‘He went there, you know. To the Party House, when the helicopter brought them in. He went to tell them to go, or so he said. That’s not what happened though. He partied with them. Took cocaine. Ran naked like the rest of them, had sex with some woman he called Marion. Greg brought the virus into Blackrig. He had nightmares about it. I heard him talking about it in his sleep. He thinks he killed those children and he probably did.’

Joanne’s heart was racing as fast as her thoughts. Greg had carried so many secrets, but then so had she. She still did.

‘They won’t let him out,’ Caroline was saying. ‘But what if they do?’ She looked terrified by the thought. ‘What if the evidence they have isn’t enough to charge him?’

Joanne watched as Caroline contemplated such an outcome, fear etched on her face.

‘He wouldn’t hurt you,’ she found herself saying.

‘I don’t know any more.’ Caroline looked at her. ‘You shouldn’t be here either. He’ll be angry about . . . everything.’

Joanne was thinking exactly that.

‘I’m leaving anyway,’ she said. ‘My case is in the Land Rover.’

‘You’re too late for the night train.’

‘I’ll fly south first thing,’ Joanne said, knowing that’s exactly what she should do.

‘Then come and stay with me tonight and, if you don’t change your mind, I’ll take you to the airport in the morning.’

Greg

It was late, but still light. The small window on the outer wall of his cell made a portrait of an evening as yet unwilling to darken.

He watched as eventually sunset bruised the sky. Just after ten o’clock, he was aware there was precious little time left before he was either charged or let go.

He imagined himself in the Land Rover heading west into the sunset. Seeing Beanach again in its warm glow with Joanne there waiting for him.

A dream, not a reality. He wouldn’t return to Beanach, not tonight anyway, and even if he did, Joanne would no longer be there, despite what she’d said on the phone. After all, he’d lied to her, either openly or by omission, too often. How could she believe anything he said ever again?

She would return to London and resume her life. No doubt she would write about Blackrig and him. Maya Villan, of course, would have the inside story of the thirty-year-old head gamekeeper at Blackrig Estate, who had been charged with the rape and murder of seventeen-year-old Ailsa Cummings.

But he wasn’t responsible for her death. Or maybe he was? He had sex with her that night, and then sent her out to die. If he’d met her in the woods as she’d asked, she would still be alive.