“I didnae think there were any McCues round here until the nineteen hundreds. We were mostly in Ireland and then Lanarkshire before then. What a coincidence!” He frowns slightly. “Seems odd to list a babe as a donor, though.”

“Maybe those are the names on the memorial then.” We fall silent together. I’m thinking of the raging inferno inside the church. My mind skitters away from imagining the final moments of those trapped inside; it’s simply too horrific. Babe in arms. Whose arms, though? I take the jotter from him and read the list of names again. There isn’t another McCue.

Glen shakes himself, then peers at the photos of the falls again, then hands them to me. “I cannae see anything on these, though.” I don’t know what I should be looking for, but whatever it is fails to jump out at me.

Glen glances at Sheba. “She could use a walk. Shall we go and take a look for the path by the loch?”

His immediacy takes me aback, but I don’t want to seem rude, which is how I come to be walking through the wood with Glen, his black Labrador running ahead of us. There are clusters of bluebells at the base of some of the trees, and in one area, a full carpet of them in a sun-dappled grove. “It’s beautiful here. I always think I should get a dog when I’m walking through here.”

He snorts. “Not if you’re living at the Manse.” I glance sideways at him. “You willnae get a dog in there.”

“You’ve tried?” When would he have tried? Has the whole bloody McCue family been wandering through the property? A comic book–style image jumps into my head of Glen trying to shove poor Sheba through an open window.

“Sometimes Callum and I walk the dogs that way.”

“Ah.” That’s more feasible. “Fiona’s lucky to have you around to help.”

“Aye, well.” He doesn’t take a compliment easily. “It was a bit of a shock when she turned up with him, but it’s easier being a grandpa, I can tell you.”

“Were Fiona and Jamie that bad?” I ask lightly.

“Well. I wasnae the perfect dad, either. It took a long time to get Fiona diagnosed. And Jamie . . . well, he was Jamie.” He grimaces. “If I’d known that Fi . . . I like to think I would have handled things different. Been gentler, maybe. Fewer thrashings and more talking. Like all these modern dads I keep hearing about.”

“It was a different time, I suppose.”