She had still been grumbling as he put down the phone. He was sitting in Cullen’s armchair beside the wood burner with his laptop on his knees. Eustace was sitting opposite, curled on Ron’s chair, the old cat having begrudgingly accepted Toby’s regular presence in his home. Rachel herself had been down at the gatehouse since the bookshop had shut. Toby had offered to join her and help, but Rachel had declined.

‘I’d rather you plough on with the documents,’ she said, and Toby had been happy to oblige.

He was so engrossed in his efforts that he jumped when the door of the bookshop creaked open. Rachel appeared, her cheeks flushed from the wind he could hear assaulting the walls of the lighthouse. He glanced at the bookshop clock to find it was past eight.

Rachel smiled as she saw him. ‘Are you still at it? I’m sorry, I should have left you the key and told you to drop it off at the gatehouse on your way past.’

‘It’s fine. I hadn’t even noticed the time, I’ve been so engrossed.’

‘Oh? Does that mean you’ve got something to show me?’

‘Actually,’ Toby said, ‘I think it does. Come and take a look.’

He got up from the armchair as she approached, passing her his laptop. Rachel sat and he leaned in close as she looked at the screen. The scan he’d been examining was zoomed in as far as it could go, showing only a few words. As Rachel looked, he tapped it lightly with his pen. ‘What does that say, to you?’

Rachel squinted at the scrawl.

‘It’s from 1814,’ Toby said. ‘When the building work would have been in full swing.’

Rachel couldn’t make it out. ‘Is that an M? And perhaps a C? That’s definitely a Y at the end. And that, there—’ she pointed to the centre of the scrawled word. ‘That could be two e’s, run together?’

‘I think that’s exactly what it is,’ Toby said, reaching for his notepad and printing a word before holding it up for her to see. ‘What do you think? Am I imagining that?’

On the pad he had written ‘McCreedy’.

Rachel looked at the word again, and now he had pointed it out, the name stood out as clear as day. ‘No!’ she said. ‘You’re right, that’s exactly what it says. McCreedy. And the first name… is that Edward?’

‘I think it is.’

Rachel looked up at him, astonishment on her face. ‘Edward McCreedy? E.M.?’

‘E.M.,’ Toby agreed.

Rachel stared at the screen. ‘That’s too much of a coincidence, surely?’

‘Well,’ Toby said, ‘I don’t have any example – or at least I don’t yet – of how he signed his initials. But he has to be a good candidate, doesn’t he?’

‘Edward McCreedy. Any relation to Dora McCreedy, do you think?’

‘I’d say it’s pretty likely, given how long her family has been in the area.’

‘What’s a McCreedy got to do with the lighthouse tower?’ Rachel muttered, zooming out to look at the whole scanned page. ‘What is this, a ledger?’