I do not know when these words will be read or what small part I have played in their preservation but I hope in some distant time, they are studied by somebody who will say a quiet prayer for the souls of a brave man, and for my son, whose loss I still feel as keenly as if somebody had removed my soul.

FD, 04.04.67.

CORDELIA

I slept on Flick’s sofa under a crocheted blanket that her mum had made and which I couldn’t resist twisting my fingers through. The pillow she gave me smelled of baking and rain. I didn’t sleep much. The curtains in the kitchen didn’t close all the way and it seemed that wherever I put my head, the shaft of pinkish moonlight kept finding my face. It was like a persistent lover. At first I enjoyed the delicate kisses and soft caress but as I grew tired and cold and grouchy it became another annoyance, alongside the creaking pipes and the settling stones in the fire. I heard one of them get up for a pee in the night. It might have been John, based on the heaviness of the footsteps. At one point I felt eyes upon me but by then I was in that half-asleep state where nothing feels fully formed and the edges of things seem to bleed into one another and by the time I sat up and looked around I was completely alone.

The clouds seemed to have blown themselves out overnight for a while and there was a pleasant violet hue to the sky. I opened the front door and sat myself on the front step wrapped in the blanket. It was a fresh, chilly morning and the mist had lifted enough for me to be able to see all the way down the road to the church.

My thoughts turned to the man in blue before they turned to Dingwall and the things he had said to me. Maybe I was distracting myself on purpose but as far as I saw it, I had little choice. If I stopped thinking about the dead man I would have to begin thinking about all the other aspects of my ragged life.

As I sat there I thought of the stranger’s words, painstakingly transcribed in Fairfax’s hand. Was the man of whom he spoke to also the man whose corpse I had seen? Could a man who had survived so much truly have met his end in such a tiny, faraway place?