“This used to be my bedroom.” Standing here, surveying the space, I’m suddenly sure of it. My small single bed was against the wall over there. I could see the door without moving my head on the pillow . . . Now that I understand the geometry of it, other pieces of furniture are growing in my mind. There was a chest of drawers, and a toy box, and—

“Miss Calder?” The detective is watching me quizzically.

I shake myself. “Sorry. It is . . . real, isn’t it?” I’ve had all night to think. One of my more hopeful scenarios involved this being some kind of prank, the skull merely a prop. But Carrie, Fiona and I had looked at it carefully after our post-discovery tour of the Manse. It looked very real to us.

The detective turns and looks at me with eyes too washed-out for the color to be distinguishable. “We’ll see,” he says. “Would you mind perhaps waiting in the kitchen while we go through some standard procedures?”

I leave them to it, suddenly extraordinarily exhausted. My guess was right: neither Carrie nor I could sleep after Fiona had gone. I’ve already been up for hours and it’s not even half past nine. At least I used some of that time to shower and dress, so I was clean to greet the police officers. Sometime later I’m leaning against the countertop in my oh-so-yellow kitchen nursing a lukewarm cup of coffee when the detective comes to find me. “Miss Calder? I wondered if you could perhaps go over again how you came to find the bones?”

“Which ones, Detective . . . ? Ah, I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Laws,” he says. “Do you want to sit?”

“No, I’m fine.” I feel simultaneously beyond exhaustion yet awkwardly restless. I don’t want to sit.

He stays on his feet, too. “Shall we start with the first find?” I sigh. “I’m sure you’ve been through this before—”

“Twice actually. Three times if you count when I actually handed them in yesterday.” He spreads his fingers, palm upward. I’m not sure what the gesture is meant to convey. “The fourth time is a charm, I suppose?” When he doesn’t react, I launch into the same explanation I’ve given before, and he listens without looking at me or taking notes in the notebook he has at the ready. He’s probably only a few years older than myself, but he’s a faded man, I find myself thinking, with his pale skin and lean face and the faintest of red hints in his nondescript hair.

“And Callum is Callum McCue?” he asks. There’s a hint of a lilt in his voice but he’s not Scottish. Welsh, I would bet, if I had to pick.