“What the fuck does that have to do with the price of fish?” Jamie asks irritably.

“A blue one, right? A blue one? From the master en suite?”

“Aye.” Inexplicably Fiona starts to laugh. “What?” he says. Then louder. “What?”

“Ailsa isnae sleeping in the master bedroom. Carrie is.”

“But . . .” He looks at me, bewildered. “But Carrie and me cannae be related.”

“Carrie couldnae find her hairbrush the other day. I lent her mine. It was blue.” Fiona is laughing again, doubled over with it, crowing. “You took my hairbrush; my DNA. You’ve just proved we’re the half siblings: you and me. You’ve just proved yourself wrong.”

“No. I dinnae believe you.” The words scrape his throat on the way out. He’s almost white with fury and disbelief. Outside the wind is rising to another crescendo.

“Everything you thought is wrong. You’re not Martin Calder’s child. You’re not Ailsa’s brother. You’re the product of a suicidal mother and the man who found himself in her bed when he was grieving for his wife.” She’s not laughing anymore. “And you thought you were so smart.” She stands up squarely and faces him, and I finally see the full extent of her disgust laid bare on her face. “Fucking eejit. The Manse won’t stand for it.” And she hawks up a globule of saliva and spits at him.

It’s too much for Jamie—he swings the shotgun toward her, and in the same instant the lights flicker and die and a wind begins to blow, so fiercely that I can hear it screaming through the eaves, only it sounds like it’s coming from inside the Manse rather than outside. I’m conscious of moving toward the barrel that is now mercifully not pointing at my stomach, but I want to knock it away from Carrie—and Fiona, too. There’s a pressure in my ears as I’m moving, as if they need to pop, and then they do pop, as the kitchen door blasts open with astonishing force, whacking Jamie on the side of the head as I ram him from the other side. The shotgun discharges with an enormous bang as he goes down, and my full weight follows through the space he was in only milliseconds before, so that I crash shoulder first into the wall, then tumble on top of Jamie. Carrie, I think desperately. There is shouting. I’m not sure if some of it is coming from me. My elbow connects with a thump against some part of Jamie’s head, but he doesn’t make a sound.

There’s no light whatsoever in the kitchen. The wind has dropped; the Manse is silent and dark.

“Carrie, are you okay?” I call.

“Ailsa?” asks Carrie. She sounds like half of herself. Not even half, not nearly as substantial as that. “I’m okay, I’m okay—are you okay? Fi? Fi?”