In it, a laughing Ailsa was standing on what looked like a nearby hill, the wind blowing strands of her blonde hair across her face, her hand reaching up to remove them.

This looked like the real Ailsa. Full of life, and perhaps even a little in love with whoever had taken the shot.

Unpinning the photo, and slipping it in her pocket, Joanne made for the stairs.

It was on reaching the bottom that she felt an unexpected wave of nausea break over her. Sitting down on the bottom step, she waited for it to subside. When it didn’t do so, she found herself sprinting to the nearby bathroom, grateful it was on this level rather than upstairs.

As she kneeled to vomit, her first thought was that she’d caught the virus or a mutated version of it. Her second and more frightening thought was that she’d brought it from London to Blackrig, just like the folk who’d visited the Party House had done.

Wiping her mouth, she sat on the bathroom floor, her logical self fighting back.

The infection rate of the remaining virus was much lower than catching a cold. The double vaccination programme had covered over ninety per cent of the population. She’d even had a booster jab. So she couldn’t be a pariah bringing death back to Blackrig.

So why the nausea?

She wasn’t exactly a vegetarian, but she rarely ate meat or fish, and she’d been eating mostly venison since she’d arrived. Maybe her stomach had merely rebelled?

Even as she considered such an explanation, she knew it wasn’t the reason.

Which left one possibility to consider.

Sitting with her back against the bowl, her face cold with sweat, she tried to focus on how she might check whether she was right or wrong.

Blackrig was miles from anywhere, with only one shop, where Caroline ruled supreme. She hadn’t seen much of a pharmacy in there anyway. She could ask Greg to take her to the nearest chemist. He would, of course, ask her why, and whether she was okay.

Alternatively, she could order what she needed online, which is what they’d all been doing during the long series of lockdowns.

She decided that was what she would do.

She then had another question to answer.

A flashback reminded her, in all its garish detail, of when she’d last had sex with him. She couldn’t bear to use his name. Even think it. Sex she hadn’t wanted. Then how she’d singled out Greg from the list of attendees at the Highland Game event, knowing she had only three weeks to escape before he arrived back from his business trip.

She’d chosen Blackrig and Greg to be her hiding place.

She laid her face against the cool bowl. She’d come here to feel safe. And she had for the most part. Until now.