‘But the evidence they have . . .’

‘Proves you had sex with the deceased before she died. It does not prove that you killed her.’

‘Do you know how Ailsa died?’ Greg said.

McGann shook his head. ‘And they won’t reveal that. I take it you don’t know how she died?’

‘I didn’t kill Ailsa. She was alive when she left my place.’

McGann seemed to accept this. ‘Then have you any idea at all who might have had reason to kill her?’

Despite all his musings, he knew he didn’t and said so. ‘They brought in Josh Huntly. I heard him pass my cell. Any chance you could find out why?’

McGann nodded. ‘Okay, and I’ll try and find out what they plan to do with you.’

Back in his cell, he thought of Joanne. Would she still be at Beanach if they did release him? Or had she been afraid to tell him that she was leaving? He imagined arriving home and finding her gone. Somehow his sadness at that was more powerful than his thoughts of his release.

If they don’t release you and instead charge you with the rape and murder of Ailsa Cummings, she’ll be gone anyway.

As for Caroline. If they did release him, he had no need to pander to her demands any more. For that alone, he felt relieved. Although the truth would be out there. Caroline would make certain that everyone got to know that he was having an affair with Ailsa while she was carrying their child.

That, he was definitely guilty of.

Joanne

As she crowned the hill, the image of Beanach’s grey stones sparkling in the sunlight lifted her spirits a little. It looked so sturdy and permanent, much like the hill that rose at its back. Regardless of what might happen in the world of humans, Beanach looked as though it intended to survive.

On her return walk, she’d mulled over everything Kath had said. Fitting together Kath’s pieces of the Ailsa jigsaw, together with the earlier version that was Caroline’s.

Joanne had suspected from the moment the body was discovered that Greg hadn’t revealed his true relationship with the missing teenage girl. She had known this, but had chosen to ignore it.

Every time she’d tried to talk to him about Ailsa, he had shut her down. He would only discuss what he wished to talk about. Not what she chose.

Back in the kitchen, she put the kettle on, then sat down at her laptop. Regardless of what might happen next, she knew she needed to write down everything that had occurred up to now, together with each individual story she had heard.

She wrote it as a timeline. Who had said what and when. Then she jotted down who she thought had the means, the motive and the opportunity to kill Ailsa.