He found that he’d become obsessed by the child on the beach, the little girl seen by both Eleanor and Polly. He didn’t believe in ghosts, so she must either be real or a figment of the women’s imaginations. And he couldn’t see that both women would have conjured up the same vision from nowhere. Yet the girl wasn’t on the guest list and nobody else had noticed her. Willow said that people often wandered into island events – friends of friends, who hadn’t been formally invited, but who would be made welcome just the same. That was probably true, but Sandy was stubborn and needed to pin this down. And though he would never have admitted it to himself, he wanted something concrete to hand to Jimmy Perez when he returned. He wanted Jimmy to tell him that he’d done well.

Outside he looked anxiously up at the sky. It was grey and there was drizzle, but it was surely clear enough for the planes to get in. Sandy drove carefully out of the courtyard and towards Meoness. The school was tiny, one of those scheduled for closure, and only saved after the community made a fuss. Perhaps because there’d been doubt about its survival it was still in the original stone building that looked more like a kirk than a school. There was a view of the voe and the open sea. When he arrived it was playtime and the children were yelling and chasing in the yard. Less than a dozen of them, and most of them boys. Sandy hesitated outside. It wasn’t just that schools – even peerie schools like this – made him uncomfortable. He knew the teacher. They’d been friends once. She’d been his first teenage crush. She’d gone away south to university and had worked in Edinburgh for a while and he’d heard that she was back. There’d been a piece in The Shetland Times about it, about her giving up her post as deputy head in a big school in the city to take on Meoness primary. Head teacher. Sole teacher.

A woman came out into the playground and rang an old-fashioned hand bell. He recognized her immediately as Louisa Laurence. He hadn’t seen her for ten years, but she hadn’t changed so much. A bit skinnier maybe, her hair shorter and smarter. The children filed inside, giggling and pushing. Sandy thought he’d timed this badly. She’d be busy now. Perhaps he should come back at lunchtime when she might be free to talk. But then he thought he’d look foolish if he just drove away. Someone might have seen him from inside the school and, besides, Jimmy Perez wouldn’t have done that.