The enormity of what had just been said threatened to overwhelm Greg. He’d been hoping that the police would eventually come to the conclusion that Ailsa had been killed by someone from outside Blackrig. A lone camper, a tourist or even a workman from Ard Choille.

Not Finn. Never Finn.

‘What about Caroline?’ he said. ‘How’s she taking it?’

Malcolm looked uncomfortable. ‘Saying it’s nonsense and it should be you they’re locking up. Telling everyone you had sex with Ailsa that night. That the police knew that, yet still they let you go.’

Greg glanced at Joanne, worried about what she was thinking. To show him, she reached for his hand.

‘So what do we do about Finn?’ he said again, as much to himself as to Malcolm.

‘Nothing,’ Malcolm said. ‘We do nothing. They lifted you on a DNA sample and now Finn on a fingerprint, if what Harry let slip is true.’ He paused there. ‘A fingerprint on the plastic doesn’t prove he killed her. Just like your DNA wasn’t enough for them to charge you.’

It was, Greg felt, a hope, but a forlorn one none the less. Although he also hoped the police wouldn’t rearrest him. They’d told him not to leave town, making him well aware they might be back again to knock at his door.

‘I’ll come down later,’ he told Malcolm as he bid him farewell at the front door. ‘There’s something I want us to talk about.’

Malcolm nodded. ‘I’m glad, son, that you’re about to get that bastard Stratton off your back. And even more so that Joanne decided to stick around.’

When Greg re-entered the kitchen, he found Joanne frying bacon.

‘I thought we’d eat together,’ she told him. ‘I’m starving, and seeing as you left early after only a cup of coffee, I expect you are too. Then we can talk.’ She hesitated. ‘There are other things I need to tell you.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But we’ll keep the other things for later. Chalmers basically gave me the day off. I extended that to Colin. We can take a run out, enjoy the sunshine, because according to the forecast the weather’s about to break.’

‘Let’s do that,’ she told him with a tentative smile.

Greg

‘So where are you taking me?’ she said as they set off in the Land Rover.

‘Are you up for a shortish walk? Rough, but at the end of it is a fine waterfall with a deep pool.’

‘You’re not going to make me swim again?’ she said, sounding a little worried.

‘Definitely not . . . unless you want to.’

‘I won’t want to,’ she said firmly.