“I get it—it’s a lot to take in. But let’s not be jumping the gun.” He drops my phone casually into the inside pocket of his jacket. His jacket . . . I can see it now. The way the hood sits up, flared, I can just imagine the silhouette it would make in dim light. It wasn’t Fiona at all in the box room. It was Jamie. The bathroom door starts to thud like the Manse has something to say. “You should meet your father before you go spreading the good news.”

“What are you talking about?” I whisper, but I know. The skeleton. Jamie has it. Not the skull, surely, but the crossbones, and all the rest of it bar a few fingers. We were pirates.

“It wasn’t Morag,” I say shakily.

“Oh, it was. Mostly.” He sounds unconcerned. “She did the newspaper, and the fox and that manky bird.” He’s been watching, I realize. He’s been watching all along. He shudders. “You couldnae pay me to touch that thing. Come on upstairs, to your bedroom. Come on. Up you come,” he says, as if encouraging a small child. “Ailsa,” he barks sharply when I don’t move. “I ken you’re my older sister, but you are going upstairs if I have to drag you by the hair to get you there. And believe me, I will.” He comes round the table as if to pull me up himself, and that’s enough to spring me into action. I can’t bear the thought of his hands touching me. There’s a rottenness within him that I can see, now; it’s his rottenness that I sensed in the Manse. I don’t know how I never saw it before. I don’t know what he means to do with me, but I can’t imagine that anything is out-of-bounds in his head.

Through the kitchen we walk, with me two steps ahead of him. I begin calculating whether I could make it to the front door before he brought me down—but he’s bigger than me and faster, too. When we pass by the alarm pad, with its panic button, he calls out sharply, “Dinnae,” and I know that for all I might now pretend to be delighted with him as a brother (Can it really be true?), however much I might play for time, he won’t be fooled. He’s too smart for that. I climb the stairs slowly, and for once they don’t creak. Perhaps this is exactly what the Manse has been waiting for.