Instead, those large dark eyes fixed on James with an expression that was adult and wise, an unmistakable expression of compassion. He put his small brown hand out and laid it on top of the man’s fingers that held the cross, then put the other hand to his own heart.

Henderson felt a phantom sun on his face. He could smell the delicate scent of heather blowing on the hill above his uncle’s croft. Sweet, like honey, filling his nostrils and his lungs.

There was the faint drone of bees rustling in the tiny dry bell-shaped blooms, as though they could smell what Henderson could, that thrilling sharp tingle of autumn in the air. And in the distance was the sound of Rory barking. Oh, it was so sweet. So sweet. He closed his eyes, and his dreams filled up with hills of purple and green, and the warm damp smell of the beloved collie’s muddy coat.

‘A shaman child,’ he said in English as he drifted away, and Walks Alone smiled at his mother.

29

‘Relax those for me, would you?’

Sam’s toes twitched under the doctor’s hands and he looked over at Katie to see if she was smiling at the ludicrous spectacle of her husband having his feet tickled.

She was not. Katie Hunt was sitting low in a red plastic chair, gazing at the frosted-glass window as though there were a view to see. Her arms were crossed, the hands clutching their opposite shoulders in a hug that was more defensive than relaxed.

But then why should she be relaxed? It was a shitty day.

This morning, breakfast had been an ordeal. That first meal and meeting of the day for the Hunt family had always been a sack of laughs. Sam usually held Billy’s pop tarts between a thumb and forefinger and pinched his nose with the other hand in a gesture of disgust as he dropped them into the toaster with a retching noise. That never failed to make Billy laugh. And the ice-box magnets. Billy and Jess loved moving those dumb magnets around, and she and Sam would laugh dutifully when the Mr Fruity magnet was shifted to stand on his head on top of some innocent human posing seriously on a postcard.

Not this morning. This morning Billy hadn’t come down for breakfast at all. Bart came down all right, hungry and looking for his pound and half of chuck steak. But no Billy. When Katie had called upstairs again, she’d glimpsed him sitting fully-dressed on the landing. She was about to call up at him to get his butt down here, when she saw the look on that little face, framed between the white wooden spindles of the banister. He was frightened. She’d gone upstairs to him then, and gently put an arm round his shoulders.

‘What’s up, Billy Boy? Not coming down for something to eat?’