“Jesus, what kind of game do you play with a skeleton?”

“We were pirates. Or sometimes Jacobites,” Jamie says. Fiona is frowning slightly, but he carries on. “Ben followed us up there one time. That’s how he found out, but we swore him to secrecy.”

“I wanted to tell,” Ben explains. “I thought we ought to tell the police, but Fiona convinced me not to. She made me promise.” He glances at Fiona with a slight smile. “I swear to God, I was scared of your father for years. You went mental when I wanted to tell. You had me thinking you’d be skinned alive.”

Jamie’s mouth twists. “Aye, well, he’s far more mellow with Callum than he ever was with us.”

“So you think . . .” I find I’m rubbing the bridge of my nose. “What, you think this was my father?”

“We didn’t. Not at first. Everybody thought your dad ran off with the diamonds.” Ben shrugs. “And we had no idea how old the bones were. They actually could have been from the Jacobite era for all we knew; no clothes remaining suggests really old. When we got older, we did start to wonder . . . I thought about going to the police, but I’d promised these two I wouldn’t, and they didn’t want to, and anyway the longer we left it, the harder it seemed . . . I don’t know, it all seemed very abstract. And then you arrived and it wasn’t so abstract anymore.” He looks at the table. “Ever since you got here, I’ve been wondering. It’s all I’ve been able to think about.” The misery in his face is entirely genuine. Ben has failed himself. He’s fallen short of his capitalized Ideals.

“I don’t . . .” I shake my head.

“The point is this,” Ben says. “After the bones started turning up in your house, I went to the cave.” He grimaces. “Bloody lethal getting there; they’re right to have closed the path. I was only there that one time, but the cave was just as I remembered it—a bit harder to climb up to now I’ve got a lot more bulk to haul, but otherwise the same. Only it was empty. The bones were gone. And then I went to see Jamie, to find out when he last saw them; no point in asking Fi.” He directs a small smile at her to show no offense intended. “And he said . . .” He stops and looks at Jamie, who obligingly fills the gap.

“I was up there three weeks ago—nearly killed myself getting there, mind. But the bones were still there.”

All three of them wait for me to speak, though that’s not exactly a change of pace for Fiona. I can’t think what to say.