He thought back to that moment in the woods when he’d found her drawing the carvings. How they’d chatted about her going to art college in the autumn. How she’d engineered more meetings. Or he had. How eventually one of them had led to sex. Something he’d welcomed.

‘We met by chance one day in the fairy glen, where the carving trail is,’ he said quietly. ‘She was drawing the figures. We chatted. We met occasionally there and later at my place. She was living at Forrigan, which isn’t far away from Beanach.’

She had never knocked. Just walked in. The first time he’d been shocked, angry with her. What if Caroline had been there, he’d told her. So what, she’d said, before kissing him.

Life for Ailsa had to hold danger or it wasn’t worth living.

‘How long had this relationship of sorts been going on?’ Snyder said.

‘A couple of months.’

It had lasted exactly eighty-one days, from the moment they’d met in the woods until the night of the ceilidh when he’d ended it.

‘Did anyone else know about this clandestine relationship?’ DS Reid said.

He suspected Josh Huntly did, and was mightily annoyed by it, since he thought he’d been in there first, but he wasn’t about to shop Josh.

‘Well?’ Snyder said.

He shook his head.

‘Not your girlfriend, Caroline?’ DS Reid asked.

Then he told the big lie. ‘Not that I was aware of.’

He knew his answers weren’t convincing anyone, least of all himself.

‘How did she die?’ he said, thinking they had never yet spoken of her death.

‘We were hoping you would tell us that, Mr Taylor.’

‘I had sex with her that night. I didn’t kill her.’ But a small voice said, If you hadn’t sent her away, Ailsa would likely still be alive.

Snyder came back in. ‘Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened after Ailsa left the ceilidh.’

Greg nodded. ‘When I didn’t turn up in the woods, she came to Beanach looking for me. I told her that it had to end. She persisted. We made love. I was adamant it was for the last time. I told her that I loved Caroline and that she was expecting our child. She was very angry at that. She left. I never saw her again.’

‘Why did Ms Campbell give a statement at the time of Ailsa’s disappearance that she was with you that night after the ceilidh?’

‘She was. She drove up after she’d been home to check on her brother Finn.’

‘Was she aware that Ailsa had been there?’

‘I told her that Ailsa had turned up and that I’d sent her away.’

‘Does she know you had sex with Ailsa that night?’

That was something Caroline didn’t know and, if she found out, would likely change everything.

Joanne