‘Because of Peerie Lizzie, of course. Eleanor was making a film about her, and we were going to be in it. We were going to get paid. An appearance fee, she said.’ Vaila paused. ‘Do you think it’ll still be made? Neil was a bit shy about it, but I was dead excited about being on the telly. It wasn’t just the money . . .’

‘Why was it so important to keep the meeting secret?’ Willow looked outside. She thought the fog might be clearing. There were denser shadows in the distance that might have been the Meoness community hall and the Malcolmsons’ croft house.

‘Eleanor said her friends wouldn’t understand. Because she really believed the story and her husband wasn’t the sort to accept that it might be true. So that afternoon I went to Sletts and I told her what happened. How I saw the lassie and then I fell pregnant, and we’d been trying for years. We were planning on another round of IVF, but in the end we didn’t need to.’

Willow thought Vaila must be in her early thirties, but she still spoke like an excitable schoolgirl, the words tumbling out without thought. Vaila paused for a moment to catch her breath and then continued talking. ‘I thought Eleanor was hoping to see Lizzie herself. You could tell that she wanted a bairn. Later, at the party in the hall, she was all over the baby.’

‘So you went to Sletts that afternoon,’ Sandy said. Perhaps all this talk of babies was making him uncomfortable. ‘And Eleanor was expecting you.’

‘Nothing much happened,’ Vaila said. ‘There were no cameras or anything, but Eleanor had this little recorder and asked me to speak into it. To tell the tale of when I saw Peerie Lizzie. She said it was better than her taking notes.’

Willow shot a look at Sandy, but he seemed so focused on keeping Vaila on track that he appeared not to understand the importance of the information. No recorder had been found in the search of the holiday home.

‘And what was the tale?’