neglected building. “She left it to some animal charity. Typical of her, really. They couldn’t sell it, so they just left it to rot.” He turned his gaze back out over the ocean. “Anyway, I wouldn’t set foot in it again, even if it was mine.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s haunted, Marsaili.” He turned to see her frowning.

“Haunted?”

“By the young Fin, and all his unhappiness. The night before my aunt’s funeral was the last time I slept in the place. And I swore I never would again.”

She raised a hand to touch his cheek with feather-light fingertips. “The young Fin,” she said. “I remember him. I loved him from the first moment I set eyes on him. And never forgave him for breaking my heart.”