For as long as the shower lasted, she stood outside, letting the rain patter her head and trickle down her face and body. She thought of the morning Greg had persuaded her to swim in An Lochan Uaine and how shocked and angry she’d been at the assault of cold water on her skin, how relieved she’d been to be carried out in his arms and wrapped in a warm, dry towel.

‘Southern softie’ he’d called her as he’d rubbed her briskly to make her warm again.

Standing there in front of Beanach, chilled again by rainwater, she felt nothing but relief, despite her shivering. Once the fire was finally put out, he would come home and they could talk again about the future.

Not wanting to leave Beanach in case Greg should return, however briefly, she’d kept in touch with Kath by phone. She’d learned that the police had freed Finn, with the instruction that he should not leave the area.

It seemed that whatever the evidence they had on Finn, as with Greg, wasn’t sufficient to charge him with the rape or murder of Ailsa Cummings. The truth would come out, Kath had told her, although Joanne wasn’t so sure of that.

The truth about Richard never had.

In retrospect, she believed she’d been just one of his many victims, who, like her, had never spoken of their abuse, both psychological and physical. If they had, likely his veil of respectability, his standing in the justice system, his cronies in the police force, had made sure he was never brought to task for it.

She fetched the spyglass, intending to climb the hill and check out what was happening on the fire ground. On his last brief visit home, Greg had mentioned small breakout fires away from the main conflagration, which they were controlling with beaters. There was also a helicopter taking water from An Lochan Uaine and dumping it on a stretch of forested area where conditions underfoot were horrendous, preventing access by the firefighters.

Standing at the front door, she took a quick look at Blackrig first, noting the area around the hall, firefighters and vehicles replacing the earlier numbers of police vehicles, before she climbed the hill behind the house.

Following the line of the fire scene, which at first glance appeared comfortably distant from the green lochan and Ard Choille, she then spotted what she assumed must be some of the smaller outbreaks Greg had spoken about, close to the near shore.

As she attempted to adjust the magnification for a clearer view, she heard a car on its way towards Beanach. Thinking it might well be Greg, who’d arrived via a variety of vehicles during the emergency, she pocketed the spyglass and quickly made for the back door, intent on pulling her latest food offering onto the hot plate for Greg and whoever else he’d brought with him.