Eventually he said, ‘I was born here. My father was gamekeeper to Lord Main, who owned the estate back then. The main man, as my dad affectionately called him, was a bit eccentric, but everyone liked him. He cared about this piece of land and the folk who lived here.’

He paused there and she saw a shadow cross his face.

‘I always wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps. I love the work and this place.’ He turned and smiled at her. ‘Even if the midges do drive us mad at times. It was a great place to grow up. Magical even. You don’t realize that until you go away, like I did, and then come back.’ He fell silent briefly, before adding, ‘I’ll never go away again.’

‘Lord Main, did he build the Party House?’

He nodded. ‘It was his dream to create a place so close to nature, it became one with it. Sadly, he didn’t get much time to enjoy Ard Choille before he died. I can’t imagine what he would say if he could see what it was used for now.’ He shook his head.

‘So who really owns it?’ she asked.

‘Global Investment Holdings, whoever they are. I tried finding out once. A tortuous business. All I do know is that they have a lot of money in the Cayman Islands and I doubt they pay much tax, if any. Their CEO is here. And I’ve escaped the bastard today.’

He stopped and, pointing ahead, told her to take a look. ‘The view changes all the time, depending on the light. Sometimes you can’t believe you’re in the same place, looking at the same mountains.’

She watched as the sun, high in the sky now, cast shadows on the neighbouring hills of brown and green and grey rock.

‘Come mid-August, all of this will be purple.’ He smiled. ‘Folk come thinking the heather blooms all the year round and are disappointed. They forget to look at all the other colours of the landscape and the sky.’

He stopped again, pointing out a herd of deer moving across a nearby hill, their russet coats burnished by the sun. After they’d moved on, he said, ‘We go this way,’ and turned into a narrower track heading through the thick heather towards a jumble of huge rocks.

‘What now?’ she said, laughing.

‘Wait and see.’

He halted her a little way from the rocks, then approached them himself, only to suddenly disappear.

Following him, she realized he’d entered a crevice-like cave fashioned from the boulders. Inside, sunlight was spilling through a small opening, giving a view of the hill beyond.

When Greg pointed to a ledge where a bottle of malt whisky and two metal cups stood, she threw him a questioning look.

‘Our hideout for the ghillies, while they wait for the shooting party to bag something, which can take a while.’