‘If it’s all right with you, I’ll go up to bed now?’ she said.

‘Of course,’ he said, the moment of intimacy they’d shared clearly over. ‘I’ll take the couch tonight. Give you peace to sleep.’

Upstairs now, she sat by the window. The sun having departed, there was nothing but an enveloping darkness, both outside and within.

Greg

Before she left, she’d asked him not to try to get in contact with her. That there were things she needed to do, and she had to do them alone.

‘I’ll call you when it’s over.’

He didn’t know exactly what she meant by that, but knew not to ask.

‘Concentrate on Caroline,’ she’d urged. ‘Help her in whatever way you can. She needs you to do that.’

He had given her a promise that he would, and he was trying to keep it.

In the days following Caroline’s confession, Blackrig went into shock. They said bad things happened in threes but Greg had already counted five horrors, including Ailsa’s initial disappearance, the Party House deaths, the wildfire and now Caroline held in remand on a charge of culpable homicide, with Finn held too for aiding and abetting the hiding of the body.

On the day Joanne left, she’d asked if he would stay away from Beanach until Kath came to collect her. He’d been glad to do that, although he dreaded going back to the house at the end of the day to find her no longer there.

So he’d gone to the Blackrig Arms that night instead. There was something he needed to tell Malcolm personally. Something he should have done a long time ago.

Malcolm had brought him into the kitchen and dished him up a plate of stew.

‘Eat first,’ he’d said. ‘You can tell me after that.’

When he did, Malcolm had listened in silence, before saying, ‘So you’ve been blaming yourself for bringing the virus down here from the Party House. You might be right, but then again, so might Mairi.’

‘Mairi?’ he’d said, puzzled.

‘She was convinced that she was the one who carried the virus from the house into the village. She had a call one night about one of the guests being ill. I didn’t want her to go, but she said it was her job and she would take all suitable precautions, which I’m sure she did,’ he said quietly. ‘The blame for those deaths lies with the company that brought people in when it was strictly against the law to do so. Global Investment Holdings killed our children and my Mairi. No one else.’ He’d looked at Greg. ‘So we’ll hear no more about that, because there’s something else we need to discuss and it involves the future of Ard Choille.’