Caroline had said that she and Greg had gone to school together, so presumably they were around the same age. Yet Greg had told her that Caroline had been a close friend of the teenage Ailsa. A woman in her mid-twenties best friends with a seventeen-year-old girl? Was that likely? Not in a city, but in a small village perhaps?

Then again, if Ailsa had been a real friend, shouldn’t Caroline have been traumatized by the possibility that she’d been murdered and buried in the grounds of Ard Choille, rather than triumphant that Greg had contacted her, yet apparently his latest girlfriend didn’t know?

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that Greg wasn’t being altogether straight with her on his relationship with Caroline, and maybe even Ailsa.

What was it Kath had said? It’ll be bad here again. Especially for Greg.

Had that been a coded message about a possible involvement between Greg and the missing girl? Or was it because the body was found on the estate and Greg, being an employee of Global Investment Holdings, would be put in a difficult position?

Fetching the telescope from the house, she checked out the village in case there might be evidence there as to why he’d headed in that direction.

Seeing three police vehicles, plus a line of parked cars outside the village hall, Greg’s Land Rover among them, she surmised that the reason for his rage was most likely to do with the investigation.

Had Greg been summoned to the hall? Was that what had so incensed him?

It was as likely an explanation as any other, she decided.

Having intended going back to work on her article, she now considered an alternative way to spend the afternoon.

Caroline’s sudden appearance at the so-called fairy glen had stopped her plans to photograph the carvings there, to illustrate her Blackrig article. She would walk back and do that now, she decided. Plus she also wanted to check out the village cemetery for the graves of the children and the nurse who’d died during the pandemic, an essential aspect of the story of the Party House and the villagers’ animosity towards it.

Setting off down the hill, she added a further possibility to her afternoon itinerary.

Kath Webster had seemed quite happy to chat to her earlier. Maybe her best bet was to call in at Kath’s in the hope she might gain even more information about the comings and goings of the folk of Blackrig, including Caroline and Greg.

A small feeling of guilt nibbled away at her as she walked. Greg had welcomed her into his home and his life. Despite the fact he’d never imagined she would take him up on his offer to come here.

Yet here she was, digging into his present and his past. For what?

I have trust issues, she told herself. Especially with men.