‘I can remember Ailsa walking into the kitchen. She never knocked. She always just walked in, even though Caroline might have been there. She was angry with me for standing her up. She said she’d heard footsteps approaching the fairy glen. She thought it was me at first. Then she’d realized there was more than one person and they were coming for her. Frightened, she’d started to run. They ran after her. Three men. One of them was Josh Huntly. Another was Finn Campbell.’

He no longer registered their faces. He was telling the story to himself. ‘They gave up when she reached the road, but instead of heading home to Forrigan, she came to Beanach to tell me how much she hated me for leaving her there to wait alone in the woods.

‘I had to hold her and tell her how sorry I was for doing that. I shouldn’t have touched her, because then we were kissing and then . . .

‘Afterwards, I told her that was definitely the last time we would see one another. She screamed at me. Told me she hoped the baby would die. That Caroline would die. That I didn’t deserve to be a father.

‘I didn’t care what she said about me, but I cared about Caroline and the baby. I told her to get out.’

He halted there for a moment and then continued. ‘After that it’s a blur, although in the morning I had her necklace in my hand. The clasp was broken. I don’t know how I got it, but I have it still. I put it in the envelope with my unborn son’s picture.’

His story had come to an end, because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember anything after he told Ailsa to get out and never come back.

‘You think you may have hurt her?’ DS Reid said.

‘I would never hurt a woman.’ He stopped there, realizing how untrue that was. ‘I mean, I would never raise my hand to a woman.’

DS Reid and Snyder were sharing a look, which appeared to carry a decision within it.

In the end it was DS Reid who spoke. ‘Mr Taylor, you are no longer under suspicion for the murder of Ailsa Cummings. We already have someone in custody who has provided us with a full confession.’

And then they told him who that someone was.

Joanne

She’d gone outside as soon as she heard the Land Rover’s approach.

The sun was setting in the west, the hills turned blood red by its descent. For a terrible moment she thought they were on fire again, until she breathed in the sweet night air.